#32: Failure to $243M a Year: My Founder Story With Dawn Dahlby
Next Level Pros
Chris Lee
4.7 • 165 Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2023
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join us on this episode of the Founder Podcast. I had the opportunity to sit with Dawn Dahlby on The LIVE WELLthy Podcast. We dive deep into my journey, Chris Lee, a serial entrepreneur who has experienced both the highs and lows of the business world. Chris's story is a testament to the power of resilience, mentorship, and transparency in building successful companies. From starting as a college dropout with dreams of becoming a doctor to facing a devastating bankruptcy, Chris shares how he turned adversity into opportunity. He emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with mentors and transparently sharing your challenges with your team to build a thriving company culture. Discover the critical elements Chris learned from his failures and his mentors that have led him to scale businesses to nine-figure exits. We explore the value of being truthful about your weaknesses, focusing on your strengths, and fostering a culture of teamwork and shared ownership. Tune in for valuable insights on why transparency and sales are essential components of scaling a business successfully. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting your journey, Chris’s story will inspire you to live wealthy through financial success, personal growth, and serving others. Don't miss this episode of the Founder Podcast. HIGHLIGHTS "Real education is everything that I need mentors, like not these sages that went to college, got a doctorate and come back and teach us. I'm talking about people that have actually done it." "Transparency is the number one factor in a great culture. We lack a ton of transparency in the business world a lot of times, owners, executive teams or whatnot, that kind of hide behind the scenes of what actually is happening in the business." "Own your weaknesses, on your strengths. Tell people how to work with your weaknesses, don't try fixing your weaknesses." TIMESTAMPS 00:00: Introduction 02:04: Buying Back Your Time 07:29: Getting Into Sales 11:59: Save More Lives 17:08: Paid Education 23:39: Team Culture 28:06: Giving Autonomy To Your Team 33:48: Importance
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You got educated by being around people that you looked up to and they were your mentors and you |
| 0:07.1 | learn from them how to really grow, invest, and scale companies. |
| 0:13.0 | Exactly. I'm a huge believer in education, not traditional education. |
| 0:17.8 | I'm a huge believer in like I got to go and learn as much as possible. |
| 0:21.3 | Today I am lucky enough to have Mr. Chris Lee with us today and I absolutely hate giving, reading a bio. And so I want Chris to tell us exactly who he is and what he does |
| 0:38.2 | for a living. So Chris, welcome to Live Wealthy Podcast and tell us a little bit about who you are. |
| 0:45.5 | You know, whenever I introduce myself, it really depends who's asking. |
| 0:49.7 | And, you know, if it's somebody locally, I'm just like, you know, it's somebody locally I'm just like you know I'm unemployed kind of try to get by with a |
| 1:00.2 | Hobby farm you know that type of thing. |
| 1:03.0 | But, so I'm a serial entrepreneur. |
| 1:07.0 | I've started many, many businesses throughout my life, |
| 1:11.0 | some successful, some not. not most importantly a family man I have wife five |
| 1:16.0 | kids my my oldest is 17 or almost 17 she's a junior in high school and my youngest is five. So those are where I like to spend as much time as possible. So I try to buy back as much time as I possibly can through leverage, through employees, |
| 1:35.6 | through partnerships, through investments, whatever it may be. |
| 1:39.4 | But I've, in my professional career, I've experienced two nine figure exits both in the in the |
| 1:47.3 | solar space I I coach and consult I also help partner and scale businesses. |
| 1:54.0 | I run a company called the founder project in which we partner and scale |
| 2:00.0 | and we invest funds into different businesses and we teach them the secrets. |
| 2:05.0 | It's me and my team that actually scaled my first business to nine figures out of my garage. |
| 2:11.5 | We did that in five and a half years with 1,300 employees. |
| 2:14.7 | And but it's not all sunshine and rainbows like that. Those are the highlights. I've |
| 2:21.2 | had a lot of low lights in my career, |
... |
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