27 August 2021, and as I write, the company which started it all, Silversky will turn 18 years the following day. When I was told I needed to put in a passage on “about us” for the new Stellar website, I struggled, really, for days. I have said it all at Silversky, so are we going to put in another boring, me-too, egoistic story with lots of vision, mission, tag lines that is full of bull like the many millions out there? No, no, no, never.
Some people will know that my wife and I started and still run Silversky. Stellar Pets is our re-birth. It is testament to our love for running our business, the love for animals and the love for the pet industry. If we have another opportunity to start all over again, how would we do it differently? And so, we have Stellar Pets to relive that adrenaline rush of running a start-up, only this time, we have just a little head start with experience.
So, who is Stellar Pets? What do we stand for? Why in the world are you doing here? Simple.
IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU
There will be no more “About us”, starting with our website, and only “About you”.
It will be about our staff. It will be about our suppliers. It will be about our partners and resellers. And it will be about our customers.
We will continue to learn and be the modern day leader, across all levels in the organization. We will operate with radical candor, speak truth to power, fail quickly, validate our learning, love vulnerability, take everything personally and embrace a non-negotiable growth mindset.
We don’t need to make all the money. Integrity must be our common currency. Happiness and Success will follow eventually.
We will hustle everyday like no one else will as long as our able bodies allow. We will over-promise and will also over-deliver.
We are not going to look at competition and say we’re going to do it better. We are going to look at competition and say we’re going to do it different!
We are going to continue to pay it forward, giving mentorship to students (and learning from them, believe me, lots to learn!) and providing both financial & non-financial assistance to the disadvantaged and under-privileged.
At some point in time, the company will have to continue to operate without the founders and managing directors. The only way is build-to-last, laying the financial and operational foundation and prevalently building the culture of personal accountability, winning and empathy. Are these are on going.
We will remain loyal to our existing suppliers and partners, absolutely no compromise on that at all. It is also no secret that we are courting some of the biggest brands in the world to add to our portfolio. My ask is that if you are that company reading this, give us 7mins to pitch. If we don’t win you by then, we’ll try again and again until we succeed. When we say we are going to be your greatest, most devoted and craziest distributor, we will nail that! Hence, please ask around those who have seen us walking-the-talk.
Finally, one of my biggest lament now is not having more time with my children but that is changing as I write. The other life’s biggest regret is not spending dutiful time with my late father before he passed on in 2018. The hardest decision I have ever made in life was consent to ICU not to exercise CPR and resuscitation to the imminent. Just like that, the heartbeat disappeared forever.
There is no difficult decision I cannot make and things we cannot do thereafter
“The limit is not the sky. The limit is the mind”