Bill Canady: what does it take to build a great American business in some of Asia's toughest markets and turn growth into business that lasts? I'm Bill Canady and this is the Thousand Day CEO. Today I'm joined by Glenn Grow, founder and CEO of Innovasia, a company that provides textiles, wall coverings, and acoustic solutions for commercial interiors. We're going to talk about the decisions behind his journey, earning trust, choosing where to compete, and build a team across borders. Glenn, welcome.

Glenn Grow: Thank you, Bill. Nice to be on your show. Thank you.

Bill Canady: Well, it's exciting to have you on here. We were talking earlier, about working all over the world and how people, process, technology, is really your secret sauce, how you put that together. And I can't wait to learn more. take me to a moment when building Innovasia Became much harder than you expected.

Glenn Grow: interesting question. Yeah, there's so many moments like that, but I'll give you the the steps leading up to that moment first. I did it opposite than many young men do in their careers. Some will join the military, some join a big corporation and climb the corporate ladder. I I immediately went overseas when I was twenty-four years old. just a nutcase for wanting to go overseas and work overseas. And I had this idea of working in Japan. I had a a one year fellowship post grad and then had a sales job, started my own business in the textile industry, which was related to the sales job I had selling carpet tile. And within about two three years, I would say, I linked into a very large a whale of a customer. and this is one of the big furniture manufacturers from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who has had furniture factories all over Asia. And I had our products are materials, woven textiles for office chairs, for cubicles, partitions. It seems pretty simple, right? But this big company was their headquartered, the Asia headquarters was in Tokyo, and they had problem after problem after problem. And this was my first lessons, how to solve problems for big companies. For example, they were acquiring factories, building furniture in say Thailand or China or places like that. And they would promise their customers, who was Fortune 500 offices basically, they would promise to deliver furniture at a certain date and time and location, and the fabrics from different plants didn't match. So I made

Bill Canady: Mm.

Glenn Grow: a pitch to this company and said, Hey, here I am, American, I get it. I understand what you need for quality, I understand your customers. I, you know, we speak the same language, American testing, blah, blah, blah. What would you do if I solve that problem for you with my little company, US and Japan? And we built up warehousing around your plants and supplied you just in time. We make all your sampling, solve the non matching color issue. And solve that issue for you. A week later, they came back and said, Hell yeah, let's do it. And then

Bill Canady: Ha ha.

Glenn Grow: that was my moment. I was like, I don't mean to spoil the podcast, but shit, now what do I do? Now really I have to like deliver. And I had to set up an office in Thailand. Actually, we already had started one there, but then immediately in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. But this Big company, Fortune 500 furniture manufacturer, then would give my company the base grade volume of all their textiles in their plants. And so it was a gare is an anchored customer, it's my Walmart card. So that would you know launched us to be a small multinational company. So you with you know not the assets of a big bench of managers or a lot of financial backing suddenly you had to do these cross-border multinational transactions and currencies and just in time inventory and all these things. It really catapulted us into a multinational service company. And we did it. And so that was sort of the anchor of our growth after you know starting out in Japan. so that was just one story, but I have many others, like a few that really are relative to Japan as well. I tell you another one real fast, Bill. Okay.

Bill Canady: Absolutely. I'm I love this.

Glenn Grow: The so in you know Japan is a millennia multi millennia old civilization, right? So four thousand, six thousand years longer. There's a a form of payment called a tegata, which is really a Promissory note. And so if you sell your products, To a big company in Japan, chances are that they may pay you with a 90-day note. So here I am, little old American setting up in Japan. And you, you know, I was importing American-made textiles. It's like selling coals to Newcastle, importing American-made textiles, which are different and they're high quality, great designs. Then we imported some from Europe. So we had all these interesting materials. We show them to designers, show them to architects, they love them and they specify it on furniture or for for a hotel, let's say. So then the purchase order comes in and it's from a big Japanese furniture company. Great. Perfect. The payment terms are a hundred and twenty day tegata. So so I've already spent sixty days floating it over here on a boat, put it in the warehouse,

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Grow: you know, so you're out the money. And this happens like every month. So when it's small business, here you go, you're starting, you know, maybe a hundred thousand dollars a month your first year, then it goes to about a million a month, whatever. And so it took me about four years before, as a foreigner with no Japanese wife, no real estate, none of the other assets that my Japanese competitors had, to four years to get a line of credit with the bank who actually issued the tegatas, who would then discount those. for cash. So I could then take my payment of 90 day note, bring it to the bank, and they would pay it off less than, you know, less a few percentage points. But if in those 90 days

Bill Canady: Like an early form of factoring.

