Page 54: A Constant Focus on Experimentation and Enhancement

Page 54

GO IT ALONE!

Hay also benefits by working with entities that have high expertise in their particular activities. Choosing the right providers for each function is essential. “I spent at least as much time in choosing providers for outsourcing as we used to spend in the interview process for hiring employees at Celestial Seasonings,” he says.

Hay is emphatic in his bias toward action, his approach to ongoing experimentation, and his belief in learning directly from customers. In the summers of 2002 and 2003, he and his wife set up free sampling tables outside retail stores and asked each consumer for comments. “At the end of each day, we would compile the results and modify the product flavors for our next production run based on what we learned,” he said. Customer feedback also helped Hay to determine the most attractive names for the three flavors of his drinks. Hay estimates that through this process he had direct contact with an astounding number of people: “We have probably spoken face-to-face with 20,000 to 30,000 people who sampled our product,” he says.

Of perhaps greatest importance, extreme outsourcing allows Hay to focus his time and energy on creating a product with the highest possible customer appeal, which he believes is the key to the success of the business. Although Hay participated in managing 300 employees at Celestial Seasonings, “I didn’t want a lot of employees at KaBoom Beverages. I knew that employee maintenance was very time-consuming for somebody who wanted to be creative in the development of the product line,” he says.

A Constant Focus on Experimentation and Enhancement

Relentless repeatability allows entrepreneurs to create a leveraged business. Extreme outsourcing provides the time and energy to focus on the core attributes of the business. The final piece of this puzzle is the use of time: Successful entrepreneurs

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