#10 Doba

   It’s not easy being green. But for Jeremy Hanks, co-founder of the lime-colored Doba, that’s part of the fun. With green lights (No. 23 on the Inc. 500, No. 6 on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500) come growing pains, but Hanks doesn’t let setbacks — or even triumphs — affect the product sourcing company’s mission. “You’re going to have ups and downs, but you have to keep going,” he says. “You have to be excited about every opportunity. I know if I’m having a bad day, beating my head against a wall isn’t going to do me any good.” Even if the walls are green.

We weren’t Doba to begin with. We were called Wholesale Marketer. But people would constantly mess it up — Wholesale Marketing, Wholesale Marketers, Wholsesaling Marketing. We decided to start with a blank slate — to create a brand. Our criteria was something short and memorable. 

Our biggest success has been having the right product in the right marketplace. The market for online businesses exploded, and it’s still growing. PayPal changed the way people accept payments, eBay gave people a new place to sell, and Google AdWords gave people a new way to advertise. The landscape shifted, so the key to success was having a solution that really works and, more importantly, fits into the market. 

Growing pains are very real. Sometimes you grow and find a better way to do something, which means you need less service reps or sales guys. We’ve done a couple layoffs simply because we can do things differently, more effectively. And that’s hard. 

No matter how you grow it means change. Change is the hardest thing for people in companies to deal with. That’s why you’ll hear people talking about the glory days of a company — “I worked at Doba back in the day.” But companies that grow fast, change fast. And the people that go through the changes tend to think it’s changing for the worst.

One of my jobs is to try and minimize our inevitable progression toward the “suck road.” It’s inevitable because changes can start to suck. We try to minimize that, but you can’t eliminate it. When you have five employees, they’re not necessarily going to love their jobs when there are 50 employees. It’s part of the beast.  

Your team members are not always going to agree with you, but they are critical pieces of the team. Most entrepreneurs are not good managers. We project the way we look at things onto other people. But if you don’t let your employees take the ball and run with it, you won’t be successful. Success won’t come unless you have a team around you that doesn’t always beat the same drum. 

We’ve received a lot of credibility for having built this company ourselves. Capital is great if you use it right, but if you use it wrong, you can kill your business with the very thing that should make it grow. 

An author once said that success is largely a matter of who hangs on the longest. That to me is so key. You’re going to have 100 disappointments, but you have to keep going. You have to be that eternal optimist. 

I love coming to work. It’s exciting and a continual challenge. I tell people I don’t really work. Work is shoveling the snow in my driveway. Coming down to Doba, now that’s not work. That’s just fun.