Debt as Leverage: Scaling Without Running Dry

Running a business is statistically a bad idea, yet entrepreneurs dive in anyway because of a necessary, often dangerous level of optimism. This optimism is a double-edged sword: it provides the drive to start but can blind a founder to the mathematical reality of their financial health. In this episode, we sit down with Levi King, founder of NAV and Lendio, to discuss why most businesses fail at the financing stage and how to bridge the gap between where you are and where a lender needs you to be.

We get into the tactical substance of business credit bureaus and how to leverage trade credit to keep your operations fluid. Levi shares his boots-on-the-ground perspective on navigating Equifax, Experian, and Dun & Bradstreet, explaining why a Paydex score can make or break your ability to land massive contracts. We sit down to analyze the "financial readiness layer," exploring how cash flow data and bank connections provide the ground truth that manual bookkeeping often misses. A key takeaway is Levi’s unique philosophy on "ideas as liabilities"—the reality that a concept is worth less than zero until it stops eating cash and starts generating profit.

The unglamorous truth is that most founders wait until they are desperate to look for money, which is exactly when they are least likely to get it. We tackle the mental hurdle of debt aversion, showing how avoiding loans can actually lead to a lower return on equity and stagnant growth. You will walk away with a clear system for auditing your own creditworthiness and a warning against the "enamored founder" syndrome that leads to cashing out 401ks for unproven concepts.

If you care about scaling your operations, mastering business credit, and moving from survival to true leverage, you’ll get a lot from this. Please Subscribe and Share this episode with a fellow founder who is currently "too busy" to look at their P&L.

Subscribe and tune in for new episodes of Big Talk About Small Business with Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Each week we focus on practical insights and real-world strategies to grow your business!

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Transcript

Why Starting A Business Is Risky

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is true for everyone listening. It's a bad idea to start a business. Statistics just think statistically and mathematically, no matter how good your idea, it's a bad idea to try to turn it into a business because the majority fail. What does that mean? That means entrepreneurs are optimists. Because if not, you look at the math and say, nope, I'm going to keep working for somebody else.

Why Financing Readiness Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:31

So here we are. It's another episode of Big Talk about small business. All right, and we back again with Levi King.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Man, we had such a good episode the last time. I mean, I think that what's interesting, like when you and I talk and we meet with guests like Levi, like the value that they bring for a like if you are starting out a business or if you're bidding one, like it's just nothing but problems, like we talked about. But folks like Levi can give some really good insight if we would just actually listen a little bit, right? And kind of knowing how to navigate this financial world. Because I mean what Levi does, you know, like we've talked about financing, like getting loans versus getting VC versus getting angel versus just strapping it out, getting your getting your credit cards maxed up, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Making nothing.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Whatever it takes, man. Yeah. Whatever it takes. And so Levi's got a wealth of information from the last show, and we wanted to make sure we got some more time to kind of go a little bit deeper in the weeds about what this loan financing economy is really like.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Before we get into all that, I just want Levi to tell everybody once again, because not everybody maybe heard the first episode a little bit about his business and what they do with his platform.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Love it. Yeah, you bet. And uh the the idea of NAV was, and by the way, thanks for having me on again. Um, the idea for NAV was born uh from Lendio, the first tech company I started. Lendio is a late-stage profitable tech company that helps small business owners get a loan. And that's true if they need a loan now or if they want to come back in six months later, but it's really a snapshot of a moment in time. Your credit and financial health is a small business, it's what it looks like today is a reflection of all the decisions you made over the previous years. And at that moment in time, it's tough to do anything to make those options better. They are what they are. And so after seeing, you know, the majority of applicants, and this was true when I was out in the new, still true today, the majority of applicants actually don't get approved for anything. And then of those that do get approved, the vast majority don't love the option. They think they're, you know, I got a solid business. What the heck? Like I'm profitable, whatever, whatever their mindset is. And they go, why am are is my best option half the money I need for this project or a lot more expensive than I anticipated, or the payback term's too short. I need to stretch out the you know the return on the investment wherever I'm investing in my business is slower than in the payback term for the loan. And you know, we had tons of them asking us, well, what can I do to get in a better spot? So that was the idea for NAV. And so NAV is a financial readiness layer. So we help you understand your personal credit, your business credit, and the cash flows of the business through the lens of how is a lender looking at you. And when I say lender, it's not just for a business loan, it's for a business credit card or for trade credit, which is oftentimes overlooked and under-leveraged by small business owners. So that's just net 30, net 60 payment terms that you get with your vendors and suppliers. So you don't have to pay at the moment that you get the supplies and the services. And and our software helps you understand from all those different views where am I buttoned up? Where do I need to make improvements so that my options improve over time? And so that was kind of the inspiration for NAV is let's get ahead of financing events and make sure you're buttoned up. And if you don't like your options, you know, now you have very clear information and instruction on what to do to get in a better spot for financing in the future, so you get better terms and such. So that was the inspiration. We've got over a million users, active users, and across all industries, time of business, geography, credit risk. So we're not built for you know these seven industries. It's our software works no matter what you're working on and and where you're trying to move your business forward, no matter what stage of life you're at in the business.

DUNS Numbers And Business Credit

SPEAKER_03 4:26

It's fantastic. I got a real quick question. So I'm sure a lot everybody's kind of filling around with the Duns and Bradstreet number, right, or some other type of B credit, right? Yeah, all that. Does that still come in? Is that still a big factor in the credit readiness for business?

