Build a Company or Have a Job

His wedding was weeks away, his U.S. work visa was soon to expire, and now he was fired from his job. His fiancée—coming from a long line of family wealth and the daughter of a successful doctor—was also established and successful in the medical field. He had navigated his life’s plans as systematically as he had navigated his degree, and then his career as a mechanical engineer. He imagined how tasteless his jobless status would be as he married into a family who spent every summer at their second home in Nantucket. Within one decade from this harsh reality, LG had built a thriving international business. His success was apparent in lifestyle choices and flexibility of time. What wasn’t apparent was the business model to support this result.

 

When I interviewed LG, my goal was to learn how he built a business based primarily online and what advice he had for other aspiring entrepreneurs. Many people associate success with working long, painful hours, spending stressful days managing people, and still missing out on life’s important events. But not LG. In contrast, his business has no set hours for employees, no time cards, nor weekly meetings. He drops by his office for the morning once or twice a week, and his employees–both local and international–are happy and incredibly dedicated. When the pandemic hit and his two children required homeschooling, no parent needed to skip work to tend to children. He credits his success to building repeatable systems and staying fluent in technology as fast as it evolves.

 

“The difference between a company and a job is the systems.”

 

In his company, where they build boat tools and centrifuges, the engineers design a product on a CAD program. The completed design is uploaded to a website for manufacturing companies to place their competitive bids. The bidding process is global. Once manufacturers narrow down in numbers, they make samples and ship them to the warehouse in Charleston for final choice and approval. Upon deciding which manufacturer will make the product, bulk production begins. Once production is complete, the order is shipped to Charleston, often coming from China on cargo ships. Upon arrival in Charleston, the shop crew puts together product kits to sell. Customers place their orders through the company’s website or Amazon. The final product ships to the customer from the company’s warehouse or Amazon. There are also inner workings,” systems within the systems.” In the Philippines, eight college-educated employees manage inventory, respond to customers, keep books, create marketing content, and create catalogs. A marketing team in Colorado manages a large portion of the marketing newsletters and blogs. The company owner moves around any money within the business. All the systems are linked, and by all indications, the industry is a successful, well-oiled machine.  

 

“The success is that systems are the focus. And systems are about repeatability.” 

 

He explains how the most challenging but most important part is to complete level one quickly, which is going through the process from start to finish for the first time. This process feels like the twilight zone because no one feels they have a clue what’s going on at this stage. His advice is to move quickly and adds, “if you’re not embarrassed by your first pass, then you didn’t move quickly enough.” Once a repeatable system is in place for level one, it’s time to step onto it and build upon it, building higher and higher. It’s the repeatable systems that allow people to move beyond the hamster wheel. 

 

“Don’t charge for your time. Charge based upon value.”

 

The hamster wheel effect is when people charge for their time.  Once people stop charging for their time, they relieve themselves from being the product. Place the charge based upon the value. At LG’s company, everyone is on salary. The only expectation is to get the work done. “We hire fast, and fire faster,” is the company quote. Despite the joke, it’s a content crowd built upon teamwork and camaraderie.

 

LG mentors entrepreneurs who have built thriving online businesses using this business model. He pushes people into uncomfortable places and credits short-term growing pains to long-term success. “I have made several people cry and insecure people just can’t work with me, or rather, I can’t work with them,” LG concludes.

 

By the end of the interview, it was apparent how he built a business upon the model of having his company work for him rather than for him working for his business. 

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