Neil Schaefer

Buy/build manufacturing businesses. President/owner, Banister Medical (machining). Managing Partner, Auricle Capital.

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@blueprintsmb22 yes acquiring Toto would fill in the M&A roadmap

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@DoorDash_Help @DoorDash An unauthorized party accessed my private, in-progress order details to run a gift card scam on my account. Order-specific data from an active delivery was compromised from inside your system. I reported this security breach to (actual) DoorDash support immediately, offered screenshots and other evidence, yet support refuses to cancel the fraudulent $190 charge or refund. Need escalation & full refund, this is outrageous.

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

Has anyone tried this approach in a machine shop? I’m curious about unintended consequences.

[Jad Slim @jadslim_]

My painting company has an immune system that rejects bad painters on its own.

Every painter sees the labour budget left on each job, live, in our internal app.

If you finish under budget, the hours you saved are paid to you as a bonus.

So when a low performing painter joins a crew, everyone watches that person eat into their bonus. If they don't get better, they don't last long.

The good painters stay, earn more, and bring in their friends.

I stopped managing performance. The incentive structure does it for me.

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@mattdykema Easy peasy lemon squeezy

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@barbinbrad @im_chadsmith this is the way

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@ninjaneeer I don’t see the problem, “manufacturing is easy”

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@blueprintsmb22 Just snarfed my coke zero thanks 😂

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@BigDemoPrez Easy follow. Thanks for sharing, you’ve got “mo” on your side, best of luck.

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

At Banister (medical machine shop/Austin) we’re using for incentive purposes (etc) an hour-based metric we call Good Hours, which is hours of backlog (open orders) we chew through in a given shift/week/X. Our team seems to get it intuitively - it’s “progress”. We’re still figuring out the best way to tie to pay, so early innings.

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@KennethCassel Come see us at Banister Medical next time you’re in town!

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@descomps Good luck with your investment!

[Eric Vallieres @EricVallieres84]

Where at the must hit stops at IMTS? I’m there Monday-Wednesday and really want to make the most of it

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@EricVallieres84 I’ll be there Tu-Th. We’re looking at tool pre-setters, small-footprint high speed mills, integrated mill-turns, any other new cool shit we can see (medical machining). And a good time. Advice welcome and appreciated.

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

Former banker and career excel jockey here….made the switch to Mac about 6 years ago and i wont ever go back. Excel for mac has 95% of what I need but some functions don’t carry over and require workarounds. Connections to external data is one area that’s more limited in Excel for Mac. There’s no PowerPivot, which i didn’t use much in finance but do in business reporting. Keyboard shortcuts are less robust but most of the heavy use ones are there. I need the mouse more but it’s not meaningfully slower. I was off to the races after a short adjustment. Rest of M365 is very comparable IMO. Overall user experience is slicker, more stable and less bloated.

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@MFG_SMB Our like-for-like cutting tool costs are up 18% YTD vs 2025. We knew “higher” but were surprised by how much once we analyzed it. “A dollar or two” per endmill adds up fast!

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@Elialbrecht completely agree

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@1JoeSpringsteen What are the biggest challenges?

[Neil Schaefer @neilschaefer]

@zanehengsperger yes