When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
It was early 2016 and A Couple of Gurus was a couple years into using the entrepreneurial operating system, commonly known as EOS, to get a better handle on its business when Upsize last visited with the company.
Founder and CEO Keith Schoolcraft, at the time, acknowledged he always knew what he wanted the company to look like but had previously struggled sharing that vision with others. “The vision was crystal clear to me, but my employees — including my president — just didn’t get it,” he said.
Anne Schoolcraft, Keith’s wife and, in 2016, the company’s president and integrator, said: “I was intensely focused on managing the day-to-day operations and making payroll, and when Keith’s vision wasn’t clear to me, it just wasn’t worth the time or energy to try to understand it.”
A Couple of Gurus, hit hard by the economic downturn of 2008, had significant debts. After embracing the Vision, Traction and Healthy components of EOS, the operational alignment and financial improvement was immense and fast. “Now that we run on EOS and have the [Vision/Traction Organizer], I am confident I understand where Keith is taking us, and I make decisions every day that help move the company in that direction,” said Anne Schoolcraft, who was president and integrator, at the time.
By the time the COVID pandemic hit, the company was debt free. Keith Schoolcraft has been pleased that while his company was growing, EOS has matured and evolved, as well, introducing new guidance, tools and strategies that continue keeping the learning fresh.
Eight years later, EOS has helped fuel steady growth for the company, which has gone from 10 employees to 15 and grown in revenue from just over $1 million to around $3 million.
EOS helped A Couple of Gurus determine where to target its sales efforts — world changing organizations, such as nonprofits and medical device manufacturers, he says.
And he remains steadfastly committed to the EOS practices. The company still maintains the regular weekly meetings. It completes 90 percent of its rocks — quarterly goals — and is in a good place operationally, he says,
Meanwhile, Anne Schoolcraft was impressed enough that she left her husband’s company to become an EOS implementor, helping other companies start using the management strategies — which Keith admits was hard on the company, but perhaps good for their family life.
“That did admittedly leave a gap for me when she did that,” he says. “On one hand, I was very happy for her. On the other hand, things at Guru were a little challenging for a while.”
He just found a new integrator to replace her — important because he had mixed results taking on that role while also being the visionary.
“I didn’t understand how important that integrator role was, and I didn’t fully understand what she was doing for us until she was no longer doing it.”
Every business owner, he says, has a little integrator in them — otherwise “we’d just be all theoretical and we wouldn’t actually get anything done,” he says. “What I realized is that kind of work is a little more detail oriented and, while I can jump into it when needed, it doesn’t energize me. It actually drains me — I was starting to get burned out by doing both roles.”
While EOS has helped Schoolcraft grow A Couple of Gurus, he says it’s not the only factor in his success. This company is actually Schoolcraft’s second bite at the entrepreneurial apple. He grew up with parents who were entrepreneurs in real estate. They tried to ease him in that direction, as well, but he shifted, instead, to computers, for which he had a passion even then.
He started Microgate Systems, a computer building company, when he was 17 — a move he acknowledges now he was not ready for.
“When you’re 17, you don’t really know anything about running a business,” he says. “And the bigger side of it is, how do you generate sales, how do you do the sales part. I had a mentor I thought was going to take over that part, but it didn’t pan out.”
That business closed, but he learned from the opportunity, got a degree in networking business management then worked for a service provider for a while where he found a couple more mentors who helped hone some business skills.
After Sept. 11, when the economy took a hit, he decided to start A Couple of Gurus.
“When you have someone in your life that gives you that confidence, it allows you to maybe start pursuing your dreams,” he says. “I never lost the bug to want to try and start a company again.”
He recommends getting into some kind of networking peer group where you can bounce ideas and problems off people who have dealt with the same or similar issues during their own entrepreneurial journeys. Talk to other CEOs, as well, he says.
“There’s huge value in CEOs getting together. They say it’s lonely at the top,” he says. “It’s only lonely at the top if you stay isolated. My advice to people is to not stay isolated and find a group of like-minded entrepreneurs you can bounce stuff off of.”
He also suggests business owners find ways to continue growing and don’t be afraid to try things.
“I love talking to young entrepreneurs,” he says. “I’ve made my share of mistakes over the years and I’m sure I’m going to make a whole pile more. You know, part of the journey is figuring those things out, picking yourself back up and keeping on moving. It’s hard.”
