American millionaire earns money by doubling his wages and Harvard studies it as a successful case

Dan Price is a 36-year-old American businessman who in 2015 made a radical change in his business. And for it to be recorded, he summoned The New York Times and the news of the NBC. This Monday, April 13, 2015, Price said that for three years, his 130 employees at Gravity Payments would earn 70 thousand dollars per year (the average was 35 thousand) And that from the start he was charging the same himself, and not a million hundred thousand dollars.

In the American establishment announcing the parody of meritocracy, Dan Price’s financial challenge has not gone unnoticed. In a matter of hours, NBC’s video recorded more than 500 million views and was the most shared in the history of this news network. And even Price was offered to be the “Nuevo Donald Trump” in Billion Dollar Startup, a version of the reality TV show “The Apprentice”.

In turn, Gravity Payments received 4,500 CVs in one week. Even inspired by this challenge, a Yahoo frame had his moment René Zellweger as “Jerry Maguire”: Tammi Kroll quit and started working with Dan Price in September. “I’ve spent a lot of years behind money, now I want something that’s interesting and makes sense,” Kroll said. She became the CIO (Chief Information Officer) of the company, responsible for the company’s IT systems. at the process level and from the planning point of view.

At the age of three, Dan Price’s bet worked, he continued in that line. And without knowing it, it also served to cope with the crisis caused by coronavirus. “At the start of the pandemic, overnight, we lost 55% of our income, ”Price explained to the web LadBible. “But our employees were so committed that they volunteered to accept temporary pay cuts to avoid layoffs. We weathered the storm, we paid everyone and now we are giving raises. “

And a few days ago, Dan Price posted on his busy Twitter and Instragam accounts: “Today (April 13, 2021) six years ago, I raised my company’s minimum wage to $ 70,000 per year. year. Fox News called me a ‘socialist’ with employees who would end up being unemployed and in the queue of those looking for work ”. Since then our revenues have tripled, we are a case study of the Harvard Business School. And among our employees, housing purchases have increased tenfold. My advice: always invest in people ”.

Price also recalled what happened when he was invited to Fox News to talk about his case. Fox News is the network of far right of the United States and pro Trump. “When I was on Fox News, production assistants told me they got minimum wage and struggled to survive in New York City. I asked the drivers who interviewed me – who earn seven-figure salaries and laughed at me on the air – to talk about the Fox employee salaries on the air and they always refused. “

Business model

The plan developed by Dan Price in 2015 was explained in the magazine Inc, who dedicated one of his covers to him that year with the title “Is he the best boss in America?”. Raising the minimum wage for Gravity Payments employees, according to the plan, would involve the company by roughly $ 1.8 million over three years. And with the forecast that with wage increases based on inflation, that figure will rise to $ 2.2 million. To this there was a commitment not to increase the prices of the services provided by the company, not to lay off staff or to reduce the salaries of executives.

Price’s move had a strong publicity effect: in the first two weeks, requests for services went from 30 per month to two thousand. Too lost some customers who told him that theirs was a political statement that required them to replicate the pay increases in their respective companies.

At 19, Dan Price created Gravity Payments playing in bars as a member of a Catholic band, he saw what credit cards were overloading the bars for the payment processing service. And it worked, the company is now 17 years old. He had set it up with Lucas, his older brother. He had a legal dispute with him which he ended up winning. Lucas believed the decision to raise wages would affect the business. Today, the idea that Price motorized when one of his employees told him that I had to work at McDonald’s to make ends meet, has become a case study at Harvard Business School.

The weight of religion and a somewhat forced marriage

Dan Price grew up in rural Idaho, United States, in a family where the Christian religion ruled daily life. He and his five brothers would get up at 5 a.m., make breakfast, and then they read the bible and prayed guided by both parents. In fact, Price has twice won the National Biblical Memorization Competition. And it was only at the age of 12 that he entered school for the first time. Until that age, he and his brothers they were educated by their mother and father.

With adolescence came rebellion, punk music and with some friends start a Christian rock band with which they toured the United States. Dan Price dyed his hair, painted his nails and played guitar by hand until the age of 16 when the band disbanded. In 2004, he entered Seattle Pacific Christian University and it was there that he designed a system for processing credit card transactions. In parallel, he also got married. The Catholic rigidity of its social circle Has led him to choose to end his relationship with his girlfriend Kristie Lewellyn – also from an ultra-Catholic family – or to marry. She was 20 years old; he 21 years old, the marriage lasted five years and not on good terms.