The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Scaling Your Business: When to Double Down and When to Hold Back | Karl Maier
Karl Maier didn't set out to become a business growth advisor. After studying economics and systems in college, he reluctantly joined his family's industrial distribution business—only to help scale it an impressive five times larger in just three years. That journey through entrepreneurship's trenches taught him lessons no classroom could provide, especially after a break-in left them with stolen computers and missing customer payment records.
From recovering that early setback to riding the dot-com wave (and subsequent crash), Karl developed a sixth sense for the realities of business growth that most entrepreneurs desperately need but rarely possess. His most valuable insight? Everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as founders expect—and sometimes that "twice" becomes four times when reality truly hits.
Today, Karl works with entrepreneurs who have brilliant technical ideas but struggle with the business fundamentals required to scale. One founder approached him needing $5 million to build his dream of reaching $50 million in sales, only to discover the harsh mathematical reality: investors would need approximately 125% ownership to make the deal worthwhile. These moments of truth allow Karl to help founders adjust their expectations and strategies, often by focusing on smaller, achievable goals that establish cash flow before attempting full-scale expansion.
Whether advising on fundraising approaches (which typically take 6-12 months, not the 60 days many founders expect), helping select appropriate business partners, or guiding operational scaling decisions, Karl brings the rare combination of financial expertise and entrepreneurial battle scars that make him an invaluable resource. If you're considering scaling your business or seeking funding for growth, connecting with Karl through his website Abunden.com or LinkedIn could be the most important 30-minute conversation in your business journey.
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
like everything. We've watched too much on YouTube, we've watched too much HTTV in my world and everything's that can be over and instantaneous, even for us. Well, I'm not going to put you with me, even for this old guy, it's not as quick as we'd all like it to be. Uh, we all think it's going to take exactly half the time. Uh, but it's really going to take double the time we're even thinking, and sometimes double is actually four, x and so, um, that's another great lesson.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people don't realize it's just how long it takes to get a startup going. When I first started my biz, I told everybody I'm like I'm going to break even in 16 months. Yeah, 36 months later, I finally broke even. How am I doing? Yeah, welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Hey, everybody, we're getting ready to rock and roll and we've got some great info for you.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to be talking doubling, but I'm going to be talking doubling with half the staff. What happened? I let Alan take off and he's trying to be a big daddy on me. Going to be talking doubling with half the staff. What happened? I let Alan take off and he's trying to be a big daddy on me. Going to LA, going to party down with Cousin Brad. Probably going to go out there, hit the links, hit the thing. Probably going to hit Rodeo Drive. I don't know what he's going to do, but Alan is off today and I'll let him go every once in a while.
Speaker 1:But I can't go off without going off on him. I can't believe he's taken this opportunity to soak up the spoils of being an entrepreneur who does his own thing. You know we don't talk enough about Alan, but Alan is a commercial real estate agent now. But he has been through a couple of small businesses, he's been through the corporate world and he's finally getting to enjoy some of the spoils of making this commercial real estate business a real go here. A lot of people are coming to him because they realize he's a straight shooter.
Speaker 1:We've had Chad his business partner around with us and so you guys know him, he's good. But today we're going to be talking about scaling your business with Carl Mayer. Founder of Abundant is an experienced CFO and business advisor, so this stuff's going to be really heady. Everybody you better be able to hang on and figure out what he's saying, because I think for me he'll probably go right over my head and I'll bring him back down and say hey man, you got to dumb it down for the dumb handyman here. But, carl, welcome to the show. Man Can't wait to get into this.
Speaker 2:Hey, chris, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Cool. So, carl, let's back it up a little bit, and then we'll start diving into what you do. But how did you get into this business? Is this something you wanted to do from the moment you went to college?
Speaker 2:Talk to us a little bit about that. Well, I guess I went to college, did economics undergrad and then it was more systems-type stuff in my MBA but of course you had some numbers in there, accounting and finance type stuff, and I guess after about seven, eight years in the corporate type of setting, my parents twisted my arm to come work for the family business and so I came in, used my financial background as well as whatever other experience and was the CFO. So that's how I kind of got into it and just been a little bit of a wild ride entrepreneurial opportunities and helping companies grow ever since. So what was the family biz? It was industrial distribution of things like pipes and valves Pretty sexy stuff yeah, Right, Way sexy.
