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Understanding Blockages and Opening Possibilities

One day Jim Huth was leaving his office at Sparrow Cowork and happened to walk by the office of a new co-working tenant, Chris Mikulin. Jim knocked on the door to say hi. “I asked Chris how he was doing” he recalls, “which triggered a larger conversation about his work and life in general.”

Chris explained that the current Manhattan-based digital marketing agency he was subcontracting to had the mantra: ‘do good work, don’t sleep.’ “Chris was spinning within that context, being driven to constantly work on projects that were not in alignment with his personal values,” continues Huth. “In short he was working all the time and burning himself out which led him to a position where he wasn’t really functioning anymore in his work or in his personal life.”

Jim came by my office one day and said ‘You’re a smart guy. You could start your own agency. Why don’t you?’ I didn’t know if I could. A year later we were up to 20 employees.

Chris Mikulin, founder of Kulin
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Chris Mikulin (right) and Sparrow Capital President Jim Huth (left) chat in the Gibbard Block common area

Taking Command of The Business

Jim then asked what it would look like if Chris’s context at work was more supportive and if that would allow him to have a healthier life. They quickly settled on the idea that Chris might be able to leave the agency. Jim suggested he look through the clients with whom he had a direct relationship to see if he had enough work to start his own agency. Chris did the math and figured out that he could do it—he had enough relational capital to set up his own contracts and work directly with his customers.

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Kulin’s focused, friendly marketing and culture led to rapid growth

Chris took the plunge and quit the agency. He then approached the people he knew and they gave him work. Out of that was born Kulin, which serviced clients needing digital marketing and e-commerce services. And, as it typically goes, when someone is doing good work for their clients, the clients refer them to others.

Kulin’s demand grew rapidly and Chris began to subcontract the work to other digital marketers to fulfill that demand.

It was in that context that Jim and Chris began to meet every six weeks or so to talk business strategy and how to structure Kulin’s operations. From those conversations, Chris implemented initiatives including employing people directly rather than subcontracting them, well-structured administrative processes, directing the abundance of cashflow that Kulin was generating towards capacity-development, curating the customer base to maximize value, and exiting customers when the value proposition wasn’t mutually beneficial.

But Jim and Chris also talked about life and what was really important to Chris—his role as a husband and a father, how to orient towards equanimity rather than anxiety, contentment and bringing attention inward, healthy life patterns, and developing a sense of perspective about what being a digital marketer and entrepreneur means and could mean.

Taking Command of One’s Life

Since that time, Kulin has brought on three partners who continued to grow the business. Ultimately Kulin outgrew Sparrow Coworking and moved into a full commercial lease. Beyond that, Chris recently exited his own company in a high-value sale, which has granted Chris the resources to turn his attention towards things that are most important to him.

Chris’s story embodies everything that Sparrow Capital is about: collapsing the dichotomy between work and life; helping people see that their work is their life and that their work needs to be structured in a way that is life giving rather than life sucking; and recognizing that entrepreneurial leaders, with a little bit of support, can have a transformation of their experience, not just with their work, but with their overall existence.

The entire process has been highly educational for Sparrow. Kulin grew so rapidly that Sparrow, at that time, could not keep pace. If Kulin’s growth happened today, Sparrow would have been able to offer additional commercial space, accounting and business services through Ordo, and a community of entrepreneurs to broaden the support from Jim to the entire Sparrow Network.

We believe that entrepreneurial leaders, with a little bit of support, can have a transformation of their experience, not just with their work, but with their overall existence.

Sparrow Capital Co-Founder, Jim Huth

Beyond in-house services, capital scale solutions could have included providing financing to allow Kulin’s partners to receive some liquidity while maintaining ownership of the company, thus keeping the company Edmonton-based and connected to the Sparrow Network; or it may have involved purchasing a building for the scale up of Kulin and sharing ownership through the Open Equity Partnership Framework. Ultimately, Sparrow aims to offer a full suite of resources to support entrepreneurs through the various phases of development of their operations. In the meantime, Sparrow Capital celebrates the explosive success of Kulin and continues to include Chris within the family of Sparrow’s community and events.

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