Perumal
SUSHEE PERUMAL, B.ENG, MBA
Perumal
Led MaxSold since launch as President and CEO, a high growth end-to-end B2C eCommerce Marketplace in the Senior Services industry, and national, cross-border expansion.
Achieved Financial Times Americas' Fastest Growing 500 Companies (50%+ compounded annual growth rate) and several lists including Globe & Mail Top 300.
There are no silver bullets. Nothing can replace the execution vision that's compounded over years of accumulating 1000s of hours of wisdom through learning and action. The learning comes from trial and error, and iterating through experiments to drive continuous innovation and results. I have accumulated a considerable number of lead bullets, which are actually weapons in my hands, as I execute with extreme tenacity and passion with a vision.
“Impatience with actions, patience with results.”
- Naval Ravikant
What's the return on investment (ROI) of a piano for John Elton? $10s of Millions. Similarly I see tools and ideas with a similar lens. I execute on those tools and ideas as "weapons of growth" to drive significant ROI.
These "weapons of growth" amassed so far are levers in marketing, technology, inbound and outbound sales, recruiting talent, offshoring, outsourcing and vendor relationships, PR, raising investments and project management. I serve a "magic cocktail" of those skills to propel massive growth with a fraction of the financial resources most companies typically would have to deploy, and way faster. Why is that? I work smart, I work hard, I didn't stop - evenings, weekends, holidays - that's what it takes.
The ability to learn and execute faster than competition, always driving customer value is the only sustainable competitive advantage.
xcute
This is how I built MaxSold to a company 30+ Million in sales and Series B VC financing. I owe my success to my background experience, the founders (who had the idea, deep industry knowledge and trusted the idea to me to execute). Angel investors and friends/family believed in me enough to invest in the execution of the idea as I progressed through small and large wins - and more importantly, navigated failures, small, large and some catastrophic.
A big thank you to our early customers who went in with my sales pitch - even though we didn't exist in their city. I also couldn't have done this without the early employees who joined MaxSold when the pay was mediocre, workload high, and their boss was (and is still) a bit crazy.
My wife, Emma Lo, deserves special recognition, she's been alongside me since inception. She executes selflessly without taking any credit whatsoever, practically operating as a co-founder. She set up systems and processes (scaling up support, marketing and customer success functions, worked on product early on), and delivered extreme customer value, turning everything she touched into gold. She is the soul of MaxSold. (see this post and all the love in the comments)
I'm proud of the company we've built. I owe a lot to my MaxSold team and my mentors who helped navigate the company through a staggering number of hurdles. After all, "Smooth Seas Do Not Make Skillful Sailors" - John P. Weiss
I equally owe my success to people who advanced my knowledge either directly by mentoring me, or indirectly training me through their books, podcasts and conferences. These people are experts who've taken companies public, exited through Mergers & Acquisitions, held C-suite positions at Fortune 500 companies.
The lessons learned on always having a beginners mind, being resourceful, executing on critical-path activities and being cash efficient are serving me well. (Without my pilot's license and access to a Cessna I couldn't have quickly expanded MaxSold with 100s of employees and partners on the ground - the 1970 era Cessna 182 is like having a time machine.)
Stress testing skills to drive growth is how I continue to advance. Speaking at events and mentoring is another way I synthesize my learning. I've spoken at Google Growth events in Toronto, presented alongside Microsoft at an Artificial Intelligence conference in Chicago and led Innovation and Scale-Up panel discussions.
Getting MaxSold to this point required navigating 10,000 landmines that are in the way immersed in the details of the business so that the right dials to turn can be prioritized - always in alignment with what drives customer value.
“If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.” - Jeff Bezos
What I enjoyed the most was building teams at every phase of this growth journey (growing talent as our revenues grew), seeing people evolve their skills, gaining their confidence by achiving impossible milestones.
Building the company from inception gave me the depth to navigate through the COVID-19 generational challenge, where information was changing by the day. The company emerged stronger, closing Series A and Series B VC financing with which a strong core foundation for the next phase of growth was built.
I've stepped aside from MaxSold for "professional management" to take over. I'm taking a pause to reflect, think about my next opportunity, and to spend time with my young kids - priceless time that cannot be rolled back.
Now it's time for fresh eyes for MaxSold - with a vision, strategy and execution to navigate the next set of hurdles, making the right decisions centered around customer value.
My drive is for the company to continue its momentum to scale, so everyone involved can be proud of MaxSold - those from the past, present and future - as everyone had a role to play in building MaxSold to where it is today, including our early investors, partners, buyers and sellers.
