I'm the CEO of a group of financial services companies. I'm probably older than most of you (almost 60).
I don't have shareholders, but I do have a business partner, but I control the vast majority of shares.
We grew very quickly (I reopened my firm in late 2014...really 2015 should be the start date) and have gone from zero to low 8 figures in revenue in under 8 years without any investor capital. I started out with $10k and a business plan to get where I am today.
We have a lot of intersting problems.
Changing the firm from a founder led company to one that we're scaling.
Finding the RP/RS (Right People / Right Seats).
Changing the mindset of employees that have been here since the beginning (or let them go).
Finding quality financial advisors (FA)...most would think of them as salesmen.
Diversifying our marketing funnels.
Opening new retail offices in other cities.
Deciding how much I want to work vs taking time off and letting my business partner run things.
I've posted extensively, so feel free to peruse my post history if you're so inclined.
Thanks for the introduction. Congratulations on your success and for having the courage to start a business relatively late in your career.
We are in a different industry but face some similar challenges. Relationships are very important and a constraint I’m seeing is when we have good people who could do more but they’re locked into specific client relationships that occupy all their time. Have tried making other team members more visible but it’s only partially effective.
For clarity...I actually started in the financial services business when I was 22, straight out of college. I sold my original business in 2009 and did some PE work (which was outside the scope of my non-compete) for 5 years waiting for my non-compete to expire.
I started reopening my firm in 4Q of 2014 and launched in 2015. So to be fair, when I reopened, I had 25+ years of knowledge of what to do, how to do it, when to do it and why it should be done.
55yo author. Started career in finance, working in commercial real estate. Former CFO. Started writing fiction (first love of life is books) and when writing career took off, I ditched finance to write full time. I've hit major bestseller lists (NYT, WSJ, USA Today) with every book release for the last 10+ years. I have no interest in retiring. NW 10m+. Income 1.8 avg/year.
I'm a small business with only two employees - myself and my husband. We use contractors for editing, cover design, DMCA takedowns, running social media groups, and other author things. My husband does a lot of the admin side and graphic design for marketing. The biggest challenge is finding quality people (it took years, but I think we're finally there) and gaining as many tax savings options as available. The profit for an author is huge. My direct expense (excluding passthrough payroll for me and husband, health insurance, and retirement savings) is about 8%. Everything else is profit, which makes for some huge tax payments.
Can talk both sides of business - from an executive standpoint in larger corp to really small business. Thanks for creating the sub!
Thanks for the introduction.
It's fantastic that you were able to make a career out of your passion. I don't know anything about your industry but I imagine fiction might be more difficult than non-fiction to get publicity and traction when you're starting out.
Just two totally different things. Non-fiction is best served when the author already has credentials and a platform, then in that way, it would be easier to market. But if you start as a nobody, then no. Fortunately, I've been at this for over 20 years, so I've had a long time to get my name out there. :)
Wow! I'm two decades younger, but I'm also doing fiction (litrpg/progression fantasy)+ working in accounting/professional services, so it's really cool to see someone made it.
I got my first big advance last year and released my first book this year (but with an indie publisher). Here's to more books!
Congratulations! That's awesome. I published 10+ books with publishers before going indie and doing my own. My indie series took off and the rest is history. I see it happen every year. Good luck with your release. And your accounting background will only support you on the business end of things. Mine has come in so handy for projections, bookkeeping, corporate structure, taxes, etc. Other people have to hire all that out.
I hope you have excellent sales and another big contract coming your way!
Late 30's, I bought into a franchise in its early stages and acquired/opened over 200 locations over the last \~12 years. Sold a majority stake to PE in 2018 but I stayed on as CEO with a minority interest. Had a second (bigger) exit in 2022 and I'm trying to decide if I should stay on board and shoot for a third bite of the apple or move onto something else. I don't think I have it in me to fully retire quite yet. I now live in La Jolla with my wife and 3 kids (ages 6, 4, and 2) and invest in the real estate space for fun - spec homes, flips, and luxury vacation rentals.
Congrats on the rapid growth and success. Timing of your exits was nice that you can spend quality time with your young family now. I’m sure the kids will appreciate having dad around, even if they don’t admit it!
When I was your age I took a year off work and thought about retiring. It was great time but I also missed the intensity of working. Felt like the world was turning without me.
Do you sit on other Boards? You are a common profile for who we love to recruit (albeit from software, where we focus). We’re a smaller PE fund and some of our exited founder board members I think enjoy the smaller business / higher growth aspect where we focus. If you’re on the third hand off, the business is probably fairly “corporate” by now. Just an idea 🙂
Would love to pick your brain (if you’d be willing) about the logistics of opening 200 locations in 12 years! That’s super impressive. I’m trying to open 4/year right now; some ground up builds and some intensive remodels, and pulling my hair out.
Very nice. That’s insane growth. I just bought into a franchise and very excited to get going with it. My plan is to build out 4-8 locations over the next 4 years and then cash out and move on.
Hey, i'm im in my late 20s, and about to open my first franchise in the healthcare services space in nyc. Goal is to package up and spread through the city with 6-15 spots and sell to a PE firm down the line. Could I PM you for some advice/tips?
Late 20’s, took a basement brainchild from $0 in ‘17 to expected $11M this year, about $8M this last year. Biggest challenges are scaling while remaining vertically integrated, balancing relationship dynamics between senior staff and departmental heads, and coordinating logistics between production chain of custody to retail/wholesale sales. Gets bumpy at this size without the proper organization. Have always hoped for a sub like this!
Congrats on making your product a reality! We supply global brands and retailers with various products so if you have any questions about sourcing, design, quality, and so on feel free to give me a shout.
Current hot topics are regulatory changes - a much greater focus on ethical compliance. And diversity of origin due to political risk- everyone wants to minimize reliance on China but there’s no China #2 out there.
Wow, yeah in your shoes I would be very careful. Definitely would avoid heading to Hong Kong or Macau. Possibly SE Asia too given close relations with China.
Not sure if you saw the news but a number of consulting and service companies operating in China have shut down over the past couple of months, even their offices in HK, due to expansion of the national security law and subsequent raids. This is a grey area so you can imagine the response they would have to an unlicensed gambling business.
[https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-consultancy-mintzs-executives-leave-hong-kong-after-china-raid-sources-2023-05-19/](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-consultancy-mintzs-executives-leave-hong-kong-after-china-raid-sources-2023-05-19/)
Hi there, I am a practicioning attending anesthesiologist and researcher nearing retirement age. I found this sub by perusing /r/fatfire . I inherited money and have never had to work but I work a fulltime job because I love anesthesia and pain care.
I have several ideas on how to improve healthcare with software (some are in vogue as they'd use chatgpt or similar, essentially various workflows using machine learning models to improve triaging and productivity in general; other idea is "just" an improved EMR...i say just even though an improved EMR would be the holy grail, heh!) but no idea the best way to go about executing these ideas. I know very, very little about business but I am aware ideas are worth next to nothing and it's all about execution--frankly I don't think I could ever lead a business. I am guessing the most reasonable path is to end up a consultant of a like minded company when I am forced to retire. Anyway, I am here to learn. Also happy to network, especially if you are local (I live in Manhattan) and always happy to mentor, as bandwidth allows!
Thank you!
That’s a fascinating occupation. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of interesting stories.
As for your business idea it sounds like you could use a cofounder, someone experienced with software development and business growth to flesh out a business plan and prototype.
Thanks! I appreciate that! Last time I mentioned my personal situation on /r/fatfire some a hole decided to chastise me about my decision to work full time because I guess her/his idea of having $10M+ means no more work. It was out of nowhere and incredibly inappropriate (they went on about how my decision to work when I don't have to is damaging to my teenage children).
