Behind every successful business transformation, there's often an unsung hero working behind the scenes to make it happen. In today's Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, we're diving deep with Justin Merritt, the founder of TwinSix, who's revolutionizing how organizations approach financial and operational performance management. From contemplating culinary school to building a career at IBM, and eventually taking the bold leap into entrepreneurship, Justin's path showcases the power of embracing pivotal moments and standing firm in your values. Get ready to learn from someone who's not afraid to challenge industry conventions and put client success at the forefront of everything he does.
Hi, Justin! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?
At TwinSix, we serve forward-thinking finance and business operations professionals who are driven to elevate their organizations through sharper insights, smarter decisions, and stronger outcomes. Our clients are leaders and teams navigating the complexities of financial and operational performance management, seeking solutions that are as scalable and dynamic as their ambitions. By tapping into TwinSix’s expertise and leveraging the latest in performance management solutions, we help our clients achieve superior business outcomes. We remove the friction between finance and business execution, empowering stakeholders with the clarity to see how their decisions drive targets and goals. At the same time, we eliminate manual, non-value-added processes, replacing them with sustainable, scalable solutions that enable teams to focus on what truly moves the needle.
Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.
For me, this moment came when I had no paycheck and I had employees who decided to leave their employers to work with me at my company and were on payroll. Once I had full-time employees who depended on my company to support their own finances, that's when it finally felt real.
Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.
As a lifelong dabbler in entrepreneurial endeavors, the moment to make the BIG leap into all or nothing came with the alignment of all the right pieces. I had a few major life changes that made me rethink the path I was on, the effort I was expending to be on that path, and if, as I continued to write my story, it made sense to keep the chapter going or start a new one. That reflection led me to decide it was time to give it a try for real and when I discussed this with some close and long-term advisors and friends, surprisingly (to me) no one was surprised or expressed any reservations, it was all encouragement. From a market standpoint, I had identified an opening to get in early on what I see as being a catalyst for major change, and so I went for it!
Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?
The tools on the market are so good now! I would say the most valuable tool in our toolkit is Avoma. Since our business is done through direct client and prospect interaction, primarily via virtual meetings, having the meetings recorded, summarized, categorized, and easily accessible to refer to later, having a call recording software is critical. Avoma is a newer software to the market and, while I must admit, it was really difficult to decide not to use Gong, I am so happy we made the decision to go with Avoma. They have crushed all the gaps that I experienced in years of using Gong and Avoma provides my entire team with immense value.
In addition to Avoma, we found this tool called Scribe, which is a clutch for walking anyone through a series of steps in a software. It allows us to nearly effortlessly create walkthrough guides, which is so helpful for training, or even answering client questions efficiently. Every client we work with is like "WHAT IS THIS SOFTWARE?!?!".
And of course, ChatGPT. We have built some incredible custom GPTs and integrations out to other areas of our operations that have saved us literally thousands of hours.
We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.
When I look back, I can think of some major points that led me to end up where I am today...
1. Deciding sophomore year of college to stick it out instead of pivoting to go to culinary school at CIA when I finally got admitted
2. Deciding to abandon my engineering education 12 credits short of a double major in Mechanical & Biomedical engineering when I found out that the job I wanted to do had all but been eliminated from the market
3. After taking some time to explore other courses (philosophy, English, history, etc), deciding to go with my feeling that my calling is in business and fighting my way into the business school to earn my BBA in Finance in just 1 year
4. Taking my best friend's mom's advice that having three letters on my resume, IBM, would be the biggest door opener I could ever get and so even though they were offering me HALF of my next WORST job offer, I should take the job for those three letters
5. After building a very successful career in finance, taking the call from a founder and making the decision to leave that career behind to help build up a startup FinTech company instead of continuing on the corporate ladder
6. Deciding that no amount of reward is worth putting your reputation, credibility, and ethics at risk. Standing up for what I believe in, and not being afraid to take a chance and take the leap into full-blown entrepreneur.
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?
The business we are in conventionally is treated as a transactional business based on time and materials. At TwinSix, we want to change this and create a climate that is focused on client success, both near term and long term. Rather than building an implementation business that focuses on project throughput and billing as many hours as possible. We are focused on providing a level of service and expertise that creates a premium and positive experience for our clients by applying a management consulting approach to technology implementation and business transformation projects. The reception of this approach has been resoundingly positive from everyone we work with.
What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?
It may sound silly, but I had no idea about all this new compliance stuff that was passed recently in the US, so even something as simple as changing our business address has been a HUGE headache. It has caused disruption with expense reimbursement, paying payroll and all sorts of odd stuff. If I had any idea, I would have absolutely prioritized getting a professional business address with WeWork or a similar provider from day one to use as our address instead of using my home address first and then changing it later once things got going.
Want to dive deeper into Justin's work? Learn more using the links below!
- Visit TwinSix's website twinsix.io
- Learn about TwinSix's expertise
- Check out TwinSix's solutions
- Follow TwinSix on LinkedIn