Speaker 1:But but because that's what we're leading into? Uh, because the family and you are from originally where. Originally from Ohio, cincinnati, okay so that's where you guys were doing the pipe and distribution up there in Ohio.
Speaker 2:Well, no, we, uh we moved down to Houston. There was an oil crash. My dad became an entrepreneur, not necessarily by choice, and then, after he grew it for about five or six years, that's when I came in and helped him grow it from there.
Speaker 1:So you guys were supporting the oil industry, oh yeah, oh, there we go. So that's what I was talking about. So you want to talk about being an entrepreneurial man? There is a show out there on Paramount Plus called Landman, so I finally got to go watch that and went holy crap, I knew it was a hard business, but, man, they make it look really hard was a whole new appreciation for what it takes. And they definitely had I don't know if you watched it, carl, but they definitely were bringing their own support of the oil industry and how important it is to the entire world to that show and I really appreciate it, especially as a business guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. There's some great clips that I'll watch kind of rerun occasionally on YouTube or something.
Speaker 1:So yeah, have fun with that, all right. So you got in. You got into the family biz, you helped them. Now let's talk about. I know it was mom and dad's biz, but when you got in there, how big did you grow it?
Speaker 2:and, come on, they're not going to listen, so you uh so, yeah, we, um, I mean they, they kind of ramped it up, um, I guess a little over five5 million, something like that, but we took it over the next three years. Well, I guess maybe up $4 million because we grew it 5x in three years 5x in three years.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about that. Everybody says, I mean that sounds so sexy, right? Oh my gosh, you just went from five to you said five, or you said four, so four times five. I'm no economic major, but the engineering background still works. So carry the one, so that's 20. You guys got to 20 million and that sounds so sexy. Everybody's like, yes, please, Can I have one, Can I have 20 of those? But let's talk a little bit about the trials and tribulations, the things you've learned you.
Speaker 2:But let's talk a little bit about the trials and tribulations, the things you've learned you've been able to apply and help other people with. Yeah, yeah, it had a few bumps and hisses and spinning and whatever in the course of that. But I came in and you know it's like you know it's been a while ago and we had three PCs and this was before internet and networking and all that. So we had three PCs and we had floppy disks we backed it up on, and one PC was for invoicing. One invoice was for paying bills and another was to kind of try and put it all together and do some financials. And one day we came in the office and somebody had thrown a rock through the glass front door, came in, took all three computers and all the floppy disks that were sitting next to them, that were the backups oh my God Right. So we had printouts of a lot of the invo for customers but we didn't know who had paid.
Speaker 1:Holy crap, right. So that is so. You talk about redundancy in today's world and you know, you know I tell this all the time you want to age yourself. Let's just talk technology, because technology has gone so fast, so quickly, and today I'm not even getting into AI with you on this stuff. You go back to then. I mean, we were printouts with the old dot matrix pin drive still, uh, oh yeah, and so you didn't even know who paid. So how about going back to somebody going, hey, um, you know, uh, did you pay us or not? I mean, I'm sure that went really easy right, yeah, you know you're going.
Speaker 2:Hey, are we? You know, uh, are we up to date? When's the next check coming? Let's see. Oh, my records aren't real clear. Did I apply this correctly? So you get to do a little dance, and then the vendors were a lot easier because they'd call Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you knew you were still with them.
Speaker 2:That's right. So then it's like like okay, we don't know who owes us what. We don't know what we owe people. Let's try and put some financials together. It's like, okay, yeah, this is gonna be fun that's not a way to five extra biz.
Speaker 1:So right, that was a fun way to start. Yeah, so you started that way. So that next inflection point was it grabbing a big bender, was it? You guys were chasing the car and the proverbial dog chasing the car and you caught a bumper, and it was just a really big job that helped you jump to the next level. How was that growth phase there?
Speaker 2:Right. So a lot of what we were doing was project-based. So somebody's you know whatever building a refinery or doing a, you know, upgrade or maybe you know, just turn around, you know, replacing a lot of stuff all at once, and so we get this, you know big purchase order, and they beat us up on margins. So the margins could be pretty thin on some of those big deals, but a lot of it was those big orders that come in. My dad had the connections. He's been in the business for a long time and so he'd get to see those orders and then you'd go talk to the vendors and see if you could get a little discount. It was such a big order and so, um, you know it's a, it's a middleman business. You know you're. You we'd buy the material. Generally it'd get shipped to us. Occasionally it gets shipped straight to the customer. So, um, you know it wasn't a huge margin business. This wasn't software. You know something like that.
