Reflecting On 10 Years As An Entrepreneur And Founder
My entrepreneurial journey and some lessons I’ve learned along the way
In just one month, it will have been 10 years since I co-founded my first company. I want to take this opportunity to reflect upon my past experiences, and to share some lessons that I’ve learned along the way.
I still remember the moment it all started. Out of the blue, my roommate, then a senior at NYU, asked me, a sophomore, if I wanted to start a business selling Rubik’s Cubes online. My roommate, Phil, was a fellow “speed cuber” who I had met in one of my classes at NYU. He was a passionate and involved member of the speedcubing community, and he assured me that he knew of ways to build our brand. I was a bit unsure of the whole idea at the time, but I figured that I didn’t have much to lose except some time and initial investment, so I went along with it.
After a brief brainstorming session at a Costco food court, we settled on a name for the business: The Cubicle — a play on the word “cube.” Together with Phil, I contributed about $2,000 towards the company bank account ($4,000 total between us). I had scraped together the funds from working some odd jobs at NYU under a work-study program. We used these funds to buy our initial inventory and launch our website, which was called thecubicle.us because thecubicle.com was already registered by someone else at the time. We stored the products in an unused closet in our apartment.
Slowly but steadily, we sold off most of the initial inventory, using creative ways to market our website and products, and then used the proceeds to place a subsequent order. And then we did it again, and again, and again.
Fast-forward 10 years, and we are a multi-million dollar company that has never taken on any loans or additional investment, and we are still going strong. In some ways, it seems we knew what we were doing every step of the way. But that was most certainly not the case. As completely new entrepreneurs, we were feeling around in the dark, and there were definitely some critical points in our journey where things almost went off the rails.
For example, it was hard for us to see the potential of the business in the early days, and we almost called it quits. The revenue was very low, and while it continued to grow month by month, we didn’t see it ever reaching a point where it could pay us, the owners, a decent wage relative to what we could be earning as professionals in our respective fields of study.
This was important because we were both enrolled in very expensive private educational programs, and as first-generation immigrants, we were under pressure from our parents to secure stable and lucrative jobs. As a student of NYU’s business school majoring in finance, I was expected to find a job in the financial sector. And Phil, who had gone directly to law school after graduating from NYU, was expected to become a practicing lawyer.
When it came time to graduate, I was faced with the decision to try to find a “real” job, or start pursuing the company full time. At the time, it was a pretty difficult decision. The company had reached a point where it could be roughly on par with the salary of an entry-level position. But, the future of the company still felt highly uncertain at the time, and I would have been giving up valuable employee benefits (like 401K matching, health insurance, etc.), as well as the opportunity to advance in the corporate ladder.
At the end of the day, however, it was a no-brainer to me. I had done an internship at a big company the previous summer, and I simply could not see myself thriving in that kind of environment. I didn’t even bother to apply for any jobs during my final year at NYU, as I had already decided to commit to running the company full-time.
In the years after I started working at the company full-time, growth really started to pick up. I originally operated the fulfillment right out of my parents’ home, lining my entire room with storage shelves. Eventually, my parents’ house was completely lined with storage shelves, and it was time to find a real office. We moved into our first office in 2014, a single rectangular office room on the 2nd floor of an industrial building.
After Phil graduated from law school, he went right to work at the company, helping to further develop the brand and boost sales. The company continued to grow at a rapid pace. By the time our 2-year office lease had expired, it was time to move into an even bigger property.
There were some additional hiccups along the way, including an unexpected event that led to the company posting a loss for the year for the first time in its history. When the golden goose stopped paying out, the situation between Phil and myself also took a turn for the worse. There was a whole lot of finger-pointing and arguing between us, as owners of the company, over things that would normally seem trivial. There was even some talk of selling equity in the company to outside investors to raise capital, given its dire financial situation at the time.
But in the end, we held our course, and the ship righted itself after what felt like an eternity. The company’s bottom line tipped back into the black, and just like that, it felt as if all was suddenly well again.
And then, of course, the Covid-19 situation was also a big scare in March of 2020, as it became unclear whether or not we would be able to continue to operate, given the developing pandemic situation. Fortunately, as an e-commerce operation with very limited direct contact with customers, we were permitted to continue operating during the pandemic, although with heightened precautions and safety protocols in place to ensure the safety of our customers and employees.
Looking back with what I know now, I can say that a big part of the reason that the business succeeded was that Phil and I had complementary skill sets, and we were able to each contribute to the company in unique ways: he in sales and marketing, and myself in operations and website design. For a company to function, it must have revenues, and that is what Phil focused on — increasing the revenues and building the brand. Equally important is the ability to keep the company’s costs under control and deliver on a good customer experience, which was what I was focused on.
As expected, persistence was key. There were times when we almost called it quits because of other priorities in our life, and it was hard to see the full potential of what the business could become when revenues were low and insignificant. There were also some bumps in the road and shared sacrifices to be made. But in the end, we stuck with it and made things work, and that is why we are still here today to tell our story, after 10 years.
Finally, there was some element of luck involved. We were fortunate to start our business at a time when e-commerce was still relatively nascent, and the barriers to entry were not very high. This allowed us to quickly capture market share within the existing field of competition, and also catch the headwinds once more sales started shifting online. Had the timing been less favorable, maybe the company would not be in the position it is in today, or maybe we would have simply given up on it if the revenues had started to stagnate at a low level.
Fast-forward to today, and we are in the 10th year of my entrepreneurial adventure. Things definitely look a lot different now than they did when we first started. For one, I am no longer actively involved in the company. I do some administrative work remotely, but most of my time and energy is spent focusing on other entrepreneurial ideas.
My goal is to eventually pass on all of my day-to-day responsibilities at the company, but I am not in a huge rush to do so just yet. I still consider myself to be “between ventures,” and having some daily responsibilities to attend to, even if they are a bit mundane, helps me feel grounded.
There have been times when I have wondered to myself how life would have been had I decided to take a corporate job. I have met many people who work in corporate jobs, and while they sometimes tell me that I’m lucky to be my own boss, I sometimes can’t help but see the grass as greener on the other side. I often joke that entrepreneurs are not truly their own bosses — the customer is their boss, and in some ways, that can be the most challenging.
But then, I think about how thrilling it is to be an entrepreneur. The closest thing I can describe it as is like being an adventurer. I wake up each morning knowing that there is uncharted territory that needs to be explored, and that it is my job to explore it. As an entrepreneur, the world is truly your oyster, and the sky — or rather, outer space — is the limit. I don’t think I would have it any other way.
James is an entrepreneur, coder, and adventurer. See what he’s currently up to at jameschangcompany.com
