Our Rock Bottom Story

In 2008, I opened Photoshop and made myself a résumé.
I never sent it to anyone though. This is our "rock bottom" story.

Our startup, ImportGSM, was out of money and $200,000 in debt.

We had laid off every employee, one of which was a friend of ours.

There were only two of us left, both co-founders, working seven days a week from 9am to 10pm. We ran our one mall kiosk, answered customer support emails, managed the office, and handled everything in between.

Then came the pivotal moment. It was the dead of winter, and our office had no heat (we didn't pay the bill so they shut us off).

The two of us were sitting there at our desks, both with the flu, wearing sweatshirts - hoods pulled over our heads, while we banged away on our keyboards answering customer support emails.

That afternoon, conversations started over lunch (hot dogs - which we bought by the 10lb box at the wholesaler down the street to save money):

“So about this loan...how are we ever going to pay off this debt?”
“Should we just go get real jobs?”

I got as far as opening making my very first résumé, seen here. But somewhere in the middle of all that, I realized I would rather fail working on our own business than give up and work somewhere else.

I had to see it through to the end.

So we kept going.

Then, a glimmer of hope. Our own mall cart location in King of Prussia Mall was barely breaking even. But when we let other entrepreneurs open their own locations using our concept, they were printing money.

They were better at running retail than we were. And thankfully, we were brave enough (or broke enough?) to admit it. That's when everything changed...

We were good at inventing the product, manufacturing it, and marketing it. They were good at selling it to customers.

We stopped trying to be good at everything. And that decision became the beginning of Mobile Outfitters.

We got lucky and met the right people at the right time. But we were also willing to admit that someone else could run a critical part of our business better than we could.

From there, we went on to sell over 20 million screen protectors across 60 countries, and became a six-time Inc. 5000 winner.

Founders often assume the next stage of growth requires them to get better at everything. To do everything. To be everywhere.

In reality, it requires something harder:
-Knowing what you’re great at.
-Admitting what you’re not great at.
-And trusting others to own it.

So ask yourself:
What part of your company is underperforming because you’re still insisting on running it?

I would guarantee that your next stage of growth requires you to finally stop doing the wrong things.

If your company has reached $3 million or more but still depends on you to run too much of it, message me. Helping founders solve that problem is exactly what I do now.