Eric Siu bought a struggling marketing company and rebuilt it multiple times, learning hard lessons about founder involvement, operations, and customer retention. He shares what it took to turn it into a sustainable, generational business.
I went from taking over a struggling company to rebuilding it into a sustainable business, but I had to start from scratch 3 times before I finally got it right. My name is Eric Siu, and 14 years ago I was a normal guy working at a tech startup running marketing. Well, all up until I bought a marketing company for $2 out of pocket. I didn't have any systems in place to scale it, and I didn't know how to run a business. And that was my primary focus. So I rebuilt it once and it failed. Then I tried rebuilding it again and it still didn't work. I kept falling for this lie that if you hire an operator, they will be able to replace you and you can step away from the the business and work above the business. And the reality is you can't. My customer satisfaction and retention dropped, revenue and sales hit plateaus, and the team culture was getting worse. Because of this, I realized a founder being involved in the business isn't optional, which led me to joining daily operations again, reviewing team performance, customer service, offer delivery, optimizing SOPs, and actually leading my team. That's when I finally got a feeling that my business had a strong system. It definitely wasn't easy, but if you want to build something not just sustainable but generational, you have to be in the loop. Now I'm very involved with the business in the day-to-day, and I plan to grow it into a business that can last for 30 years plus. So follow for more unfiltered lessons to implement this in your own business.