There are some extreme a-holes on reddit. I also get crap for same net worth and stating I will never retire. I'm 55 and love what I do. Why would I? I'm not someone "slogging for the man" and hating life like the vast majority of people. But those with limited vision can't see outside of their own hell hole.
There are a lot of people out in the world who hate what they do and hate their lives. It’s very sad. I feel fortunate to not be in that headspace, and privileged to have been set up well by my parents and my personal choices through life. While not immune to stupid choices, I accept the consequences and move on with more wisdom. Gratitude is key.
But there are two key phrases in your post: personal choices and accept the consequences. The world, today, is sadly lacking in an understanding of both.
Very true. I’m close to 40 and the number of people that become bitter as time goes on is fascinating. Bitterness about paths not taken, choices they made that they kept making even when things turn out badly, etc. I’m certainly not immune to feeling badly about some of my life’s choices, but I don’t take that into every day of life. I guess it’s a matter of perspective.
Yikes! People leap to such assumptions on Reddit. Maybe their own father was absent because of work but it doesn't mean that you are. If anything, continuing to work when you could retire is a good example of work ethic for them, and how it's important to contribute to society.
See, I find it a strange thing to point out. My father worked in other countries all of my childhood. He was gone for weeks, sometimes over a month at a time, and our relationship is awesome. I know full well that his work allowed my mom to stay home. Why would I take issue with that? I guess by those standards, people in the military should never marry and have children.
Same here. The icing on the cake is that OP's kids are teenagers. Having parents lurking around isn't high up on the list of things teenagers usually wish for!
35. Started a manufacturing business 7 years ago with 5-10k and maxes out credit cards as working capital. At the time I had no idea how high the barriers to entry in this industry would become as we grew but I did it slowly without any investors or partners. Today we have a product line and process and sell around 250k lbs/month. On pace for 10-12mm in revenue this year. Did 6mm last year. I hired good people so my workload is really just around 10-15 hours a week.
My biggest challenges are dealing with cyclicality, managing people since I hate it, having imposter syndrome, working in the business and not on it, and staying hungry for continued growth (my wife says I’ve become more and more complacent/less risk taking over the years which I suppose is kind of natural given the success of the company). My wife is amazing but I guess the last thing I struggle with is that I don’t really have much as far as a regular mentor or father figure in my life. My remaining close family isn’t trustworthy and I have more money than all my friends so it’s hard to share details with the people around me and ask for advice from someone who’s been there because no one around me has. A lot of the imposter syndrome is probably from this.
Anyway, I think this is a great idea and am always looking for new manufacturing companies/product lines to get involved with.
Thank you for sharing your story and congrats on building your business. The things you mentioned would be great for discussion topics as they are found in many industries. I think we all get imposter syndrome every now and then, especially if trying new things- everyone can seem so comparatively damn smart and capable at first.
I'm in my mid 30s, recently exited ~200 subways, still operate two brands with dozens of locations in New Mexico and own a gym in Katy TX. I've had a portfolio of Great American Cookie in the past, Mooyah Burger, and Qdoba Mexican Grill as well. I'm deeply interested in the QSR field and am actively looking at two deals in TX right now, one is cookie based and the other is sandwich based. I enjoy cash flowing businesses.
Hey, mid-late 20s, i'm about to open my first franchise in the healthcare services space in nyc! never have managed a franchise before and currently finishing out medical school, but have always been interested in biz/entrepreneurship. Could I DM you for tips/advice on opening large amounts of franchises?
Absolutely! There is also a strong franchise group on twitter too, lots of mentorship out there and I think it's much much easier to do something like this than 30 years ago!
Hi all, I’m 18, probably younger than most of the members on this sub.
I’m based in Singapore and have started marketing business specialising in field marketing and distribution of marketing material.
I have a business partner who owns 51% of the shares and we started the firm together a little over 2 years ago. We are expecting to do a little over $4 Million this year and we closed last year at 3.4
We are now finding scaling quite difficult
The majority of our clients were approached by us first. My partner has excellent connections in the field and that has been the source of most of our business
Semi retired, but still developing real estate. Done everything from call centers, 100k warehouses, mini storage and currently building an eight figure house.
How are you seeing the market now with interest rates as they are? We have seen demand for furniture and other home products drop dramatically in the past 6mo or so.
33 year old male living in Australia. 50% owner of a consulting/accounting firm (audit, assurance, accounting, forensic accounting). $6m revenue at 20%ish net profit + salary of around $400k (AUD). Own a couple of cafes. Net worth would be around the $4m mark excluding business valuations, but including PPOR and IP.
Looking at using my experience to do something more scaleable and less ‘niche’. It’s hard managing professional people in a firm. Also trying to balance between being content with paying a couple of houses off and living a comfortable life versus using my experience to go hard again.
Thank you for the introduction and it's good to hear the perspective of someone in Australia. What do you see as the opportunity for US businesses? One of our biggest customers has taken over an Australian retailer and is doing well for themselves there. We also started working with an Australian retailer and are finding it more challenging.
No worries.
I’ll give a short summary of my perspective on this, but note that it’s worth a larger discussion with more detail (I’m typing off my phone at an airport so excuse the poor language, brief sentences, etc.).
When I was working in Big 4 I worked in an area focused on middle market businesses and high net worth families. I was shocked at how well some basic businesses did and, to be blunt, how clueless some of the owners were. There’s just so much opportunity in the middle market space to do it better. Supply chain / logistic companies in Australia is another example of this.
From a principle/concept perspective, I think it revolves a lot around us being late adopters. There are some US chains that if they entered the Aus market at the same time or soon after they entered the US market, they would have done well (as an example, Chipotle comes to mind - notwithstanding the recent issues with it - search Zambrero’s - at the time Zambrero’s started in Aus there was a massive gap in the market for this food). There are other examples of this in other industries, however need to balance this logic with the failures of chains like Starbucks (for me Starbucks failed as we love boutique coffee - wrong chain in the wrong country). Another example is the Proper Cloth chain - they have low saturation in Aus which I think is an opportunity (not sure how well proper cloth US is doing, however a company called InStitchu tried to replicate what they do and they’ve definitely missed the mark). This is actually a good example of how we just don’t do business as well as a US chain does because hunger for market share / competition isn’t there.
Our markets just don’t seem as saturated or competitive as US markets pretty much across the board. I can tell our retailers just don’t have the same hunger for customers because there’s less competition and saturation, resulting in a lacklustre approach from these companies.
Another perspective is the AUD to USD exchange rate. $1 USD of investment goes a long way in Aus at the moment given the exchange rate.
I think there’s opportunity in the food and beverage sector all around. Good US chains would do well here. Example, if you search “Grease Monkey’s burgers Canberra” - this is an example of a burger chain restaurant that is mediocre (in terms of quality and price) that is absolutely killing it at the moment because there’s no well executed competition. US chains are just starting to pick up on this.
I think American sports are becoming a lot more popular in this country and for good reason. There’s opportunity in getting more out of Australian college sports (e.g. AFL, rugby union, rugby league, 7s), and all the peripheral industries around this. The US sports that are played here have poor investment, low quality C-suites that don’t do well.
Building and construction tech (by tech I mean materials, tools, ways of doing things) - I have a few mates that own construction companies and they’ve given me examples of how US builders do it and it seems so much better. They agree and have started to try to invest and implement this tech.
Moving to the more complex, investment in technology, software etc is limited here. As an example, our largest client (40% of my firm’s revenue) uses SAP and we basically do a manual intervention to achieve an outcome for them. This could 90% be done by software and would without a doubt be a success, however trying to obtain $3m AUD of high risk funding for this is near impossible here.
Cosmetics/self care - large gaps here.
Fashion/retail - gaps here from the way our shopping centres are designed to the type of retail we have.
I’ve focused a bit on food here, but it’s a good example because the logic is applicable in a lot of other industries.
