James Minutello’s vision has taken this company from zero to $150 million in eight years. He describes the journey.

James Minutello describes himself as the quintessential entrepreneur, complete with that job description’s strengths and weaknesses. “Entrepreneurs aren’t known for their structure as much as their vision and their tenacity,” said the founder, president, and CEO of AGI Logistics. “It’s about creating oneself each day and going after a vision, more than the approach that leads to administration or a background in connect-the-dots—I create the dots as we go.”

Those dots have led to a company that in eight years has grown to about $150 million in annual revenue with more than 150 service locations worldwide, 42 of which are the company’s own offices, located throughout Asia and the US. Based in Jamaica, NY, the freight forwarder and logistics services provider opens a new office almost every month, its president said.

Minutello, who founded the company in 1999, talks a lot about vision and says it’s what guides the company’s culture. The vision for AGI is to be the best logistics provider in the industry, Minutello said. “Everything else will take care of itself if we can focus on being that.”

A successful entrepreneur, Minutello said, is a visionary. “I’m extremely strategic and analytical, but I’m not detail oriented in the way of getting hung up on things that are going to slow me down,” he said.

James Minutello

Still, visionaries need good administrators to run a growing business, Minutello acknowledged. “As soon as you want to create multiple locations, a brand name, a systemic existence, the entrepreneur must give way to the management aficionado, the stabilizer,” he said. “I believe it’s best to focus on what you do well, and then surround yourself with high-quality individuals who have strengths you don’t have.”

Valuable lesson
Minutello learned a valuable lesson from a previous venture: when you have a vision, it’s best to start alone. “Partners that begin together don’t bring the same sense of responsibility and assets into the company,” he said. And even when they do start with the same goals, those goals tend to diversify over time.

With AGI, he tried a new approach. “I fought back the urge to bring in partners early on,” he said. “I stayed with sole ownership for a time, then I released shares to people who helped the company grow.”

That way, he could choose people who shared his vision as the company evolved. “A company doesn’t have an identity in the beginning,” he explained. “The tangible vision and the culture come later in the lifecycle. How can you know who’s going to be the right cog without that identity?”

Developing a unified culture is one of the greatest challenges for any new business, Minutello said. “With phenomenal growth, you’re bringing in a lot of people into the family. It’s like having 20 babies at a time rather than one,” he explained. “At the top of the company, one would expect to find leaders and people who are passionate. The difference between a good company and a great company is having that good leadership and culture flow throughout the company at each level.”

Merit system
One way he nurtures this is by giving his employees autonomy. Employees are paid based on merit, receiving bonuses when they succeed. “And they are affected if they do not achieve the goals,” Minutello said.

Minutello has recruited top professionals with his merit system, he said. “We outsmart the guy with the bigger wallet. The people we get come here because they feel they will be rewarded by building the company. With a 50- or 100-year-old business, you’re managing, rather than building, the company. With a young company, you’re actually building. We’re finding the person who wants to build.”

The youth and smaller size of AGI has proved to be an asset in other ways as well. “We’re not a 100-year-old company that’s been doing things a certain way for all those years,” Minutello said. “A businessman who is not an entrepreneur may be concerned with changes in the market, whereas an entrepreneur will feel that there’s opportunity in change. Not everyone will keep up with the pace.”

He offered the example of perishables. “Someone who has fish or bananas or fresh flowers has a perishable that’s worthless if it doesn’t get to the consumer in time. The difference between now and 20 years ago is, we deem all commodities as perishable. A seasonal item like a beach umbrella, a sweater or a bathing suit, even a computer part. Everything is a perishable.”

To keep up with it all, Minutello’s days often start early and run late into the night. In between, it’s hard to catch up with him. He says it’s all part of the job. “Being an entrepreneur is a lifestyle rather than a business etiquette,” he said.

“It’s like the Tasmanian Devil. It’s okay to be the Tasmanian Devil, as long as the Tasmanian Devil acknowledges that he or she is the Tasmanian Devil and surrounds themselves with a structure that doesn’t implode in that organized chaos.”

Deborah Geering, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , is a freelance writer based in Atlanta.