To help the business back on its feet

Jay and I started out as part time employees for this start up entrepreneur for his gifts and corporate giveaways business back in 2014.

The four of us worked our way up together (including the entrepreneur's wife). The business was well and good thus, started to expand.
As the business expanded, man power was needed eventually. Jay was assigned to hire people for the expansion.

Jay did not hire the best people he could, instead he hired those whom they thought of themselves as incompetent. Since Jay knew every process from top to bottom as to how the business does its work, he was indeed the best person to get and train people of their respective tasks.
Jay patiently trained them. The business grew and by the 2016 came we were already 12 in the team.

Unknowingly on the other hand, this entrepreneur did not much approve of the team expansion. He wanted the business to expand but he wanted to over utilize the team. Almost to no work offs, 16 to 20 hours work almost everyday, very little overtime pays, no government benefits. What's even worse is that slowly he was neglecting his business duties - distributing his task among the team leaving him with nothing to do at all.

These things, Jay did not like and he believed he (Melvin, the entrepreneur) had to be confronted with. And so he did - they mutually agreed to fair terms among the team that we hoped would last long until December of 2016 finally came.

Melvin and his wife decided to leave the team after purchasing his new equipment for a new line (but still related to our current business) of business. He left all the task to Jay and promised to hand over a small portion of our capital funds (which we earned as team for 3 years) to continue the business the four us had started.
But this did not happen.

We were left with zero funds, Melvin demanded to pay the machines and equipment that we as team all put up and took what we could not afford to pay instantly. It felt somehow unfair for the rest of us but there was very little that we could do. Jay felt responsible for all of us since he was the person who took them all in.

We knew Jay was not prepared for this kind of responsibility but this business has already become our passion. Jay took his chances immediately after what had concluded that December.

January of 2017, he borrowed funds from his family and friends to continue what was left of us. From then on, Jay led the team. Jay's point of view for the business was a lot different than that of Melvin's. He treated us like family members, gave us what we needed and treated us in the work environment fairly.

However, things would not run smooth as we hoped would be. There had been minor and major business hiccups, team member's personal financial issues whom Jay became a large portion for the resolution. Despite the fact of having too little revolving funds, he was still able to help out to each of us.

I knew he was already having a rough time juggling business funds due to some unavoidable events that occurred from 2017 upto this day (too many to mention). He is too kind and generous that he would burden all of these financial matters. Plus maybe the fact that he still feels he is responsible for all of us.

Our business is still up and running. The business is running a bit rough these days financially but he was slowly able to pay off what he had borrowed.

I wanted to help him recover and I guess this is the one way to do it so we can get back on our feet. We owe him much to all his sacrifices and hardships. I know he is troubled (though he does not speak of it elaborately as he does not want us to worry about him) but he is still able to keep his smile.

I hope this will reach fellow entrepreneurs like him (us as a team). I want to help him because I know if he was able to help other people with almost nothing, what more if he has something.

Thank you for your time reading this. I know this is not as difficult of a situation compared to other people asking for help in this platform but I know in my heart that once he comes out of this struggle, he will undoubtedly pay it forward.