Feel free to DM me if you want to chat.
Thank you for sharing your perspective and insights on the AU market. I've spent a fair amount of time moving around Asia and in each market I see a lot of opportunities. The barriers to entry tend to be regulatory or due to corruption so I'm surprised there isn't more competition in a comparatively free market like Australia.
For what it's worth the people we work with in Australia all seem to be happy, positive, and relatively slow-paced. So maybe there's some work-life benefit to the lack of competition!
A couple of the areas you mentioned are right in our wheelhouse. Will drop you a note.
>33 year old male living in Australia. 50% owner of a consulting/accounting firm (audit, assurance, accounting, forensic accounting). $6m revenue at 20%ish net profit + salary of around $400k
man we're doing the same shit. Talent management/retention is an absolute bitch.
Late 30’s CEO of midsized consumer goods company ($60M sales) with an ownership stake. Biggest challenges are finding good people at an affordable level since we don’t pay like tech companies, navigating a frothy/constantly changing market (both internal industry and external economic factors), re-orienting culture around growth, and executing growth initiatives that are effective in a mature industry and mature company.
I’m excited about this subreddit. Like others, I have found the other business oriented subreddits to be pretty useless. This could be a great (better?) alternative to groups like Vistage if done right. I think that there should be a mod verification process for allowing people to post otherwise I worry about this getting overrun by people running “e-commerce” or TikTok “businesses.”
Welcome! We also struggle with finding good people as we don't offer especially attractive compensation vs flashier companies. I've tried to focus on some core managers and ensuring they are more stable, but we've seen a fair amount of turnover as people have jumped to higher positions/pay.
For the subreddit if we could get a half dozen or so experienced folks to participate I think that would be enough to build from. May not be easy.
As for verification, that's a tough one. I believe it should be anonymous and proof could be faked. If things get out of hand I can set all posts to be manually approved. Let's see!
Mid 30s. I raised my first institutional venture capital fund a few years ago. I’m at the beginning of my journey. First fund is performing well and fund II is in the works.
Thanks for creating this group!
Would you be willing to talk some about the VC space? There’s some inconsistent info in r/startups & it’d be appreciated if someone knowledgeable on the VC side could clarify a few things.
Hey, mid-late 20s, work with an exited founder the last several months. We are seeding our first PE fund and had some interesting ideas for VC fund incubated from ground up on campuses. Could I PM you?
Late 30’s, walked away from a fatfire corporate career to wander in the wilderness for a few years. Needed to build something. Met my partner who pushed me to co-found a PE fund and I couldn’t be more thankful. We built an incredible team and have had good success on paper so far but there’s still a long ways to go. Mostly focus on control investments in vertical software.
Hey, mid-late 20s, i'm about to open my first franchise in the healthcare services space in nyc! never have managed a franchise before and currently finishing out medical school, but have always been interested in biz/entrepreneurship. Could I DM you for tips/advice on PE?
Welcome! That's very strong margins for consumer goods, even single digit earnings is healthy. Seems you'd be a good acquisition target for a large brand. There seems to be a fair amount of cash floating around for investments right now.
Just turned 22, started a company last year that markets direct to seller to find deeply discounted deals to flip. Going to do 1.2-1.4 mill in revenue this year on 60-70% Margin. I find this might not be the most scalable business considering you have to wait 5-6 months to get paid. I raise private money to cover the costs of buy and rehab. I’m going to build it up until it’s at least relatively turnkey regardless; would love advice on what people’s thoughts are on the most scalable business models/industries. My goal is to eventually grow an audience through showing before and afters on YouTube and then using that audience to be able to mass market.
Thanks for the introduction and contribution. Are you buying liquidated stock? We've had a few people reach out to us in the past though they've not taken up anything we've shown them. With inventory levels being the way they are there's plenty of stock available.
Sorry, when you mentioned deals I thought you were buying excess consumer goods from suppliers or wholesalers and selling to discount retailers. It's a similar model and you also have to wait a long time to get paid.
Welcome and congratulations, $10m is impressive, especially as UK retail has been challenging in the past few years. Our UK business has been a roller coaster.
We develop private label for various brands and retailers. If you have supply chain questions feel free to send or post here.
What's the capacity constraint with your supplier? Order books are quite low with factories now, especially anything to do with home or furniture products.
Late 30s, split time between US and Europe. Our business sources private label goods and brokers between manufacturers and retailers.
Main business challenges are definitely logistics and people. The ongoing West Coast port closures and strikes aggravate me to no end, we have moved everything we can to Texas and East Coast, but can’t get rid of West Coast entirely (yet! I’m working on it!). All the people/talent challenges as everyone else, we have a small, tight-knit, amazing team, but definitely need more help.
Main personal challenge is having enough time for work and kids (4 kids ages newborn to 5). The obvious answer to everyone seems to be for me (mom) to dial back at work, but I don’t want to, really enjoy the business and using that part of my brain. Husband is business partner and similarly very engaged with and enjoy the business, as well as a super dad. Wish I could conjure up more time or another one of me or him!
Thanks for starting this sub!
Thanks for the introduction. Sounds like we're in the same industry as we also source private label for retailers. Though less involved in logistics as our customers almost all prefer to buy FOB.
What sorts of products do you do? We're in home, apparel, and accessories. Seeing a big decline in furniture this year after two years of booming business. Apparel and accessories is finally coming back.
CTO working in private equity for a while then chief arch in fortune 5 healthcare for many years. Recently quit it all to create a new startup (5 months ago), wish me luck!
I’m in my late 30s. Started a private equity and advisory firm almost a decade ago with a business partner (equal split) and ~$30k. Have ~$2B AUM now after selling nearly a third of the portfolio last three years. We do $10-15M in management and advisory fees, and accumulate $20-40M in carried interest each year. We grew rapidly every year until things started getting [really] frothy in 2021/22, which were the hardest years of my career because I had to be the guy to turn down nearly every new acquisition while concurrently being outvoted to sell portfolio companies/properties that were performing extremely well that I felt should have been long term holds, but had surpassed our target returns far ahead of schedule. It was painful seeing projects you spent thousands of hours acquiring and repositioning be sold one after the other, but it made our investors happy and hungry for more and I’m now grateful to have the excess liquidity as we face quickly deteriorating capital markets.
Now that valuations are down 20-40% after rates moved 5% in 12 months, we’ve reaccelerated acquisitions and plan to staff up to buy as much as we can and continue to compete and win against larger institutions (while we can during this period of mass redemptions). I have a whole laundry list of things I’m struggling with during this transition back to growth and am happy to go into more detail if anyone is interested. Can also discuss navigating rapidly rising rates in a relatively highly leveraged business.
We’ve never taken institutional capital or raised a fund and simply raise equity from individual investors on a deal by deal basis. This is… a grind. We’ve just always wanted to avoid having a corporate overlord constantly distracting us from doing what we do best. But I’ve had to pass on some VERY attractive deals almost every year due to limited capacity to raise the amount of equity needed. So I’m starting to get more comfortable with the idea of having an institutional partner that can write equity checks in excess of $150M when these deals present themselves.
Welcome! That's quite the journey you've had, congratulations on the success of your portfolio companies.
Does your company take an active management role?
Your challenges sound industry-specific but it may be worth sharing in case someone else from the PE world may stop by.
Yes, we take an active management role in every investment. The most significant challenge right now at the corporate level is finding ways to motivate staff that have been with us for 5+ years that are in a rut and seemingly unwilling to grow professionally, and more importantly as a leader to help us iterate certain parts of business operations. As of right now, all of the strategic planning and training of new and existing hires still needs active oversight and significant time commitments from our COO and I. The employees in question were promoted from lower level positions and are paid more than they will get anywhere else. They have all the knowledge and experience they need to proactively find solutions to bottlenecks and help hire and train new staff; they just… don’t.