Glenn Grow: Yeah. And if the issuer goes bankrupt, then I am liable for that note during those 120 days or 90 days. But that's not the interesting part of the story. What did I do in those four years? Of course, the three Fs Friends, family, and fools. You talk to them first to get, you know, raise all the money you can for your company. Then I went to these non-financial companies who are a little bit on the edge between sort of the Yakuza or the kind of the outside the banking system. You could send them a a fax or copy of the Te Gata. They'd say, Okay, come on over. You walk in the door, this small office. First thing they do is they they take your picture with the man the salesman in case you try to wiggle out. Then they would take the notes and say, perfect, we'll give you cash for it. And they take a higher percentage, give you cash for it. So every month I would go to one of these companies and deposit, give them one or two hundred thousand dollars worth of these tegatas. I'd put it in a McDonald's bag and hop on the train and go back to the office. Or go to the bank directly to the bank with a couple hundred thousand dollars in a briefcase or bag, you know, and just go to the bank and directly deposit it. And so after enough times they saw this happening, the bank finally said, All right, you're legit. Now, 25, 30 years later, you know, I don't even see these tegatas. It automatically we can hold them, we have cash, we can do whatever we want, and it's you know, multi-million dollar enterprise now. But just those first years, it it was one of those things you never have to experience in the US. I mean there's factoring and other others, but these this unique system of payments that is I wasn't prepared for it honestly, but we made it through. And that was one of many challenges like that.

Bill Canady: That's an amazing story. What'd you see in the market that made you start Innovasia in the first place?

Glenn Grow: there's so many things that were not available. this was during the Reagan years. Nakasone was the prime minister. There were just so many products that were not available. we imported two by four houses. We we built four homes in Japan. It was very different than the post and beam style in Japan they use. Two by four is new. We could panelize them, containerize them, and build them, but we weren't well capitalized at the time to do that. So we found other products, but it kept going back to textiles, which were very limited. And something as simple as, new materials that are made like with a pattern on them. There was nothing in a Japanese office that indicated any kind of pattern or unique. Colors. Everything was a shade of gray. There was rose gray, blue-gray, green gray, but it was kind of dull. So it was a huge opportunity just to introduce some flair. And, you know, why not? It was off the shelf, move it from point A, country A, America, to country B, Japan, and resell it at a premium. And it works. And they would buy it. So I started doing that. And I realized that. Italians see orange a little different than Americans and Japanese. So I would import from Italy or from Sweden or other places. All these interior materials. And eventually we have a real business where we're selling to architects and building the demand. And then we can introduce innovation, you know, innovative products for Asia is how we came up with Innovasia, our companies, you know, innovative products

Bill Canady: Okay.

Glenn Grow: to or for Asia. So we would find specialty American innovation. For example, there's a fabric called Crypton, made from they call it superfabric, inspired by Kryptonite from Superman, but it really is it's waterproof, stain release, antimicrobial antibacterial that can sell it to hospitals, to restaurants, and it cleans right up, and all this very simple and really has become the standard in the US in the 1900s. Late nineties and two thousands. So we would just take it off the shelf, bring it to Japan, and suddenly create a market for antimicrobial fabrics. And then COVID hits and all this, and suddenly there's a real demand for these kind of simple, you know, just by keeping an eye out as an American, what products are in our innovative society, and then bringing it overseas. There it is, and we can sell it.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Grow: And that's the business model that we've used. Rather than reinventing the wheel, re designing everything. Just take what we think might work, throw it against the wall, so to speak. it's it's like how we got into our acoustic business, which is probably our most profitable now throughout the re the region. You know, the stadium seating in a big 15plex cinema is definitely an American concept. You go to any suburban neighborhood in the United States in any city, And you'll see AMC, you'll see all these cinemas. So why not bring that to Japan? And of course, who did? Warner Brothers. They were the first studio out of the out of London to bring that concept to Japan. And they were using textiles on the walls, which were transparent to sound, which I carried in stock. So we speak English. These guys on the job site said, Hey, can you supply these fabrics? I said yes. Can you supply sound absorbing materials? I look for it. A week later, yes. Can you supply labor? Yes. Before long, we have an acoustic division. We're building out cinemas. And that's the way entrepreneurs work. It just happened to be in Japan. But again, just like the prior story, we're solving a problem for a customer. We're all overseas. We're all doing work in a new environment. And to find a friendly face who can solve problems for you is golden. And that's what we did. And today that acoustic business remains our little profit engine, certainly in Japan and now throughout Asia, China as well. So it's it's just been a story of really taking our innate Americanness, looking at American products, American innovation, what's out there, and then removing that American blinder and thinking, will this work in Asia? How do the Japanese think? it's too big. Well, we could maybe reduce the size of it. Or, you know, maybe these colors are too bright. Well, we can introduce some duller colors or earth tones, whatever. And then selling it, bringing it from country A to country B, selling it with excellence in local currency, with great support staff and clarity. And that's kind of all we do. It's been a really fun ride.

