Read time: 4 mins | The Frame: Value-Added Reselling (VAR) & Supply Chain Moats

Where we decode the systems, strategies, and business mechanics of underrepresented founders.

Today’s Briefing: The Middleman Strategy that built a $17B empire.

Imagine looking out your office window.

A tow truck is backing up. You are the CEO. And your car is being repossessed.

This was the reality for David Steward in 1993.

He had $3,500 in debt. Zero revenue. And a startup that was bleeding cash.

To the outside world, he was a statistical failure. A Black founder in a tech industry that didn't look like him, trying to sell into a market that didn't trust him.

Today, his company, World Wide Technology (WWT), generates $17 Billion in annual revenue. It is the largest Black-owned business in the United States.

Most profiles focus on Steward’s poverty-stricken upbringing in segregated Missouri. That story is powerful.

But it doesn't explain how he beat IBM, HP, and Dell at their own game.

Steward didn't just work hard.

He identified a massive inefficiency in how the US Government bought technology.

Then he built a logistic engine to fix it.

Here is the blueprint behind the empire.

In the early 90s, tech sales were simple. You were a Box Pusher.

The model was a race to the bottom:

Steward realized that his clients (specifically the Federal Government and giants like FedEx) didn't want computers.

They wanted connectivity.

They were drowning in hardware. But they were starving for implementation.

Steward stopped being a reseller. He became a Value-Added Reseller (VAR).

Instead of shipping boxes directly to the client, WWT intercepted the supply chain.

The WWT Integrated Model:

Why this scaled: He de-risked the purchase.

A government IT director would happily pay a premium to WWT to avoid the nightmare of configuring 5,000 distinct devices.

Steward stopped selling a product. He started selling certainty.

How do you stop clients from leaving you for a cheaper vendor?

You build a sandbox.

Steward invested heavily in the Advanced Technology Center (ATC).

This is a massive physical and virtual ecosystem where clients can test software and hardware before they buy it.

The Metric that matters: This reduced the sales cycle from months to weeks.

By letting clients try before they buy in a safe environment, WWT moved from being a vendor to a consultant.

You likely aren't selling government servers. But the WWT Principles apply to any service business scaling to $10M+.

Are you a Box Pusher? If you are a freelancer sending deliverables that the client still has to assemble, you are a commodity.

The Fix: Move downstream. Don't just write the code; deploy it. Don't just design the ad; traffic it. Do the dirty work of integration.

Steward’s Catalyst was an empty ice bucket given to him as a reward at his old sales job. It symbolized a lack of appreciation.

The Fix: Look at your current industry. Where are the Empty Buckets? Where are customers being treated like transactions rather than partners? That frustration is your market entry point.

How can you lower the risk for your customers?

The Fix: If you are a SaaS, create a demo environment that doesn't require a credit card. If you are a consultant, offer a low-risk Roadmap Audit before the expensive retainer.

David Steward’s faith gave him the strength to endure the repo man. But his supply chain strategy gave him the leverage to build an empire.

History is written by the victors. But the future is built by the operators.

You have the frame. Now go build.

Until next Thursday,

AP