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Indeed. So Dunner Bradstreet specifically and the and the Dunn's number, when I mentioned trade credit, the net 30, net 60 terms, sometimes more you can get up to that, net 180 depending on the project and depending on the supplier, but that world is largely powered by Dun and Bradstreet credit reports and scores. And so that's another thing that's a bit confusing about business credit is Equifax experience at Dun and Brad Street are the big three on the business side, but they kind of specialize in and dominate in different uh sectors of the economy. So if you're getting a telecom account, uh things like that, that's usually Equifax or the equipment leasing and financing world, that's usually an Equifax report that's going to matter more than Dun and Bradstreet. But then there's always exceptions. So that's there's no absolutes. So that's true of Equifax, but Dun and Brad Street and expert also have some business in those verticals. And so, yeah, the Dunn's number is about as close to a monopoly on it, on like a string of numbers as you could have and importance for a business, because it's not just for trade credit. If you want to do business with a Fortune 1000, any type of government, municipality, federal, state, typically local, county, city, you've got to have a paydex score above 80. Whether that's you're gonna do snow removal for Walmart, if they're parking lots in the GO you live, or you want to have a product on their shelves. You got a minimum business credit score. And that's that's all driven by the the Dunce number ecosystem. You know, um I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

Well, I was just real quick on that. Does your software show where you're at with that if I was a user, right? What that number is and then how to fix it, basically.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Yeah, and if you if you don't have one, how do you get one? And and then, of course, how do you get credit established around that DUNS number?

Trade Credit And Vendor Negotiation

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Well, you know, that's funny. I I was in the management consulting business for many, many years, and we had one competitor that was our primary competitor, and our second largest um uh revenue line was strategy. First was MA, but I used to say to my clients, we'd be talking to them about um a new client about us doing this um strategy consulting for him, and I always said, if you run a D B credit worthiness rating on, and they'd say they were talking with the other guys. I'd say if you run a DB, uh checked out their D B credit worthiness rating. Is that who you want advising you on how to run your business? My God, okay, because they're they're they rated them unstable. Okay. And it's like, that's who you want telling you how to run your business? Okay. Just thought maybe you should check that up. That's right. But you know, um, back on the um vendor credit you mentioned, um, I don't know what your experience has been with this, Levi, but I actually learned something from a textbook I had in my entrepreneurship classes years ago. I don't use one now, but it was uh it was called uh it was all about using what they called vendor statements. And basically the idea is that once a year, sort of toward the end of the year, let's say November 15, November 30, you send out a vendor statement to all of your vendors where you say, We anticip this year we anticipate we're gonna do 400,000 worth of business with you. Next year it looks like it's gonna be five to six hundred or whatever the numbers are. Um, what kind of a discount will you give us and and payment terms? And um basically um it's a it's just to me, it's the most brilliant idea. You send that out to all your vendors and they assume that you're going out getting bids from everybody. Right. And they basically you may not be sending it to any of their competitors, but they're basically bidding against themselves to give you the best credit deal they can. And it's a great tool. Have you ever heard of that?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Yeah, definitely. That's a I mean, that's a definitely a best practice, is an annual function, but you can also do it in real time throughout the year. I I learned this by practice. My first company before I got into tech was an electric sign manufacturing installation and servicing business. And so I had 10 or 12 vendors that I had credit terms with. And you know, let's let's say I'd win a job, I'd get 50% down on the job, but my cost basis was going to be 80 to 90 percent. So it's this weird relationship where the customer's the creditor at first, because they used to write me a check for 50% down, they've got nothing. They're taking a risk on me. Once I invest more than 50% in the job, now I'm a creditor to them. And uh a lot of these jobs, like it was a really stable, large company, but that I knew was really slow to pay, I'm still gonna take the work, even though I'm not, I know I'm gonna get paid late. I know they're good for the money. And so, you know, you're talking about end of year, which is good practice, but even in real time, then I'd get on the phone with all my suppliers and say, hey, I need net one eight one, you know, whatever, more than net 30, net 60 on this job for this order. I need you to say yes, or I'm buying it from your competitor. And they all have a competitor. That's the nice thing. And even in Boise, Idaho, a small geo, there were two wholesale electric science supply companies uh in town. And so you I could there's only two you could play against each other, but they played ball. They wanted the order. And and so, yeah, it's it's not just something you should do once a year, but then remember, like, you got flexibility. Even when they they say, like, okay, here's the terms for the next year, they're usually pretty friendly. Like they have to be in the business of extending credit or they won't be competitive. And so a lot of times you can pay them late. You just got to really make sure, and that's another mistake small business owners make, is they'll call the supplier and say, Hey, I don't, I know this was net 30, I haven't got paid yet. Can you just give me another 30 days? It's it's usually a very friendly ecosystem, right? Because you you got it. It's like you're my customer, you didn't get paid. Kind of makes sense, you can't pay me yet. But then the mistake that happens is they don't adjust that payment. There's whatever software they're using to track stuff to report to to Dunner Bradstreet and sometimes all the Bureau's. So even though they gave you permission to late payment, if they give permission to pay late, it's not late, right? They they changed the terms of repayment. And so I learned this another thing I learned the hard way once I started to understand all this at the manufacturing company was I'd have to remind them like, hey, don't report me late though. You're giving me permission. So I need you to not report me late because it's gonna start to hammer my credit. And so, yeah, it's something you can do all the time as far as real in a dealing with credit terms with your vendors.

Avoiding Late Reports That Hurt Scores

SPEAKER_03 11:03

100%. What do you see like out of uh folks that are using your software? I mean, I'm sure you got data on it, but what's like the maybe the top two reasons that a business is not credit worthy? Right? Or hits that score.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

So speaking specifically of credit worthiness, you know, you you don't just automatically know there's such a thing as business credit. And so it's usually in your journey as a small business owner, at some point you stub your toe. Look, like I every single, all three of the commercial business credit bureaus, I discovered by stubbing my toe somewhere. And I remember, I still remember that when I found out Equifax had, when I was like several years in business, I'm like, how the hell did I not know Equifax had a business credit report? But the most the most common thing that trips people up is either something negative, you know, they didn't know it was there. So it's usually just a lack of awareness or something inaccurate. And because in the in the consumer space, for something to show up on your credit report, you've got to have a perfect match but of three of the four of social address, date of birth, and name. And in business credit, it it's just tying your zip code slash address to your business name. There's lots of other businesses that might have a name that's really similar to yours. And so it's really common just to get business credit reports crossed with some other business, and and so you just don't know there's something negative, then you got to go through a bit of a process with Dunbras Street to get that ironed out. But all the beers want accurate data, they're not against small business, they want to have accurate data, and so if there's errors, you can get them fixed. It just usually takes a little bit of heavy lifting.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Is that process kind of daunting? Like if you were mixed up, I mean, to get it fixed, is I know if I have a on the personal credit, there's something wrong, it's so brutal, it's brutal, right? But I mean, how's it on the business side? Is it just as bad?