Speaker 1:Well, you mean something like a handyman business? Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. So that's the thing you hit on where I was going to go with the 5X. So 5X man dude, it sounds great, oh God, it's great. But you just hit on exactly what happens Sometimes in that growth. You lose sight of the bottom line. All right, and because to get some of those bigger jobs in the beginning, you're buying some business and, yeah, you're thinning down on margins. So sounds like you were at least wise enough, or dad was wise enough to go. Now we gotta go, we gotta bring this all the way down, man, I'm talking to my vendors. So I gotta get some of my margin back, right, um, was that? Was that kind of the constant ebb and flow as you guys were growing? Was keeping the margins tight or keeping your profit better?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, we were very aware of what our margins were and thought about our overhead, but you know you also had to finance it, so there was, you know, a lot more bank debt and you know questions about inventory management. You know how much stock do we keep? That was a lot of interesting discussions there. So, yeah, it wasn't simple. It wasn't simple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you had a lot of moving parts. It obviously got you ready to help people like you do today. So you helped the fam to get up to the 20. You learned your lessons and then it was time to go out there and hang your shingle out and start helping other people. How'd you get that idea to go out and start helping others? Did people start coming to you going hey, carl, you know I know mom and dad kind of dad's, kind of the whiz, but we think you're the whiz bang. Can we, can we use you? Is that how it worked?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, you might have seen those charts, that kind of you know straight line, go from the bottom left to the upper right, you know smooth line, and then you've got that squiggly squiggle, squiggle, squiggle. Yeah, that's my career was the squiggle, squiggle squiggle. So, you know, after about five years Dad had said you know, I don't want it any bigger, and so that meant not a lot of opportunity left, you know, for me. So I went off and did some entrepreneurial stuff. This was back in the dot-com era, so I ended up starting a dot-com deal.
Speaker 1:Was it like Amazon? Was it Walmart? Where did you you start, did you?
Speaker 2:start yahoo. Uh well, it's kind of. You know, I was trying to be sort of like amazon for the industrial valves, the, the things, the same products. But hey, let's, you know, help connect people. And you know it sounded like great idea and, uh, you know, I got some invest, got some initial investors, and then the second round of funding was scheduled to close a month after the dot-com crashed. So you can kind of guess how that went yeah, I uh.
Speaker 1:so that's one that I did not participate in in terms of dumbass, dumb ass moves that Chris has made. Um, the only I didn't. I didn't. I was at Accenture. I was going to go out and start up, uh, with a group. I was going to do a small startup. I said no, had a young kid at home Um, probably the only time I said no to something and it actually worked. Um, but no, I went and started my business in the middle of the downturn in 2008. So, don't worry, I got plenty of dumb ass mistakes as well. Everybody's heard this before but so that's a pretty humbling experience. Right, you've been on top of the world, you've been with, you know, helped your family get to that spot. You get out, you start going I can't be beat and you're like well.
Speaker 2:So what happened next? So that crashed. I was doing a little consulting and I met a guy who was a consultant to these big hospitals. His background was running staffing in their physical therapy areas, and so he kind of was doing consulting with them and so he had all this data and again, technology's changed a lot since then. So he had them, like entering, typing in data into a spreadsheet, and then he'd take the floppy disk and bring it back and then do some analysis on it. And he's like, hey, can you help me? You know, with this the spreadsheets. And I'm working on the spreadsheets, helping to, you know, because he'd take the floppy drive and then they'd keep working on it. And so you, you know, the data didn't always match. And so I'm sitting there working on it and one day I say, you know, if we did this on the, you know, the internet, you know we wouldn't have all those problems with the matching the spreadsheets. And he's like we can do that.
Speaker 1:Uh-oh, you just said voodoo, you do that, voodoo that you do. So you said how about using the internet? And again, people today go well, of course, right, yeah, but at the time this was going down, no, that's not something we thought about.
Speaker 2:Right, this was like 2001,.
