Starting a business is hard.
Being good at what you do isn't enough—you have to be good at everything you will need to do, and that's not always clear from the start.
As new entrepreneurs, Julie and I found ourselves wearing every hat imaginable—sales, marketing, procurement, HR, IT, accounting, forklift driving—you name it. Our goal from day one was simple: put in the hard work early, set things up right, and make the future easier... and more fun.
We didn’t have much time.
We were still working full-time jobs while trying to get Metal Pros off the ground. That meant juggling priorities and outsourcing where it made sense. One early lesson? Stop wasting time on things outside your expertise. We spent 20 hours designing a logo before hiring someone on Fiverr.com to do it better—for $5.
But for the critical stuff, we took full control.
Our ERP system is the best example. Rather than spending tens of thousands on consultants, we chose a cloud-based system with tons of built-in modules, a website builder, and free support. Cost? $120/month. We set it up, customized it, and learned it ourselves.
We learned by doing—not just reading.
Instead of reading business books, we talked to experienced entrepreneurs and absorbed everything they shared. I even found inspiration watching Tim Hortons’ staff workflows every morning.
The first few months were intense.
We spent that time finding a location, choosing our ERP, building templates and documents, applying for loans and grants, and creating our website and brand. Once we secured our warehouse, we quit our jobs, rolled up our sleeves, and did everything ourselves—from cleaning and painting to installing equipment and setting up operations.
We tackled marketing and sales head-on.
We taught ourselves Google Ads, built SEO into our site, cold-called prospects, and set up social media profiles. Most importantly, we dove into the world of metals—learning what to buy, how to sell, and who our customers were.
Hiring our first employee was another major milestone.
We quickly realized the responsibility of creating a good work environment, training effectively, and building a culture of engagement and growth.
From day one, we built a culture of continuous improvement.
We questioned every process and embraced change. We knew it’d be harder to implement improvements later, so we acted fast.
- Inventory orders are now automated by a report and a few clicks.
- Our weekly cash-out process shrunk from 3 hours to 45 minutes.
- Quoting started as a list, became a calculator, and is now embedded in our ERP.
- Outlook became our central tool for communication, tracking, and knowledge.
We respond fast.
We aim to reply to every customer within 30 minutes. To highlight this, we added email stamps like “Responded in less than 30 minutes”—letting customers know it’s intentional, not luck.
We went paperless.
Using a free app used by 50+ million people, we now track orders, offcuts, to-dos, and internal knowledge across over 10 devices. In the first month, we created 1,000+ lists. This app nearly doubled our productivity and became our internal Google Search.
To our knowledge, no one else in our industry uses it the way we do—making us true innovators.
The journey is far from over.
We recently hit 1,000 unique customers. We now understand how time- and knowledge-intensive it is to build something the right way. But by investing early, we’re still confident in our original plan:
Start strong, work hard, set things up right… and make the future easier—and a lot more fun.
Lessons and experiences of starting a small business