Entrepreneur Round Table
Battery Manufacturing Co. in WinstonSalem. I was working there, and he taught me a lot about business and life. Also, there’s risk in everything we do. I always tell the people in my racing business to weigh risk versus gain. You need to ask yourself if you can handle the failure to get the gain in what you want to do. Young: We took a lot of risks. We were still in college when we started. We knew from marketing that we had to be creative. At the same time, with technology making so much data available, companies have to understand and analyze it. We knew that if we combined the two, we could help them grow quickly. That was where we started, and we just kept growing from there.
“There are a lot of sleepless nights, but you always start the next day with a clean slate.” — Bryan Young, Business Empire Consulting was their connection to how successful people lived. Many of the people who come to the High Point Market are looking for furnishings that they can repurpose in those environments. Weeks: There is an opportunity for made-in-America labels both domestically and abroad. It is huge in Asia, and no one is really feeding into that by capitalizing on that brand and making it mean quality, innovation and design again. Many of the large apparel companies are ensuring that parts of their production or supply chains allow them to tell a made-inAmerica story. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is doing some pieces here, and Levi Strauss & Co. is known for being made in America. But the U.S. apparel industry has fallen behind in regards to manufacturing technology, slowing its response to this demand. The factories that I worked with in Sri
Lanka were 20 years ahead of the ones I work with in Durham, which have machines from the 1960s because that’s what’s left here. McCrory: Before I was governor, I was on the board of directors of Kewaunee Scientific Corp., which makes lab equipment in Statesville. Its growth is in the Middle East because those countries want products made in America. It’s very similar to the old days: Made in the USA to the Middle East means high quality. Qubein: If you were speaking to an audience of college students about to graduate, what would you tell them they will need to be successful entrepreneurs? Childress: Each person meets a mentor along the way, and that’s critical. I had a great one — G.W. Douglas, who was with Douglas Sponsored Section
Qubein: We recently had author Seth Godin at the university, and he spoke about fruitful failures. He says they are part of life, and the only way we can find success is to overcome them. What was the biggest surprise or obstacle you’ve had in business so far? Weeks: Everything was a surprise for me. Ignorance was bliss, because I was 23 years old, had an idea, had no idea what I was up against and thought anything was possible. You start down the road and decide you’re not going to quit. You figure out the obstacles and solve them along the way. People can see when you have passion for what you do, and it’s what gets you out of bed. That is key to being persistent because it makes hearing no manageable. It gets easier, but starting out, it was difficult. So many folks told me that the industry was dead. You have to keep pushing and find the yeses. The people who helped recognized the passion we have for the brand we’re building. Qubein: Overconfidence can get us in trouble. This is tough for