In This Episode You’ll Hear About:

• How Jordan always was that kid who was looking for a way to work and hustle to make some money because he liked the freedom to do his own thing
• How he ended up in real estate after studying some in pre-med, some in pre-law and still not really knowing what he wanted to do
• His time in economic development for a public/private partnership between a couple of counties in the Lowcountry of South Carolina in a difficult economic situation and how that led to the fertile ground for a new business idea to grow
• How the lessons he learned in the real estate industry led to an even stronger work ethic, trust, and authenticity that would be an asset as a founder and CEO 
• How his natural interest in interior design, furniture, and architecture led to the idea to reach out to some furniture factories and list them on eBay to turn a profit 
• What happened after Jordan decided to give his new business 90 days to see what kind of opportunity he had there, and why he moved from eBay to a website
• How Jordan bootstrapped Industry West in the early days and built a solid foundation without any venture capital
• Why the health of company culture is so important to Jordan and Anne, and how they strive to cultivate it every day, even during remote work
• How maintaining 100% ownership of their company has helped them in 2020 to be able to pivot quickly and meet their customers’ needs 
• Advice that Jordan has to offer for couples who are thinking about running a business together 
• Why he sees himself as a servant leader, and why he feels very strongly about the responsibility to give back to the community 

To Find Out More:

Industrywest.com 

Quotes:

“There's something about the freedom that affords you to do things you want to do.”

“I think there's something about having a task in front of you that's difficult and daunting, achieving it or failing at it, and then seeing why you failed. But when you achieve it, you can push through it, and you look back and think like, wow, that changed me as a person. That is incredibly rewarding. Let's go do it again.”

“This was literally like, if I keep this small for now, I can grow organically. I didn't know anything about venture capital.”

“I don't want to take the credit for things for being in the right place at the right time. I think that has a lot to do with it...I think timing is luck.”

“We've always made sure that every dollar we're spending has a return on it. And we can clearly track those dollars.”

“I think this year has been the perfect storm of confluence of really negative forces and things happening in the world and the marketplace.”

“It's important to listen to your customer. It's also important to lead them towards what you feel like the brand represents.”

“I think of myself more as a servant leader.”

“I take a lot of pride in the development and the growth of the staff that's here.”

“I'm pretty much an open book when it comes to being honest around what's happening in the business and maybe to a fault.”

“I think business leaders and owners and those that there are growing businesses, have a responsibility to give back to the community.”

“Nothing happens overnight. So let's build something meaningful and lasting.”