SPEAKER_02 12:49

It's not too bad because business credit's not regulated by the FCRA, so you said it's brutal on consumer, but it but at least they gotta follow the law and respond within certain timelines, and in and the creditors got to prove that it's accurate, timely, and verifiable. If one of those three they can't prove, then they gotta take it off your credit report. The commercial bureaus, even though they're not covered by the FCRA, they have processes in place that basically basically mirror app is the consumer space. So it's less about that it's you just got to have documentation. They're not just gonna trust you. So if you know you've got to show your Secretary of State, probably pull the record of some other business, their Secretary of State, and and submit a package. It's like, look, no, these this is my information, that's their information, you need to untangle this. But interesting. But they're not there to fight jobs. Yeah.

Good Debt Versus Cash Hoarding

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Right. Can can we take this just a slightly different direction for a minute? Yeah, sure. Um, you know, I I what uh here's another problem, Levi, um, is companies that are so debt averse that they don't use debt when they should. My students have to do a project every semester where they work with an area business to increase revenue, increase profitability, reduce risk for the owner, and increase the value of the business. And just last night we had one. It was really interesting. So the business was doing six million dollars a year, it had a three million dollar plus book value, a million in cash sitting in the bank, and it was put up as a canon of good management, as an example of good management. And it only made a 3% margin on sales, by the way. Okay? Wow. Right. So it was like$200K on six million in revenue, but three million in net worth plus. And I guess, you know, I pointed it out to the student. I'm like, you know, I appreciate that the owner of this business is very conservative, and you know, they're they they have a business that has a real low risk profile. However, their return on equity sucks. Do they need that kind of book value in that business? And wouldn't they be better to extract a bunch of that cash out, do something different, borrow some of the money, and jack up their return on invested capital? I mean, i and and go use their their money for something else. I I think a lot of people don't really think like that though. They just think all debt's bad. Yeah. And, you know, in some cases that that results in them using up all their working capital. That's the first, that's a more common problem I see with small business owners. They want to buy and pay for everything and then they run out of working capital. But the second problem is this issue of just being so debt averse and not really understanding um the you know uh the relationship between the the uh profits the business generates and how much is invested in it.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah. Yeah, that's a I mean, that's uh that applies to me in my experience. So I was raised, my my dad, debt was bad. He he sold like a part of his farm to pay off the rest of the farm in the 70s, like before I was born. So my whole life, it was all about don't use debt for anything, pay cash for your cars. I had no personal credit when I started my first business, and I thought debt was bad. Like that was indoctrinated into me at the deepest level. And and I had to have several experiences to realize, like, wait, no, debt is leverage for me to get ahead faster in this business. And all that matters is if you're using debt, you need to make sure that whatever the the project or however you're calculating return on investment, that there's you're making more than what the debt costs you, and obviously the more the merrier. But uh one of those experiences was I didn't have a like a 20-ton boom truck, and sometimes I would win a job where I had to rent one, and my boom truck only went 60 feet in there. So whether it was I needed more height or I needed more weight capacity, I would have to rent equipment that I didn't own. And so I I looked at a used piece of boom truck, 20-ton, 120-foot reach, and I'd I looked back at all the the uh rentals that I'd had to rent the year before for jobs where I needed a truck that big, and then I got the equipment lease numbers, and you know, they say there's no interest rate, and I figured out how to calculate well, what's the effective interest rate? It was like 14%. It wasn't great, but it was simple math. The math was I was gonna pick up, I would start to, you know, with a$1 buyout, I'm spending on a lease against an asset that I'll eventually have. And, you know, I'd spent like 40 grand the year before on renting equipment, renting boom trucks, and the lease expense was gonna be like 20 grand, whatever it was, it was like black and white math. But then it also meant like I didn't have to wait for the boom truck to show up on a job. I could, I could then bid a little lower because I was spending less, right? So I could have more competitive bids. But but experiences like that started to break that mindset. But like, you know, I was proud, like I can afford to pay cash for all my rentals. I don't need to finance anything. It's like, no, that was silly. That was costing me 20 grand a year or whatever it was, that mindset, and not having the full-time utility of the boom truck.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

You know, and speaking of that, is it, and then even to your comment, Mark, in that story, is it better to I mean, what what I imagine is small business, they they want to be able to get a loan for fixed assets or for assets versus operating capital, working capital, right? Or like a line of credit, you're saying against AR. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Sure.

Match Financing Type To The Need

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Yeah, because like uh well, I mean, but okay, so if I took out a loan, even if I had AR, so I would take out we got a little noise going on. Okay, we're good. Uh if I took out a loan, I I guess what I'm trying to say is if I'm a small business owner, what's the what's the the best way to use to acquire debt and for what purpose? And what's the no-go way to try to acquire debt, right? So let's say uh my credit health is doing great, and I've got that fixed through Levi's system now, and now I'm gonna go approach and try to get get some debt capital. If I was an entrepreneur and I'm and I'm going about it one of two ways, like what's the wrong way to go about that, and for what reason am I trying to get that capital versus what's the right reason to get that capital?

