Kyle Roof is the founder of High Voltage SEO (recently sold), PageOptimizer Pro and Internet Marketing Gold courses. He bootstrapped them all with a skeleton team and 1 core idea.
In this week’s episode, Kyle takes us back to 2013.
His first business journey.
He’d built a strong team for a project that had a lot of potential in web design and development. Despite not knowing anything about coding.
After a few successful client deals, he decided to start a company with his brother, a website developer. To lower the entrepreneurial risk of "not knowing" the business.
To leverage its potential and get the most work done, he launched his business in a small town in north-west India and hired people there.
Things were going well, his brother was in India and had set up office. Clients were coming thick and fast.
But they didn’t quite get the welcoming he’d hoped for.
After a visit from the local police to check the business’ papers — the unthinkable happened.
The police questioned the papers, refused a bribe, and put his brother in jail.
The next day, he was on the plane back to the States.
Kyle thought things would go back to normal after his brother’s return. But they got worse.
Within days, the business had crumbled.
How do you prepare for this level of entrepreneurial risk?
Although Kyle couldn’t have predicted that his brother would end up in jail and be deported. He could have prepared for financial or situational risk in the business.
Within one meeting, Kyle had lost all that he had invested in the business — it was everything he had. On top of that, he didn’t have the skills to complete the work for his clients. So they were gone too.
Now, ten years on, with three successful businesses and one exit — it’s easy to make a joke out of the situation.
And he does.
Instead of giving up after this unpredictable worst-case scenario, Kyle honed in on what he was good at, and kept going.
In this episode, Kyle talks about
Kyle looks back on his timeline with the perspective that even the worst situations can nudge you in the right direction in the long run.
Tune in to find out more about how he turned his founder venture around. And what he learned along the way.