How This Entrepreneur Achieved His Greatest Success After His Worst Failure This man took massive investment from his father-in-law and dad, then couldn't pay them back. Here's how he rebounded.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In this interview at Clickfunnels' annual Funnel Hacking Live conference, Emily Richett talks to entrepreneur and business coach, Chris Lee, about how he went from filing bankruptcy to reaching eight figures in revenue.
Lee won the 8-Figure Award at Funnel Hacking Live for his solar installation company, Solgen, which was only a year old at the time. He attributes his success to learning the hard way how to bring in the right people, create an effective digital marketing plan and implement the right systems and processes.
"I mean, everyone wants to think it's an overnight success right?" Lee says. "But there's always a ton that goes into the foundation."
Lee's foundation was built from the failure he had to endure before reaching eight figures in revenue.
When Lee built a door-to-door sales business in 2008, he raised money from "the two worst sources I possibly could," he says. "I raised over a million dollars from my father-in-law and over two hundred thousand dollars from my dad, who was a school teacher."
During his two and a half years of business, Lee says, "I made a ton of poor decisions with partnerships … And you know, ultimately led to the demise of my business." Lee ended up filing bankruptcy for $2.4 million.
He gets emotional recalling the day he sat his father-in-law down and tearfully admitted to losing everything: "Even though it was terrible and one of the worst experiences of my life, I realized really how it actually was okay. And for me, that is what drives me now … I know what it's like to be there."
Lee claims his failure ultimately taught him how to run a successful business. "Just being able to go and build over the last eight years," he says, "is really what has led us to our overnight success."
Lee's advice to other entrepreneurs is to ask themselves, "What would you do if you had no fear?"
He says, "If you can constantly do ... the things that you would do if you had no fear, just doing them and figuring out the how afterwards, you'll be successful in anything you want to be."
Learn more about Lee's story in the whole video interview above.
