How two co-founders built a telecom company using EOS and delegation

Executive overview

Two co-founders running a fast-growing telecom company found themselves doing everything together, unable to scale. Splitting into clear visionary and integrator roles — combined with EOS — unlocked tripled revenue and freed the business from its bottleneck.

Delegation isn't a loss of control; it's the mechanism that makes growth possible.

From car wash to telecom: the founding story

• Sean Torres and Jimmy Burns became friends in junior high, moved in together for college, and started experimenting with business from year one
• First venture: a car wash, followed by an Anytime Fitness in a town of 1,300 — it became the fastest-growing Anytime Fitness in the US at the time
• A smoothie shop opened next to the gym lasted six months; they shut it down the night they found themselves mopping floors after hours
• A client asking for a phone system quote led them to spend $5,000 on Avaya certification — the pivot that became Entelecom
• First telecom install took six weeks; today the same job takes a day

The moment they stopped doing everything together

• Early on, Sean and Jimmy attended every sales call and install together — effectively two people doing one job
• Splitting responsibilities (Sean to sales, Jimmy to technical) tripled revenue from $274K to $800K in one year
• First hire outside friends: a senior technician who demanded $40/hour, health insurance, and a company car — they agreed, and he is now VP of Technical Services

Bringing in EOS and finding the real integrator

• At ~$7.5M revenue and 28–30 employees, the company had no org chart and no structure; a mentor introduced them to EOS
• Initial accountability chart placed a trusted external advisor (Dave) in the integrator seat; Jimmy and Sean were still running day-to-day
• After seven to eight months, the tell was clear: Dave left at 5pm while Jimmy ran the operation — Jimmy was the real integrator
• Dave resigned when it became clear he wanted to be president with full authority; the owners weren't ready to hand that over
• Jimmy took the integrator seat carrying roughly a dozen roles; within four to five quarters, he was down to "one and a half"

Why they never trained their people soon enough

• As the company scaled, they promoted people into seats without developing them first
• Each elevation created a training chain: Sean or Jimmy trained the person above, who trained the person below, creating tic-tac-toe dependencies
• Every quarter the accountability chart improved; today it changes nearly every L10 meeting

Same-page meetings and the visionary-integrator dynamic

• Gym workouts together became informal same-page meetings before they formalised the cadence
• Now bi-weekly; weekly felt like too much
• Jimmy's approach to a heated Sean: if he's not ready to listen, acknowledge and revisit when both are calm
• Sean's biggest struggle: guilt about delegating to Jimmy, knowing Jimmy is already overloaded — but not delegating always creates a worse problem downstream
• Jimmy's view: if you're not constantly banging your head against the wall as an integrator, the visionary isn't pushing hard enough

Running a business with your best friend and neighbour

• Sean and Jimmy live across the street from each other; their children grew up as brothers and sisters
• In 2019, a controller embezzled $400,000; both wives came into the business temporarily to cover HR, accounting, and purchasing
• Both wives have since exited the business
• Key rule Sean learned: don't vent work conflicts to his spouse — keep it between the two of them to prevent strain from spreading into the friendship and families

Lessons from the visionary and integrator seats

• Sean (visionary): give it time, be patient, accept imperfection — the integrator has been turning impossible sales into reality since day one
• Jimmy (integrator): being on the same page is everything; tell the visionary what they don't want to hear; pressure and chaos are signs you're in the right seat, not signs something is wrong