Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jay Buys. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jay, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

Being a business owner is a roller coaster, both exhilarating and terrifying. In the last week, I’ve dealt with a payroll company that just forgot to run our payroll, a health insurance broker who calculated all of our employee deductions incorrectly, and spent hours getting the run around while trying to get proof of our business insurance (which we pay a lot of money for) to give to our bank.

In weeks like this, it feels like all I do is put out fires and deal with the incompetence of other companies that are supposed to help our business. Sometimes I wonder if it’d be simpler to just have a regular job, but then I remember all of the drama that comes with that.

At the end of the day, I’m much happier that I at least have some control and autonomy over what happens in my job and that, even on the worst days, I know I won’t be randomly laid off by a company that only cares about maximizing shareholder value.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I grew up a computer nerd, and for as long as I can remember, I just wanted to be a computer programmer. I studied that in school and was fortunate enough to land a job doing what I loved after college. I quickly discovered, however, that just writing code wasn’t enough. I wanted to be working with organizations creating a real impact in the world.

My first company, Visceral, was founded because my business partner and I wanted a healthier work lifestyle (as opposed to the grueling 60-to-70-hour weeks in the corporate world) and because we wanted to work with better clients.

We’re proud of the fact that we now have 100% mission-driven clients and work with some of the largest nonprofits and philanthropies in the world. We’ve also been a certified B Corporation for 10 years, part of our commitment to run a better type of business.

I also recently co-founded a social enterprise apparel company called Fervor & Zeal (also a certified B Corp) that donates 50% of all profits to support artists and nonprofit organizations.

I’m a big believer that business can (and should) be a force for positive change in the world, and I’m grateful to work with so many people focused on doing meaningful work.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Honesty and transparency, full stop.

People don’t like being kept in the dark, being lied to, being micro-managed, etc., etc. When you bring people into the process, treat them like adults, and give them autonomy to do their work, you get better results. It’s that simple.

We are, for example, transparent about our finances, and we have a profit pooling system that shares a substantial portion of our company’s profits with the team. They’re not working hard to make the owners rich. They’re working hard to build a company that takes care of them in return.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

We built Visceral slowly, one client at a time. It started with weekend freelance projects, and we did such good work that word got around. We got to a point where it was hard to do both the full-time job and the side hustle, so we made the decision to quit our day jobs and go all in on our business.

We were still slow and intentional, never biting off more than we could chew at one time, and we never wanted to be beholden to investors or risk defaulting on a loan, so we did our best to grow methodically year over year.

What started as side projects whenever we could squeeze them in morphed into bringing on some contractors to help out and then hiring our first employee, opening our first office, being able to provide healthcare to our team and their families, and working with some of the most impactful organizations on the planet.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thisisvisceral.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisvisceral/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/visceral-llc/
• Other: https://fervorandzeal.com/