Charles Chang thinks there are two important lessons that need to be learned in order to have a successful business, and he learned them the hard way.
“The number 1 thing is who’s responsible for the top line, for bringing in revenue,” said Chang. “The other thing is to never have partners.”
Prior to transforming his natural-food company Sequel Naturals into a $14 million business, Chang learned some hard lessons about going into business with friends.
After he graduated with a business degree from Simon Fraser University in 1995, Chang started a business with two of his friends.
After a year and a half, he folded the business and walked away $20,000 poorer.
“We couldn’t manage each other being friends,” Chang said of the experience. “We had different agendas, none of us knew what we were doing and it ended being that I lost two partners and two friends.”
But instead of giving up Chang joined the Great Little Box Company, a Richmond-based box manufacturer, where he learned the human-resources skills he would later use to make Sequel a success.
“I begged, borrowed and stole much of that stuff from there,” he said.
In 2001, Chang used those skills to create the company he is truly proud of.
“We are an open-book company,” Chang said of Sequel. “We share all of our financials and our key performance indicators … we all share in our success and if there’s failure, that as well.”
Sequel employs 14 full-time staff and as many as 100 on a part-time basis, and it’s Chang’s goal to make the business self sufficient so he can spend more time with his family. •
