Peter Kang

Complacency Has Its Roots in Success “Companies usually fail because of the incompetence and arrogance of a complacent management team, not because they struggled to predict the future.” (Scott Davis, Carter Copeland, and Rob Wertheimer, Lessons From the Titans) In Lessons From the Titans, a book about large industrial companies and their various ups and downs as businesses, the authors share a story about Boeing. The aerospace company, with great focus on driving efficiency, achieved financial […]

In 2010, we moved into a new office a few blocks away from the Flatiron District in Manhattan. Coming from a small, dark room at a co-working space, the new office felt like a dream come true. We had a conference room, a private office for me and my Barrel co-founder Sei-Wook to share, and an open area for about six employees. I distinctly remember talking to Sei-Wook after our move and saying, “This place […]

I turned forty years old today. I spent time with my kids, shoveled our driveway (it snowed up in Rhinebeck), got in a workout, enjoyed dinner out with Melanie, had cake with the kids, and took a long walk alone outside. It was a quiet, normal, and beautiful day. My thirties flew by quickly. It feels like yesterday that I sat down and wrote about some things on my mind as I turned thirty. But […]

Note: Right before heading to bed on a winter weekend night, I took a few minutes to remember what transpired that day. I wake up tired and groggy, but it’s 7:20 and I can hear my oldest son Grant playing with his trains right outside the bedroom. Mel goes upstairs to change our younger boy Teddy. I make a smoothie for the kids dumping bananas, spinach, blueberries, pineapple, mango, and strawberry chunks into a blender. […]

Types of Lead Sources At Barrel, we’ve stumbled into a number of different lead sources over the years, and the mistake we made was in not taking the time to understand the source and how to keep the flow strong. We recognized the source and assumed that they’d organically continue coming. To start, these are the most common lead sources I’ve experienced. It’s not a comprehensive list by any means (e.g. it doesn’t have inbound […]

I have to admit that I have trouble “turning off” during the holiday season. I enjoy time with family and friends, watch a few movies and football games, read a bit more fiction, but I still come back to thinking about the business. My guess is that a lot of entrepreneurs / business owners are in this camp, continually reflecting on what went right and wrong over the past year and looking ahead to how […]

I’ve created a spreadsheet that agencies can use to plan their finances for an upcoming year using a bottoms-up approach. With the right inputs, one should be able to come away with targets for revenue and profit. For the past ten weeks, my Barrel co-founder Sei-Wook and I have been poring over our finances, reorganizing the data, and coming up with different ways to land at our targets for next year. It’s been an enlightening […]

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d like to express my gratitude for all the hardships and setbacks that being in this business has presented me over the years. They’ve made me tougher, more humble, a bit savvier, a bit smarter, and ever more optimistic. I remain optimistic and energized because of the wonderful people of Barrel who work closely with me to navigate all the hardships and setbacks that come our way all while sharing […]

In Extreme Revenue Growth by Victor Cheng, a book about developing “revenue growth engines” to scale quickly from $1 million to $25 million+ in revenues, Cheng introduces “The 10 Times Question” which goes like this: If your business grew 10 times overnight, would you be able to handle it? The question is intended to help company leaders think about what might break in the business if sudden growth were to happen and in doing so […]

I’ve been running a small business for the past 16+ years, and in that time, my relationship with the business has evolved quite a bit. One way to reflect on this evolution is to share the things about the business that please me and bring me joy. I’ve compiled a list of five “satisfactions” that have energized me and kept me going with the business. Satisfaction #1: An Impactful Hire I don’t think I can […]