4 ms·

Redmart’s new head of tech spent nights stamping envelopes for his first startup

2 points by schakraberty 9y ago

mdip 9y ago
This is not surprising at all, to me. In fact, I'd speculate that it's something that most successful "start-up" or "small business" founders end up doing. My dad has owned two small businesses in his lifetime (he just retired from his last). He was a co-owner with two other individuals. There's always those moments where someone needs to step up and in his case, if he had to ask his employees to step up, you can bet he was going to be there right along with them (and in most cases, he was the one who made the biggest sacrifices). I recall him relaying a story to me about a factory that he was supplying the parts to. They had a Thursday delivery deadline and were running behind, so my dad and his staff pulled a few all night shifts to get everything done. They completed it, but couldn't get all of the parts in the truck so my dad hopped in with all but two components and drove across three states through the night, completing the delivery at 4:00 AM the following morning. On his arrival, the factory manager was annoyed with the missing part and rolled his eyes. He asked my dad how come they couldn't bring another truck and lamented at the fact that he, the lowly truck driver had to take the heat. He explained that it was the only truck he owned and that the other parts would be coming as soon as he could round-trip it. The shop manager's attitude changed, immediately, when he realized that my dad wasn't the driver, but the owner and that he'd delivered the products by hand and at great personal expense. Suddenly the urgency of getting those last two parts (selected because my dad knew they wouldn't be needed immediately) was eliminated. This story is one of many I've heard and it's the reason my dad's business was/still is so successful. They supply massive manufacturing companies (10,000+ employees) who are used to dealing with other large suppliers. The manager--in this case--was (rightly) surprised that my dad's business was so small. It's not typical for a company this size to get orders of the size he regularly received. They (intentionally) didn't usually compete on price, they competed by consistent, reliable, delivery on commitments and a relentless pursuit to meet the demands of their customers. That, often, meant the owners and technical staff (and even the owner's son) assembling parts in the back, driving the truck for deliveries through the night and, I'd imagine, stamping envelopes[0]. [0] The closest thing I can think of to that was my dad's desire to save a few bucks on professional printing by purchasing a Tektronix Phaser printer (it was a full color, solid ink printer that came with free black ink) and printing the product catalogs (with images he manually removed the background of using GIMP) with it. Every time there were catalogue changes, he'd head back into the office every few hours from 5:00 PM until around 2:00 AM to change out the paper and ink to keep it printing. It was 2009 and their customers still expected paper, spiral-bound, catalogs.

2 points by schakraberty 9y ago

mdip 9y ago

This is not surprising at all, to me. In fact, I'd speculate that it's something that most successful "start-up" or "small business" founders end up doing. My dad has owned two small businesses in his lifetime (he just retired from his last). He was a co-owner with two other individuals. There's always those moments where someone needs to step up and in his case, if he had to ask his employees to step up, you can bet he was going to be there right along with them (and in most cases, he was the one who made the biggest sacrifices). I recall him relaying a story to me about a factory that he was supplying the parts to. They had a Thursday delivery deadline and were running behind, so my dad and his staff pulled a few all night shifts to get everything done. They completed it, but couldn't get all of the parts in the truck so my dad hopped in with all but two components and drove across three states through the night, completing the delivery at 4:00 AM the following morning. On his arrival, the factory manager was annoyed with the missing part and rolled his eyes. He asked my dad how come they couldn't bring another truck and lamented at the fact that he, the lowly truck driver had to take the heat. He explained that it was the only truck he owned and that the other parts would be coming as soon as he could round-trip it. The shop manager's attitude changed, immediately, when he realized that my dad wasn't the driver, but the owner and that he'd delivered the products by hand and at great personal expense. Suddenly the urgency of getting those last two parts (selected because my dad knew they wouldn't be needed immediately) was eliminated. This story is one of many I've heard and it's the reason my dad's business was/still is so successful. They supply massive manufacturing companies (10,000+ employees) who are used to dealing with other large suppliers. The manager--in this case--was (rightly) surprised that my dad's business was so small. It's not typical for a company this size to get orders of the size he regularly received. They (intentionally) didn't usually compete on price, they competed by consistent, reliable, delivery on commitments and a relentless pursuit to meet the demands of their customers. That, often, meant the owners and technical staff (and even the owner's son) assembling parts in the back, driving the truck for deliveries through the night and, I'd imagine, stamping envelopes[0]. [0] The closest thing I can think of to that was my dad's desire to save a few bucks on professional printing by purchasing a Tektronix Phaser printer (it was a full color, solid ink printer that came with free black ink) and printing the product catalogs (with images he manually removed the background of using GIMP) with it. Every time there were catalogue changes, he'd head back into the office every few hours from 5:00 PM until around 2:00 AM to change out the paper and ink to keep it printing. It was 2009 and their customers still expected paper, spiral-bound, catalogs.