Seven years ago, Twitter was but a fledgling social media with only 20,000 users. Now it averages 313 million active users—per month. The service’s remarkable growth in past years has created a plethora of opportunities for entrepreneurs, one of the most successful of these being Ms. Shama Hyder.
Hyder, founder and CEO of Marketing Zen Group, visited Jesuit on Thursday, September 22nd, to talk to members of the Entrepreneurship Club about her experience as a businesswoman. Maybe you’ve heard of her clients: NASA, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Prudential Life Insurance, Haggar Slacks, or American Express Credit Cards. Recognized as one of the top 100 companies in the US, Marketing Zen serves these businesses through social media management and search engine optimization.
When Hyder was a University of Texas student hoping to pursue marketing, a relatively small service known as Twitter caught her eye, and with her professor’s permission she investigated it to write a paper on it. Upon graduation, she went to big companies, hoping to work for them as a social media expert, but no one took her on. Hyder realized that the job she was looking for did not exist; she needed to create it.
So, in 2009, she launched Marketing Zen Group at the age of only 23 with the goal of helping companies market themselves in social media avenues like Twitter: “We take companies with promising futures and turn them into household names and recognized titans of their industry. As a result, customers and clients flock to them, prefer them over their competitors, the media calls on them regularly, and industry insiders and influencers love them. They continue their trajectory to the top and get there a lot faster – and with zen-like ease.”
Jesuit’s Entreprenership Club holds monthly speakers’ forums, where businessmen and women come to show students what it is really like in the world of business. Most have had some connection to Jesuit. Club moderator Dea Ochs explained, “I’m really blessed that…I have a lot of people who are willing to come speak.”
After hearing her speak at a Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership event in North Texas, club president Alec Davis ’18 knew that Jesuit students could benefit from her perspective. She was the first woman to speak at one of these forums and the first that did not know anything about Jesuit. “What I respected most about [Ms. Hyder] is the fact that she got to where she is now because of her grit and pure desire to succeed, not because she had and distinct advantages… She was so young when she began her business ventures into the world of digital marketing,” Davis said.
She has certainly been very successful, earning recognition from both the White House and the UN as well as a spot on the Top 25 Under 25. Yet, she only employs 30 people full-time, all of whom work remotely.
“[Hyder] also had the vision that, this thing that older people think is just a fad, this might be the new big thing,” said club moderator Mrs. Dea Ochs. “That’s what entrepreneurship is. It’s risk. It’s saying, ‘I don’t know if there is going to be a safety net, but I’m going to go for it.'” Shama Hyder was certainly right about Twitter.
If you want to learn more about the Entrepreneurship Club, contact either Alec Davis or Mrs. Ochs.