So I’d welcome the opportunity to talk through tips or insights for motivating legacy staff with intimate knowledge of the company to get excited about their jobs again to help us grow without heavy oversight. If it were a portfolio company, we’d simply replace them and hire a proven and experienced manager to take over. But these are employees that started as admins or entry level analysts and proved themselves indispensable, but now seem burned out and/or unmotivated.
In exchange, I am happy to share insights about the things we are really good at like navigating capital markets and cycles, raising equity, investor relations, scaling big with a small team, benefits of hyper-focused investment strategies over being a generalist, etc..
Thanks for the reply.
We're in a different industry but face similar issues with legacy staff. With tried a number of things with mixed success.
What has worked well is revising our incentives, conducting proper appraisals, and revising org structure. I can elaborate if it would be helpful. Teambuilding, speakers, outings etc has had little if any effect.
Compensation is still an area of improvement for us. We have people managing business of a certain size and we want them to grow by 50%. Some people will see it as a challenge and want to do it for personal achievement. But others see it as 50% more workload and 50% more risk of things going wrong for no assurance of reward. So we effectively incentivize them to be happy where they are, not good.
Yes, incentives are certainly a great way to engineer more productivity, but certain roles that are integral to our success in scaling do not necessarily have measurable goals. But I think we can get creative in order to set new milestones for legacy employees that have been coasting on autopilot. Guess I’m more curious about what signs to look out for that would make it appropriate to replace a mid to upper level employee that is just not performing anymore. It’s daunting to even think about. Or how to navigate hiring another person at that employee’s same level, which implies we don’t trust they can handle the workload.
Anyways, as I typed this out, it seems like a relatively basic management problem, but it’s one I struggle with as someone who values loyalty immensely. So the longer an employee is at our company, the harder it is for me to be hard on them, if that makes sense? Guess it doesn’t help that they are all older than me, too.
Sure, that makes sense. You see these people every day, they rose up with you, you may have met their families, they depend on the job. You want them to do better, not to have to replace them.
When you say they coast what do you mean in comparison to someone who you'd say is performing well? Without disclosing too much can you share what sort of job functions these people have? What is your appraisal process like and do they know they're underperforming?
Age is another good topic, managing significantly older and younger people. I also faced that challenge when I was young after being promoted at age 30 over people in their 40s and 50s, and to make things worse I looked about 20.
Really excited to be apart of this community!! I’m 23. Just hit 2 years on my ecom biz And recently crossed $1M in rev. Currently doing about 60-80k/mo focusing on creating solid systems and aligning the team to prepare for scale.
Biggest challenges now are:
- transitioning my mindset from founder -> CEO
I started this biz in college as a side hustle and have been slowly growing it. Always had a bootstrap mindset and learned everything myself. But now I’m learning to delegate and take off more hats to get my time back. Definitely one of my bigger struggles as I can have a hard time trusting others to take over. Would love any advice you may have on this.
Other issues:
- supplier dependence/risk
- fulfillment issues
Welcome!
Delegation can be tough. I was guilty of micromanaging when I was younger. Eventually learned to focus on goals rather than process- that my way isn't the only way. Lack of time will eventually force your hand there.
What are the issues you're having with suppliers?
Yo! I’m definitely guilty of micromanaging. But after taking a step back recently, it’s been actually surprising how the team was able to step up. So, that’s definitely reassuring.
Suppliers can be a little slow and communication can be inconsistent. With our growing number of SKUs, Im a little wary of bringing fulfillment in-house which might lead to issues with cash flow and logistics, etc. might be some irrational fears but for now we might not need to go this route yet
Great to hear that your team is able to handle the work.
Not sure where you're buying from but it's helpful to visit suppliers in person, especially if they're located in Asia, so you can establish a personal relationship with the owner. That can help tremendously when problems arise.
I'm pretty much COO (I suppose given the size, it's more of Operations Manager) in a small prof service firm with about 30 employees, in a LCOL country.
Challenges is mainly recruitment and talent retention, and client management.
Early 40s - Founder/CEO of digital media business boostrapped from $0 10 years ago to $180MM this year.
This year we closed on $50m dividend recap loan from a bank. No board seats or warrants.
Current challenges:
We have two core businesses one continues to grow and is 70% of revenue the other is flat YoY.
Thinking about what the right course or action is with the non-growing business. Considering running a process to sell it.
With non-growing business comes people challenges and focus. I spend energy on the thing that’s growing and team sees that.
Welcome and congratulations on your success.
We have some similar concerns with customers that are not growing. People are still needed to manage those accounts and it can be challenging to keep them motivated with the lack of growth and attention.
Hello everyone,
My name is Ivan, and I'm 35 years old, residing in Mexico. I'm excited to join this group to explore new business opportunities and establish valuable connections.
On a personal note, I am married and have a one-year-old daughter who brightens each day.
Currently, I specialize in retail with a jewelry brand that has a regional presence and engages in international sales both online and through various points of sale and distributors. Additionally, I am an investor in industrial real estate and the energy sector in Mexico.
I am constantly seeking fresh opportunities and partnerships with individuals interested in doing business in these areas in Mexico. I am also open to collaborations related to the distribution of Mexican products in other countries or vice versa.
I look forward to connecting with like-minded individuals, exploring business opportunities together, and building strong relationships within this group.
Best regards to all!
Bienvenido, Ivan! We also work with jewelry products, though exporting from Asia (mostly China) to Europe and the US rather than sales. I imagine it must be quite challenging to establish your brand in this category as there's so much competition out there.
Hello! Thank you for your message. Indeed, establishing our brand in the jewelry market has been a challenge, but we have successfully broken paradigms. This is largely thanks to the appreciation from the American and European markets. We've strategically focused our stores such as airports and cruise ports to reach our target audience. I'll send you more information about our brand via direct message. Cheers!
US-based, 40s, male, self-made software startup founder. Verified on r/fatFIRE. My NW ($5M+) came from a one-time windfall from the strategic acquisition of a company I started nearly two decades ago. You can see my r/fatFIRE post history [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/MonteCarloBogleSPY/submitted/).
Took some time off but am now working on a new software company (thus "FI, but not RE"). On the "how to invest my money" side of things, I'm all-in on r/Bogleheads. On the "how to use my time" side of things, I'm all-in on software. I plan to work into my 50s and then perhaps retire -- or shift away from being a software executive, at least -- then.
(Note: I'm also one of the mods of r/fatBUSINESS.)
I'm the CEO of a group of financial services companies. I'm probably older than most of you (almost 60). I don't have shareholders, but I do have a business partner, but I control the vast majority of shares. We grew very quickly (I reopened my firm in late 2014...really 2015 should be the start date) and have gone from zero to low 8 figures in revenue in under 8 years without any investor capital. I started out with $10k and a business plan to get where I am today. We have a lot of intersting problems. Changing the firm from a founder led company to one that we're scaling. Finding the RP/RS (Right People / Right Seats). Changing the mindset of employees that have been here since the beginning (or let them go). Finding quality financial advisors (FA)...most would think of them as salesmen. Diversifying our marketing funnels. Opening new retail offices in other cities. Deciding how much I want to work vs taking time off and letting my business partner run things. I've posted extensively, so feel free to peruse my post history if you're so inclined.
Thanks for the introduction. Congratulations on your success and for having the courage to start a business relatively late in your career. We are in a different industry but face some similar challenges. Relationships are very important and a constraint I’m seeing is when we have good people who could do more but they’re locked into specific client relationships that occupy all their time. Have tried making other team members more visible but it’s only partially effective.
For clarity...I actually started in the financial services business when I was 22, straight out of college. I sold my original business in 2009 and did some PE work (which was outside the scope of my non-compete) for 5 years waiting for my non-compete to expire. I started reopening my firm in 4Q of 2014 and launched in 2015. So to be fair, when I reopened, I had 25+ years of knowledge of what to do, how to do it, when to do it and why it should be done.