Speaker 1:know where you know that's, that's modem time. Right, right, yeah, all right. Oh, I got 20 000 bought. Yeah, let's go. While I'm cranking today, you're like, if I'm not 5g, it's nothing. Yeah, right. So how did you, how did you help him implement an internet way of handling this and analyzing the data?
Speaker 2:Well, on the first startup I'd learned some basic internet programming. I wasn't you know super wiz, you know Wozniak or Apple or something like that, but I knew enough to be able to make screens so that the hospital people at the hospital could enter the data, put it into a database and then make charts to show them how their department was going, how they're utilizing their staff. And you know, it was just the. You know the type of analysis that he was doing on Excel, but then, because it was on, you know the type of analysis that he was doing on Excel, but then, because it was on, you know the internet and we could do all these. They could click and get a graph and click and get the graph and drill down and, um, you know, so we, we just started, you know, using his connections, get another hospital, another hospital, hospital, and so we had like major hospitals in 14 states.
Speaker 2:At one point, um, yes, yeah, you know, in houston, methodist memorial herman. Um, we had ucla out on the west coast. Stoney broke up in new york and so now you're dropping.
Speaker 1:I know I'm not in that world, but you know what you're doing. You're doing some serious name dropping right there brother. I got you, I heard that I mean when you say UCLA and you say Houston, cause Houston, uh, you know, the network down there is amazing. And then, yeah, so you, you were nailing some big, uh, big fish, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah and but uh, you know, and we kind of partnered on the deal and so we got these great accounts. But this kind of comes back to your earlier comment on pricing. So he came out of the staffing world and he's like Carl, if we market up 20%, we're going to be fantastic, we'll make a ton. And I was like, yeah, but it's software, there's nothing to mark up. And we never were able to kind of square the circle. He wanted to do it for like a dollar a day and, and it's software, so there's nothing to mark up. So we went back and forth and back and forth and he wanted to charge a dollar a day to these major hospitals. And I'm like we'll never make any money. And he's like but it'll go viral. And I was like I don't think it's ever going to go viral.
Speaker 2:And the big hospitals take time. I mean, it takes time to get into these hospitals. You know it can be a year or two. You know sales cycle. So my code ended up staying on the internet for over 15 years. But the business really didn't last, you know that long. At some point I kind of sold it back to him and said you know that long At some point.
Speaker 1:I kind of sold it back to him and said you know, good luck.
Speaker 2:So what was the lesson, the biggest lesson you learned out of that, you know it's when you pick your partner. I mean this guy, experienced business owner, he had grown and sold his staffing company for a lot of money, you know, sharp guy. But he was really strong in the area that he understood, which was staffing. And when you brought him over to software it was just like a whole different world and he, he just didn't get it. But he, you know the way we set it up, he still wanted control of the area that he didn't really understand. So you know, a little bit more planning on bringing in partners you know, business partners was really the thing that I learned from that.
Speaker 1:That's a good one, that's great, all right. So today you're helping a bunch of people and let's jump forward to now with what you're doing. What are some of the areas that you come in and really been able to help people? People get a flavor for that.
Speaker 2:Right. So there's probably, you know, a handful of most common situations. You know. One is a young company that, hey, we've got this cool thing, we just need some money to grow it. So helping them think through, kind of make a plan of attack for how we're going to raise the money, how we're going to present to potential investors, and so that's, and usually a lot of times it's some kind of technology or new business that requires some money.
Speaker 1:Now this is something we have not talked about much in our podcast over the three and a half years, just because we've talked about funding and one of the things that we all know about me is that I'm just not a very good partner and I've used basically my line of credit for my home to start the business and I have a business line of credit that I use during the slow periods just to kind of augment some funding. So let's talk about how you go use this funds to go the right way and how do you help pitch this Right.
Speaker 2:I guess the one thing for me is that getting money is a sales process. It's. You know, it sounds great to just say I'm going to raise money and it sounds like some special thing, but it's really you're trying to get somebody with money to give you some money in exchange for, you know, part of the company, or debt, some form, some piece of paper basically, and so that's really a sales process. And so when you sell most things, there's some sort of sales collateral. You kind of have to have a strategy, explain the value, and on something like this, there's a lot of numbers involved. Well, you're betting on the future. Well, what's the future going to look like? If it's debt, can you pay the debt back? I mean even like real estate. We're going to expand. We've got a business. It's been growing, it's great. It's not a new business, it's not a startup. Know we need to buy this real estate to expand to the next level.
