Video Courtesy: Minds of Business
Warren Buffett wanted to buy a small business and was turned down. Seems unfathomable to most of us poor souls but he thought that it was a very wise decision on the entrepreneur's part. Because, that entrepreneur went on to hire more college graduates every year than any other company in the history of the United States.
The entrepreneur started as a used car salesman after sifting through multiple jobs and then as he went up the ranks, at age 35 he decided to partner with his boss on starting-up a car leasing business while taking a 50% pay cut in his current job and an investment of 25 grand. He started with 7 cars but it did not really take off. 5 years hence, they had 17 cars and since the business was not really taking off, he decided to pivot into a rental car business. Now, here is a 40 year old entrepreneur with just 17 cars trying to compete with established players like Avis & Hertz with hundreds and thousands of cars. Starting with 17 cars and with just Customer Delight as his USP, his rental car company is worth more than Avis, Hertz, National and almost every other rental car company put together. Hear the story from the maestro himself.
Now, a lot can be inferred about an individual or a company by looking at the idols that they look upto. At OBI, we are merely looking to clone Mr. Warren Buffett's principles in all of our actions and ignore every other advice that would come our way henceforth.
We understand that there is a good chance that we won't be as successful in the near term if we do not take advantage of our customer's trust or take a short cut every now and then. In fact, there is a greater chance of incurring short term losses on our part and we are at peace with that.
We have mutually agreed to allocate all of our tangible, intangible capital and every ounce of our energy towards delighting our customers doing whatever it takes and hopefully on being able to innovate on their behalf. Our business model is based on the following impeccable yet simple strategies: Integrity, Intelligence and Empathy.
Happy to Lose Money but not a Shred of our Reputation.