Adam Callinan

Founder @PentaneSystems ~ Co-founder/CEO @TheBottleKeeper (acquired) ~ Co-founder @ANMM (acquired) ~ Columnist @Inc ~ Husband/Dad @Home

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

Confidence without effort = arrogance

[Larry Sprung, CFP®, CEPA® @Lawrence_Sprung]

𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙛 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙩 𝙗𝙮 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨? 🤯

Most people chase scale with more people, more money, and more chaos.

But what if constraints were your greatest asset?

This founder capped his e-commerce business at 4 people.

He refused to raise money.
He ran it from anywhere with Wi-Fi.

And still did $60M in sales.

How?

He focused on 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 … not growth at all costs.

No employees.
No office.
No payroll headaches.

High margins.
Lean systems.

Full cash reinvestment.

$8M in year three… while traveling the world with his wife.

The product mattered.

But not as much as how the business was 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵.

Sometimes the JOY comes from saying “no” and meaning it.

You don’t need more people.
You need stronger guardrails.

That’s the kind of growth that lasts.

🎥 Worth your time if you're building smart and lean.

Thank you to @Adam_Callinan for sharing his expertise with the Mitlin Money Mindset® @MitlinMoney audience.

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

What’s more dangerous….

Starting a company with three or more cofounders?

Or

Building the revenue model entirely on paid ads?

[Jimmy Feeman @FeemanJimmy]

I was a guest on the great @Adam_Callinan podcast last week.

Honestly best conversation I’ve had in while on general founder mindset.

Go listen if you want to hear how I have stayed sane over the past decade.

https://t.co/rKppCxGBM2

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

It was an accident.

I was advising an eComm after BottleKeeper was acquired - they were losing roughly $100k per month.

They had a super high contribution margin (revenue - sales related expenses) but were still hemorrhaging money.

There are two reasons this happens, which are typical for eComms.

Either

A. Fixed expenses were way too high (expenses we pay whether we make money or not like payroll, office rent, legal fees, etc)

Or

B. They weren't driving enough revenue, usually the result of underspending on customer acquisition/ads

So I rebuilt systems from my BottleKeeper days into that eComm (they were how we bootstrapped to 8-figures and got acquired with just 4 employees).

The answer for that eComm was C -> both A and B.

So we used more math to figure our exactly what they should be spending, and where their performance guardrails were to keep ad revenue profitable.

What happened?

Month 1 = lost $12k

Month 3 = made $44k

Lucky? No.

Intentional? Yes.

This eComm company paid me a lot to help them turn the company around. That result (alongside 2 other similar stories) are why I started Pentane -- it was organic and completely by accident.

Teaser -> I just finished creating a product that will do all of the above - tell you what's working, what's not, and what to do about it.

It will make your P&L talk.

And it's going to be completely free - for now.

Stay tuned...

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

Honest question... How do you set your ad budget?

At BottleKeeper it was literally spend ad dollars as fast as we could.

This worked in 2014-2016, then it got a lot more difficult as ad networks congested and CPMs grew (then we built systems and math to solve for that).

How do you set your ad budgets today?

1 - Gut feel
2 - Magic 8-ball
3 - I just know things
4 - My dog ate my homework
5 - Insanely fancy spreadsheets

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

We went on Shark Tank with $1,000,000 in sales in the past week...

@shaira had $20,000 in sales total.

We got crucified for not needing to be there.

She had nightmares about the lack of sales.

She said a resounding "YES!" to a massive PO from Walmart early on.

We said a resounding "NO!" to any retail distribution early on.

Nobody is right, nobody is wrong, where do you stand?

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

We built BottleKeeper into an 8-figure business with just 4 employees—crazy, right? The secret wasn’t headcount. It was math, systems, and saying no to anything that didn’t fit our guardrails.

So I’m curious—do you think the hardest part of running a business is managing people? Or is it building the right systems so you don’t need as many? If you had to choose, would you rather solve for efficiency or team size? Let’s hear your take.

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

Do you know the math?

We do.

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

$4M in one month, no employees, no investors.

And it almost burned me to the ground.

In 2016 we did $8M in sales, half of which was in the month of December.

It was absolute mayhem. All of the systems and automations created to "scale" without a team were hanging on by a thread.

Then I went to Europe with my wife and another couple for New Years, and I was depressed AF.

Literally, panic attacks while sitting at a cafe in Florence (I'd never experienced anxiety in my life).

