Where I have been this time... and why I'm famous at Wells Fargo

[amp0193]

Sorry if it's cheesy or elementary for some, but this is the kind of stuff that rolls through my head.

Not cheesy at all, it was a great analogy!

Too many car analogies around here. It is in the name of the forum after all.

So big you fly over the bull-shit. Love it.

 

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[ChrisR]

Sorry if it's cheesy or elementary for some, but this is the kind of stuff that rolls through my head.

This whole post is incredibly awesome. It really gives me hope for the future.

I seriously can't wait for the next update!

-Chris

 

[Greg R]

I personally only give a damn about jets. Any Cessna stuff is a means to an end for me. You will see that my main businesses, as I progress and discuss them further, fit the criteria of the jet. Not because they grew into it, but because that is where I started them; despite some of the mistakes I've made and will discuss like trying to fly a "jet" off of a "cessna" runway.

@Kak,

REP+. That post was incredible. The jet references are perfect.

Every time I read something like this, it always causes me to reflect on what I'm currently doing. And I love it.

Does beginning with a jet vs a Cessna only equal the size of the plan. Or is there more to it?

Thank you.

 

[Boo]

Bumping what I believe is the best thread on this entire forum.

@Kak There is a company in your neck of the woods, Service Corporation International (SCI), which I believe is a fantastic example of many of the lessons that have been shared in this thread. Namely, aiming higher than others thought possible and not being held back by arbitrary challenges.

At the time of writing, SCI has a 7.76 BILLION market cap. It started as a humble funeral business in Houston in 1962 (within our lifetime people) and has acquired competitors, growing to over 4,000 locations.

What I love about this example is that it's a small family business that's scaled to a billion dollar company. People often have limiting beliefs around their niche i.e. "well you can't get that big in my industry, we don't do (insert: AI, pharma, manufacturing, tech etc)." This is funeral care people. It's incredibly limiting. You can't transfer bodies easily, people want it done locally so that can be nearby for ceremonies, it's human resource intensive etc. Yet they accomplished it.

It also happens to be a business model that I'm incredibly interested in. Solidifying a fragmented industry by buying out Mom and Pop stores that offer a fantastic service but without the skills to expand further, then keeping them on as management either through well-worded contracts or incentivizing by having them retain say 30%.

What if you could do this in another industry? Roll-ups aren't incredibly uncommon, but I'm still surprised that more don't happen. Partly this is due to low investor appetite due to a few high profile failures like Valeant. Regardless, many companies have shown that this is a viable tactic.

Think with more zero's and solve problems that other's haven't even though about.

Just wanted to bump this thread for others to read and to try and provide a tiny bit of value myself. Thanks @Kak and @Vigilante

 

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[Bekit]

I've only read the first page of this story so far, but wowowow... Just reading this is opening my eyes to thinking MUCH bigger than I EVER dared to before. Mind. Blown.

 

[Hijena1]

I am very thankful to every single person in this thread for sharing your thoughts and experiences, learned a lot just by reading. Opened my eyes to BS excuses making every day, some of you have been in much more harder situations then me.

Thank you once again for making me believe again that everything is possible !

 

[ADayattheRoxbury]

Man... my heart was racing for you! I got swindled in the past and just packed up my tent and went home, now, I know better. love your perseverance

 

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[SamRussell]

I have no idea what I am going to do for education with my children when the time comes. But I do want to gather a group of like minded individuals, who have children roughly the same age, and figure something out together. The current system is shit. "Business as usual" pisses me off more than almost anything else in the world. The education is one of the best examples of "business as usual" that you could possibly find. Time to change it up. That change HAS to start with us because the government sure as hell isn't going to take that challenge on.

Google "Van Damme Academy" and Montesori education - they might be more up your street.

I've had similar thoughts to you. I think I would have been better off with a pile of textbooks and being left alone than going to school. I saw a thread with some studies (I can't remember the thread) that back this up too.

 

[Ocean Man]

Hi Kak, thanks for sharing all your knowledge.

Relationships are really important, and what stuck out to me right in the beginning was when you mentioned this, "So to those of you who think you can't have a successful business and a wife or family are wrong, you just have to be deliberate and make sure you create systems that allow you to spend time away from the business."

Could you elaborate/clarify what types of systems to develop? Reading the Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted , obviously, Time is one of the commandments and being able to earn money while sleeping or taking a 똥, is what we should watch out for. Is this the type of systems you're referring to? A business that follows the commandments?

 

[Ocean Man]

Are you OK with that? Generally we look more for a business with some kind of leverage or scalability.

I would also recommend the E-Myth to you it is a good book.

This is why I've decided not to start a web development company. I feel like I would end up being an owner-operator or where I'm at currently, in a contractor/free-lancing position. Reading The Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted , I've been trying to think of the needs of people I can fulfill and provide value to... While also following the commandments.

Currently have a SAAS idea in mind or some products in mind. If I decide to go the product route, I'd like to branch out into a brand itself and conquer the industry. But haven't yet found a way to improve the product 10X. Haven't found that Purple Cow yet.

 

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[Ocean Man]

My apologies for not kicking this off sooner... It turned out to be a much busier trip for me than anticipated.

I am home now and I have unpacked some of my thoughts.

Some of you may know that I am in the process of getting my pilot's license and this may be cheesy to some, but I am noticing a lot of parallels and analogies between the business world, as my limited experience can describe, and flight. The size of an airplane is like the size of our businesses.