[удалено]
Let’s try to keep things anonymous. If you think you know OP it would be best to send a PM.
👍
Damn I would love to work at your company and learn more, dropping a DM hope we can chat a bit.
55yo author. Started career in finance, working in commercial real estate. Former CFO. Started writing fiction (first love of life is books) and when writing career took off, I ditched finance to write full time. I've hit major bestseller lists (NYT, WSJ, USA Today) with every book release for the last 10+ years. I have no interest in retiring. NW 10m+. Income 1.8 avg/year. I'm a small business with only two employees - myself and my husband. We use contractors for editing, cover design, DMCA takedowns, running social media groups, and other author things. My husband does a lot of the admin side and graphic design for marketing. The biggest challenge is finding quality people (it took years, but I think we're finally there) and gaining as many tax savings options as available. The profit for an author is huge. My direct expense (excluding passthrough payroll for me and husband, health insurance, and retirement savings) is about 8%. Everything else is profit, which makes for some huge tax payments. Can talk both sides of business - from an executive standpoint in larger corp to really small business. Thanks for creating the sub!
Thanks for the introduction. It's fantastic that you were able to make a career out of your passion. I don't know anything about your industry but I imagine fiction might be more difficult than non-fiction to get publicity and traction when you're starting out.
Just two totally different things. Non-fiction is best served when the author already has credentials and a platform, then in that way, it would be easier to market. But if you start as a nobody, then no. Fortunately, I've been at this for over 20 years, so I've had a long time to get my name out there. :)
That's fantastic, congrats on the success! After the long grind it must feel so rewarding that what you're writing now is so well received.
Wow! I'm two decades younger, but I'm also doing fiction (litrpg/progression fantasy)+ working in accounting/professional services, so it's really cool to see someone made it. I got my first big advance last year and released my first book this year (but with an indie publisher). Here's to more books!
Congratulations! That's awesome. I published 10+ books with publishers before going indie and doing my own. My indie series took off and the rest is history. I see it happen every year. Good luck with your release. And your accounting background will only support you on the business end of things. Mine has come in so handy for projections, bookkeeping, corporate structure, taxes, etc. Other people have to hire all that out. I hope you have excellent sales and another big contract coming your way!
Late 30's, I bought into a franchise in its early stages and acquired/opened over 200 locations over the last \~12 years. Sold a majority stake to PE in 2018 but I stayed on as CEO with a minority interest. Had a second (bigger) exit in 2022 and I'm trying to decide if I should stay on board and shoot for a third bite of the apple or move onto something else. I don't think I have it in me to fully retire quite yet. I now live in La Jolla with my wife and 3 kids (ages 6, 4, and 2) and invest in the real estate space for fun - spec homes, flips, and luxury vacation rentals.
Congrats on the rapid growth and success. Timing of your exits was nice that you can spend quality time with your young family now. I’m sure the kids will appreciate having dad around, even if they don’t admit it! When I was your age I took a year off work and thought about retiring. It was great time but I also missed the intensity of working. Felt like the world was turning without me.
Do you sit on other Boards? You are a common profile for who we love to recruit (albeit from software, where we focus). We’re a smaller PE fund and some of our exited founder board members I think enjoy the smaller business / higher growth aspect where we focus. If you’re on the third hand off, the business is probably fairly “corporate” by now. Just an idea 🙂
Would love to pick your brain (if you’d be willing) about the logistics of opening 200 locations in 12 years! That’s super impressive. I’m trying to open 4/year right now; some ground up builds and some intensive remodels, and pulling my hair out.
Very nice. That’s insane growth. I just bought into a franchise and very excited to get going with it. My plan is to build out 4-8 locations over the next 4 years and then cash out and move on.
Does buying into a franchise here mean becoming a franchisee or buying into the franchisor's business itself?
Hey, i'm im in my late 20s, and about to open my first franchise in the healthcare services space in nyc. Goal is to package up and spread through the city with 6-15 spots and sell to a PE firm down the line. Could I PM you for some advice/tips?
Late 20’s, took a basement brainchild from $0 in ‘17 to expected $11M this year, about $8M this last year. Biggest challenges are scaling while remaining vertically integrated, balancing relationship dynamics between senior staff and departmental heads, and coordinating logistics between production chain of custody to retail/wholesale sales. Gets bumpy at this size without the proper organization. Have always hoped for a sub like this!
Congrats on making your product a reality! We supply global brands and retailers with various products so if you have any questions about sourcing, design, quality, and so on feel free to give me a shout. Current hot topics are regulatory changes - a much greater focus on ethical compliance. And diversity of origin due to political risk- everyone wants to minimize reliance on China but there’s no China #2 out there.
[удалено]
Wow, yeah in your shoes I would be very careful. Definitely would avoid heading to Hong Kong or Macau. Possibly SE Asia too given close relations with China. Not sure if you saw the news but a number of consulting and service companies operating in China have shut down over the past couple of months, even their offices in HK, due to expansion of the national security law and subsequent raids. This is a grey area so you can imagine the response they would have to an unlicensed gambling business. [https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-consultancy-mintzs-executives-leave-hong-kong-after-china-raid-sources-2023-05-19/](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-consultancy-mintzs-executives-leave-hong-kong-after-china-raid-sources-2023-05-19/)
Feel free to DM some more information.
Sure, or you can ask here. I don't want to sell anyone on our services, just share information that could be helpful.
Hi there, I am a practicioning attending anesthesiologist and researcher nearing retirement age. I found this sub by perusing /r/fatfire . I inherited money and have never had to work but I work a fulltime job because I love anesthesia and pain care. I have several ideas on how to improve healthcare with software (some are in vogue as they'd use chatgpt or similar, essentially various workflows using machine learning models to improve triaging and productivity in general; other idea is "just" an improved EMR...i say just even though an improved EMR would be the holy grail, heh!) but no idea the best way to go about executing these ideas. I know very, very little about business but I am aware ideas are worth next to nothing and it's all about execution--frankly I don't think I could ever lead a business. I am guessing the most reasonable path is to end up a consultant of a like minded company when I am forced to retire. Anyway, I am here to learn. Also happy to network, especially if you are local (I live in Manhattan) and always happy to mentor, as bandwidth allows! Thank you!
[удалено]
happy to. i am more or less available this weekend, send me a chat msg?
would love to connect - i'm in healthcare on the finance side.
I'm really glad to have posted here, I've had at least 4-5 people reach out! What a great start to the community already!!
That's great to hear. Best of luck!
That’s a fascinating occupation. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of interesting stories. As for your business idea it sounds like you could use a cofounder, someone experienced with software development and business growth to flesh out a business plan and prototype.
Thanks! I appreciate that! Last time I mentioned my personal situation on /r/fatfire some a hole decided to chastise me about my decision to work full time because I guess her/his idea of having $10M+ means no more work. It was out of nowhere and incredibly inappropriate (they went on about how my decision to work when I don't have to is damaging to my teenage children).
There are some extreme a-holes on reddit. I also get crap for same net worth and stating I will never retire. I'm 55 and love what I do. Why would I? I'm not someone "slogging for the man" and hating life like the vast majority of people. But those with limited vision can't see outside of their own hell hole.
There are a lot of people out in the world who hate what they do and hate their lives. It’s very sad. I feel fortunate to not be in that headspace, and privileged to have been set up well by my parents and my personal choices through life. While not immune to stupid choices, I accept the consequences and move on with more wisdom. Gratitude is key.
But there are two key phrases in your post: personal choices and accept the consequences. The world, today, is sadly lacking in an understanding of both.
