Family and Business: Louis Kim

 Summary

In this episode, venture capitalist Lou Kim shares insights on family businesses, succession, emotional dynamics, and the true metrics of business success. Discover how to navigate family conflicts, build resilient businesses, and focus on profit and cash flow for sustainable growth.

Key Takeaways

• Family business succession and legacy
• Emotional dynamics and boundaries in family businesses
• The importance of clear vision and communication
• Financial metrics: profit, cash flow, and revenue
• Leadership and personal growth in entrepreneurship

Feeling stuck in your business?  Book a free call with Christian.

https://calendly.com/cbrim/30min

Transcript

Christian Brim (00:00.969)
Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, venture capitalist, Lou Kim. Lou, welcome to the show.

Louis Kim (00:08.462)
thank you for having me. Very excited to talk to you today.

Christian Brim (00:14.495)
Well, I'm excited to have you. So why don't you start with a brief CV so that people know you're bona fides.

Louis Kim (00:23.128)
Sure, sure. So I had the pleasure, I can look at it as pleasure now, but the fortune to grow up in a family of entrepreneurs, family business from very early on, I probably started working for my folks when I was eight years old, running a lottery machine in a liquor store, which today they probably would have gotten arrested for. But, and you know, kind of went from there, bought my first business when I was 21 and sort of had never looked back.

Christian Brim (00:43.701)
Nice.

Louis Kim (00:51.566)
And in recent years, taken those abilities and skills of buying and selling businesses and created a more formalized version of it with a private equity firm. And that's where I am today, bringing that here. And what we do now professionally is we find amazing family businesses because my single thesis about this is great family businesses deserve to exist forever. And so we're on the lookout for those.

Christian Brim (01:16.395)
Hmm.

Louis Kim (01:19.379)
Not every generation wants to take on and live on the legacy, but you have these amazing businesses that been around for decades that deserve to continue. so, you know, our goal is to take those and hopefully they last forever.

Christian Brim (01:33.769)
Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, being a CPA, I 100 % agree that that's like a problem that needs to be solved. So I'm glad you're solving it because business succession usually doesn't cross most entrepreneurs minds until way too late. And to your point, like there are fewer and fewer generational businesses like

Louis Kim (01:53.377)
you

Louis Kim (02:01.322)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (02:02.144)
I never in my thought, in my mind were my kids going to run this after I was gone. Never even crossed my mind and it didn't cross their minds. While we're on that subject though, I think it would be an interesting thread to tug on from your perspective is the dynamics of family in business and business. I grew up,

Louis Kim (02:21.409)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (02:26.241)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (02:31.936)
I didn't work in the family business because I couldn't. But had I been able to, I would have. It was intergenerational. My grandfather, my father, his two brothers owned a company. that experience was very formative for me. one of the observations I had was there was no line.

Between business and personal and like the the family issues became the business issues and the business issues became the family issues And a lot of times it was highly dysfunctional And it came to mind this week because my my future son-in-law Worked for his dad as an HVAC contractor and he's 30 my my future son-in-law and

Louis Kim (03:01.224)
Yes, that's it.

Christian Brim (03:30.216)
You know, it had kind of been simmering for a while of like, are you going to go do your own thing? Are we going to succeed? Am I going to give this business to you? Right. And it blew up and the son left and he's like going to start his own thing. And it just brought all those memories back. And I told my wife, I'm like, I am so thankful that I never went to work for my father. Like I can see now what that path would look like and it would not have been good.

Louis Kim (03:37.547)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (03:43.296)
Yeah. Yeah.

You

Louis Kim (03:54.432)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (03:58.879)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (03:58.997)
So I'm interested in your experience and perspective.

Louis Kim (04:02.708)
I mean you hit the nail on the head. It's it's the line and then the line always gets blurred. The businesses that are really good at this process or usually found the way through the years of creating boundaries and those boundaries still get crossed. I mean they get crossed consistently, right? Because if you have a blowout at Thanksgiving over something.

Christian Brim (04:10.462)
Mm-hmm.

Louis Kim (04:28.0)
dumb like politics, right? And then you guys get into it and it's there. Even if you have boundaries, when you're at work and you're harboring something, because now you're not just harboring the politics thing at Thanksgiving and what it to your kids, but you're now reminded of how your older brother beat you up when you're 13, right? And that still stays there because the younger brother wants to still punch the older brother in the face. And so it's a very difficult thing to navigate and it's why.

Christian Brim (04:38.942)
Mm-hmm

Christian Brim (04:45.843)
Right, right.

Louis Kim (04:56.554)
I believe so few businesses make it to that point because what you'll find is that founders, the owners or the previous generation will get to the point where they decide it's not going to work and they decide to divest or just like in your case and your son-in-law where he decided he is right at that age that I've seen time and time again. Because when you're in your 20s, you're still learning and you still

Christian Brim (05:11.4)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (05:21.226)
Right.

