Quickly, news outlets reported that the Freedom Phone was based on a low-cost handset from Umidigi, a Chinese manufacturer that had used chips shown to be vulnerable to hacks. Mr. Finman, who marketed the device as “the best phone in the world,” was on the defensive.

In an interview in July, Mr. Finman admitted that Umidigi made the phone but still said he was “100 percent” sure it was more secure than the latest iPhone. Apple has tens of thousands of engineers. Mr. Finman said he employed 15 people in Utah and Idaho.

Mr. Finman said he wasn’t surprised by the criticism, but he was taken aback by the sales. That left him juggling responsibilities he hadn’t planned for, including certification with the Federal Communications Commission and special rules for shipping devices with lithium batteries. He hired people from his hometown in Idaho to staff a makeshift customer-service center and he struggled to sort out sales-tax issues.

Within a month of the phone’s release, Mr. Finman had a solution: sell someone else’s phone and act as the branding frontman. Just as Mr. Finman’s political inspiration, Mr. Trump, has sold Trump steaks and Trump vodka without running a cattle ranch or a distillery, Mr. Finman unburdened himself of the difficult task of actually managing a company that makes phones.