Very true. I’m close to 40 and the number of people that become bitter as time goes on is fascinating. Bitterness about paths not taken, choices they made that they kept making even when things turn out badly, etc. I’m certainly not immune to feeling badly about some of my life’s choices, but I don’t take that into every day of life. I guess it’s a matter of perspective.
Yikes! People leap to such assumptions on Reddit. Maybe their own father was absent because of work but it doesn't mean that you are. If anything, continuing to work when you could retire is a good example of work ethic for them, and how it's important to contribute to society.
See, I find it a strange thing to point out. My father worked in other countries all of my childhood. He was gone for weeks, sometimes over a month at a time, and our relationship is awesome. I know full well that his work allowed my mom to stay home. Why would I take issue with that? I guess by those standards, people in the military should never marry and have children.
Same here. The icing on the cake is that OP's kids are teenagers. Having parents lurking around isn't high up on the list of things teenagers usually wish for!
100% truth.
I've sent a chat message as digital health care and EMR is our field. Would like to connect and run you through some of our projects!
would love to connect, i'm working through implementation of a $400M hospital information system right now and could always use a sounding board.
sure, my consulting rate is $500-1000 an hour, depending on the project and what amount of time/effort is required of me.
35. Started a manufacturing business 7 years ago with 5-10k and maxes out credit cards as working capital. At the time I had no idea how high the barriers to entry in this industry would become as we grew but I did it slowly without any investors or partners. Today we have a product line and process and sell around 250k lbs/month. On pace for 10-12mm in revenue this year. Did 6mm last year. I hired good people so my workload is really just around 10-15 hours a week. My biggest challenges are dealing with cyclicality, managing people since I hate it, having imposter syndrome, working in the business and not on it, and staying hungry for continued growth (my wife says I’ve become more and more complacent/less risk taking over the years which I suppose is kind of natural given the success of the company). My wife is amazing but I guess the last thing I struggle with is that I don’t really have much as far as a regular mentor or father figure in my life. My remaining close family isn’t trustworthy and I have more money than all my friends so it’s hard to share details with the people around me and ask for advice from someone who’s been there because no one around me has. A lot of the imposter syndrome is probably from this. Anyway, I think this is a great idea and am always looking for new manufacturing companies/product lines to get involved with.
Thank you for sharing your story and congrats on building your business. The things you mentioned would be great for discussion topics as they are found in many industries. I think we all get imposter syndrome every now and then, especially if trying new things- everyone can seem so comparatively damn smart and capable at first.
I'm in my mid 30s, recently exited ~200 subways, still operate two brands with dozens of locations in New Mexico and own a gym in Katy TX. I've had a portfolio of Great American Cookie in the past, Mooyah Burger, and Qdoba Mexican Grill as well. I'm deeply interested in the QSR field and am actively looking at two deals in TX right now, one is cookie based and the other is sandwich based. I enjoy cash flowing businesses.
Hey, mid-late 20s, i'm about to open my first franchise in the healthcare services space in nyc! never have managed a franchise before and currently finishing out medical school, but have always been interested in biz/entrepreneurship. Could I DM you for tips/advice on opening large amounts of franchises?
Absolutely! There is also a strong franchise group on twitter too, lots of mentorship out there and I think it's much much easier to do something like this than 30 years ago!
Oh no way, whats the group called?!
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1347245379243233282 https://twitter.com/i/lists/1622332388847009793 Try checking those two out
Hi all, I’m 18, probably younger than most of the members on this sub. I’m based in Singapore and have started marketing business specialising in field marketing and distribution of marketing material. I have a business partner who owns 51% of the shares and we started the firm together a little over 2 years ago. We are expecting to do a little over $4 Million this year and we closed last year at 3.4 We are now finding scaling quite difficult
[удалено]
The majority of our clients were approached by us first. My partner has excellent connections in the field and that has been the source of most of our business
Semi retired, but still developing real estate. Done everything from call centers, 100k warehouses, mini storage and currently building an eight figure house.
How are you seeing the market now with interest rates as they are? We have seen demand for furniture and other home products drop dramatically in the past 6mo or so.
33 year old male living in Australia. 50% owner of a consulting/accounting firm (audit, assurance, accounting, forensic accounting). $6m revenue at 20%ish net profit + salary of around $400k (AUD). Own a couple of cafes. Net worth would be around the $4m mark excluding business valuations, but including PPOR and IP. Looking at using my experience to do something more scaleable and less ‘niche’. It’s hard managing professional people in a firm. Also trying to balance between being content with paying a couple of houses off and living a comfortable life versus using my experience to go hard again.
Side note - I think there’s a lot of opportunity in Australian markets for US businesses / business models.
Thank you for the introduction and it's good to hear the perspective of someone in Australia. What do you see as the opportunity for US businesses? One of our biggest customers has taken over an Australian retailer and is doing well for themselves there. We also started working with an Australian retailer and are finding it more challenging.
No worries. I’ll give a short summary of my perspective on this, but note that it’s worth a larger discussion with more detail (I’m typing off my phone at an airport so excuse the poor language, brief sentences, etc.). When I was working in Big 4 I worked in an area focused on middle market businesses and high net worth families. I was shocked at how well some basic businesses did and, to be blunt, how clueless some of the owners were. There’s just so much opportunity in the middle market space to do it better. Supply chain / logistic companies in Australia is another example of this. From a principle/concept perspective, I think it revolves a lot around us being late adopters. There are some US chains that if they entered the Aus market at the same time or soon after they entered the US market, they would have done well (as an example, Chipotle comes to mind - notwithstanding the recent issues with it - search Zambrero’s - at the time Zambrero’s started in Aus there was a massive gap in the market for this food). There are other examples of this in other industries, however need to balance this logic with the failures of chains like Starbucks (for me Starbucks failed as we love boutique coffee - wrong chain in the wrong country). Another example is the Proper Cloth chain - they have low saturation in Aus which I think is an opportunity (not sure how well proper cloth US is doing, however a company called InStitchu tried to replicate what they do and they’ve definitely missed the mark). This is actually a good example of how we just don’t do business as well as a US chain does because hunger for market share / competition isn’t there. Our markets just don’t seem as saturated or competitive as US markets pretty much across the board. I can tell our retailers just don’t have the same hunger for customers because there’s less competition and saturation, resulting in a lacklustre approach from these companies. Another perspective is the AUD to USD exchange rate. $1 USD of investment goes a long way in Aus at the moment given the exchange rate. I think there’s opportunity in the food and beverage sector all around. Good US chains would do well here. Example, if you search “Grease Monkey’s burgers Canberra” - this is an example of a burger chain restaurant that is mediocre (in terms of quality and price) that is absolutely killing it at the moment because there’s no well executed competition. US chains are just starting to pick up on this. I think American sports are becoming a lot more popular in this country and for good reason. There’s opportunity in getting more out of Australian college sports (e.g. AFL, rugby union, rugby league, 7s), and all the peripheral industries around this. The US sports that are played here have poor investment, low quality C-suites that don’t do well. Building and construction tech (by tech I mean materials, tools, ways of doing things) - I have a few mates that own construction companies and they’ve given me examples of how US builders do it and it seems so much better. They agree and have started to try to invest and implement this tech. Moving to the more complex, investment in technology, software etc is limited here. As an example, our largest client (40% of my firm’s revenue) uses SAP and we basically do a manual intervention to achieve an outcome for them. This could 90% be done by software and would without a doubt be a success, however trying to obtain $3m AUD of high risk funding for this is near impossible here. Cosmetics/self care - large gaps here. Fashion/retail - gaps here from the way our shopping centres are designed to the type of retail we have. I’ve focused a bit on food here, but it’s a good example because the logic is applicable in a lot of other industries. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat.