Bill Canady: I tell you, that's a lot to do. One of the cores to success, particularly a business such as yours that does business internationally across so many different areas in the world is trust. And to get trust, you really have to be excellent at what you do, right? It's about delivering what you you do. Tell us what makes you special that really allows customers to depend on you and trust you that they that that they're going to get exactly what they need.

Glenn Grow: trust is probably the single word which will determine your success working in Asia, maybe everywhere as well, but particularly in Asia. And the cross-cultural component is just one of many layers that binds and separates the economies and the cultures of Asia. And so working in there, the first Lesson for me was being present, being there, showing up, moving, moving the family, move the wife, do what it takes, be there and and enjoy it. Don't think about things that you miss from home. Think about what you can enjoy there. And when the people around you see you participating and honoring their culture, that's where the trust begins. And then it's Not always my way or the highway, but having enough respect to say, listen, this is the way we do it. Will this work? If not, please tell me if I'm gonna embarrass myself. I remember in a meeting I I had with a bunch of cinema or railroad executives, they were gonna build a a s a cinema on top of our train station near Kyoto, Japan. And I forgot to use the word san, you know how like you say, Bill san when they would address

Bill Canady: Yeah.

Glenn Grow: Mr. Bill. But if you forgot to use the word san when talking about someone's company. So I was making this presentation and and I didn't use san after their company's name. I was talking about their company, my company, and use honorifics and this and that. But I when I mentioned their company, no, I didn't say san after it. But I'm the foreigner and they could make a excuse, like, he's a foreigner. But afterwards, you know, one of my colleagues said, look. This is something you gotta correct now. And so my willingness to listen, to correct my Japanese, and said, Thank you, I appreciate that. And I there's a lesson I'll never forget. It's a simple thing, but that's the first part of trust. Then you can build that in one country, then you go to say Hong Kong or China, it's a completely different culture and very different in Malaysia. You have competing cultures and many of these. And so you meet each one of these in a certain capacity of respect, listening, and you show up and you're here to share, but really I'm here to listen and to help solve your problems. And that enabled me then to hire people to pass on that methodology or the way to then create a network which is truly unique to Innovasia to our company. That is that if you are a a big user of let's say a hotel chain or one of the international chains and need services regionally throughout Asia, we can deliver not only with materials installation, we can fabricate curtains, headboards, wall covering, these kinds of things, and install it. And often the specifier, the furniture manufacturing, the project executives, and investors are in three or four different places. And the operating company might be in London or somewhere else. So to seamlessly have a salesperson, say in Singapore, who's calling on an architect, For a major hotel, which will be in Bali, but the furniture becoming from J somewhere else like China, yet the investors are from Japan. All that ties in and having an organization where each of us knows our spot. Each will get paid within the company for doing their job, and it's all wrapped up in a strategic way, which makes it easier for the customer to make decisions and solve problems and Build their project. We like to have that wow factor. We when hotels, you you love to go in a hotel room and it shocks your your wife, right? It's this is so gorgeous. Thank you. Everyone loves that feeling. And that's really the point where we know we've done a good job. When we can fulfill the designer's wish. The designer has an image, they want that. Keep the good stuff in, import it, install it, make it beautiful. Yeah, and that's very satisfying. So we've gone to even full furniture, full resorts, you can set it up that way. And that's kind of the secret sauce which has made our company successful throughout Asia. And we've now duplicated that in Latin America, also very underserved markets starting in Central

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Grow: America, Costa Rica, then moving into South America as well. So I you know, as an American, it's yes, I'm a three million miler on United Airlines, almost four, but it's been so worth the journey because they're you know, no one really knows what I do back home because they're always I'm always away. And you know, n not many of my Asian colleagues or Costa Rica or other colleagues know a life in America, so it's almost like you have dual lives, however, it's been so rewarding because you can build structures and business and employ families you know for generations now in Asia and it's a sustainable long term business that will last and it's very satisfying.