Knowledge- There is a tremendous difference in the amount of knowledge and experience required to be built up before you can fly a big jet... Some might say "I don't have the experience or knowledge required to start a business like that", but just like flight, you can learn. All the studying in the world, all the flying of Cessnas, is never going to prepare you to sit behind the controls of a jet. Pilots have to FLY a jet to learn a jet.

No one was born with the ability to fly a jet. Likewise no one was born with the ability to fly a Cessna either... The same goes for business. Folks will bitch about thinking big. "Oh, I'll just "do" ecommerce for now until I build up some capital or experience" It is a bullshit excuse. So you don't have the ability to set out to solve a legitimate problem, but you somehow have the ability to "revoloutionize" the cell phone case market with new color? No. Once again it comes back to becoming the expert. You must DO. You must ACT. There is NO ONE that will hold your hand and teach you how to start a seriously impactful business. Guess what... Thats OK! In fact it is real entrepreneurship. Following a step by step guide isn't. You'll F*cking crash.

Take off- Quite simply put, the larger the plane, the more runway it normally needs to take off. While a tiny lightweight backcountry airplane can take off with almost no rollout, the large jets need thousands of feet to safely take off. This parallels with business because the larger the problem you are solving, the bigger the company it is anticipated to be, the longer it is going to take before it can transfer it's weight from the wheels to the wings.

Barrier to entry? Yes. A jet needs a bigger runway... You can look at that runway as the blood, sweat and tears needed to be put in before your business can take off. Difficult is good for the people who have done it and bad for bozo wannabe competitors. This is the part where you LEARN! This is the part that builds you as a businessperson. This is the part that makes you EXPERIENCED. Have you ever wondered why some people get to the point where they don't feel the need to prove anything? Have you wondered why some people remain calm in the worst of times? They have been down a hell of a runway. The entrepreneur and the business is stronger for this.

This part goes along with my thread about what I would do if I started all over again. In that thread I basically make the case for a well capitalized business in order to ride out the run up first, and then climb faster. Need a bigger runway? OK... Build one.

Climb out- Larger jets, once they are finished rolling out climb like crazy to altitudes you cant touch in a small piston airplane.

This is the day you realize you quite literally could disrupt an entire market. There are growing pains that are bigger than if you were a small business, but so what? Your idea paid off and you are filling the organizational holes with resources on your way up as you leave the small business concerns like getting the cheapest phone system, using your office depot coupons or renting the cheapest shit heap office space you can find in your dust. You have cashflow and cash balence to work out most of the pressing problems.

Carrying capacity- I view this like a business' ability to carry resources. While a jet can carry hundreds of passengers, small airplanes have massive weight restrictions and fuel capacity considerations. With a smaller plane you need to make sacrifices in range to carry more weight and vice versa. Sound familiar?

How much inventory can you invest in at once? What kind of resources can your business carry? Can you afford a professional web designer or are you stuck trying your own hand? Can you afford to advertise to the extent you desire? Could your business accept a massive order without cashflow issues? How many ecommerce businesses could hire just one new person today and maintain a comfortable income for the proprietor? Some airplanes simply can't carry more than two or three people at a time, they are just too small and light. Everything in a small business is a trade off. Resources grow businesses.

Rough weather- It is inevitable that you will run into bad weather, the cool part is that jets fly over most of the bullshit. A small airplane can easily be murdered by the same storm a jet can simply fly over. Not only that, but a jet can intentionally fly through most shit that a small plane has to concern itself with. Small planes are constantly trying to avoid bad weather and adjust for changing conditions.

What happens when marketplace policies change? What happens when advertising gets more expensive? What happens when taxes go up? What happens when you have a legal problem? The list goes on and on. Things that might simply shake a jet can rip the wings off a cessna.

Ease of operation- I don't think anyone would argue that with modern autopilots and avionics, a jet isn't a more pleasant aircraft to fly. They are, and they're less work. This is self explanatory. Look at a CEO of a company that employs just 20 people vs a onepreneur... The CEO looks at his business from 35 thousand feet and the onepreneur is probably at 5 getting hands dirty and worrying about navigating around the next dark cloud.

What is my point?

All of this is not to say that you can't take a small company and turn it into a large company, but more often than not, the companies that become household names, the companies that employ 50, 1000, or even 100 thousand people are ones that were planned bigger from the start.

I personally only give a damn about jets. Any Cessna stuff is a means to an end for me. You will see that my main businesses, as I progress and discuss them further, fit the criteria of the jet. Not because they grew into it, but because that is where I started them; despite some of the mistakes I've made and will discuss like trying to fly a "jet" off of a "cessna" runway.

Sorry if it's cheesy or elementary for some, but this is the kind of stuff that rolls through my head.

Almost up-to-speed starting from page 1. When you said, "Not because they grew into it, but because that is where I started them" reminds me of when @vigalante mentioned Starting with the end in mind. Habit 2: Begin With End In Mind. Kak, I believe you and reading through everything right now... I wanted to say thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. You'll definitely get the jet and when you do... be sure take a photo in it!

 

[Simon Angel]

@Kak I haven't even finished the thread but I must have blasted your inbox with 20+ likes in the span of an hour. So many nuggets of wisdom can be found here and I took a bunch of screenshots to refer to when faced with my own similar challenges.

Thanks for existing together with @Vigilante who I haven't seen around as of late. I hope he's OK.

 

[Antifragile]

Nice thread bump. Will be going back and reading more. Real nuggets of gold from the first page!

 

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