From the outside everything looked great -- business had more than 5x'd revenue in a single year, having personally made more money in that month than I had over the previous 2 or 3 years combined.

But the wild ups and downs of the month were extremely hard on me, and I wasn't mentally prepared for it.

I had to make some massive personal changes to make sure that didn't happen again.

- Intentionally difficult exercise and physical challenges

- Meditation

- Daily journaling

And talking about the hard stuff, not just the highlights, is part of why I wanted to do the
Growth Mavericks Podcast --> to help provide some tools and guidance for other early-stage operators, particularly those first time entrepreneurs. If you haven't heard it yet, do it. And leave a 14 star review -- or whatever the highest number is :)

https://t.co/xbxEM3JjlV https://t.co/D9f63lFXp7

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

You ever done this?

Spend a year creating a new product and completely started over right when it was "finished"?

Well I have.

In 2017/2018 we spent nearly a year creating a new product to expand our BottleKeeper product line into cans (side note, don't name your company after your first product...dumb).

We were going to call the new can product "Brewtis" (also dumb).

We were being super "smart" and "efficient" by "saving" on an cheap product designer/engineer.

And...wait for it, because this is a real shocker...you get what you pay for.

Weird.

It wasn't until end, just before hitting 'go' on the first manufacturing run, that Matt and I agreed that the new product just sucked a$$.

The video is of this amazing dud of a product, which I now use to hold dry erase markers.

It just wasn't remotely good enough.

So we did what we thought was right, pulled the plug, and started over.

What we ended up with a year later in CanKeeper was 1000% better, designed in collaboration with our friends at Fresco Designs.

Morals of the story (there are 3):

1. It doesn't need to be the most expensive, but it definitely shouldn't be the least.

2. Be extremely critical from the very beginning -- if it sucks at day 10, it's going to suck at day 300, and you'll have burned 290 days wallowing in the muck and mire of the suck.

3. Once you have a paying audience, guide your product development on their feedback and do it fast -- it might take longer than you anticipate.

Ever had one of these "WTF did we do?" moments?!?!

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

Whoever needs to hear this: every path looks different and every story is unique. Keep going.

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

In a world of AI, personalization will always go a long way. Make your customers feel like they're talking to a real person, not a robot.

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

This is why it's important to listen to the data and not make assumptions 😏 Our core customer at BottleKeeper was not our target customer initially. Friendly reminder to take the emotion out of decisions and follow the data 📈

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

If I was going to start a consumer brand today, would I go and do the same thing? The answer to that is... absolutely not.

Why? You'll just have to follow me for more!

[Erik Huberman @ErikHuberman]

Exciting news from @hawkeventures as our portfolio company, @ThePentane, has officially closed their seed round!

Pentane has developed a powerful command center that connects the dots between your marketing and finances, because accurate data is everything when it comes to smart decision-making.

One of the most common (and costly) mistakes we see brands make is miscalculating their metrics, leading to poor marketing choices.

That’s where Pentane comes in: they’ve created a platform that lays everything out clearly, helping brands avoid these costly errors. And what truly sets them apart? It was built by a team with a proven track record of building and selling BOOTSTRAPPED eCommerce brands.

Simply put, every brand should be using this. Congrats to the Pentane team on this major milestone!

To learn more, the @axios feature is linked in the thread.

[Hawke Media @hawkemedia]

We and @hawkeventures are proud to announce that our portfolio company, @ThePentane has officially closed their seed round. Pentane has created a command center to truly understand how your marketing and finances connect. One of the biggest mistakes we see brands make is miscalculating their metrics and finances which leads to bad marketing decisions. Pentane has built that platform that spells it out so that these mistakes do not happen. Built by a team with a record of building and selling successful, BOOTSTRAPPED eCommerce brands, every single brand should be using this platform. Read the full article exclusively in @axios in the thread below!

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

@Scobleizer So frickin’ cool and so frickin’ creepy.

[Adam Callinan @Adam_Callinan]

Fantastically cool and absolutely creepy as F.

[Brett Adcock @adcock_brett]

Introducing Helix, our newest AI that thinks like a human

To bring robots into homes, we need a step change in capabilities

Helix can generalize to any household item 🧵

[Inc. @Inc]

All metrics are vanity metrics without context, so be absolutely sure you’re paying attention to this one above all. https://t.co/BG3jFcraQa