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The Leader's Mindset: Build the Team Before the Dream

Published on

Big visions don’t happen without strong teams. In this video, Kenny shares the early days of Neon Brand and the mindset that drove its growth. From the very first meeting at Casa Don Juan, the mission wasn’t just to build websites and marketing campaigns—it was to build a “dope team” that could one day take on its own projects.

That philosophy meant constant reinvestment in people, often at personal sacrifice. Even with a 15-person team, Kenny made little money because every dollar went back into building talent, culture, and capability. The takeaway: before chasing the dream, invest in the team. Because when the right people are in place, the dream can’t help but follow.

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leadership mindsetbuild the teamentrepreneurship lessonsstartup growthneon brand storyinvest in peopleteam before dreambusiness leadershipculture building

Transcript

So when I first started Neon Brand, I even remember the first meeting. Was at Casa Don Juan right over here on Main Street. I was with Chad, and one of the things we talked about was Chad. I told him was, look, I wanna build a dope team that builds cool marketing and cool websites for everybody with the eventual goal of someday taking that dope team and putting them on our own project. That was the goal from the beginning. And so our initial plan with getting to that goal had always been for those first ten years almost was reinvest in the team. Reinvest in the team. Reinvest in the team all the time. Like, I when we were at fifteen people, I was making embarrassingly little money. Like, it was all about building the team.