I did myself dirty as a young entrepreneur.
Looking back, here’s my biggest regret:
I pretended I wasn't smart enough to understand how a profit and loss works. Or how a balance sheet works. Or how debt and cash flow actually works. I said it wasn’t for me, and hired an expert to take care of it instead.
But I found out that’s the one thing in business you should never outsource.
Years ago, I brought in a CFO from one of the big four accounting firms. He spoke the language of finance perfectly, and was actually a friend from college. He’s a great human being who didn't mean to cause any harm.
But instead of having hard conversations, telling me "Chris, we have to stop X, Y, and Z right now and fire everybody," we just kept borrowing debt hoping things would turn around.
And when you're a self-funded business personally guaranteeing that debt, you're literally taking on the liability to pay your employees' bills instead of taking care of yourself first.
That led to years of depression and sadness.
Thank God we clawed our way out of it.
My biggest regret now:
If I had clearly identified this mental block earlier, I would have had the hardest conversation of my life right then, and fired everybody on the spot.
Instead, I let the bleeding continue for months and it made everything so much worse.
As a result, I've never looked at a balance sheet or a P&L the same way since.
So if you take one thing from this, let it be this:
Never delegate your finances. Your company’s growth depends on it.
My grandparents’ “expensive” house in 1967 was ~2,000 sqft and on a very small lot.
Today’s averages are ~2,500 sqft and have luxurious finishes like marble and expensive appliances.
Homes aren't just more expensive because of the supply.
They are 100x fancier.
🚨 WOAH: The mother and daughter duo out of Minnesota were LYING to defraud Autism Services to the tune of $21M.
HOLD TAMPON TIM ACCOUNTABLE.
Minnesota is NO place to be. Show up to vote on August 18th to make sure that this NEVER happens in Florida.
🚨 YES: Dr. Phil just went IN on the double-taxation of Social Security that President Trump is ACTIVELY aiming to end.
THIS IS LEADERSHIP. Show up to vote on August 18th to make SURE that outcomes like this have a fighting chance of coming to light.
🚨 MAKE THE MATH MAKE SENSE: FURTHER investigation into the outcome of the 2020 election in Wisconsin only raises MORE questions.
The population and voter data do NOT line up for the scenario to make sense that occurred.
Lock up EVERYONE that's accountable. MAKE IT HAPPEN
🚨 AMAZING: Dr. Oz just rolled up in Ohio to expose even MORE healthcare fraud.
EVERY dollar that has been stolen MUST be recovered.
This administration is CRUSHING it!
🚨 PRIMED AND READY: Florida can soon see some of the most SIGNIFICANT tax cuts for property owners EVER SEEN.
Well DONE, Gov. DeSantis.
Show up to vote on August 18th to make SURE that this sort of leadership endures.
Somewhere along the way, founders got sold on doing it solo as the badge of honor.
It isn't one.
What actually matters is knowing there's someone to call at 11pm when a deal collapses or a key hire walks out the door.
That's the room we built.
1,500+ founders running real businesses, $20B+ in combined revenue between them, most of who have already lived through whatever is keeping you up tonight.
You were never meant to hold the whole thing on your shoulders.