Plus, getting someone in is just part of the larger plan of getting to a point where none of us have to go to the warehouse on any given day. I think now we’re more comfortable saying that with one full time employee and 1-2 part timers we could do that and still grow. Now it’s just a matter of being prudent financially and not rushing into anything. Another good 6 months and we’ll be able to do it I think.

But a couple of half days packing boxes is probably better a boost to productivity, not a drain.

How much time do the owners spend in the warehouse?

Thanks for the comment. As stated in the post, I was working under the assumption that not every employee will pick things up quite as quickly. Regardless of whether the next 3 employees are just as good or only 50% as good, we’ve set up systems that make it easy to learn and hard (not impossible) to make mistakes. That was the point I was trying to make. Kind of like how McDonalds can plug any 16 year old in the world into their system and it works. They set up their employees for success.

Also, the other thing to remember is that we didn’t put those systems in place for our employees. We put them in place for us. We’ve shown over the last year that we can double in size, but make less mistakes and work less hours because the processes are more well defined. Those things just naturally extend to the employee. I think we’ve seen them work for the four of us and now a fifth person, so I don’t think that it’s a “rosy projection” to assume that it will work for #6, #7, and #8.

I’m not saying we won’t ever have an employee who doesn’t work out. Maybe they’ll be lazy or maybe they’ll steal from us, but that has more to do with the hiring process and not the actual operational systems we put in place. In some workplaces even good employees are destined to fail. I don’t think that’s the case with us.