Below is our recent interview with Lingbin Kong, CEO of RockitBoost:

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?
Lingbin Kong : We switched to a partial-remote schedule when the pandemic began, but are fortunate to be in an office with strict COVID protocols, so our team feels safe even when they come into the office. We have definitely embraced remote tools like Zoom, but we miss being together in the office. On the other hand, the business for our influencers and online sellers has benefited greatly from the pandemic.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?
Lingbin Kong : It is challenging with a start-up because there are never enough resources, including time, funding, human resources, and more for everything you want to accomplish. It was even more difficult during the pandemic. As a former perfectionist in product development, I learned to give up some details for a lean prototype, and put aside some opinions by focusing on the majority of our customers’ needs. I made several calls when we had technical or budgeting challenges to implement some minor features and prioritize our efforts on the most important functions.

What specific tools, software, and management skills are helping you navigate the crisis?
Lingbin Kong : Our startup has benefited greatly from a successful internship program. We bring on recent grads looking to learn and gain actual hands-on experience and in return, we benefit from their insight, creativity and hard work.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety?
Lingbin Kong : I always try to stay very organized and break projects down into weekly action points. Start-ups can be very stressful, but you can’t let that anxiety and stress paralyze you. I try not to be afraid of making decisions or of failing. You learn far more from failure than from success.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Lingbin Kong : There isn’t another company that does exactly what we do, but there are many companies that do something similar. By offering free use of our platform to marketing agencies and influencers, we win half the battle because that’s unprecedented. We also really look out for influencers: making sure they get paid, showing them commissions up front, eliminating any negotiations, and letting them have control of their content. They really appreciate that level of respect and appreciation, as it is quite rare in their industry. For product owners, such as e-commerce sellers and crowdfunders, we work hand-in-hand with them to make sure we are giving them an unsurpassed solution to promote their projects, boost their sales and traffic, and manage their influencer campaigns. In short, we give them exactly what they want and need at a price they can afford. When we do that, everything else falls in place.