Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul McLellan.
Hi Paul, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story really starts with technology. When I was 12 years old, I was given a Commodore Amiga computer and became fascinated with programming and Bulletin Board Systems — essentially the internet before there was an internet. I loved figuring out how things worked, building things and, probably most importantly, finding ways to make them work better.
In 1995, I enrolled at North Hennepin Community College and was part of the first internet class offered there. At the same time, I started working for a small Minnesota lighting distributor called Service Lighting. The company was doing about $2 million in annual revenue, and I saw an opportunity to combine this new thing called the internet with an established distribution business.
In 1996, we launched what became LightBulbs.com, making us one of the very early eCommerce retailers. There really wasn’t a roadmap for eCommerce at the time, so we built our own. I taught myself ColdFusion and database development and eventually built not only our eCommerce platforms, but much of the software that ran the business behind them.
What started as a technology role gradually became a 30-year education in virtually every aspect of running a company. I worked in customer service, accounting, sales, operations, technology and eventually general management and executive leadership. In 2017, I purchased the company and became its sole owner and President.
Over those three decades, we grew from that roughly $2 million business to a peak of $23 million in annual revenue and processed approximately $270 million in total sales during my tenure. But I’m probably most proud of the fact that we built much of it ourselves. We weren’t a Silicon Valley technology company — we were a Minnesota family business that learned how to use technology, eCommerce and process improvement to compete on a much larger stage.
I’ve always had an entrepreneurial streak outside of the core business as well. In 2006, I created ShoutLife.com, a social networking platform for music artists and creators that grew to more than 250,000 members. Experiences like that reinforced something I’ve realized about myself over the years: I’m happiest when I’m building, solving problems and simplifying things that have become unnecessarily complicated.
In 2025, I sold Service Lighting and LightBulbs.com, closing a 30-year chapter of my life. That created an interesting question for me: **What do you do after spending essentially your entire adult life building one company?**
For me, the answer has been to take everything I learned as an entrepreneur, operator and technologist and bring those worlds together. I moved into the software industry, first working with Cavallo as a Distribution Strategy Advisor and today with Suite Engine, where I work in solution architecture and product strategy around Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, eCommerce and distribution. I also enjoy being able to draw from my decades of work and I often speak at thought leadership conferences.
In some ways, I’ve come full circle. I started as a kid who loved computers, spent 30 years becoming a business executive, and now I get to combine both sides of that experience — understanding how businesses actually operate and helping design technology that makes them operate better.
And after 30 years, that’s probably the common thread through my entire career: **I like finding friction, figuring out why it’s there, and building a better way.**
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not — but I think some of the most valuable parts of my career came from the fact that there really wasn’t a roadmap for much of what we were doing.
When we started selling online in 1996, eCommerce was barely a thing. There weren’t established platforms, consultants or best practices to follow. If we wanted to do something, we often had to figure out how to build it ourselves. I taught myself to code on nights and weekends, off the clock, because I could see where the internet was headed and believed it could fundamentally change our business.
Being early was exciting, but it also meant learning through experience. We dealt with credit card breaches and the security challenges that came with being an early online retailer. We built and managed our technology internally, and for decades we also handled essentially all of our digital marketing ourselves. When Google changed, consumer behavior changed or a marketplace changed its rules, we had to understand it and adapt quickly.
One of the biggest transitions came in early 2017 when I purchased the company from my dad, who had owned it himself for decades. I had already spent more than 20 years in the business and knew it extremely well, but owning it was different. Suddenly every decision ultimately stopped with me.
I purchased an established company with a tremendous foundation, but I also owned decades of processes, habits and ways of doing things. I had to learn how to respect what had made the company successful while also being willing to question it, adopt new ideas and change things that I believed needed to change. That’s an interesting challenge in any business, but probably even more so when the person who built much of what you’re changing is your father.
Growth brought its own challenges. As we became a larger eCommerce and distribution company, I had to learn how to lead more people, develop managers, manage increasingly complicated operations and supply chains, and build systems that could scale. The problems that exist in a $2 million company aren’t the same problems you encounter at $10 million or $20 million.
Then COVID arrived. For a distribution company, 2020 and 2021 were incredibly challenging. Supply chains became unpredictable, products became difficult to source and many of the assumptions we’d built our operation around suddenly didn’t apply. It reinforced something I’d learned many times before: you can have a great plan, but leadership is often about what you do when the plan stops working.
