Automation that solves waste management problems. Dad to 7. Vintage racer. Skier.
United States
Joined October 2022
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Someone asked me recently what my biggest mistake was in business.
I didn’t have a great answer at the moment
On reflection, I think my biggest mistake was anytime I took my foot off the gas.
For example, in the summer of 2010 into 2011 it was very hard to sell real estate in big sky at Spanish Peaks. Rumors, lawsuits, global, and local issues were all suppressing demand and killing deals.
So I allowed myself to take my foot off the gas.
I think that was very harmful to my commit level, my go-for-it. To my competitive energy. At least for a while.
I allowed busyness to creep in, which was really just a form of delay or laziness.
So yeah, that’s my answer
I downloaded @DealNav in order to help me track properties I want to consider leasing or likely buying for investment or to house my classic car shop, Heritage Auto Repair & Development of Pittsburgh
So far I’ve used it to capture what I know about the properties and to start to find comparables that will help me narrow in on valuation.
I’m rusty in my real estate valuation game…but with a little help my friend Ai I should be able to hack my way through.
If you are one of those power users of Deal Nav, follow along so you can see me make rookie mistakes and maybe help me avoid some too.
This is happening in waste brokerage and it's pretty obvious
What's amusing is that it is obvious who is doing it after you call a few of them.
Haulers who are aware are not pleased.
This is what awaits the USA if the DSA marches on, right?
call him a doomer until your GBP gets yanked
and then you'll call him to fix it
Can’t believe this isn’t announced on Bluesky
Meet NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe 🎙️
An open-weight, promptable 30B MoE model with ~4B active parameters that brings transcription in 40 languages, speaker attribution, translation, contextual prompting and audio understanding into one checkpoint.
Watch it keep track of who said what when everyone’s talking at once.
1/ 🧵
Trying for some punchy or compelling or memorable ads for our product DSQ Pioneer compactor monitor.
Feedback welcome.
“The first step is admitting you haul 1x/week.”
“1x/week is wrong. Be right. Get DSQ Pioneer”
“Friends don’t let friends haul 1x/week. Get help. Get DSQ Pioneer”.
"1x/week problem? Call 800-Get-Pioneer"
“This is your invoice on 1x/week hauls. Get help. Get DSQ Pioneer"
"1x/week hauls sit on a throne of lies. Get the truth. Get DSQ Pioneer"
A series of 5 different ads blaming the day of the week. "Monday is the wrong day to haul your compactor. Haul on the right day. Get DSQ Pioneer" replace Monday with Tuesday etc. run them on the particular day of the week (m, t, w, Thursday, Friday)
“Save $5,000. Get DSQ Pioneer”
What other well trod ad examples can we adjust to play on the 1x/week being a disease or addiction or negative and DSQ Pioneer Is the solution/savior?
Have the app display an ad for erectile dysfunction right when he goes to long press on the address of the game.
Good. We got our click revenue.
Now crash the app so he has to reload and we can do it again.
Load the ad for Christmas lights. It’s never too soon.
forgive me for always bringing this back to "have kids when you're young (if at all possible) and have many, as many as you can figure out to have"
The beauty of having 4+ kids is that maybe one will be capable and interested in taking over this business.
Now Pops can semi retire, hand over the reins (hard for Pops) and still get the benefit of added time to rebuild the business.
It's not always great, many potential issues, all the caveats.
This is EASIER to pull off if you have kids younger.
Now, when you are 70, bc you had kids in your 20's until you were ~35, your adult children are ages ~35-45 years old.
They are mature enough and experienced enough to do the job well.
This is harder if your kids are instead 10 years younger (25-35) bc you had kids 10 years later (in your 30s and 40s).
anyways, don't coast into the finish line. Run across that tape.
I often talk to ~70yo business owners that, due to taking their foot off the gas and over-focusing on tax reduction strategy vs value optimization, have a business that SHOULD be worth a million or two more than it is right now (VS if they'd finished stronger and optimized for growth/profit instead of coasting towards retirement).
They now have a gut-wrenching choice considering average lifespan in the USA is about 10 more years.
Do you commit 20% or more of your remaining time on this planet to getting your business better positioned for an bigger exit, or do you take what you can get so you have ALL your remaining time to enjoy your family and retirement?
I can't make that decision for them, but I do have to explain the reality of it, and that's a difficult convo to be into 45 minutes into a call with someone that was a stranger an hour ago.
One thing's for sure, it's a lot less difficult of a conversation if they've invested well outside the business over the years and own Real Estate and other assets. It's a much more serious convo with those that have most all of their Net Worth locked up in the goodwill value of their business.
Two big lessons to avoid this unpleasant reality:
1) Buy a house and pay it off during your earning years. Buy your business' Real Estate as well if you can and pay it off too. Also invest well along the way in other Real Estate and Equities etc. so you don't have all your Net Worth in the active biz. Let your business value be the "cherry on top" of your retirement not the "whole enchilada".
2) Run your business as you approach retirement with the priority on value-maximization. This means don't take your foot off the gas- ideally you want to sell a growing company, after your best year ever, without a bunch of muddy discretionary/owner-benefit spending to maximize your provable profits (even if that means paying more in tax your last year or three).
The level which “it runs itself” is inversely proportional to the amount of net profit you can expect