Clean Books Create Real Business Value

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Yeah, and so I would just simply flip the question. So you need money for something, and then there's going to be an idea loan type or financing type that maps to that decision that you want to make. And so that's why trade credit is so useful. You're you're not buying goods on credit unless you already got a job. So that's like dropped it, obvious, but it's also kind of a pain because in aggregate you may have like 200,000 in credit limits, but that's across the dozen vendors. Ah, it'd be way easier if I just had a$200,000 line of credit. The trade credit it not only is it usually free, like there's no charge for the net 30, net 60 terms. Um, it's also flexible. Bank's not going to be flexible on the repayment. Um, but but a line of credit, like if you're paying your for goods attached to a job, it drives more discipline in your business. If you've got a line of credit, you could get a little bit sloppier in your your cash management, managing your expenses, and mapping your expenses to an outcome that's going to drive profits in the business. And so I think it's really just what are you trying to accomplish? And you've you've really got to do the math and make sure that that whatever it is you want to do, it pencils out. Sometimes it's easy. If you're a retailer going into the holiday season, the hot things, X, Y, Z toy, you're going to borrow expensive money that you're paying back three months later, but you got a 300% margin on that hot toy. Oh well, if it's expensive financing. But a lot of times projects are pretty skinny on the math. But even then, like I there was times I would use financing as a small business owner to win a job that I'd break even on because I knew it would then turn into a repeat customer. So that's a different calculus. I was betting on future profits, I wasn't willing to lose money on a job, but I was willing to break even on a job if it meant you know bringing on a new customer. And so it really just depends on the project. You know, if like you'll see small business owners get like a 10-year payback SBA loan for something that's like, good hell, that should be able to pay back in a year. So that's the wrong product. Because now you're for for the next nine years, you're still paying back something that was going to drive a benefit in this fiscal year. And so it you really got to map it to the the value that you're trying to drive in the business. Because connecting this comment back to what was just discussed, I'm a big believer. Like the business has got to stand on its own two feet, and every year it should be kicking profit to the owner that then gets invested in personal assets. So you you mentioned that the person that had all the money just sitting in the business, and and the business has got to stand on its own two legs from a debt perspective. Now, that's not sure when you start, right? You leverage all of your personal assets and debt usually to get started, but that that's like I don't think you've made it until the business stands on its own two feet and stands on its own two feet is not just servicing everything in a fiscal year, driving results in a year. Obviously, you want to break. Down by much shorter increments from how you measure your business. Um, but it also it's it's not a healthy business unless it's kicking profits back to the owner on top of the salary that they're paying themselves out of the business. You you sounds like you got you probably have some experience on the MA side. Like, how many times does a business owner go to sell their business? They're running their boat payment and all this creative stuff through on the cost side.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

So it looks like they got so much coming, like yeah, so it looks like they got no profits.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

It's like, well, yeah, that that works for taxes this year. When you try to sell this, it looks like you're barely getting by. And I I learned that when I bought a hotel because I I knocked doors on every hotel in the Treasure Valley where Boise, Idaho is located, and and several times it got to the books. It was the same damn thing every time. They pull out a set of books and another set of books and say, like, here's what I pay my taxes on, but here's the real numbers. I say, I don't give a shit about your made-up books. Like, I all I can trust is what you told the government. I'm not giving you any value in this thing for these this handwritten notebook where you're tracking your real profits.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

That's so right. Eli, I'll tell you a story where a hotel I looked at, and it was a deal where they were trying to show that they made so much money every year. But what there was zero dollars in labor. Zero, zero owner pay, but zero in labor. And you know why? It was owned by an Indian guy, and all the labor was provided by family members that he brought over and gave rooms to live in and stuff. They did all the cleaning, they did the yard maintenance, they manned the desk. I'm like, this is not a real picture of how I can run this business.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Okay, like you have to come up with your own performance now based on what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

This thing makes nothing here at all. But yeah, that's a that's a really good point. It is very common with small businesses, and I always discourage that is all the co-mingling. You know, Eric and I, I don't, we never ran our businesses like that. I mean, I never took my wife out to dinner even once on a company credit card.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

Same. I mean, well, it's just like business is already complicated enough. Yeah, exactly. There's no way, there's no way in the world that you're gonna keep all those things straight, you know, or and if you are, then it's probably not even worth your time and it's really not worth the payout of it. Because I mean, you want to make sure that you're showing the value in the business, and it's got to be an accurate picture of that.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

But we're entrepreneurs, we're thinking about value building in the business instead of just what we extract from it every year. And you know, that's the difference in small business and entrepreneurship. Is that value building? I I'll give you another story for just from last night's big presentations that you guys will appreciate. Here was a business doing$10 million a year, it made about uh$1.3 million real profit. Okay. Their marketing cost was 50% of revenue. Dang. 5.0. I've never seen anything like that. Now the business was was young, it was created in like 2019 or something like that, okay? So, of course, you know, the the the students are like, well, you know, they got their marketing cost is completely out of line with the average firm in their business, and you know, they gotta get that down or whatever. And I said, no, wait a minute, you're looking at the because the average firm in this business made would have made a million eight on 10 instead of a million three. I go, you guys are looking at this the wrong way. Think about the value these people have created. This has gone from zero to ten million dollars in that amount of time. It is profitable. Their projections when I put I said this thing's probably worth three times revenue, okay? Because they spend that amount of money on marketing and jack that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Oh, it's just gaining value and it's gonna be perpetual.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Right. So where's the real pot of gold? It's not the extra 500K I suck out of it, it's the fact it's worth$20 million more than the next guy.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

And I would say it's gonna be worth$50 million more in a year.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah. So how do we get small business owners, though, to understand? I mean, all of us, we've had a pretty wide-ranging experience. Eli certainly the most of any of us here, right? How do we get small business owners to be just generally more financially savvy than they are?

