Have you ever thought that being too close to your product or service might actually hold you back? Many founders fall into the trap of getting caught up in the details, but success often comes from stepping back and focusing on the bigger picture. You can see a lot more of the forest if you are not so close to the trees.
Take Carrie Kelsch, for example. When she started A Plus Garage Doors in 2005, she didn’t know how to fix a garage door—and she never tried to learn. Instead of seeing her lack of technical expertise as a weakness, she turned it into her greatest strength. Carrie focused on leadership, team building, and scaling her company, leaving the technical work to her trusted team.
“I didn’t, and I still don’t, know how to fix a garage door,” Carrie admits. That decision was deliberate. It allowed her to spend her time on the things that mattered most: marketing, growth, and building a brand. Her approach echoes the advice from Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited: successful entrepreneurs work on their businesses, not in them.
How to Avoid Being Taken Advantage Of
One concern many founders have about stepping back is losing control. If you’re not involved in every technical detail, how can you ensure employees or vendors aren’t inflating costs or wasting time?
The answer lies in alignment. By tying key employees’ compensation to your company’s long-term success, you create a shared vision. One effective strategy is phantom equity—a tool that gives employees a stake in the financial success of the business without transferring ownership.
Carrie implemented phantom equity with her team, ensuring they felt a sense of accountability and ownership. This approach not only motivated her employees to perform at their best but also helped her retain top talent. With her team aligned and empowered, Carrie could trust them to deliver on the company’s promise while she focused on driving growth.
Building to Sell
In 2024, Carrie sold a majority stake in A Plus Garage Doors to Guild Garage Group, a private equity-backed roll-up in the home services space. Guild valued the company at approximately $70 million—a testament to the brand, systems, and team Carrie had built.
By focusing on what she did best—leading and growing the business—Carrie was able to create a company that private equity buyers couldn’t ignore. The sale gave her significant financial freedom while allowing her to retain a stake in the company’s future success.
Carrie’s story is proof that you don’t have to be a technical expert to build a business worth millions. When you focus on growth, empower your team, and align incentives with performance, you create a valuable asset that attracts buyers or investors.
The Big Picture
Your business is more than the product or service you offer. It’s a system, a brand, and an asset. Sometimes, knowing less about the day-to-day technical work can be a blessing. It forces you to think like a leader, a strategist, and ultimately, an owner.
Working on your business—not in it—frees you to focus on the big picture, where the real opportunities lie. And as Carrie’s journey shows, that shift in focus can turn what feels like a disadvantage into your ultimate competitive edge.
Step one is thinking like an owner and not a manager. And for that we have a free eBook – The Owner’s Metric.