Speaker 2:Great, you want a bank to loan you money or somebody to loan you money. How do you show them you're going to pay it back? And that's something that not everybody thinks through. They're like, well, this is a great deal, we're going to make a bunch of money. So the bank will lend us money, right? Well, not always. The bank needs to really understand your numbers and be able to understand how you're going to pay it back Somehow. That's important to the bank. They get picky about that.
Speaker 1:As the former banker, I know what you're saying, man. You know what. I really love your business, I'm enamored with your business, but you need to pay me. Me, and I'm in number one position there, big boy, and you better be paying me. So people have that idea, they have the whiz-bang widget, the idea, the software, the product or whatever it is, and you're saying that most of these people don't know how am I going to be able to pay back the people who give me all this great money.
Speaker 2:That's part of it, and to me that's great money. That's part of it, you know, and that's to me, that's part of the sale. You have to understand. You know what they're looking for because you know well, I'll invest in your business. Well, some people want, you know, a convertible note. Other people want equity. Other people, you know, just say I want to loan you money. Other people say I want to take over your business. You know. So you have to understand who you're talking to back to having the right partners.
Speaker 1:My friend, that's right so you gotta understand so you help them navigate how to take this and navigate those waters of what's the right position, right funding method for you, then I guess that's what I'm hearing, yeah yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah so take me through that.
Speaker 1:A lot of this stuff is a lot of foreign for us. So if you really want to start growing your business, you're saying funds to unlock it. You've got to figure out what source of funds and then you've got to always be selling, which now we talk about stuff we talk about here all the time Always be selling. So how do you figure that out? Take us through an example of one of them.
Speaker 2:A lot of selling is telling a story. I mean, that's just talking to people. If you tell them a story, one, it's easier to remember and a lot of times people need to be able to explain your business to somebody else. If it's a high net worth individual, you know, yeah, it's their decision, but they're probably going to tell their wife or their accountant or somebody about this deal and why it's a good deal. So if you tell a story that they can remember, it's compelling, it's interesting. That's going to improve your odds a lot.
Speaker 2:And so thinking through what does that story look like is a big part of what I'm doing, and part of it's the numbers. What's this thing going to look like in five years? And is that a reasonable set of assumptions we're making and then also just telling a story that they can relate to If they've started a business or if they're more of a corporate type or whatever that person's background is. That you're going to be pitching to. Hopefully that story's got something that can resonate. A lot of times we're going to use slide decks to help tell the story, websites, tools like that. I may not make the website or anything, but I want to make sure we've thought through the story and have a plan on how we're going to explain this to somebody.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So when people come to find you and everybody, you can find them at Abundant, and that's Carl Mayer and he is going to talk about that. As people come to you, what's that first ask? Is it you trying to educate them on what you can do and help them with it, or are you trying to seek their problems? How do they come to ask you? How do people know where to find you?
Speaker 2:A lot of it comes through referrals or LinkedIn. I had somebody reach out to me earlier today on LinkedIn going hey, I've got, and it's somebody I haven't talked to in like 10 years. On LinkedIn you actually have the timeline and last message was 2016. All right, okay. And he's like hey, I've got this situation, you have time for 20, 30 minute call. I was like, yeah, how about Friday? And so you know, that's not uncommon, is to. You know, just haven't talked to you in a long time, but I've got the situation. I know I need some kind of financial guidance. I had a guy that reached out to me. It's been about a a year now, but we'd gone to undergrad together and that's. You know, I got some some. Hey, I'm right with you, man, I'm in.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know everybody knows that I'm in the hair club for men and uh it's so funny.
Speaker 1:I just got done doing an estimate, uh, and the guy is talking to me. He goes you know the old geezers like 60 and 70. I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm double nickels man. So, uh, you know, lighting up on the old geezer thing and I actually think you're older than me, it didn't matter, yeah. So he reached out to you from undergrad, knowing your background and your expertise, and clearly you've made a lot of good connections and that burned a lot of bridges, so people know how to find you. So he reached out. What's his ask? What did he ask for you?