The Trap Of Desperation Borrowing

SPEAKER_03 26:16

I think it's dialogue and discussion like this, right? And I think that uh, you know, especially with Levi's experience and seeing, you know, uh I think one of the best ways is probably what exactly not to do. Because those seem like what what you should not do seems to be a little bit you can hang on a little bit. Because what you can do, kind of Levi's point when I asked that question earlier, well, it depends on a lot of different scenarios, right? As to why you might apply and try to get financing. What kind of financing? Yeah, what kind of finance you need. There's it's like a hundred different reasons why. But I think my question when I was like, what should we not do though, is like, what's a worst case scenario of which maybe somebody, Levi, that came into nav or or that in your experience that they're trying to get their credit worthy enough to get financing for a really bad idea for financing. And you know, do you have any uh any suggestions on that? Like, let's tell our audience like don't go and try to do financing like this. The first thing I can think of is when you're desperate, is like the one of the worst times to try to get it.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yeah, you gotta get it when you don't need it, obviously. Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Yeah, businesses tend to borrow money for only one of two reasons. Things are going good and I see an opportunity, or things are going bad, and I gotta be able to keep the lights on. And and that's where the danger lies. A lot more danger lies in the I'm optimistic that I'm gonna turn this around than you already have a successful company, you're optimistic you're gonna make it better, right? Like that, that one, there's usually more reasons to believe. And if you're you're wrong, it's usually more forgiving on the downside. And so that not seeing the reality of the situation you're in. So you lose a big customer, you're bleeding a little bit of money, you're confident you're gonna win back another big customer, you think I don't want to lay anybody off, I don't want to make any structural changes to my cost or changes structurally to my costs, structure the business. And so I'm gonna borrow money. And then a lot of times, because revenues probably show they've been declining or something's off, uh, and and oftentimes now your credit's a little beat up because it's been a little bit, then you're you're also getting qualified for the most expensive financing there is. So it's like doubly bad. You're getting like a merchant cash advance with a huge factor rate, which would translate to like 80% interest if it if it was that instead of the factor rate. That's that's when most people start to really start to sink. Because if you're if you're already trending down and you pile some expensive debt on top of the business to keep it afloat, it's not really keeping it afloat. You're just you're at that point, you're just spending money you shouldn't be spending. And so, you know, you always got to do the math on does this pay out? That's a lot easier to do. Like I said, when things are going well and you're looking to capitalize on some extension of opportunity from a revenue perspective. But the the the folks that are too slow to recognize and see the writing on the wall and say, like, I've fundamentally got to run this business at a lower cost basis until I would back another big customer or whatever. That's the that's the worst moment to be making big financial decisions is when you're clouded by all the misery misery that's surrounded you.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Be in there.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Yeah, and I mean yeah, for sure. And it's and it's a very oscillating scary feeling. I mean, I think that we've have all experienced, but I mean, it's like, you know, at some point you're you know, it's interesting, Levi, as you're talking about that. Like if you lose a big client, right, which no one wants to do, but you have so much confidence because you're working in the business, you're as an owner, you're in that business working it, you're always campaigning and promoting, yep, that you have confidence that the market is going to respond. You just need to knock on more doors, you need to do it. More time.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Yeah, a little more time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

You know, and I mean I've done that about a million freaking times. That's actually probably all I ever do now that I think about it, is how do you buy that time? Yeah, because you see the market is is growing, right? Um yeah, versus like I have already known. Yeah, I was like, you know, uh, versus like that other one where you probably have had a sustaining business and it is doing well, then all of a sudden the market shifts, or your competitor comes in, and you keep trying to do the same damn thing over and over again because you don't a lot of times I've seen people that are not in the business enough to be aware of what's happening, yeah. A little by little.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

It just gets more and more isolated, yeah. Yeah, they get a lot of money. In the market and the people, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Yeah, it's so true. Yep, and then and then they're left with this this this scenario, and then they go get financed and bigger, bigger hoe, right?

Optimism Is Power And Danger

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Yeah, and and there's one other aspect of being an entrepreneur. This is true for us three. This is true for everyone listening. It's a bad idea to start a business. Statistic just speaking statistically and mathematically, no matter how good your idea, it's a bad idea to try to turn it into a business because the majority fail. What does that mean? That means entrepreneurs are optimists. Because if not, you look at the path and say, Nope, I'm gonna keep working for somebody else. That optimism does so much to make you successful, but yes, it also is the same thing that gets you in trouble.

Fantasy Ideas Versus Market Reality

SPEAKER_00 31:27

That is so true. It's like we uh we just got uh before the show a potential guest posed to us who is a guy who deals with gambling addiction. Uh-huh. Okay, and I said, What does that have to do with business? But then I started thinking about it, right? Uh everything. We may have to probably need some therapy too. We don't go to the casino in Siloem Springs or the whatever, or the Indian, you know. We're we we but we're still gamblers, betting against the odds. Um that's a good point. But you know, another I I tell you, these these cases I see in my class are just fascinating. I had another one in the last couple days that I thought was good. And here's here it is. The the story is basically this guy starts a business to um sell smoothies. Okay. Now they open up their shop, it's not a franchise. They get discovered by some you know influencer who's got like a jillion freaking followers. So the thing like takes off like a rocket, right? They get they they have these great revenues, okay. Then over time it just slowly winds down again to where now nobody makes any money. They got multiple owners, they're paying themselves zero, okay? They're they already were significantly higher, and they're sitting there saying to themselves, we're gonna be doing better. I mean, I I wonder, like my first thought was what do these people think a freaking smoothie business, how much money do they really think that's gonna generate? Do they ever do any like reasonable sort of capacity analysis on that? You know, like what's the real potential? Is this a$400,000 a year business? Is this an$800,000 a year business? Does anybody with one of these and this size do$800,000 a year? You know, it's like uh it just blows me away. It's like sometimes I think people just don't even think about what the business real potential is the real scale that it can get. Yeah, exactly. It's just they must be living in like total fantasy land.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

They get so enamored with their idea. I'll I'll give you two examples that I love to give. When I had my electric sign manufacturing company, most of my customers were small businesses, and a lot of times they were brand new. We were building a sign that was going to go on the building or on the pole outside the building. And I was really young, I'm like 21 when I started, and so I I know there's a lot more that I don't know than I do know at this point in my life. Let me just say it like that. So this guy comes in and he's like, hey, I want to I want to open this soap slash cell phone store. And I'm like, okay. And he starts to tell me about it. He's like, I'm just into cell phones. I cashed out my 401k at Micron. Love cell phones, and my wife loves specialty soaps. And so can you imagine when you walk in on the right side there's cell phones, and on the left side there's soap. So if you want to buy soap, you're in there and you're like, hey, you know what? I could use a cell phone. And if you're buying a cell phone, you're like, you know what? I can use more soap. And I thought, man, this is sounds like a dumb idea, but honestly, I was objecting with myself. Like, and I thought, what what do I know? Like, I'm I'm just some young dude. I don't know anything. Guess what I was doing six months later? Getting paid to take down the signs and put them in the gym in my boneyard. Exactly. Anyway, I'll pause the one. The other one's funny too, but that that's the point is like he got enamored with this idea, and he like he had talked himself into it. And the other problem is when we're starting a business, usually we tell our friends and family they're not gonna tell us we're dumb. Like, that sounds like a lovely idea. In fact, I'll come buy some soap from you. I knew it. I knew this was a great idea. And so you you've really got to get advice from people who've been around the block that are willing to tell you, like, that sounds really fucking stupid, or you don't have enough money to get that off the ground.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

