I've got a new Job! (and business!)

Hey there LinkedIn,

I was going to try to make this a snappy post with lots of emojis and quick easy-to-read sentences, but I've always been more of a long-form kind of guy. Here's the (short-ish) story of how I ended up running an oxygen bleach company, and a couple of reflections on the journey so far. If you made it past the TL;DR, thank you!

(As a reward for your commitment, take 50% off of some Stain Solver with the code "NegenFriends-50" on www.stainsolver.com)

The last time that I posted something on LinkedIn was when I switched my major from Business to English in the Fall of 2020. A lot has happened since then, both globally and personally. I figured out how to be good at school (study something you care about), was a freelancer for a while, barely passed some French classes, graduated from college, and moved to Montana (again).

And now I'm the Managing Partner of Stain Solver Enterprises, with my parents Bob Negen, Retail Expert and Susan Negen . If you would have asked me a year ago, right on the cusp of graduating from college, if I thought I would be running a company that sold a cleaning product, I probably would have laughed. Crazier things had happened, but not that much crazier.

It's funny how crazy life can get!

A year ago I was writing LinkedIn copy. It was a good gig, I liked the people I worked with, it was flexible and paid pretty well, and I got to write for a living, which was what I (thought) I wanted. This was, presumably, what I was going to be doing after graduation as well. I’d build up my cachet, take on more writing work, and build myself a career in the professional writing space. It wasn’t the most conventional path forward, but it was one that I could easily see unfolding in front of me.?

Then, one morning, my dad called me.

“Joe, do you remember that cleaning stuff our friend Tim sold, Stain Solver?”?

I vaguely remembered it, but cleaning products occupied a very very small portion of my total brain space.

“Well, he’s selling the business,” My dad told me.

“Okay…” I replied.

“For really cheap,” he further explained.?

“Okay…”

“We might buy it,” he said, which was not what I expected.??

“Oh wow, okay…”

“Would you, uh, want to run it for us?” He asked.?

“Um, what?” was all I could say.

What was this silliness? I didn’t know anything about cleaning, I was a college bachelor! A famously unclean cohort! I had no e-commerce experience! Why would my parents want me to run this thing? Wouldn’t I FAIL!? Wouldn’t I BESMIRCH OUR FAMILY NAME?!?!??

Turns out impostor syndrome is a tough thing to shake.

After telling my dad I’d think about it I took a good long walk through the Arb, as I often did when I had some thinking to do. Well… maybe it could work. It wasn’t like I had no skills, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t built a few projects before. It could be fun to take on something bigger in scale. Mom and Dad are the definitions of patient capital… It’s not like they’ll stop loving me if I fail. How hard could it be??

(It could be very hard.)

So I said yes, and away we went. I have perhaps scoffed a bit at investment bankers at points in the past, but after trying to complete a very small and simple acquisition I have a renewed appreciation for the work they do. We closed on the business on June 23rd, and that was that. I had a job for the foreseeable future.?

When I tell people about this the first thing that they nearly always ask about is what it’s like working with my parents. They tell me that they could never do it, that they would go insane, that their relationship would be forever scarred, and generally detail all sorts of other horrible outcomes that would arise from a parent/child business relationship. I’ve found the opposite to be true for me, but family business is just part of how the Negens do things.?

My dad and his brother Steve ran the Mackinaw Kite Company together for nearly two decades. My cousin Luke works for my Uncle Steve at MacKite, the successor to the Mackinaw Kite. My parents have been running their business, WhizBang Training together for almost 25 years now. My cousin Aubrey has worked for them for over a decade. My brother Sam and I had a short-lived media company. I grew up with board meetings happening over the dinner table, and road trip brainstorming sessions as the normal, not the exception.?

I love working with my parents mostly because they’re great to work with. They give me great advice, and hold me accountable, but don’t watch every move I’m making over my shoulder. I, of course, owe nearly every success in my life to their love, guidance, and unwavering support, and building a business with them is a real honor.?