Speaker 2:So he's developing. He's developed like these pumps, industrial pumps and great engineering background, but he's trying to understand, really understand the math. Well, part of it he's just understanding how do I raise funds, and part of it, really, you know, he kind of had some ideas and he had some good ideas. But one of the things that you know, I kind of had to walk him through and it starts with a lot of questions understanding his business, understanding what he's trying to do, understanding where he's at right now. So I definitely asked a bunch of questions.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that became clear from the conversation in this situation was you know the numbers, you know I want X million to grow this business to Y million and it you know, just a quick glance, you're like, okay, well, you know, let's just say 5 million to get to 50 million.
Speaker 2:Okay, that sounds good. But once you really start to look at it and go, how much does somebody who's going to put five million into a risky startup type situation or early stage business, how much do they really expect to get? And you know, in order to you know, if you sell for this amount, you sell for $50 million in five years and they put in $5 million, you can do math and figure out what percentage of the company they really need to own. And he's an engineering guy. So, you know, when I kind of explained the numbers to him, walked him through the numbers, he's like I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it. But the problem was, you know, where he started was something like you need to sell them about 125% of the business in order to make this a good investment for them.
Speaker 1:How big did his eyes get when you said that number?
Speaker 2:My eyes just about came out of my head. Yeah, that was one of those eye-opening conversations.
Speaker 1:He's like oh, so, carl, carl, I'm going to go back to my college years. So six years in school and I was so proud that you said you're an economics major and then a systems guy as an MBA and I got my master's in mechanical engineering. Systems guy as an MBA, and I got my master's in mechanical engineering. And coming out of that, I exactly had two business classes, which you had two per semester at least. So you know exactly what this guy was doing. He was like I had no clue.
Speaker 1:But, carl, my pump's so much better, my technology, my whiz-bang solution's so much better than everybody else, and I mean, but it's amazing, you know, like I understand. But in business, this is what we're looking at. And so obviously that's the kind of advice you give to people, right? Yeah, oh, boy, and all you have to do is sell them 125% of your business. Oh, wow. And so you know that first kid thing. You know that's always overused anyway, but you know you chop off your leg and you probably got a deal here, oh, okay. So what did you end up advising him and what did he end?
Speaker 2:up doing Right. So the you know I mean it's great to you know say it makes for a good story to say, oh, 125%. But what you can do then is help him look at how do you be more efficient with that capital. When you're getting started, you know, what can we do to. You know, maybe instead of making a full line of pumps, you know, maybe we start off and we get a cash flow break even with, you know, two models of pump instead of eight.
Speaker 1:How hard was that? I just work with so many engineers. How hard was that? One, because I would have been. But, carl, all eight are great. Eight is great, and you're like I know they are, but look just how. About two, yeah, but those other six are even better. Why don't you pick your best? Two, yeah, but then the other six are even better. I could just hear that conversation going so.
Speaker 2:I well, I have absolutely been in that exact conversation had this you know great idea and he'd put it together and, you know, figured it all out and spent all this time. You know he'd quit his job and spent all this time developing the technology and he's ready to go and he's like okay, I just need some money for go-to-market and you know it's only, you know, whatever half a million dollars or something like that. So help, help me raise that, and then we can. You know this will take off and it's going to be great. It's like fantastic, fantastic, good. Well, how, you know we'll get. How much time do you have before you? You know you just absolutely need that money. You know you'd have to, like, go find a job and he's like 60 days for for an engineering.
Speaker 1:You know again pump and you know the sales. Yeah, so all right, go ahead, tell us the story. They like us all on this one right, and you know I'm like that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's great. You know, if you're an existing business and you just needed to expand your line of credit from an existing bank, we could probably do that. But for just about anything else, no, you know, we're looking at six months to a year, more than likely to, you know, be able to raise equity for a startup, and I've and I've definitely seen it take longer, you know, to do so. You know he really didn't, he was just like no, that can't be, that can't be right, man, that just can't be right, don't you? You know people, they'll just, you know, like dude, if you get an attorney just to write up the documents, it's going to take 30 to 60 days, you know, just for the documents for this deal, and you know that's not… so just, like everything.
