What It Really Takes to Build a $4.2B Company

Bootstrapping to a $4.2B Global Powerhouse: Inside G-P with Founder & CEO Nicole Sahin What does it take to turn a complex, “impossible” idea into a multi-billion-dollar global infrastructure company — without raising a dollar of venture capital for the first eight years? On this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Nicole Sahin, Founder & CEO of G-P (Globalization Partners), the company that pioneered the global Employer of Record model and grew it into a $4.2 billion category leader serving companies in 180+ countries. Nicole’s story is both unconventional and deeply intentional. Before launching G-P, she helped companies like Tesla and NetSuite expand internationally — witnessing firsthand the pain, delays, and cost of setting up entities around the world. Her solution? Build the entire global legal infrastructure once, then let customers plug into it instantly. What followed was a masterclass in conviction: —turning down venture capital until G-P was already thriving, —scaling through explosive growth (30 employees → 200 → 1,100+), —reengineering the company during the pandemic as global hiring transformed overnight, —and launching Gia, a fully AI-powered global HR and compliance platform built on 13 years of proprietary data. Nicole opens up about the truth behind her success: the spiritual practices that kept her grounded, the brutal decisions required to scale leadership, the moments of doubt, the “dark night of the soul,” and the discipline of following intuition even when her entire team disagrees. Her approach blends operational rigor with mindset mastery — a rare balance in a founder who has built a category-defining global company. This conversation is both entrepreneurial strategy and personal philosophy — a blueprint for founders who want to build massive companies without sacrificing integrity, clarity, or themselves.

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