Business with a Purpose

VRG Components’ multicultural workforce serves clients worldwide. But no matter how big the business gets, its founder will never forget where he came from.

THE MOST SUCCESSFUL entrepreneurs are driven by something more than revenue or profit margin. For Ruben Gutierrez, founder and CEO of VRG Components, a global supplier of electronic components, the driver is his past—and his desire to help others build a better future.

Gutierrez emigrated to the U.S. when he was a boy, from an impoverished town in Mexico. His parents worked hard to give Gutierrez chances they never got. He credits them for his work ethic and “underdog mentality.” The Gutierrez family was one of just a few Latino families living in Nashua, New Hampshire, where Gutierrez spent his teenage years. His childhood wasn’t always easy, but Gutierrez is quick to find the positive: because he has seen hard times, he is tenacious and strong. Because he has faced real challenges, he knows how to keep things in perspective.

Verena Martin, co-founder and COO of VRG Components, says that sales is in Gutierrez’s DNA. They founded the business together in 2014. Prior to that, Gutierrez was the top sales manager at an electronic components supplier. Both he and Martin wanted to build something of their own, something with a distinct company culture. “We wanted to give back,” explains Gutierrez. “We started this business so we could create a culture that gives other people a chance to achieve something with hard work and discipline.”

VRG Components was profitable year one, and it grew by 31 percent in its second year of business. From 2015 to 2017, its growth rate was 329 percent. It succeeds, in part, because Gutierrez and Martin complement one another so well. She handles operations and finances. He handles business development and sales. Together, they have built a multicultural, multilingual team that speaks 7 languages and supports clients in 38 countries. The ability to connect with so many customers in their native tongue has been key to long-term relationship building, says Gutierrez.

To the company’s advantage, there was, and is, a shortage in the global electronics market. Many manufacturing companies have a hard time identifying and sourcing enough product. This high demand has worked in VRG Components’ favor, especially since it excels at sourcing parts that are hard-to-find or obsolete. But Gutierrez says the real secret to their success is work ethic, culture, and their team-wide commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience.

Certainly, leading a fast-growing global business comes with challenges. Because VRG Components has clients all over the world, sales representatives have to work unconventional hours. Recruiting people willing to start their day at 3 a.m. isn’t easy, but Gutierrez tries hard to make it worth it by investing in their continual development and ensuring hard work is recognized and rewarded.

The VRG Components team has plans to grow in headcount and revenue. But Gutierrez is as passionate about his hopes to increase the company’s charitable work and to further support the Latino community by creating a scholarship program.

Gutierrez is grateful for his success, and he will never take it for granted. “I have had special people in my life who have mentored me, and I will never forget that, or where I came from,” he says. “The more successful I am, the more opportunities I have to give back.”

“Our mission is very strong: it’s to remove cars from the road, reduce traffic, reduce carbon emissions. Every city in the world could benefit from that.” —VanderZanden

“There’s already a lane for cars, there’s a lane for pedestrians, but there hasn’t been enough invested in this third lane,” says VanderZanden, discussing bike lanes as if he’d just invented them.

Tusk is currently lobbying in markets, like New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago, that explicitly ban e-scooters. Cracking these cities would yield enormous riches. In New York, the company is garnering political support from city council members by pitching its service as a way to help Gothamites deal with a 114-year-old subway system that is increasingly notorious for service delays.

Of course, Bird stands to reap benefits, should cities remodel themselves in the way VanderZanden suggests. “No one in this business that I know of is doing it to make an impact on carbon emissions, or improve the environment,” says Horace Dediu, founder of the Micromobility Summit, a new event centered on alternative transportation technologies. “Everyone is doing it because there’s a shitload of money in e-scooters.”

Short, single-occupancy car trips represent 80 to 90 percent of all automobile travel, says Dediu. If you target trips of five miles or less, in urban areas across the world, he says, “you can carve out about 30 percent of all the money in transportation. We’re talking trillions of dollars.”

The data confirms the seductive math behind the business. According to The Information, a Bird presentation to investors in June revealed that it was averaging $3.65 per ride and had 19 percent gross margins. In the same presentation, Bird said it was on its way to reducing costs per scooter from $551 to $360—a figure that includes importing the device and modifying it—which will help push gross margins to 33 percent. (Half the revenue from each Bird trip goes to its array of roving chargers; the company also pays freelance mechanics to fix broken scooters.) VanderZanden declined to update Inc. on Bird economics, aside from saying that unit economics have “dramatically” improved.

Such numbers, and the market size, help explain why rentby-the-minute e-scooter companies mushroomed from one to about a dozen in just over a year. It’s not just startups with cutesy names like Yellow (in Brazil), and Grin (in Mexico)—the giants are now coming in. Uber invested in Lime, and is adding e-scooters to its bikeshare company Jump; Lyft is similarly hedging bets by acquiring bikeshare company Motivate and rolling out Lyft-branded e-scooters. Razor, the iconic scooter manufacturer, has also launched its own rideshare business, and, in November, Ford bought Spin. Doubters looking for a