This is a post by Jesse Pujji. Jessi a serial entrepreneur that lives in the US. He has:
- Bootstrapped to an 8-figure exist with his previous startup, Ampush
- Is currently building GatewayX, a venture studio that he plans to bootstrap to $1B+
- Executive Chairman & Founder of GrowthAssistant.com
- ex-McKinsey Consultant
Guest Author: Jesse Pujji
Who is this smiling woman receiving an award from Michael Dell?
She’s a Korean American billionaire who at only 31, bootstrapped the largest woman-owned business in America.
Meet Thai Lee:
1/ As a kid, Thai’s pastime was planning how to survive if North Korea invaded South Korea
She was born in 1958 in Thailand
At the age of 13, she and her sisters took a courageous leap…
2/ They moved to America to live with a family friend and attended school in Amherst
She majored in Bio and Econ for one reason: they didn’t require much English
Thai took to the American Dream
She dreamed of being an entrepreneur
3/ In 1985, she got her MBA from Harvard Business School.
She was the FIRST Korean woman to graduate from HBS
4/ In 1989, she got married to Leo Koguan, a Columbia-educated lawyer
Together, they used personal savings and loans to buy a tiny division of a failing software reseller
They named it: Software House International
5/ It helped companies implement technology
It had only 1 client: IBM
1 software platform: Lotus 1-2-3
And 1 employee
To make matters worse, Thai didn’t know much about technology
But Thai was a master at survival and quickly sought her edge…
6/ She found it, not in technology but in customer service
Thai realized that she and her competitors sold a commodity.
Anyone could implement software
She would go over the top for her customers
To do that, she hired employees and empowered them…
7/ She told each salesperson that they were the CEO of their client
Their job was to fight to ensure their client got the best from SHI
One Friday her team approached her: “we have a client who likes us better than their hardware vendor and wants to buy computers from us.”
There was an obvious problem…
8/ Thai: “but we don’t sell computer hardware.”
The team: “this is what the client wants by Monday.”
Thai gave them the green light…
10/ After working all weekend, they had computers ready to be sold
Today, that client is one of their 3 largest – spending >$100M per year with SHI
Thai’s formula of deep customer service + employee empowerment was working
Revenue doubled almost yearly in the 1990s
By 2000…
9/ They hit $1 billion in revenue
And Thai was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year for all of the US
SHI was thriving, yet Thai didn’t change
She lived in the same house, never had an executive assistant and to this day sits on the main floor of the office
10/ Thai’s success was born out of necessity, hard work, kindness to others, and undeniable focus
11/ “I’m not really extraordinary, I’ve been very lucky, and I’ve been well-prepared. I think low self-esteem was the source of motivation for me to work harder. It’s an accumulation of directed energy, focus, and effort. And over decades that can be very powerful.”
Incredible humility from a woman worth over $3BN!
12/ If you enjoyed this thread, follow me for content like this – I tweet a Bootstrapped Giants every week.