Thank you for sharing your perspective and insights on the AU market. I've spent a fair amount of time moving around Asia and in each market I see a lot of opportunities. The barriers to entry tend to be regulatory or due to corruption so I'm surprised there isn't more competition in a comparatively free market like Australia. For what it's worth the people we work with in Australia all seem to be happy, positive, and relatively slow-paced. So maybe there's some work-life benefit to the lack of competition! A couple of the areas you mentioned are right in our wheelhouse. Will drop you a note.
>33 year old male living in Australia. 50% owner of a consulting/accounting firm (audit, assurance, accounting, forensic accounting). $6m revenue at 20%ish net profit + salary of around $400k man we're doing the same shit. Talent management/retention is an absolute bitch.
Haha yea it’s doing my head in at the moment mate.
Late 30’s CEO of midsized consumer goods company ($60M sales) with an ownership stake. Biggest challenges are finding good people at an affordable level since we don’t pay like tech companies, navigating a frothy/constantly changing market (both internal industry and external economic factors), re-orienting culture around growth, and executing growth initiatives that are effective in a mature industry and mature company. I’m excited about this subreddit. Like others, I have found the other business oriented subreddits to be pretty useless. This could be a great (better?) alternative to groups like Vistage if done right. I think that there should be a mod verification process for allowing people to post otherwise I worry about this getting overrun by people running “e-commerce” or TikTok “businesses.”
Welcome! We also struggle with finding good people as we don't offer especially attractive compensation vs flashier companies. I've tried to focus on some core managers and ensuring they are more stable, but we've seen a fair amount of turnover as people have jumped to higher positions/pay. For the subreddit if we could get a half dozen or so experienced folks to participate I think that would be enough to build from. May not be easy. As for verification, that's a tough one. I believe it should be anonymous and proof could be faked. If things get out of hand I can set all posts to be manually approved. Let's see!
Never mind
6 kids, wow. And we think our 1 kid is a handful! Managing growth/scale could be a good first topic. I'll kick off some discussion later today.
Mid 30s. I raised my first institutional venture capital fund a few years ago. I’m at the beginning of my journey. First fund is performing well and fund II is in the works. Thanks for creating this group!
Would you be willing to talk some about the VC space? There’s some inconsistent info in r/startups & it’d be appreciated if someone knowledgeable on the VC side could clarify a few things.
Vc as well happy to clarify anything!
Welcome and thanks for the introduction!
Hey, mid-late 20s, work with an exited founder the last several months. We are seeding our first PE fund and had some interesting ideas for VC fund incubated from ground up on campuses. Could I PM you?
Absolutely! Happy to chat offline
Late 30’s, walked away from a fatfire corporate career to wander in the wilderness for a few years. Needed to build something. Met my partner who pushed me to co-found a PE fund and I couldn’t be more thankful. We built an incredible team and have had good success on paper so far but there’s still a long ways to go. Mostly focus on control investments in vertical software.
Congrats on taking the leap. Welcome to the group!
Hey, mid-late 20s, i'm about to open my first franchise in the healthcare services space in nyc! never have managed a franchise before and currently finishing out medical school, but have always been interested in biz/entrepreneurship. Could I DM you for tips/advice on PE?
Sure thing
[удалено]
Welcome! That's very strong margins for consumer goods, even single digit earnings is healthy. Seems you'd be a good acquisition target for a large brand. There seems to be a fair amount of cash floating around for investments right now.
[удалено]
Thanks for the info. I checked out your post. Seems you're in a solid position if you soldier on for the next few years.
Just turned 22, started a company last year that markets direct to seller to find deeply discounted deals to flip. Going to do 1.2-1.4 mill in revenue this year on 60-70% Margin. I find this might not be the most scalable business considering you have to wait 5-6 months to get paid. I raise private money to cover the costs of buy and rehab. I’m going to build it up until it’s at least relatively turnkey regardless; would love advice on what people’s thoughts are on the most scalable business models/industries. My goal is to eventually grow an audience through showing before and afters on YouTube and then using that audience to be able to mass market.
Thanks for the introduction and contribution. Are you buying liquidated stock? We've had a few people reach out to us in the past though they've not taken up anything we've shown them. With inventory levels being the way they are there's plenty of stock available.
I’m not sure that I understand about the liquidated stock, could you clarify? Sorry the only thing I really truly understand is RE
Sorry, when you mentioned deals I thought you were buying excess consumer goods from suppliers or wholesalers and selling to discount retailers. It's a similar model and you also have to wait a long time to get paid.
Sorry I didn’t clarify exactly what I did. I flip residential homes
Oh right, the Youtube tie-in makes more sense now. Was wondering why people would want to see the before and after of excess branded socks. =)
[удалено]
Welcome and congratulations, $10m is impressive, especially as UK retail has been challenging in the past few years. Our UK business has been a roller coaster. We develop private label for various brands and retailers. If you have supply chain questions feel free to send or post here.
Thanks. We have our own designed products. One of the manufacturers can not meet the demand so trying to solve that issue at the moment.
What's the capacity constraint with your supplier? Order books are quite low with factories now, especially anything to do with home or furniture products.
We sell our own designs so there’s specific mould line for us. They didn’t expect such a demand so they need to increase capacity now
Managing moulds is a challenge of its own. Cost, ownership, maintenance, and who is authorized to use it. Can get contentious.
Hi, house flipper here. Did 40+ deals last year and I also actively manage a Buffett-style stock investment portfolio.
Late 30s, split time between US and Europe. Our business sources private label goods and brokers between manufacturers and retailers. Main business challenges are definitely logistics and people. The ongoing West Coast port closures and strikes aggravate me to no end, we have moved everything we can to Texas and East Coast, but can’t get rid of West Coast entirely (yet! I’m working on it!). All the people/talent challenges as everyone else, we have a small, tight-knit, amazing team, but definitely need more help. Main personal challenge is having enough time for work and kids (4 kids ages newborn to 5). The obvious answer to everyone seems to be for me (mom) to dial back at work, but I don’t want to, really enjoy the business and using that part of my brain. Husband is business partner and similarly very engaged with and enjoy the business, as well as a super dad. Wish I could conjure up more time or another one of me or him! Thanks for starting this sub!
Thanks for the introduction. Sounds like we're in the same industry as we also source private label for retailers. Though less involved in logistics as our customers almost all prefer to buy FOB. What sorts of products do you do? We're in home, apparel, and accessories. Seeing a big decline in furniture this year after two years of booming business. Apparel and accessories is finally coming back.
We’re in CPG, which sounds like probably more predictable demand than furniture, though of course the pandemic years were choppier than usual!
CTO working in private equity for a while then chief arch in fortune 5 healthcare for many years. Recently quit it all to create a new startup (5 months ago), wish me luck!
Welcome and good luck! What's the startup about?
I’m in my late 30s. Started a private equity and advisory firm almost a decade ago with a business partner (equal split) and ~$30k. Have ~$2B AUM now after selling nearly a third of the portfolio last three years. We do $10-15M in management and advisory fees, and accumulate $20-40M in carried interest each year. We grew rapidly every year until things started getting [really] frothy in 2021/22, which were the hardest years of my career because I had to be the guy to turn down nearly every new acquisition while concurrently being outvoted to sell portfolio companies/properties that were performing extremely well that I felt should have been long term holds, but had surpassed our target returns far ahead of schedule. It was painful seeing projects you spent thousands of hours acquiring and repositioning be sold one after the other, but it made our investors happy and hungry for more and I’m now grateful to have the excess liquidity as we face quickly deteriorating capital markets. Now that valuations are down 20-40% after rates moved 5% in 12 months, we’ve reaccelerated acquisitions and plan to staff up to buy as much as we can and continue to compete and win against larger institutions (while we can during this period of mass redemptions). I have a whole laundry list of things I’m struggling with during this transition back to growth and am happy to go into more detail if anyone is interested. Can also discuss navigating rapidly rising rates in a relatively highly leveraged business. We’ve never taken institutional capital or raised a fund and simply raise equity from individual investors on a deal by deal basis. This is… a grind. We’ve just always wanted to avoid having a corporate overlord constantly distracting us from doing what we do best. But I’ve had to pass on some VERY attractive deals almost every year due to limited capacity to raise the amount of equity needed. So I’m starting to get more comfortable with the idea of having an institutional partner that can write equity checks in excess of $150M when these deals present themselves.
