Seeking freedom: Couple quit jobs, launch online business

Each Sunday, the AJC brings you insights from metro Atlanta’s leaders and entrepreneurs. Matt Kempner’s “Secrets of Success” shares the vision and realities of entrepreneurs who started their dreams from scratch. The column alternates with Henry Unger’s “5 Questions for the Boss,” which reveals the lessons learned by CEOs of the area’s major companies and organizations.

Find previous columns from Unger and Kempner on our premium website for subscribers at www.myajc.com/business.

Miles’ tips:

— Decide upfront where you want to own things or run things. It will affect whether you’ll be doing day-to-day management long term.

— If you start the business with your spouse, it should be a partnership, not one over the other.

— Be a leader worth following. Show employees and partners you are willing to do the work.

Miles Advisory Group, which includes eaHELP and MAG Bookkeeping.

Based in their home in Cumming.

Launched in 2010.

Bryan Miles, 39-year-old co-founder and chief executive.

Shannon, his wife of 17 years, started the company with him and now is its chief operating officer. They have two young children.

Annual revenue: On pace to hit $5.5 million this year, up from $2.9 million in 2013.

Profit margin: The business overall is profitable.

Business: eaHELP, which generates 80 percent of the company’s revenue, provides remotely-based executive assistants to business executives, church leaders, authors, etc. MAG Bookkeeping provides bookkeeping services to churches.

Staff: 52 employees, two-thirds of whom are full time, help operate the company while working from home. Another 269 independent contractors are executive assistants or bookkeepers for clients.

Ownership: Bryan and Shannon own the business 50/50.

Miles’ pay: He and his wife paid themselves salaries from the start, though it was about half what they made at their previous jobs. Since then, their pay has gone up “substantially.”

“Everybody said, ‘Don’t do this.’”

“There was a point where you get in your career and think, ‘I’m tired of working for someone else.’ It’s an autonomy thing for me.”

“I’ve learned a ton in four years, and it’s not all gumdrops and lollipops…. And you think, “Wow, this whole thing could come down if you’re not careful.”

Bryan Miles took a risky dive when he quit his stable, $150,000-a-year job to launch his online business. That was only half the story. His wife, Shannon, simultaneously quit her good-paying job to help lead the startup.

Four years into the venture, they’ve swapped the title of chief executive officer, surprised themselves with how fast the business grew and learned how to run a company together. Their main business, eaHELP, assigns executive assistants to work with business and church leaders, entrepreneurs and others who want to delegate work and personal tasks. The assistants, all independent contractors, work remotely, often several states away from the executives they aid.

Bryan and Shannon Miles work from the basement of their Cumming home. But the business isn’t tiny. It will generate $5.5 million this year, including a small side operation that does bookkeeping for churches. They have a corporate staff of 52 and about 270 contract workers, all based in their homes.

Miles, now 39, says beyond working hard, he was lucky.

We funded our business out of our own money. We didn’t ask a bank. We just decided we were going to take our 401(k)s and roll that in to starting (the business). Everybody said, “Don’t do this.”

It was a scary, insane time.

We basically gave notice the same day to our employers. Oct. 1, 2010. We gave good notices. We wanted to finish well because, candidly, I wanted a job if this didn’t work out.

She managed complex projects for McKesson (a large health care services company). I worked for a a small boutique construction company that built churches in the United States. We wanted to make sure there was a market for what we were thinking about. We did a ton of due diligence, talked to advisers, friends.

Miles knew the risks. His father had started a dime store in Missouri and grew it into six stores. Competition from Walmart obliterated the business. From then on, his father worked for others, often pulling long hours as a store manager for retail chains.

(Before he died) he just said, “Please, please don’t go into retail.” I know what he meant by that. He worked his butt off for somebody else. He was so exhausted. What he was implying was: make a go of something. Do something really, really well. I took it as, I’m going to be my own man.

I had a mentor. He said, “The people I see get ahead own assets.” That was very formative for me.

Miles had a background in sales and project management. But after several years in the construction business, he wanted a change.

I started to feel like I wasn’t going to go anywhere with that company. I traveled like crazy. I had young kids. There was a point where you get in your career and think, “I’m tired of working for someone else.” It’s an autonomy thing for me. I may not make it, but I want to try it. I have an awesome wife that encouraged that.

As I talked more about what I wanted to do and think all that through, she said, “I think I want to jump with you.”

I had a virtual assistant (while at the construction company). She was in Charlotte and I was in Atlanta. She did what a virtual assistant does: basically anticipate my needs, field things for me when I’m not there, manage aspects of my email. She helped me manage trips for my vacations.

I kind of replicated the model (for eaHELP). She is now a senior leader in our business.

I had a good name and great contacts in the church world. I knew I could make a play in that space for something I knew no one could do, which is create virtual assistants to pastors. We would get these calls from business leaders that would go to these churches and say, “Hey, we want that.” And we would say, “We just work with churches.”

Friends convinced Miles to contact a popular blogger, Michael Hyatt, who had mentioned he was considering hiring a virtual assistant. Miles won the contract, and Hyatt tweeted and blogged about the business.

It was a game changer. It put us on the map with leaders all over. It opened us up to everything from health care to manufacturing to authors and publishing, to financial services, hospitality, a lot of entrepreneur startups, pastors, TV personalities.

It took us 14 months to get to net profit, and that was a long slog. I thought it would take two or three years. We’ve been lucky.

I’ve got more than 11 people that manage relationships with the clients. That’s why I think we are succeeding in our space. You can’t just take a client in Texas and throw them with a virtual assistant in Vermont. You have to coach them. They have to learn best practices, developing that trusted advisor relationship.

I’ve learned a ton in four years, and it’s not all gumdrops and lollipops. There’s been some scary things that hit you that you weren’t even thinking about. And you think, “Wow, this whole thing could come down if you’re not careful.

I’ve seen where we have not paid attention to the relationship management side of our business and it’s suffered. We’ve signed 40 new customers in eaHELP in one month. That’s 40 busy leaders and 40 virtual assistants that have to get going. They have to know how to begin to work with each other. They need to know what is mission critical versus nice to have. That doesn’t happen in one 30 minute phone call.

We should have said we can only take on 30 clients this month. It hurt us 'cause they didn't get the service that was expected. We cease to exist if we fail at serving people well.

Part of what the company does is teach clients how to let others help with the workload, such as digging through emails.

What I’ve discovered is tons of fantastic leaders suck at delegating. Often they come back to: I don’t trust my team or I just like doing it. A senior leader in a business – I’ve seen this because this is true in my own life – rarely feels a sense of completion. I’ve got three problems that are taking me nine months to solve. So if they can do these stupid little tasks on their own (like cleaning out their inbox), they feel like they are completing stuff in a day.

I love working with my wife. For the first year she was the CEO (he was chief operating officer). We flipped it. It was the realization of what our gifts were in. My wife is system-process oriented. I love to start things. I’m not the greatest at continuing to execute them. I can energize people around them.

A project his wife was involved in struggled.

It was obvious to me that we needed to kill it. She didn’t like that because she had put an insane amount of effort and time in it. That’s the struggle of an entrepreneur: you see just enough glimmer of hope that it begs you forward. That was hard.

When I go down to my basement and see my wife, I don’t look at her as COO. I look at her as my partner in this business. As a business grows and becomes successful, it comes with its own set of complexities and org charts and clear job descriptions. But at the end of the day she is still my wife. We are in this together.