I always encourage them to find an industry expert, somebody that's not even remotely a competitor, has been far more successful in that field and just ask them.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

They they're always glad to help. I I can't ever say anybody's ever said no.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

No, you know, this dialogue is funny because I I feel like that when you get entrepreneurs together like us talking, like it's amazing to us about some of the things I think that we intrinsically already do just as entrepreneurs to get us through, right? But I mean, Levi's pointing out there that there are these people that get enamored by their ideas. That can be easily confused with a passion or a drive, right? Like what we have drive and passion, yeah. But I would never say that I'm enamored by some sort of idea that was like driving me to like like ignorance. Yeah. Because the other thing, the other layer I put on top of it is I might be passionate about this, but then I see the market size, and I'm like, holy smokes, this thing's huge. Then I think, how do I scale my business? Yeah. Like it may not be today, but I have a scalable You take it a few steps further down the road. How do I multiply this thing? Because if I had a smoothie shop and it was only doing$250,000 a year, my immediate thought would be, how do I franchise this and get thousands of locations? Because a thousand times a hundred thousand dollars profits a hell of a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

So day one, I'm not thinking about one smoothie. Exactly. And I'm not thinking if I'm doing the soap and cell phone business, I'm like, you know, I don't know, that one's a hard one, Lee, but I'll let you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

I had one, I had two, uh one ex another similar example to that. I had a friend of mine, he ran a Firestone store, and he calls me up one day. He goes, you know what? He goes, I'm tired of my showroom. It's got tires and shit in it. He goes, I'm gonna start putting uh I want to turn it into a golf pro shop. And I'm like, okay, um, they're getting my tires fixed, and now I'm gonna buy a new putter or whatever. I'm not a golfer, okay? But I but I I I started doing a little online research, and you know what I found out? 69% of tire buyers are women. What percentage of women are golfers? I said, dude, you'd be better off sticking greeting cards and freaking magazines and stuff in there, if that's what you want to sell. You know, it's like, but people do come up with these crazy ideas, and you just like, what are you a lot of times, Leva?

SPEAKER_03 37:55

I don't know if this is your experience, but if I have an idea, like then I hate it when people say, Oh, Eric's Eric has a lot of ideas. I don't have freaking ideas.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Exactly. I like what I'm I'm sniffing something.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Yeah. I'm more of a sniffer than an idea person, right? But like, like for that example, if with a little bit of thinking about what is the market doing, yeah, and where's the problem in the market, and am I competent and excited to go solve that problem? That to me is how you start a business. Now I I like soaps and cell phones. Yes. Wouldn't you agree, Lady?

Why NDAs Rarely Protect Anything

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Yeah, 100%. I I love attacking ideas simply because all ideas are liabilities. And people have an idea, they think it's worth something. Like my cousin wanted me to sign an NDA. He he comes to me and asks for my advice and then asked me to sign an NDA on this idea. Like, first of all, I'm not going to sign it. Never the dumbest shit. I'm like, and it was he would have to manufacture something. I'm like, this is a liability. Well, what do you mean? You have to lose a bunch of money before you ever make a dollar of profit. All ideas are liabilities. Even in the venture-backed world, when you have a pitch deck and someone says it's worth$8 million, that just means it's a huge fucking liability because it's actually worth less than zero, but you're pretending it's worth a lot of money. So now you got a long way to climb before it's actually worth eight million, right? It's all made up. It's imaginary. So I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

I'm the same way. I have had people come to me. I want to tell you about my, I want feedback on my business idea. I want to have coffee. You sit down with them. It's like, now I need you to sign an NDA. I'm like, I'm done. Okay. If you I said ideas are a dime a dozen. There's a zillion friggin' ideas, okay? I am not gonna sign your NDA. I always discuss, but you know what? They actually get advice from attorneys to do that. It's like, well, I call my mom and dad have an attorney, and he said that I should get this NDA. Of course they sign. I'm like, what do your mom and dad know about freaking business?

SPEAKER_03 39:48

Well, and of course, an attorney's like, oh, you absolutely need to pay me$300 about you an NDA that I created 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

I've had attorneys tell my students they shouldn't even discuss their idea with anyone because they could claim that they had ownership in the idea if they ever create a business and that they then are owed money. That's taking it a little far, don't you think?

SPEAKER_03 40:13

And not to mention, like, an NDA to me is worthless in a lot of ways, right? Unless it's like once you get into like selling a business or you get into those like very targeted circles of where like there's a close caption of people that are like in engaged, and so you'll everybody's gonna sue the hell out of each other if it blows up. But from an from the beginning, NDA to me means nothing. Like I don't want to sign one, I also don't want to ask for one. If I don't trust that environment, then I'm not gonna talk. Exactly. Yeah because if like if I do feel if I have something of a of uh sniff something and I got a product and a business I'm wanting to take, and I go anywhere where I think that there's some vultures around, yeah, I'm not gonna go talk to them. Exactly. I'm just or I'm gonna shut my mouth about a quarter of the way through and give them just enough to see, you know, make sure they don't walk out of the room they know better than me. You know? So, you know, this is actually therapeutic. I don't know about you guys, but I like it.

