It’s a tale as old as time: A Major League Baseball right-fielder starts selling deer-antler supplements to teammates during pitching changes. Word spreads until members of rival teams are making transactions on base, until finally, one day, he’s inadvertently made the career switch from pro-ball player to nutrition entrepreneur. Sound familiar? 

Okay. So maybe former Oakland A’s outfielder Danny Putnam’s specific story isn’t one we’ve heard before, but you’ve seen those basic elements over and over: A hobby or a side-gig ends up taking off, and before you know it, you’re in business. As the Founder and Managing Director of Lurong Living, Danny’s business literally started on the field during ballgames. It wasn’t anything he’d expected. The way he’s sustained the growth of his business is by putting the right systems in place at the right time.

In this episode, we talk to Danny about how to know when to build a tool versus when to hire a person, the difficulty of putting up boundaries on your time when things start taking off, and how to create buy-in with your employees. We also use juggling as a metaphor a lot. It works. (Anyone who’s ever dropped the ball can back us up on this.)

As entrepreneurs, we often don’t want to develop systems or automation, out of the fear that it will make our business impersonal. We talk about the ways that systems can actually make us more creative. When we can find a better way to take care of tasks that are outside of our wheelhouse, it frees up our time and our brain to work on the bigger picture of our mission.  

Whether you’re growing your business or you just want to hear more about the world of deer-antler side-hustles, we hope you enjoy the show!