Speaker 1:We've watched too much on YouTube, we've watched too much HGTV in my world and everything can be over and instantaneous, even for us. Well, I'm not going to put you with me. Even for this old guy, it's not as quick as we'd all like it to be. We all think it's going to take exactly half the time, but it's really going to take double the time we're even thinking, and sometimes double is actually 4X. So that's another great lesson. I think a lot of people don't realize it's just how long it takes to get a startup going. When I first started my biz, I told everybody I'm like I'm going to break even in 16 months. Yeah, 36 months later, I finally broke even.
Speaker 1:How am I doing? Yeah, but that's what happens when you start the recession, bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I helped an entrepreneur, a lady in the healthcare space and good idea for business, definitely a market for it. We had to build out some offices. She'd never done that before, it's okay. So we, um, we said, okay, here's how much it's probably going to cost, here's how long it's going to take. And it took twice as long and cost twice as much as she thought. And then you know we say, okay, well, how fast are you going to add? You know, build up your client base. And well, you know that's going to. It's, that's probably going to. It's going to be tough. It's going to take a year. Well, after know twice as long building it out. Yeah, she still hasn't hit break even, but she's, she's looking good, she's growing every month and you know she sees the end in sight. So there's hope.
Speaker 1:That's uh. I actually had somebody who called me out. Uh, because I said this before. I said if you can take your business plan and have the revenue and double the expenses and it still works out for you, now you've got something you can work with. Because that was my big failing in the beginning is that I did not have best. I had expected case and I had best case, but I did not have worst case. I wasn't even close to how bad my worst case was, because my expenses were almost literally double what I expected, because I was doing a lot of advertising to get my business off the ground and my revenue was almost half of what I had actually had in my projections. And that's the hence to forward. That's why, 17 years later, I'm an overnight success For a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Learn from what I just did, man. Listen to what Carl's telling you. You can do it differently. You just got to listen to the right people. So, carl man, this has been great. I don't want to take too much more of your time, but I do want to make sure everybody can find you. So you mentioned LinkedIn. I know you got a ton of followers out there, big boy, so how does everybody go find you?
Speaker 2:The easiest place is Abundantcom A-B-U-N-D-E-Ncom. Abundencom A-B-U-N-D-E-Ncom. Or you can look up Carl Meyer on LinkedIn K-A-R-L-M-A-I-E-R.
Speaker 1:And that's a podcast bullpup for Chris everybody. I've been calling him the wrong name so and he did not correct me, so thank God. So, because if you try to say my last name, lala me, it doesn't work. So, meyer, carl, m-a-i-e-r on LinkedIn or Abundant A-B-U-N-D-E-Ncom. So, carl, if they reach out to you, what can they expect to hear back from you? Can they talk to you for 30 minutes? I mean, what's it going to take?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a 30-minute conversation is usually, you know, plenty of time to get a general idea of what you're looking at, give you a sense of if I'm the right resource or if I need to redirect you to. You know, I'll probably introduce you to somebody. If I'm not the right one, I'll probably introduce you to somebody that will be able to help you.
Speaker 1:Man, if you've got a great idea, you've got a great product, maybe a great service, and you're looking to scale it, man, give this guy a shout right, tell him you heard him off the small business safari. He's going to throw you a little nugget. Man, give you a little something, something. You know what I'm saying. He'll hook you up. But, carl, before we let you go and I say we because I'm so used to saying that Alan, come back. It's been so hard without Alan. I got to be the straight guy, the funny guy, and, let's face it, he's just not that funny. You know what I'm saying, he's just not. But anyway, way I miss him and, uh, I mean I can't ask for a better co-host. Alan has been amazing. But I want to ask those famous four questions. We ask because I just get the so jones off these things and we get them all out there. So, carl, I want to ask first give us a book you would recommend to all of our audience book I'd recommend.
Speaker 2:Let's see I would probably. There's so many I hate to have to pick one, but I guess I would go to. I'm going to go with Atomic Habits.
Speaker 1:James Cleary. Yeah, yeah, james Cleary, what's your favorite one that you picked up that you implemented yourself, cause I've read the book as well.
Speaker 2:You know, building the yeah, just kind of getting that first habit in place, is always the toughest thing.