Stop Hiding Financials From Help

SPEAKER_00 41:14

It is well, that that's another thing though, Elaine. I don't know how much this impacts you and and and your work with these small companies, but they seem to me as if they guard their financial information like it's something that's so sacred they can't share it with anybody. And it it's it's ridiculous. Okay, what are they gonna do with your information if they have it? Yeah, you know what I mean? So you if you need money, you need input, you need investors, you need advice, you you gotta be willing to sh open up the books a little bit and let people take a peek under the hood. Yeah, what are they gonna do with it? I think the fear is it's either one of two things. They either making a lot of money and they think, oh, somebody's gonna copy me, or they're gonna think I'm greedy. But more often than not, they're embarrassed by how poorly the thing performs. That that's what I think.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Do you experience that through nav? Like, I mean, with folks hesitant to even get financing because of their book, the way their books look.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Uh less so with financing just because there's a big enough motivation. But you know, in our platform, you can attach your check-in account to our software so we can give you cash flow advice and insights are under cash flow. And if someone wants financing today, there's no hesitation. A lot of times when people sign up, they'll get the business credit, personal credit, they'll skip that step because they're like, well, I don't know about that. Like it's one thing I, you know, I gotta, I'm only gonna see my credit if I do it through you, but I don't know about my cash flows. And so we farm up those connections over time through engagement where they get better and better contacts because we're connecting the dots. Like, hey, you got slow pays in your business credit, connect your checking accounts and we give you some advice on how to better manage your cash flow so you can stop getting late payments. But it it's certainly true that business owners hesitate. I think it's less so when it's a digital environment, it doesn't feel like really personal, you know, like okay, well, this the software, like nobody at Nav is like looking at someone's data unless it's someone a customer character, someone called in and said, Can you help me understand my data? Um, but it's it's also like we're only there to give to help you with your data. But I I think it's what you said though, spot on. And and and unfortunately, I think it's less often that I'm making a lot of money and I want I don't want somebody to know. It's it's usually like I'm embarrassed, but usually times that even that's uninformed because you look at the financials, you're like, you're actually doing pretty good. Jesus Christ, you've only been doing this 18 months. Like you should feel really good about this. Yeah.

How Nav Surfaces Financing Options

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Right. Yeah, they don't even know that, right? And then they're getting that feedback. That's encouraging for a new business owner for sure. And then in the business financing market, is it I mean, a good comparable I think about is like lending tree, right? Where you have one source and it casts out. Out to all these different lenders, right? Which is absolutely ferocious. The worst idea that you can do.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

The insurance thing is even worse. They just will not let go of the case. Oh no, God, it's just spam calls for months. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

But I mean, does it work that way in the business sector too? To where, like, if I get my credit worthiness, which is what I'd be using nav for, what and then I okay, so I'm ready, right? I'm ready to submit for financing. A, do you offer that next step? And B, how does that actually happen? Does it kind of get cast out or is it really highly procured? How does that work?

SPEAKER_02 44:34

Yeah, and thanks for the question because I should proactively voice that over earlier. Because we're tied into the personal credit, all three commercial bureau reports, and the cash flows of the business, that's 90% of any financing underwriting scenario. And so we we're always connecting the dots in real time as we refresh the data to here's a business credit card, here's some net 30 accounts you're you you're qualified for, here's a business loan you could get. And then again, it's very clear on like if you don't like that option, here's the things that you need to work on so that a better option shows up. But because it's based on your data, you're it's not cluttered up with stuff you're not qualified for. It's just in the here and now, if you need financing, here's your options, but here's what you could do to improve those options over time. And and even with one lender, and we're about to go live with a second lender, it's it's it's proactive approval. So you don't actually even have to apply for the loan if you're qualified, it just shows up and lives and breathes as a loan approval. The amounts and terms may change your your data change for the better or the worse on the on the financing. But we're trying to over time, as lenders gain more sophistication on the technology side to kind of flip that on its head. Like, if your data already lives here and this is what somebody needs to underwrite you, why make you then go apply? Like, why not just bring that approval proactively into the system?

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Very cool.

SPEAKER_03 45:51

Yeah, I love that. And let me ask you a question on that. So, okay, that sounds fantastic. It does. But like in all kinds of circumstances, and you you probably have done a thousand things to try to mitigate this, Lib. I now it's kind of like almost going in your business model about how you help. Okay, I have a business, I want to do this, but what I'm assuming is that there's probably quite a bit of work and attention that I need to give if I if I signed up with NAV, not only in the beginning, obviously, but then even as I my numbers update, right? Because it's I'm talking like our business numbers are not updating obviously every month, at least at minimum, or you know, throughout the room. So somebody has to go in, continue to massage it, fix the problems that you flagged, review all the different financing approvals, pre-approvals that you've been able to provide to me through nav. I mean, there's a there's some pretty good amount of work in that, wouldn't you say? And and if so, what about how many hours do I need to full-time staff this, part-time staff it? Is it mostly bookkeepers, or is it or is it the president, CEOs that are that are in your system? How how does that look?

SPEAKER_02 46:59

By and large, it's the business owner themselves because part of the view is your personal credit. Because no matter how good your business credit is and how butt buttoned up your financials are, your personal credit will still be considered in any type of business credit card or favorable type of financing. If the terms are favorable, your personal credit's going to come into play. So that's why we incorporate consumer credit data into our user experience. The the amount of work from a readiness perspective you you need to do is highly dynamic individual to individual business based on, like I said, the decisions you made over the previous years led to this moment in time and what you look like today. For a lot of our users, like it's a pleasant surprise. They've never had a view to their data, but they're there's somebody who, as a consumer, was really buttoned up. And so they just carried those habits into the business. And so, guess what? That the habits of being a buttoned-up consumer financially are the same habits you need to be a business that's buttoned up financially and from a credit perspective. So it's just highly dynamic, but it's usually the business owner themselves that's in the account. Um, and uh, you know, the engagement, like how often they log in, how often they're doing things, kind of directly correlates to either how much work they have to do or am I trying to get financing right now, or am I in the middle and I'm just making sure I have good options when I get there. A lot of our best customers are a little bit upset and forget. Like they knew how hard it was to build good business credit and have solid personal credit and everything. They just want to make sure it doesn't go off the rails. And so they're just watching the alerts to make sure, you know, some random tax lien or something like that that doesn't show up on their credit. So it's up, it's all across the spectrum. The highest engagement comes from the folks that are either starting the business or they they they've like made it, but they've got so much fine-tuning to do to make sure it's consistently profitable, like take a paycheck, that kind of stuff. That's where you know people log in every day, once, twice a week. Just depends on where you're at in your journey.

Bank Data Versus Massaged Books

SPEAKER_03 48:50

And I know, I'm sorry, Mark, did you? I know that you said you connect to bank accounts, but do you also are you API connected with QuickBooks or uh any other types of business softwares?

