Supreme Outsourcing

Lewis Lautman's entrepreneurial journey taught him hard lessons about capital efficiency. In 2007, at age 30, he decided to create 'The Yes Movie'—a film interviewing 100 young self-made millionaires and entrepreneurs. He thought it would cost $20,000-30,000 plus marketing. He was catastrophically wrong. "I ended up spending over $200,000," Lewis recalls. "I not only spent every cent I had, I took out lines of credit." He cashed out his IRA, his 401k, borrowed from family, and maxed out credit lines. This near-financial ruin was catalyzed by his realization that U.S.-based freelancers were charging premium rates: $80/hour for transcription, $90-100/hour for design, $120/hour for web development.

While traveling globally to promote The Yes Movie and running his entrepreneur training business, Lewis began experimenting with overseas outsourcing. He tried Romania, Bulgaria, Uruguay, Chile, Pakistan, and India before settling on the Philippines, where English proficiency felt strongest. "I slowly but surely built a team," he explains. Critically, he applied a lesson from one of his film subjects, Tihara Veker: customer financing. Rather than funding operations upfront, Lewis waited until clients committed to paying before hiring contractors. This principle—letting customers finance your product—became foundational to Supreme Outsourcing.

The first customers came organically. As Lewis taught entrepreneurs how to build systems and teams, they asked: "You're teaching me how to do this. Can you just do it for me?" He obliged with one-off projects, but something remarkable happened. "I was making more money by having my team fulfill work for other people than I was on my entrepreneur educational business," Lewis realized. The outsourcing side became more profitable and required less of his personal time—a classic "the side gig became the business" story.

The transition took 1-1.5 years (2008-2010). Lewis discovered that his market pain was everyone's pain. Entrepreneurs wanted quality work without the cost of U.S. labor or the chaos of filtering through dozens of freelancers on platforms like Odesk and Guru. Supreme Outsourcing offered "plug and play" solutions with three tiered packages: pay-as-you-go at $15/hour (Starter), $400/month for 10 hours/week commitment (Standard), and full-time roles at $1,000/month for 160 hours (Premium). At $1,000/month for 40 hours/week, the effective rate dropped to $6.25/hour—making it economically absurd for clients not to delegate. Lewis kept margins small but sufficient: enough to attract clients competing on price while paying Filipino contractors well and maintaining operations.

By the time of this interview, Supreme Outsourcing had scaled to serve startups through multi-million-dollar companies with 50-100 employees. Lewis positioned the company as the middle ground between cheap but risky platforms and expensive U.S. agencies. The business model proved that customer financing works: never spend until a client commits. His philosophy—"Think bigger, dream bigger, do bigger"—extended to his market positioning. Supreme Outsourcing served the entire spectrum of entrepreneurs, delivering the time freedom Lewis himself craved after his grueling years building The Yes Movie.