His company is in 150+ countries

A while back, I told you that if I were starting from scratch today, I wouldn’t build a tech startup. 

Not because I regret what I’ve done — because I’ve seen the hidden trade-offs that come with building in the venture-backed, software-first world.

• The pressure. 

• The headcount. 

• The endless need to raise money or die trying. 

The stress is brutal.

And look — stress isn’t an inherently bad thing in business. If you’re doing something important, you should feel stress.

But there’s good stress — and there’s bad stress. Bad stress is caused by all the arbitrary shit that adds weight to your shoulders without adding value to your work.

If you can create a business model that reduces your bad stress, and maximizes the impact of your good stress, it will probably look a lot like the company Michael Jacobs has built.

Michael’s business is global. His product is in over 150 countries, and his customers include major companies like HP, Bissell, and GE Appliances.

His profit margins are more than 40%.

And he doesn’t even touch his own product.

Anti… what?

Fresh out of Babson College (consistently ranked the best entrepreneurship school in the country), Michael Jacobs wasn’t hunting tech unicorns — he was looking for a problem to solve.

He was introduced to a steel mill that had developed an antimicrobial coating for metal. The coating could reduce corrosion, extend the product life, and offer peace of mind to buyers.

They’d spent millions trying to market it — with zero results. 

Michael saw the potential, but also saw the problem — they were selling into the wrong market. He offered to help, and (reasonably) asked for exclusivity if he brought in new customers. 

They said no. 

So he walked away, and decided to build it better himself.

Sureshield was born.

Connecting the dots

Michael first set out to find an antimicrobial partner. Then he found a coatings partner. 

He leaned on those experts to figure out how to combine those two elements in a way that could be easily added to the products other companies were already manufacturing. 

No new processes, no complicated implementation. Just a plug-and-play layer of value.

And then he started selling.

In some industries, microbes destroy materials. In others, they cause odors or discoloration. In many, they just make people uncomfortable. 

Michael sells different outcomes depending on who’s buying — longer product life, fewer returns, cleaner reputations, peace of mind.

Unlike most B2B founders, he didn’t try to sell what he had. He figured out what companies wanted to buy.

Michael didn’t invent anything. He didn’t create antimicrobials. He didn’t build his own manufacturing plants. He didn’t even touch inventory.

What he did was more impressive—

He connected dots that no one else was connecting.

And he earned global trust from some of the biggest companies

Do you have an HP laptop? A GE appliance? A Swingline stapler? It’s probably coated with Sureshield. 

And before that, it was coated with… nothing.

Michael worked with these companies to deeply understand the problems they were facing, then introduced the right antimicrobial coatings to address those problems.

He even facilitated the experiment that keeps your pristine white Apple earbuds from turning yellow after a few trips on the treadmill.

But I guarantee you’ve never heard of Michael, or his company—

Because he didn’t build a brand around a flashy product. He built a real company around solving a recurring problem.

Re-defining “lean”

Here’s what’s most impressive—

Michael did all of this without ever hiring a single employee.

His partners handle manufacturing, logistics, and testing. His customers handle distribution. 

He handles the relationships.

Which means he doesn’t just have a profitable business — he has time.

Michael coaches his son’s hockey team. He drives his daughter to dance class. He spends time pursuing his interests and helping other business owners.

If I were starting over, this is the kind of business I would build.

Not because it’s easier. (It’s not. Michael spent years just educating the market on what an antimicrobial is, and sales cycles can be brutally long.)

But because it’s more efficient. It has less bad stress, and more impact from the good stress.

This is what I wish more founders understood — you don’t have to invent something groundbreaking to build something great.

You just have to spot inefficiencies, and connect the dots.

A few lessons from Michael’s playbook:

• Don’t fall in love with your product. Fall in love with the problem. Michael didn’t care what he was selling — he cared whether it solved something real.
  

• Don’t build everything yourself. Find partners. Let them handle what they’re great at. Focus on what only you can do.
  

• Make adoption easy. Michael’s biggest win was making it simple for companies to layer Sureshield into their existing products. No new processes. No extra headaches.
  

• Start boring. Antimicrobials aren’t sexy. But you know what is? Profitable partnerships with global brands.
  

• Own the customer relationship. Even though he doesn’t manufacture or ship anything, Michael owns the trust. That’s where the value is.

—

Most people want to be the inventor. They want to build the rocket.

Michael built the launchpad.

–Aleksandr

P.S. — If you need to hire software developers, avoid some of that bad stress, and let my team help you find the best one for your needs.

Catch you next Sunday!