Speaker 1:He's right. He's right, and we've talked about that. So eating less, drinking less, still can't do it. But I'm at the gym six days a week. I just can't outrun the damn fork. And drinking bourbon while I do these podcasts doesn't help me either. But yep, he's right. But your habits build. I mean, I talk about that with my team even your habits form your systems. Your systems form your character and your character forms who your identity becomes. And you've got to just do that from your habits. So great, that's a great one. All right, Now I'm in the home remodeling business. We got a handyman business Everybody knows that here in Atlanta and in Athens growing and talking to people about growing even bigger. So what is the favorite feature of your home?
Speaker 2:Favorite feature of my home, of my home. We have a whole floor that's got the kitchen, dining room, living area, tv all in one, no walls, and that's great for family cohesion and entertaining.
Speaker 1:So we love that. That's awesome. Yep, you know we do a lot of that too. We've been blowing out so many walls out of these 50s and 60s ranches here in Atlanta, on the 3-2 ranch, where there's that wall going right down the middle and people say, hey, we want to be able to see everybody now when back in the day we wanted to make sure nobody saw anybody, and the less the better, especially. No, don't take that the wrong way, dad, not that Dad's listening, but yeah, so that's a great one. Well, another one, a question we've got, because Alan and I are customer service freaks. We're customer service freaks. What is a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're the customer?
Speaker 2:When I'm the customer, when I go to a restaurant, I get great service, you know. They bring me bread, they bring me my entree, they take my order, they get it all right, it's fantastic. And then they forget about me when I want to pay the check.
Speaker 1:Well, isn't that the worst too? You're like done, you're ready to rock and roll, and I can be a little ADD. I'm like all right, man, let's go, let's go. We use restaurants so often as analogies, because when we do go out to eat with so many people that we talk with, and that's a great one. Because, number one, it's a really hard damn business. That's the only one where I feel like they're got a harder business than I do and I feel so bad and I've actually, I wouldn't say a whisper's breath away, I'd say probably three whispers breath away of going in with one of my buddies on a restaurant concept Cause he's like, hey, man, you know how to do this. I'm like, yeah, and my and my wife's like I think you've done enough. You know, you know, I think that's enough. So, yeah, that's a great one. I love that one. All right, last one Again, I'm in the remodeling business.
Speaker 1:I want a DIY nightmare story. I mean, I love fire, I love flooding, I love, in my case, nails going through your foot, you know, or maybe a nail going through your finger, maybe you know one thing I was just talking about with somebody I've never had a stitch in my life. That's not because I didn't need to, it's just because I just never did it. So I didn't tell them that part. And they're like, really, after all those years in construction and playing football and doing all this, I'm like, no, never had a stitch. Now you look at my body, you're like, oh, I get it. This is why you go on podcasts and radio.
Speaker 2:But give us a DIY nightmare story, wow, wow. So at one time I had a older house, I think built in the 30s, so it had been around a while, and we didn't understand why we were getting some leakage in the bathroom, till finally, we pulled up the toilet and realized that the lead pipe had completely dissolved.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I've seen that. I've lived it, I've seen it. Um, I actually, uh, back in the day, one of the things, one of my guys came across one. He did not know how to change out a lead lead ring and, uh, I'm the one that had to go do it, and we had to. Actually, there's no other way we could have done it, and this is now you know again, you can't use lead anymore. But we could at least replace the flange. So what'd you do next?
Speaker 2:It was replacement, so, yeah, we just had to figure out what size was it, because it's gone.
Speaker 1:It's completely gone, friends, oh.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:So it was sizing and you know if you're eating your lunch in your truck and you're listening to this one, yeah, you're gonna want to. You're gonna want to pause for a minute and come back, because if you've ever pulled up a toilet with a rotted cast iron flange over time, when you pull that sucker up, that first whiff is brutal, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it is. Oh yeah, it was brutal, so. So there you go carl knows finances.
Speaker 1:Carl knows what bad smells look like. Carl knows what bad deals look like man, because he can smell them from a mile away. Go check him out. Carl meyer, on linkedin, or abundant a, b, u, nn If you didn't learn something about funding, you didn't learn something about hey. I'm thinking about taking that next step and I need to get some better people in my camp. Go get this cat on your camp. Make it happen, make it. Keep going up that mountain, because we're going to check you guys out next week. Go make it a great week, everybody. Ciao.
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