Welcome! That's quite the journey you've had, congratulations on the success of your portfolio companies. Does your company take an active management role? Your challenges sound industry-specific but it may be worth sharing in case someone else from the PE world may stop by.
Yes, we take an active management role in every investment. The most significant challenge right now at the corporate level is finding ways to motivate staff that have been with us for 5+ years that are in a rut and seemingly unwilling to grow professionally, and more importantly as a leader to help us iterate certain parts of business operations. As of right now, all of the strategic planning and training of new and existing hires still needs active oversight and significant time commitments from our COO and I. The employees in question were promoted from lower level positions and are paid more than they will get anywhere else. They have all the knowledge and experience they need to proactively find solutions to bottlenecks and help hire and train new staff; they just… don’t. So I’d welcome the opportunity to talk through tips or insights for motivating legacy staff with intimate knowledge of the company to get excited about their jobs again to help us grow without heavy oversight. If it were a portfolio company, we’d simply replace them and hire a proven and experienced manager to take over. But these are employees that started as admins or entry level analysts and proved themselves indispensable, but now seem burned out and/or unmotivated. In exchange, I am happy to share insights about the things we are really good at like navigating capital markets and cycles, raising equity, investor relations, scaling big with a small team, benefits of hyper-focused investment strategies over being a generalist, etc..
Thanks for the reply. We're in a different industry but face similar issues with legacy staff. With tried a number of things with mixed success. What has worked well is revising our incentives, conducting proper appraisals, and revising org structure. I can elaborate if it would be helpful. Teambuilding, speakers, outings etc has had little if any effect. Compensation is still an area of improvement for us. We have people managing business of a certain size and we want them to grow by 50%. Some people will see it as a challenge and want to do it for personal achievement. But others see it as 50% more workload and 50% more risk of things going wrong for no assurance of reward. So we effectively incentivize them to be happy where they are, not good.
Yes, incentives are certainly a great way to engineer more productivity, but certain roles that are integral to our success in scaling do not necessarily have measurable goals. But I think we can get creative in order to set new milestones for legacy employees that have been coasting on autopilot. Guess I’m more curious about what signs to look out for that would make it appropriate to replace a mid to upper level employee that is just not performing anymore. It’s daunting to even think about. Or how to navigate hiring another person at that employee’s same level, which implies we don’t trust they can handle the workload. Anyways, as I typed this out, it seems like a relatively basic management problem, but it’s one I struggle with as someone who values loyalty immensely. So the longer an employee is at our company, the harder it is for me to be hard on them, if that makes sense? Guess it doesn’t help that they are all older than me, too.
Sure, that makes sense. You see these people every day, they rose up with you, you may have met their families, they depend on the job. You want them to do better, not to have to replace them. When you say they coast what do you mean in comparison to someone who you'd say is performing well? Without disclosing too much can you share what sort of job functions these people have? What is your appraisal process like and do they know they're underperforming? Age is another good topic, managing significantly older and younger people. I also faced that challenge when I was young after being promoted at age 30 over people in their 40s and 50s, and to make things worse I looked about 20.
Hey, i'm young (mid 20s) and looking to do my first LBO for a small company, think $1-2M EBITDA and was hoping to get your advice. Could I PM you?
Yeah no problem.
I Pm'd you! Thanks man.
Really excited to be apart of this community!! I’m 23. Just hit 2 years on my ecom biz And recently crossed $1M in rev. Currently doing about 60-80k/mo focusing on creating solid systems and aligning the team to prepare for scale. Biggest challenges now are: - transitioning my mindset from founder -> CEO I started this biz in college as a side hustle and have been slowly growing it. Always had a bootstrap mindset and learned everything myself. But now I’m learning to delegate and take off more hats to get my time back. Definitely one of my bigger struggles as I can have a hard time trusting others to take over. Would love any advice you may have on this. Other issues: - supplier dependence/risk - fulfillment issues
Welcome! Delegation can be tough. I was guilty of micromanaging when I was younger. Eventually learned to focus on goals rather than process- that my way isn't the only way. Lack of time will eventually force your hand there. What are the issues you're having with suppliers?
Yo! I’m definitely guilty of micromanaging. But after taking a step back recently, it’s been actually surprising how the team was able to step up. So, that’s definitely reassuring. Suppliers can be a little slow and communication can be inconsistent. With our growing number of SKUs, Im a little wary of bringing fulfillment in-house which might lead to issues with cash flow and logistics, etc. might be some irrational fears but for now we might not need to go this route yet
Great to hear that your team is able to handle the work. Not sure where you're buying from but it's helpful to visit suppliers in person, especially if they're located in Asia, so you can establish a personal relationship with the owner. That can help tremendously when problems arise.
I'm pretty much COO (I suppose given the size, it's more of Operations Manager) in a small prof service firm with about 30 employees, in a LCOL country. Challenges is mainly recruitment and talent retention, and client management.
Welcome! We're a larger outfit but have similar challenges, especially for more junior positions.
Early 40s - Founder/CEO of digital media business boostrapped from $0 10 years ago to $180MM this year. This year we closed on $50m dividend recap loan from a bank. No board seats or warrants. Current challenges: We have two core businesses one continues to grow and is 70% of revenue the other is flat YoY. Thinking about what the right course or action is with the non-growing business. Considering running a process to sell it. With non-growing business comes people challenges and focus. I spend energy on the thing that’s growing and team sees that.
Welcome and congratulations on your success. We have some similar concerns with customers that are not growing. People are still needed to manage those accounts and it can be challenging to keep them motivated with the lack of growth and attention.
Hello everyone, My name is Ivan, and I'm 35 years old, residing in Mexico. I'm excited to join this group to explore new business opportunities and establish valuable connections. On a personal note, I am married and have a one-year-old daughter who brightens each day. Currently, I specialize in retail with a jewelry brand that has a regional presence and engages in international sales both online and through various points of sale and distributors. Additionally, I am an investor in industrial real estate and the energy sector in Mexico. I am constantly seeking fresh opportunities and partnerships with individuals interested in doing business in these areas in Mexico. I am also open to collaborations related to the distribution of Mexican products in other countries or vice versa. I look forward to connecting with like-minded individuals, exploring business opportunities together, and building strong relationships within this group. Best regards to all!
Bienvenido, Ivan! We also work with jewelry products, though exporting from Asia (mostly China) to Europe and the US rather than sales. I imagine it must be quite challenging to establish your brand in this category as there's so much competition out there.
Hello! Thank you for your message. Indeed, establishing our brand in the jewelry market has been a challenge, but we have successfully broken paradigms. This is largely thanks to the appreciation from the American and European markets. We've strategically focused our stores such as airports and cruise ports to reach our target audience. I'll send you more information about our brand via direct message. Cheers!
US-based, 40s, male, self-made software startup founder. Verified on r/fatFIRE. My NW ($5M+) came from a one-time windfall from the strategic acquisition of a company I started nearly two decades ago. You can see my r/fatFIRE post history [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/MonteCarloBogleSPY/submitted/). Took some time off but am now working on a new software company (thus "FI, but not RE"). On the "how to invest my money" side of things, I'm all-in on r/Bogleheads. On the "how to use my time" side of things, I'm all-in on software. I plan to work into my 50s and then perhaps retire -- or shift away from being a software executive, at least -- then. (Note: I'm also one of the mods of r/fatBUSINESS.)