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Yeah, we're we're a lot more focused on the cash flow just because very few small business owners keep their QuickBooks or zero up to date. And so, like even to underscore this point, I point out to people that Intuit has its own business loan product. So they will give their customers loans. They don't base that loan on QuickBooks data. You're like, wait, what? They have all the accounting data. They base it based on the bank connection that's powering the QuickBooks data because the bank account will always tell the truth, period. You may not like the truth, but it's going to tell the truth. You can massage your books, right? You can, oh, let's just delete that loan that I got and make my make my debt coverage read look better. But in the in the bank account data, there, oh, there's this payment to XYZ lender. Why is that not showing up on your balance sheet? Uh oh.

SPEAKER_04 49:52

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How Close Owners Stay To Accounting

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Yeah. No, that's such a good point. I mean, I think my personal feeling about it, and Eric may disagree with this, I don't know, but I think a lot of small business owners divorce themselves from the day-to-day accounting too early. I mean, I do think it's essential. At some point, you got to give it up. But I mean, I'm going to be doing two, three million dollars a year minimum, maybe five, before I'm going to pull myself. I got to be in those books constantly to know what the hell is going on.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

That's how I feel, at least. I hey, look, I'll be the first to submit. We've talked about this. I agree that that is absolutely significant. My brain just not what you'd like.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

It's not your orientation.

SPEAKER_03 50:52

I I just, it's, it's, I don't know. I don't it's never my priority in my mind. Top line revenue is all you think about. It's all I think about. All I think about. I like that though. I mean, it's covers a lot of sins. It does. And I've but I would say too, I'm like so surprised. But at the same time, I re respect and recognize how absolutely critical it is to have a good books. Like, like I I would say that I like, for example, with podcast videos, the first hire I made was a CFO.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:26

And the first thing I did was get my QuickBooks set up and my account set up. And the first thing I'm doing is making sure that everything is clean. Build the processes so that every time something comes in, it's being accounted for. I have people watching the bank accounts. I have it like duplicated. So I have bankers watching. I have my bookkeepers watching. I'm watching a little bit. Right. You got the processes down. Yeah, it's very yeah. And so when you say Levi, like a lot of people don't even like they look, they don't even have books. I'm like, that blows my mind. Like I would be very, I would be sketched out if all I have was just my bank account. Like, how do you like it? But it makes sense about the truth being that.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

That's what I had. My first year of business, the only thing I knew for certain was that more cash was coming in that was going out. Taxes was an absolute mess. My wife and I were like all weekend long receipts spread across the living room floor. And I went into the accountant and he he told me, he said, buy QuickBooks, and I don't believe you're going to do anything with it. So if you don't buy QuickBooks and hire a bookkeeper, I'm not going to need your taxes next year. So went to Costco, wasn't online back then, bought it. I hired Loretta. She was also the office manager, made my first bookkeeping hire. I logged into QuickBooks one time and I was like, fuck, I don't get this. And then fast forward, QuickBooks moved to the cloud, and I was like, wow, that's cool. Now I'm in tech. You know, this is the late 2000s. So I hit up Carly, my bookkeeper. I'm like, give me a login. I want to check out QuickBooks Online. I logged in one time and I'm like, fuck, this is so hard to understand. Now I looked at the financials every month. Like I was always looking at the PL. But so so I still don't know how to. Now our finances are too complex for on NetSuite, but I I don't even have a login to NetSuite, and I'm the CEO of the company.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

I love it. You two guys are. I gotta be in there constantly, okay, seeing what the hell is going on. Okay, all right. Plus my daily cash flow reports, plus my daily sales reports, plus my weekly summaries. I mean, I just I can't operate like that.

Pick Partners With Opposite Strengths

SPEAKER_03 53:27

I think that's that's fantastic, you know. Well the results aren't very good. You can see it though. He's spending too much time in the QuickBooks instead of dropping revenue. I need you. I need you. I need you, bro. Well that goes into the discussion of partnership, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:47

It does. Oh, yeah. I mean, people need to that's the other thing. I mean, the the mm way too many business partners are both trying to do the same thing.

unknown 53:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

They they they go, oh, we're just alike. We should be partners. That's the worst part you ever want. You want somebody that's good at what you don't do.

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

100%.

Final Advice And Nav Plug

SPEAKER_03 54:07

I I can't believe we're already at time. I can believe I love the conversation with you, man. Me too. Like I'm it is therapeutic for me. I'm gonna walk out going, I'm not crazy, and things are great, and let's keep doing what we're doing, right? And uh so we're gonna have to have you on again. Um what last piece of advice would you give to a small business owner in the financing world, just in general, like top level? Like, what is the smartest thing to do? What they could do to make sure they're ready for financing?

SPEAKER_02 54:37

Well, I mean, I'm super biased, but sign up for Nap and see where you're at. I mean, it's the it it it is in a shameless plug. Like this business was fucking hell to build because it we offer a very robust free product that we pay a lot of data costs for you to have something for free. Um, but it's it's the only place you can get everything we're talking about. It's the only place. Like I'll I'm one thing I'm very proud of our our competitors all failed. Like they they didn't make it, and we did. And so it's there's just not one, right? It's like, well, if all you want is trade credit, stay on top of your business credit. If all you need is an MCA, stay on top of your cash flow. But guess what? You're paying high costs, so it's just your financial readiness. The the challenge is opportunities will drop in your lap, like good ones, right? That then if you can't take advantage of them, it's just it's just a shameless or a shameful miss. Like you could have borrowed some money and taking advantage of something, and it's too late in the moment to then get to work on everything and get that loan so you can get that new customer or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Awesome. So Levi King, again, it's nav. And I remember last time I I was jealous about your domain, it's nav.com, right? Yep. And then Nav is in Victor.com. Go check it out. Sign up, get your business health ready so that you can get that financing before you really, really, really need it.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

Yeah, don't get it when you're desperate. Get it when you don't need it, and get it for growth. Yes, not just survival. Yes, right.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

And debt straight leverage.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:11

Don't be afraid of that debt. Yeah, go home get you some more of that debt, right? Yeah. Take that gamble.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

That's right. And if you work for us, get a lot of debt if we really want you to be hooked.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

Okay. So you can't leave. All right. That's a fair point. Levi, thanks again, man. Let me do it again. Thanks, guys. My pleasure. All right, everyone. It's been another great episode of the big talk about small business.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

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