See a lot of home run threads and getting started/new idea threads, but I’m wondering how many entrepreneurs have “sort of” made it here?
I’ve been building a small business marketing agency for around a decade. We’ll prob do around 600k this year but no real profit (long story, working on it). I get paid 6-7k as a salary kind of like a normal job I guess.
Started doing some additional consulting work last year to make more money while we restructure the agency business model and now make about 6-7k/mo there as well.
I’m healthy, good marriage, generally doing well. But work is a lot, battling burnout, have a few regrets, etc. Not perfect but not terrible either.
Anyone else feel like their business aspirations have led to a life that kind of plays out more like you have a normal job give or take, vs the big fail / multimillion dollar exit dichotomy that is usually presented?
My first business, I was doing $1.2m/yr but only taking home about $40-60k/yr. This was like 2017 and I’ve just about 20x’d the numbers (besides the income part).
Call me a weirdo, but I think good employees are worth their weight in gold. Simply put, why would I take $1m and pay a key employee $100k when while expecting them to do all the work while I’m off in Tahiti somewhere. So I pay myself based on what I do and assign “partners” to individual departments who I’ll then work with to manage key employees, who then manage the boots on the ground folks. It’s not the “take the most home” business model, but it’s done very well for me and my business - including reputation.
I also only hire through word of mouth referrals. It will likely remain this way until I sell or decide to maybe franchise (probably won’t happen but w/e idk wtf I’m doing).
Are you hiring?!? Lol. On a serious note, I really like your style. Finding a good manger is difficult as well. In my 9-5 job I have a great manager. I’ve had offered for more money but have stayed where I’m at because of who I report to.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. If you mean that your business is scaled and works independently of you then that does mean you are more sellable. If you’re saying that you’re paying significantly more than the market to individuals that are necessary for delivering your business without getting business value out of them then you might have shot your gross margins and those are looked at very closely while selling. Of course if you had Google like gross margins to begin with it wouldn’t matter.
There is a moral and a business argument and I’m not saying the moral is not valid but rather that you need to be honest with yourself on what is moral and what is business.
We always paid employees well and the goal was that money is not something on which we’ll lose talent. We had a 4.8 on Glassdoor and a platinum rank on Officevibe. But we didn’t put someone in such a position that they thought their job was irreplaceable and they stopped taking risks and created a lot of growth opportunities for them, with many of them completely changing career trajectories.
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If you want to go far go with others.
Culture comes from the top. I give my employees amazing work life balance - fully remote, take the time off you need, no one is tracking you. Output is everything. I also work harder than everyone - the other executives and myself work 60 to 80 hour weeks, always. I don’t make my employees do this. But if you want your employees to care then you have to care. You can’t ask someone to work extra during crunch time if you aren’t also working. Hypocrisy is the easiest sin to spot and you must lead by example.
I always wonder how people do this and still have time for Reddit lmao.
“When I sell it” — what if it doesn’t get sold? What if there’s no market to buy it?
Which industry are you in? Nice approach.
Real Estate / Construction