Crazy stories - Entrepreneur Video Transcripts
Video 1 Transcript
There's always crazy stories, especially as you're first getting started. We ran Jolt out of my grandma's basement for a couple years. And fun fact is we got it to about 20, 25 employees. So we were 20 plus people in this basement. And just so people know, that's actually very illegal. You can't be running a business in a basement. You can do like two people, but 20 plus was way too many. So that was kind of a fun fact and just kind of crazy times at the beginning. And then certainly, you know, when you're trying to get things off the ground, you have to make some certain sacrifices. I didn't have to do this, but our founder and CEO had to sell his car to make payroll back in those days. And so those were always kind of crazy, fun times looking back on.
Video 2 Transcript
When you start a business, you end up having a lot of crazy stories, and it really bonds you with the other people on your team. And you can sometimes laugh about them at the time, but always you can laugh about them later. One of our crazy stories, it was one of those times when I learned a really hard lesson, was about bulk mail. So our magazines, once they hit one pound, they get really expensive. And so we really try and keep our projects under a pound to get that discount with the post office, because there's no like half off at the post office. They're sticklers with that. But one time we made a mistake with the weight of our magazine, and also with the carrier routes on the front, and thousands of magazines were dumped in the post office bin, the garbage bin in the back. And that was my first dumpster dive experience. I jumped in there and was pulling magazines out so that we could hand distribute them to other people. I was this crazy person in there, crying and worried and everything. And I never made that mistake again with the post office.
Video 3 Transcript
Alright, you're never going to believe this, but in the first two years of growing my first business, first year I didn't take any paycheck at all. Luckily, my wife was willing to support our family as I tried to build this business. We had no kids. And there were so many times when payroll would come up and I'd be like, honey, babe, I have no way of making payroll. I have When was the last time you paid tithing? We're religious people and she was like, honestly, when was the last time you paid tithing? Oh my gosh, I'm going to go pay tithing. I went and paid our personal tithing, which is 10% of the gross income. And we donated that to help other people. And we always, always had enough payroll. We never once in 11 years ever missed payroll. Incredible.