Bill Canady: That is extraordinary to put together something. It's something you can't do overnight at all. what kind of decisions can your local leaders make without without having to call you?

Glenn Grow: It I set it up obviously it starts at the very bottom about local management. And you a a human can only do so much themselves. Even with technology, with Zoom calls, whatnot, it just doesn't make sense for for me to try to hang over and and dictate top-down management. It's just not my style. And so I have completely handed over. Except for the big decisions, most of our businesses, the day-to-day management of them. what does that mean? It's not my job with Andy, my partner, is to set up the guardrails and the systems. So we select the vendors in general, not all the Asian vendors, but we s select all the European North American vendors, and we set the product standards. So we set the standards for what needs to be tested, needs to be approved, what needs to be printed and shown and guaranteed. Then we set up the ERP system, all accounting, GAAP accounting. It can have multi-currency, multi-language, but it's got to roll up into consolidation that's readable by any accounting professional, any management professional. So we set all that up with the controls on banking and whatnot. And then You hire good people and and all of our managers, the top managers today, started like as a textile inspector or a acoustic wall installer, and they worked their way up into the management role today. And it's you know, who better is there to to know the people? And so then that someone who's worked up through the system and built relationships and colleagues. And so I can very easily then hand over the day-to-day operations of them and have enough give and take. I trust you, you're gonna criticize me when I'm due for criticism, but you will also accept my criticism and you will we will agree to disagree politely and then ultimately I will set the strategic direction with your guidance, but I will set that direction. And you will run as fast as you can within these guardrails. And that's the that's the model we've tried to set up. Does it always work? No. Sometimes they get too s spread too thin. Sometimes you don't have the controls in place for for you know salespeople or accounting people cheating a little bit here and there, and we've caught a few people. You you just can't have all the oversight that you always need, but by and large, if you find the right people in the right places. That makes all the difference. So

Bill Canady: What's the most expensive lesson that you've learned about growing internationally?

Glenn Grow: yeah, there there have been many. Probably the many o entrepreneurs fall in the trap of Of trying, you know, doing things before the financing is in place. And then when the you don't get to the point of profitability or cash flow neutral in time, you start reaching into your own pocket. And I've done that time and time again. And and you know, you end up being more of a burden to yourself than the company really should be. And I, you know, I've stopped doing that, but it takes Some discipline to say, well, let's not plunge forward just because it's a great opportunity. let's make sure, let's go very slowly and make sure that we can fund it as we go. Sometimes, you know, I'm a ready fire aim guy in many ways. I will just make a decision and then worry about the consequences later and figure it out, figure it out as I go. And usually, usually it works out, but sometimes it doesn't. And, you know, I'm rightly. criticized by some of our managers for that. And

Bill Canady: Ha ha ha

Glenn Grow: you know, and Andy, my brother, is just the opposite. He's very conservative. We have a great yin and yang management style. So he says that I make the messes and he cleans them up, which is not altogether untrue. But on the other hand, I I get us there, take the risks, introduce new products and set up new offices and businesses. But I've done them now at a pace that's a little more realistic. And I've in had more

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Grow: buy-in from relevant managers who I can rely on for experience. And it it's just smarter. And you can't be a gunslinger all your life. Early on, yes, but no, you you need to be deliberate. So that's been an expensive lesson for me. You know, whether I ever get all of my investment out of the company one day, I hope I will. But if not, I'm certainly rich in experience. So that's kind of my

Bill Canady: Yeah. A wife a life

Glenn Grow: My story.

Bill Canady: well well lived. It brings up a really interesting thing I like to ask is if you if you were to start it over again, right, if you were building it today, but you know today what you didn't know then, right, what would you do different in your your first hundred days?

