Aaron founded PNW Components with his wife, Emily, after seeing a hole in the market for quality bicycle components at reasonable prices. Growing up as an elite level downhill, dual slalom, and BMX racer, cycling has been in his blood for many decades. After working for Specialized Bicycles as a Product Developer of mountain bikes and P.Series bikes (such as P3 & P.Slope) then as Product Manager of Mountain Bikes for the 2016 Marin Bikes product line, he realized that the strong relationships he made over the years with top-level manufacturers were the gateway for delivering quality and value to customers. Aaron next worked as a software Product Manager and later in Global Business Development for Amazon's Global Sales team which taught him the ins and outs of selling successfully on Amazon. Leveraging these experiences, Aaron has set a foundation for PNW to source high-quality components, optimize online presence while keeping a keen eye on overhead costs all in the name of making high-quality components accessible to all customers.

In this episode: 

• Aaron and I take a trip down memory lane to our days at a tech start-up
• Discuss what Silicon Valley teaches us about leadership 
• Learn how Aaron and Emily went from side hustle to number 114 on the Inc. 5000 of fastest-growing companies. 
• How PNW Components' understanding of their customer helped build a new market that they were uniquely poised to serve. 
• Aaron's origin story and family history of Servant Leadership.
• We discuss building teams and checking our egos.