And all of this was happening while my wife and I were building a family. We raised nine children while I was helping grow and eventually running the company. Balancing being a husband and father with the demands of entrepreneurship and leadership wasn’t always easy, and I’m certainly not going to pretend I always got that balance right.
Looking back, I think that’s what 30 years in business really teaches you. Technology changes. Employees change. Competitors change. Supply chains break. Sometimes the entire world shuts down. And sometimes you realize that something you’ve been doing successfully for years needs to change.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
First and foremost, I’m a husband and a dad. My wife Laura and I have been married since 2000, and we have nine kids. Having a large family wasn’t some grand plan we mapped out when we were young — we just discovered that we really loved having kids and building a life around family. It’s loud, complicated, funny, occasionally exhausting and easily the thing I’m most proud of.
If there is a personality trait that probably defines me, it’s curiosity. I sometimes describe myself as a “truth chaser.” I’m a pretty analytical and perceptive person, and I’ve never been particularly good at accepting an answer simply because it’s the answer everyone else accepts. I like pulling things apart, understanding why people believe what they believe and being willing to change my own mind when the evidence or my life experience takes me somewhere different.
That curiosity has taken me into some pretty different places over the years.
I’ve been a technology nerd since I was a kid. Since being gifted a Commodore Amiga in 1991 when I was 12, it completely changed the direction of my life. I started programming, exploring Bulletin Board Systems — basically the internet before the internet — and eventually trying to develop my own video games.
By 14, a couple of friends and I were actually building games together. I did the programming, one friend created the graphics, and we spent countless hours trying to turn the ideas in our heads into something you could actually play. None of those games ever made us famous — or even got released — but I loved the creative process. More than 30 years later, I think that same kid is still very much a part of who I am.
I’m still a huge video-game fan today. What fascinates me about gaming is that it combines so many things I already love — storytelling, music, movies, art, technology and imagination — but lets you actually participate in the story instead of simply watching it. Give me a great open-world game that I can disappear into and I’m pretty happy.
Music is another big part of my life. I’m an unapologetic fan of 80s and 90s music and pop culture in general. Music has been woven through different seasons of my life — certain songs can immediately transport me back to a particular person, place or memory. I love concerts, movies, nostalgia and probably know far more useless pop-culture trivia than any human being reasonably should.
I write occasionally about parenting, relationships, faith, loss, grief and some of the harder questions of life. I’m not particularly interested in presenting myself as someone who has everything figured out. I’m much more interested in being authentic about the process of figuring it out.
I’m proud of the fact that some of the success I’ve experienced has also allowed me to help other people. One project particularly meaningful to me involved supplying tens of thousands of solar-powered lights to communities in Liberia, Kenya and Haiti. Something as ordinary to us as flipping on a light switch isn’t ordinary everywhere in the world, and being able to use something from my own little corner of the world to make life better for someone thousands of miles away was incredibly rewarding.
I’m proud of the family Laura and I have built. I’m proud of the relationships I have with my kids and watching nine completely different human beings develop their own personalities, interests and paths through life. One of the things I’ve tried to teach them is that being a good human matters more than being an impressive one.
Seeing my kids get older and choose their own unique paths in life is so fascinating. For example: my oldest son is a kayak guide in Seward, Alaska; second oldest daughter got married in June in Whistler, Canada, next oldest son is a landscaper and firefighter and then my next three sons own a window washing business together. The level of exploration and entrepreneurship runs strong!
What matters most to you?
1) Family
I sacrificed so much of my time and health to build a better life for my family. I’m happy now to be in a much less stressful job where I can both be more present and be more healthy. Seeing my kids grow up to be good adult humans is just the best.
2) Authenticity
Small talk is overrated. I love getting deep quickly in conversation. While I enjoy some of the fun frivolous things in life, I also enjoy talking about the real things in life, the things that make us tick and that we all go through.
3) Peace
There’s a saying I love – “It was good until it wasn’t.” I think it is important to continually look at your life to self-assess and make sure that your peace is protected. We have one life to live and it is that scarcity that gives it value – every day matters.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.paulmclellan.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paul_mclellan/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.t.mclellan/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulmclellan/