Glenn Grow: Well, I think I would I would anchor it in a major market like the US or Europe first. Because the you just can't really until you've worked in Asia, you can't understand how fortunate we are to have the US economy and the US market in our back door here. And many of the competitors and brands that are built in the US Then could go worldwide. It's much more difficult to build a brand, say, in Asia and bring it to the US. There's skepticism about, made in China or made in Asia, and there's questions. But if it's a brand that, you know, straight out of New York or something, it's it has a lot more panache. There's a pecking order in the marketing world. it's not universal, but it could be easier had we s started in the US, got some qualified. Branding cred, street cred, and then bring it overseas and march forward. But that really was is a different model than we did. We instead we picked up some great American brands and sold them as partners, as a partnership. So it kind of those early years of of solid branding, which then can transcend markets, kind of escaped us because we were co-branded sometimes with. other products and we became really the service provider rather than the brand. And that's one thing that I probably would do differently now than if I had started up now with with had had designs for an international organization, international business, I'd probably make sure that it's anchored and and plus cash flow and scale. You need the US market also for scale. So

Bill Canady: Yeah.

Glenn Grow: easier to have an offshoot in Asia than make Asia your scaling playground, so to speak, that you know, that we just did it backwards in many ways, which makes us unique and very deeply involved in our markets there. As a we completely own them in some ways. but it it leaves us empty handed when we come to the US, what can we sell here? Well, we would step on the toes of some of our partners here. We cannot sell that much unless we just break ties and really do it independently everywhere. Which we may one day, so

Bill Canady: Hm. By day one thousand, what would have to be true for you to consider it a success, given what you did the first hundred days?

Glenn Grow: whether you've gotten the steps in place where you could then pause and have a vision of how you can replace yourself and then duplicate it and then duplicate it and duplicate it. I always like to tell managers or even salespeople like find someone who wants to hire an assistant, let's say a salesperson, hire an assistant who one day will replace you because then you will replace this manager, and then the manager will become a vice president, and so on, and so on. And so that's I think when you get in that position where you can replace yourself and extract yourself from the day to day by day of one thousand, then it's good if you could do it by then. In many ways we s stick with our businesses, especially as entrepreneurs or founders, you want to just hold on to your baby, but that's often you then would be the biggest roadblock to growth. So get out of the way, put the systems in place as best you can and You look after cash flow, you look after the well being of the corporate entity and as a whole, and then go do something else. At least that's what I I think. Go make, you know, start a new division or spend time with your wife or something else.

Bill Canady: Absolutely. Well, you have such a unique skill set being a founder, getting in it from nothing, that zero up to one, which is a company, you've done a magnificent job with that. And and to to it it's just folks can can learn so much from you. As you know, our audience is sitting CEOs, private equity, things like that. What's the one piece

Glenn Grow: Mm-hmm.

Bill Canady: of advice around action that you'd give a CEO listening to stay? What should they go do on Monday morning?

Glenn Grow: I think honestly, for me, you know, be grateful for what you have right now and and try to do less of it better. That's one thing that I've learned is we have to say no more often. We to do what you do well and set boundaries, I periodically try to look back at my life and say, how can I do less and make it work better? I just, for example, recently appointed for the first time in 30 years a president of our Japan operations. And it feels great. I'm still a director, but I don't have to run the day to day or even look after that, or even pretend to. And it got to be that all the local employees were looking up to this gentleman anyway. Because he was there day to day, day in, day out. so that would be my one thing. It's it's really advice to myself is to look at yourself, what can you do less of better?

Bill Canady: it's eighty twenty, right? Focus on the critical few things that make a difference and let the rest of it go, right? So where where can

Glenn Grow: Yeah.

Bill Canady: our listeners learn more about you and Innovasia? And if they're interested in getting getting partners in Asia, how how do they get a hold of you, Glenn?

Glenn Grow: Well our our website is a good spot. It's Innovasia dot com. That's literally the word Innovation plus Asia. Jumble it together, Innovasia. and that's the best place. And I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram as well. So anytime anybody wants to reach out, we're always looking for Mentors or people that are co conspirators in this big game of international world domination, as my my brother and partner says. Conquer the world, he says jokingly as as I go out there and spend his money, you know, opening a new office somewhere. I'm happy to reach out to anybody.

Bill Canady: So well Glenn, thank you for joining me today and sharing your story behind Innovasia. It is shocking what you've been able to put together. It's it's a monumental challenge and you've really made it look easy. For everyone listening, take one idea

Glenn Grow: Well thank you, Bill.

Bill Canady: from today's conversation and put it to work this week. we'll include Glenn's information in the show notes. It'll be right down below. You can click on it, find his website now to get a hold of him. Follow the Thousand Day CEO for more conversations about building stronger, more valuable businesses. You can find our free business tools at the8020institute.com, just forward slash free tools. So I'm Bill Canady. Make every day count. Thanks for joining us again, Glenn.

Glenn Grow: Thank you, Bill. Take care.