The first time I met with the biggest company in the world about investing in my (much smaller) company, they said no.

It came as something of a shock: the company was one of my best and most valuable clients, and they seemed happy with the services we provided. It was a no-brainer, then, to go to them when we needed to raise capital. The relationship was good, and, surely, they’d see the logic of having an even bigger stake in our success. It felt like a solid way to both get the cash we needed and ensure the continuity of the relationship—if they owned part of the company, they probably weren’t going to fire us!

Of course, it wasn’t an immediate no. We had meetings, prepared all kinds of charts, reports, and documents, and I, as the CEO, crafted and delivered what I thought was a pretty good pitch. They thought about it, and they eventually came back with their answer:

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

Our working relationship continued, but that “no” was stuck in the back of my mind. My company, Delivery Drivers, Inc., was growing by leaps and bounds, offering last-mile delivery services to companies all across California, onboarding hundreds of new drivers a month and carting around everything from industrial-sized trays of breakfast food to cases of bottled water to—and this is true—blood bags from local blood banks.

In the ‘90s, I used Microsoft Excel to track drivers and deliveries, but by the late 2010s, we’d become more akin to a tech company, constantly working to make our platform better for both the drivers who wanted to be part of the gig economy and companies who realized the utility of

having us worry about the logistics of schedules and payroll. We had hundreds of employees—a significant jump from our early days, when the employee count was Me, Myself, and I as salesman, secretary, and occasional delivery driver.

All things considered, things were pretty great for me, which hadn’t always been a given. When I took over DDI in the mid-1990s, I dropped out of college to do it (to the chagrin of my family and other well-meaning people in my life). My future success had been far from certain, so the fact that DDI was now even in the same room as some of the companies we called customers was a huge achievement.

But I wanted more.

I wanted to create more jobs and enable more people to provide homes, college tuition, and vacations for their families. I wanted to see the drivers who worked with us use the opportunity as a stepping-stone to their own dreams. I really wanted to see the people I worked with discover and realize their own entrepreneurial ambitions. This, of course, wouldn’t be cheap. I wanted to grow, and to grow, I needed more money—especially when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020.

Interested in learning more? Grab the copy of my new bestselling book " FROM DROPOUT TO DELIVERY KINGPIN - A 26-YEAR OVERNIGHT SUCCESS STORY OF BUILDING BUSINESSES THROUGH PEOPLE: Your Roadmap to Win Early, Move Faster, and Finish Strong" here

Aaron Hageman is the former founder of a HR Tech Platform which he sold to the Fortune 10.? He also also run several companies to scale at more than 25x, previously owned a soccer team and enjoys travel and meeting new people? He is now the founder of Hageman Enterprises and runs fractional advisory programs for organizations looking to scale as well as a strategic advisor for Breakthrough Mastermind.? He also (in cases you missed it) recently launched his book From Dropout to Delivery Kingpin: A 26-Year Overnight Success Story of Building Businesses through People

P.S Come learn more about how to connect with me and come preview our event in Park City in October