So, how do you know it’s time to take a leap? The exact reason that people leave a job to start a business varies in every case, but it happens every day. I started my first business when realizing the 65-year-old company I had devoted my early work life towards might fail. I did see an opportunity of what the customer really needed from that company, and was developing a great career around such. So, when the company started to fail, instead of doing my work for another company, I started my own.
When you hear the stories years later from people who left a job or career and started a business that succeeded, rarely do you hear regret, even if they’ve failed. They take pride in what they’ve founded, seeing that they have met needs in a unique way, enabled others to succeed, and built a platform. While new businesses often fail, that is rarely the end of the story. Many successful people pick themselves back up, learn from failure, and start over again—this time, with more experience.
Successful companies all began in different ways. Some began with one employee—the founder. Others started with a few employees; others with many. Some started in homes or garages, like Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Regardless of size, their success, for the most part, is a result of the same characteristics, which we will explore as we continue through this book.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen both worked at starting their business while in school and while working other jobs for income before it all came together. They never gave up. They shared a vision of what could be and artfully made it happen through a series of events.
Those who have incredibly successful businesses are always asked the same questions, “How did you do it?” and “What did you do that made it work?”
I will address these questions by sharing stories from several business entities and different industries, as well as my own life as a business founder/owner and the lives of those around me that have modeled success in different ways. People tried to convince me not to start my own business—that it would put my family in jeopardy and that we could lose the new home we had built, as well as the new car my wife drove. But I did it, and against all odds, I did it successfully.
Starting a business is not for everyone, but it could be for you. The same opportunity is in front of every single one of us, and it is up for grabs every day. Will you be the one to take it? Or will you take advantage of opportunities right where you are now? I cannot emphasize enough that opportunities also exist in the company where you work. Open your mind and again, ask what could be, what can be done better.
Why not you? Why not now? What can you do starting today to make tomorrow better, both for yourself and for others? So often we hear excuses about why something can’t be done, while at the same time, others are not only getting it done, but exceeding expectations. I beg you, do not think about the reasons not to do it. Simply ask yourself, who do you want to be, and when do you plan to start? Only you can answer these questions.
The best time to start is now.
1 “Colonel Sanders.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Chapter 2
When Opportunity Knocks
I could spend the entirety of this book relating the stories of famous people like Jeff Bezos with huge companies and the lessons we can learn from them. I wanted to share a different kind of story—one that you won’t find in a magazine or read about online. This one is more representative of the millions of small businesses started across the world. This is the type of story that should be shared at every business school; a real-world story illustrating the risks, pitfalls, and success generated by acting on opportunity.
This story is mine.
This is a story about two normal people who were working great jobs in different, large companies near Seattle. We left our comfortable, successful careers to do what many simply think about, yet never actually act upon. These are two people who took a risk to start their own business with no guarantee for the future. These two risked everything, knowing they might fail and lose their homes, cars—everything. But they believed in what they could do and were willing to take the steps to do it. All the funding to start the business was borrowed from a bank at rates of 15% and up. This is a story about a simple, small company growing over $50 million in revenue, as well as commanding a 61% market share in a crowded, established market, then selling the company to a Fortune 500 firm. Today, that company employs thousands of people, has grown substantially, and is still growing.
My partner and I both shared a common vision of what could be done to better serve businesses and saw an opportunity others were not seeing. We felt we could profit from it. The story is far more than just a success story. It touches many points not covered in business school, including partnership relations, dealing with the challenges of meeting our families’ needs while starting and growing a business, and significantly reducing our wages by 75% to start. Then there were the banking relationship issues, intense struggles with a federal lawsuit, and other trying circumstances one might not anticipate when starting from nothing. There was also stiff competition already in place in the form of large, international firms. Anyone could have started this company, really. However, it just so happened to be the two of us starting a low-barrier-to-entry, almost commodity-type of business. We knew our business from working for others. Now, we had to prove we could do it better ourselves.
The marketplace we targeted consisted of trucking companies, construction companies, logging companies, core legacy-type industrial industries that operated trucks, large earthmoving equipment, industrial equipment and such—all running on the same thing: tires. The company today is owned and operated by a Fortune 500 firm and boasts the title of largest commercial tire operation in both Alaska and the Northwestern United States.
So, how did we start from nothing, against almost insurmountable odds of new business failures, and in such a competitive environment while leveraging the whole by financing at high-interest rates and exceed beyond our dreams? How did we gain 61% of the market share ahead of the remaining 15 companies, with the largest of them at less than a 20% share? How was this done, and can it be done again? I believe the answer is yes. With the same vision and tireless effort, this level of achievement is possible.
The threat of failure didn’t stop us from seeing this idea come to fruition. We saw something that our current employers could not change or adapt to and address. We did the only logical thing we could think of at the time: we acted on the opportunity we saw and believed it would lead to greater success.
I still laugh when I am asked how I ended up in the tire business. It was certainly nowhere on my radar when in school. In fact, I really thought the whole industry was low level, and of no interest to me. Tires were just something consumers had to have, a simple commodity. I worked my way through college at a service station, the same place I had worked throughout high school. My parents always taught us kids to work, make our own spending money, and pay for our own cars. I was also paying for my own education.
One of the regular service station customers managed a large tire store for a regional, long-standing company in town. I remember getting a phone call from him one day as clear as if it were yesterday. His name was Bill, and he asked if I would consider talking to him about working for the tire company. I had been interviewing with some Fortune 500 firms, and, as many in college do, I was always thinking about where I could end up in a career. Like Howard Schultz, I was always attuned to how I could make my first million—what I considered to be successful. I’m almost embarrassed to say my initial response was not very professional!
“Bill, you must be kidding me, who in the hell would want to work in a tire company?” I blurted out.
Bill said, “Kim, you should look into all opportunities. The company is very large and has a commercial department. That department has professional salespeople who drive company cars…”
I really do not remember anything he said after the “company car” comment. I think