Peter Nam is unique for starting not just one successful brand but two. After graduating from Boston University with a degree in finance, he struggled to find a job in his field immediately following the burst of the dot-com bubble. Instead of continuing his fruitless search, Peter decided to launch a passion project selling high-quality carbon-fiber parts for European vehicles. Over 20 years later, Vorsteiner remains an innovative force in crafting aerospace-grade carbon components for exotic and high-performance vehicles.
Having been passionate about cars since childhood, Peter realized that modern cars were quickly losing their character and were overburdened with technology. In response, he founded Gunther Werks in 2017. Zeroing in primarily on the Porsche 993 platform, Gunther Werks completely reimagines the 993 to perfectly blend modern technology with an analog driving experience. Today, Gunther Werks is well-known across the automotive world for pushing the boundaries of performance and bringing back the joy of driving with its meticulously crafted and highly sought-after vehicles, such as the Turbo, F-26 and the GWX.
On this episode of the “Only The Strong Survive” podcast, Peter discusses what it was like to build two successful businesses from the ground up and the vital lessons he learned along the way.
Click on the icon above to hear the entire insightful interview with host Dan Kahn, and here are our top five takeaways from the discussion:
Success never comes easy.
Entrepreneurship involves wearing many “hats.”
Learning on the job and rapidly adapting is a key to success.
Efficiently producing a product will be your biggest challenge.
Don’t count on people changing their ways.
Expect to Struggle
Most people only see Vorsteiner’s current state as a highly successful brand. However, like many startups, there was a long struggle to get Vorsteiner where it is today. Success never comes easy, and you should expect plenty of adversity along the way. If you don’t like struggling, then entrepreneurship probably isn’t for you.
“It was quite a struggle, actually, trying to penetrate the market where people were used to buying from high-end German tuning brands, and here I was, an American-based brand, trying to make products for BMWs,” said Peter. “It was a struggle to convince people that our brand and our products were on the same level as our competitors. It took years for us to break through and penetrate that market.”
Expect to Wear Lots of Hats
Unless you have significant financial backing for the launch of your brand, you will have to fill many roles yourself. In its earliest days, Vorsteiner was essentially a one-person operation, with Peter handling product design, shipping, invoicing and everything else to keep the lights on. Even as the company grew, there wasn’t the budget for financial or management specialists. Peter had to fill these roles himself and try to learn on the fly.
“We were very lean top-down. It was mostly manufacturing and operational staff that I hired. I couldn’t go out and hire a CEO or CFO for $100,000 or $200,000 a year,” said Peter. “We didn’t have the budget for that, so I basically had to wear those hats myself and have people who were manufacturing the products and doing the operations and shipping to support me. I had to wear a lot of hats both operationally and management-wise in my earlier years, and I had honestly no idea what I was doing.”
On-the-Job Learning
Launching what was essentially a low-volume, high-performance bespoke car company with Gunther Werks was definitely a new direction for Peter. Hiring engineering experts and other specialists was a massive help in bolstering the areas where Peter needed specialized knowledge. However, a significant factor in Gunther Werks’ success was Peter and his team’s ability to quickly learn on the job and rapidly adapt.
“There is no book you can read from Barnes & Noble about how to build a car company. You have to learn on the job. Even if I were to work in the finance field and investment banking, just because I have a finance degree, it doesn’t mean anything,” said Peter. “Most of the learning actually happens on the job. You have to adapt and constantly be learning and constantly improving your processes. It is a never-ending process. I am learning every single day, and the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”
One-offs are Easy, Production is Not
Most startups have a hyper focus on developing the products they will sell. However, Peter notes that the challenge isn’t coming up with a product or prototype, but rather how to produce it efficiently and on a large enough scale to make a profit. While they are entirely different products, the hard-fought production lessons that Peter learned with Vorsteiner were critical to the success of Gunther Werks.
“When you are building a concept car or a proof of concept or a show display vehicle, anybody can do that in their mom’s garage. It is actually not very difficult for me to build a one-off concept car. It is actually productionizing that car, which is really an incredibly painful challenge,” said Peter. “It is so difficult, and this is where most of the car builders fail. They build a one-off car, and they don’t know how to productionize it and make money doing it. This is why you see so many car builders, a majority of them, fail after two to three years.”
Don’t Try to Change People
One painful lesson that Peter has learned through hiring people for both his companies is that people don’t really change. While most of us want to mentor and develop employees, it can be nearly impossible if the person is unwilling or unable to change. For Peter, holding onto substandard employees with the hope that they might one day change their ways is a recipe for failure.
“One of the things I have learned from hiring hundreds of employees for both of my companies is that it is very difficult to change somebody. I thought, ‘Okay, he could work out, and I can change him and mold him into what I want him to be.’ I would say that is almost always a recipe for disaster,” said Peter. “I think that is the biggest mistake I have made when dealing with poor-performing employees who didn’t have the right vision, and I thought I could change them. I wasted many years trying to mold these people, and it just didn’t work out in the end.”