But damn this new business thing is HARD! While my title, Managing Partner, certainly conveys a sense of seriousness and importance, all I’m managing right now is myself. We have no employees, and all of our manufacturing and distribution is done by third parties. The business is just me and my laptop.?

A wise man ( Rishi Narayan ) once told me that in start-ups (I’m extrapolating this to all small businesses) everything takes longer and costs more than you think it’s going to. Little did I know how right he is! Everything is taking forever and costing a lot. But it’s happening, and being the one who does it is pretty awesome.

I’ve found that working on the business alone is both really cool and really stressful, for a lot of the same reasons. Here are the big three.?

1. I’m infinitely flexible.

Another major life development is that I’ve moved out to Montana to ski, climb, and generally participate in mountain adventures. I’m my own boss, and if Bridger Bowl (the local hill here in Bozeman) got 10 inches of fresh powder on a Tuesday you bet your bottom dollar I’ll be up there. If I worked a “normal” job this wouldn’t be possible.?

This flexibility is obviously one of the huge perks of the job, but it can be a double-edged sword. I’m never really “off” in the sense of me being truly away from work. Everything is exactly how I left it, and if I’m not working to move the business forward, the business simply isn’t moving forward. This is a heavy thing to carry around sometimes.?

Running this business has taught me more about managing myself than anything else that I’ve done so far in my life. This quote from James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” perfectly encapsulates what Stain Solver has taught me from a personal standpoint:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

Learning how to manage this flexibility has been one of my great challenges so far, and while I haven’t mastered it yet, I’m getting better.?

2. If I want something done, I have to (learn how to) do it.?

The website doesn’t look the way you want it to? You want to be able to add customer reviews to an email? You need to order 14,000 pounds of sodium percarbonate??

You better figure it out.?

Remember when I was walking around the Arb and thought to myself “It’s not like I have no skills,”? That was false. I had no skills.?

When we acquired the business the website looked like it was made in the mid 2000s (because I think it was), the product was out of stock, and there was no marketing being done at all. I had work to do.?

Unfortunately, I knew how to do none of that work.

Fortunately, I am a pretty quick study.?

I’ve rebuilt the website from the ground up, built all of our email marketing automation, started to build out our marketing plan, bought 14,000 pounds of sodium percarbonate, shipped it across the country, and helped many old ladies use an online checkout.?

I am not naturally inclined to leave something unfinished or in a state that’s less than what I think it should be, but I’ve learned how to let the last 20% of a project go because getting it to 100% from 80% would take me time that I don’t have.?

I’ve also learned how to build a Shopify website, how to build an automated email sequence, and how to get my hands on 14,000 pounds of sodium percarbonate.??

3. It’s on me.?

This is the crux of the whole thing, and related to both of the above. I’m in charge, and I get to make the calls. Where do we spend our money? What technology do we invest in? Where should I spend my time and effort? These questions don’t have easy answers, and there’s a trade-off no matter what I choose.?

And what if I’m wrong??

Having the success and failure of the entire thing on my shoulders is new for me. I’ll be honest, it’s scary too. There have been many days where I wished I was just working for someone else, and I could show up, do my job, get my check, and leave. That would be a lot simpler.?

But I wouldn’t get to see the business grow (which it’s starting to do), or learn something new every day, or go skiing when I want to.

So that’s the story. Why am I sharing it now? Well, a few reasons.?

First, it’s Spring cleaning season! If you’re trying to tackle some projects before summer rolls around, there’s nothing better for it than Stain Solver! Second, I finally finished up the real actual v1.0 of the website (www.stainsolver.com), which I’ve been working on for months. Take a look around, and see what you think. If you’ve got thoughts or feedback I’d love to hear it, send me an email at [email protected]. Finally, I figured it was about time to tell people what I’d been up to.?

If you made it all the way here, thanks a million. If you want to read more of my writing, I send out a monthly newsletter with life updates on my Substack joenegen.substack.com, maybe I’ll see you there?