What Happens When You Invest in People...A 7-Year Experiment

Once a week, someone asks “CAN YOU JUST HIRE ME SOMEONE LIKE BINSI”?!

If you don’t know her - Binsi is one of my long time partners in crime.

Born in India, living in the UAE - she has been working with me for coming up on 8 years!

This week, someone inside our Sagan community asked:

“Would be interesting to hear how you initially hired Binsi, what you were looking for, and how she grew to the monster (in a good way) that she is: how much was nature vs nurture !’

Binsi took some time, and wrote up her career progression from her perspective:

(Start Binsi’s Writing)

Jon and I met on Upwork where he was looking for a part-time executive assistant.

His first question was interesting:

'I've had 50% of my EAs quit within the first couple of days. How do I know you will stay?'

I was in a mood that day, so I just replied with a version of, 'Well, if you pay me, I'll stay.' I never thought he'd actually message me back after that response!

We got on a call right away, but it was kind of a mess because I had all these Zoom issues and Jon had to walk me through how to set it up and then my camera wouldn't work!

But for some reason, he hired me on the spot!

This was in December of 2017, right after I'd finished another freelance contract.

It was supposed to be just this small part-time thing, like 5 hours a week doing basic VA work while he was in Dubai.

The early days were pretty difficult with learning stuff. Jon was super patient when it came to teaching - he would literally show me everything, from how to make basic reports to how to format them properly. He'd just share his screen and explain things until I got it, and the best part was he never made me feel bad about not knowing stuff. He was following this delegation course at the time, so he tried to make me do personal assistant stuff too, like managing his Amazon account and all that. But honestly, I wasn't really into the personal tasks, so that didn't last long.

What's funny about how we work together is how different we are.

Jon is totally Type A - super organized and amazing with systems. I'm more chaotic, but like, an organized mess if that makes sense?

He's tried to get me to use GTD and write things down but that's just not me. Yes I use calendar blocking :D.

What has worked for us is that we talk every single day.

For seven years straight, we've talked or messaged each other every business day - that's pretty much how we make it work.

Jon's been amazing with supporting my growth. Like, he was a huge reason I actually did my MBA. This was around my second year working with him, and he was totally cool about it - wrote my reference letter, gave me lighter workload when I had assignments due, and would even help me talk through my thesis stuff.

Here's something funny - one of my professors actually told me I wouldn't make it in operations. Even now, Jon says he wants to find that professor on LinkedIn just to show him how wrong he was about me.

There have been some rough patches too.

Like this one time, we had this eight-month stretch where Jon was between businesses. I basically had maybe 1-2 hours of work a day, just helping him look at stuff from brokers. It was super weird getting paid while barely doing anything, but Jon was always straight up with me about what was going on. Once we got Garage Excell, things got busy again and I became the operations coordinator soon after.

The way I became Operations Coordinator is actually pretty interesting. After Jon bought the business, he tried hiring three different people for the position to handle crew scheduling, supplies, and daily operations. The first person had a drinking problem, the second one quit after two days, and the third one thought this was too much work and left on day three.

Since I was Jon's EA, I ended up handling all these daily tasks whenever these managers quit. Eventually, I just asked Jon, 'Hey, can I be the Operations Coordinator? I'm handling all this stuff anyway.' And Jon just set everything up to make it happen.

Want to hear something really typical of Jon?

When I was working at Garage Excell, I had to manage this 50-year-old installer lead - and here I was, in my 20s, feeling weird about bossing around someone with way more experience.

Jon's solution?

He just gave me a different title to make me feel better about the whole thing. That's just how he is - if he likes you, he'll figure out ways to help you succeed. Also he has zero cares about titles - drives me nuts sometimes when he gives it off like that but I lowkey like it!

I've tried to quit like 4-5 times over the years.

A lot of these times were when I was going through my IVF journey - things would get super tough, and I'd just feel totally burnt out from everything going on in my personal life.

But every time I'd go to Jon and say, 'Jon, thanks for everything, but I think I need to resign,' he'd be like, 'Are you sure? I totally respect it if you are but if there is another reason let me know'

Then he'd come up with ideas like working part-time, or changing my hours, or just taking a few weeks off to deal with stuff. He's always been super understanding about personal stuff like that.

Jon started off hiring me as his EA to do both personal and work stuff, but we figured out pretty quick that he doesn't really need an EA at all. He's crazy organized himself! So my job kind of turned into this thing where I'd jump in wherever the company needed someone. I'd set up the processes, test things out, and then move on to the next challenge.

And honestly?

That's perfect for me because I get bored super easily. I love trying new things and getting new challenges.

Looking back, I've probably learned more working with Jon than from my MBA. It's pretty cool how we went from a simple EA position to what this is now. Sure, it hasn't always been smooth sailing, but between the daily chats, Jon being super supportive, and just figuring out how to work together even though we're total opposites - it's turned into something pretty amazing!

Jon has made sure I always have someone to turn to, even when I can't go to him directly. Like right now, I talk a lot with Kayvon (Jon’s cofounder at Sagan) when I need advice.

And Jon's dad Bruce has helped me tons over the years.

Brian Wilson (Head of Knowledge & Automation at Sagan), Rene Avendano (Jon’s long time business partner and Sagan CFO), Mike Costigan (long time business associate) and Zac Gawn (long time business associate) are few other folks who's always there to help me think through stuff.

It's pretty cool how Jon has built this network of people in the company who I can lean on - it's not just about him, it's this whole support system he's created.

Even after all these years and all these different roles, sometimes I still feel like that EA who first started with Jon.

Like, I still get nervous about saying no to him or I try to avoid any kind of confrontation. It's actually one of the biggest things we're working through right now. But that's the thing - when I brought this up to him, his immediate response was 'Let's chat about it.' He's always ready to work through these kinds of growing pains together.

So yeah, we're still figuring stuff out. I guess that's what makes this whole thing work - we're both still learning and growing together.

Jon again:

It’s been a pleasure to be on it alongside Binsi.

In case you think we somehow have everything figured out - this was our Slack convo TODAY.

What a journey!

Looking back at Binsi's story, I'm struck by how many times we could have given up - those early challenges, the rough patches during business transitions, the personal stuff.

But here's the thing about investing in people: it's not about finding someone who's perfect from day one (I wouldn’t pass that test!).

It's about finding someone with the right attributes - adaptability, authenticity, drive - and then being willing to grow together.

When people ask me to "hire someone like Binsi," what they're really asking for is a shortcut.

But there isn't one.

Great talent isn't hired - it's developed through years of work, and creating space for someone to become their best self.

And yes, we're still learning - that Slack conversation today proves it!

But that's exactly the point.

The journey never really ends; it just keeps evolving into something better.

Now, I want to year from you:

“When’s the last time you took a chance on someone’s potential over their resume?”

Yallah Habibi,

Jon