Louis Kim (05:22.122)
There's some humility still, even though you're like driving and you want to push ideas and then you're also optimistic. So I'm sure he gave his dad tons of ideas. Hey, let's do this. Let's do that. Let's do that. And every time it's like, Nope, that's not how we do it. Nope. That's not how I do it. And occasionally they're like, that's, that's pretty good. And then he probably hit a breaking point where there was some fundamental thing where their values or how they wanted to do it was different. And he's getting to that age. Cause you know, when we're young, we think 30 is like, you know, senior citizen age, but it's, it's, literally the starting point. Right. And

Christian Brim (05:30.046)
Yeah, yeah.

Christian Brim (05:51.305)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (05:51.599)
And that's probably what he hit is that threshold of age where it was like I gotta find my own thing.

Christian Brim (05:55.945)
Well, it's, it's, you know, I think God's provision, he had just actually passed his contractor's license Monday and this blow up, this blow up happened on Wednesday. but the blow up was completely personal. had nothing to do with the business, but to your point, it all just reached this critical mass and exploded. Yeah.

Louis Kim (06:04.028)
Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Louis Kim (06:16.843)
It's because he's been holding it in, right? He's been holding it in in the framework. And then it's like then at a certain point people get to a place where I don't know how to communicate with my parent when I need my parent versus when I communicate to my boss, my boss and the families that do succeed. They have very specific frameworks. They have really solid like black and white rules about an example would be as if you were a family business trying to do that is like, look, when we get together for meals, nobody talks business.

Christian Brim (06:27.444)
Mmm.

Louis Kim (06:46.793)
Right? You take business out of it completely like those little simple things become the boundaries that help create a little separation. It also is about the roles, right? Responsibilities. But even then. It's just hard because there's so much emotion and so much history that's together. The other thing that is really I have found with family businesses that succeed in that transition, what they go.

Christian Brim (06:47.156)
Yes.

Christian Brim (07:06.846)
Yes.

Louis Kim (07:16.842)
is they have a very clear sort of vision of what it is. And so it gets people steering in like kind of the same direction. And if they, if the older generation, you get the younger generation to buy into the vision of this is we are, then it stays and it goes. But even that can last for 60 years. And then you get to, you know, you're 61 and this person's vision of where we've been rowing the boat towards this whole time.

has a different shape to it, well, that creates its own conflict now, right? Because now you've got someone who feels the company may be inert or it's behind the times and we need to do this and then they don't wanna move and that creates its own friction. When it's working, I think family businesses are beautiful because then the other side of it is you have this synchronicity of understanding someone in such a deep personal way that sometimes there's just this unwritten language of how things move.

Christian Brim (07:49.684)
Mm-hmm.

Louis Kim (08:14.334)
And also just a reassurance that like when I'm away, the responsibilities that are covered by another owner, that's my family, that is way easier to deal with. mean, you're a business owner, you know what it's like to walk away. And even though you're like, I'm relaxed, it's always like, I know there just might be something coming, right? Like while I'm away. And it's a little bit different, I've found with those family businesses that

Christian Brim (08:38.269)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (08:43.773)
you know when they're when they're working well, it's beautiful. then it's like because the other thing too is your siblings, your parents and the rest of the family. You're on vacation like don't call us like go enjoy it like we have it covered and and that's a different kind of reassurance. I think as part of a team, you know.

Christian Brim (08:59.592)
Yeah, I mean, it's an entirely different level of trust. Assuming the trust is there, because sometimes it isn't, but yeah, that intimacy gives you a level of trust that you're not going to get, even with long-term employees. I mean, you might get there, but it's not the same. No, it's not. Go ahead.

Louis Kim (09:02.856)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Louis Kim (09:16.519)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and the only other thing I'll add is the the other the businesses that do really well that are family businesses in that environment, they they communicate and they communicate as openly as they can. And I I would think it's very similar to just in your family life, too. You we try and as open as we can. But, you know.

Sometimes we feel like it's better to protect people from certain truths because of how they may be impacted and how they feel. And in these businesses, I found that people really good at like just being clear. so there's no, which just helps reduce any additional subtext that comes from the family relationship. It doesn't fix all of it, but it just takes us to the heat doesn't always rise, right? Cause if it's like one little thing,

Christian Brim (09:49.568)
Mmm.

Louis Kim (10:13.469)
you harbor this and you're not clear about it and then now you add a professional thing and then maybe your wife said something to your brother's wife that upset them and now he's having a hard time at home and now he brings that. Those sort of things start to pile on and when you're not open and clear and as you said, the full trust is there, isn't there, it complicates it.

Christian Brim (10:40.927)
Yeah, in my business, I brought my younger brother on as an employee. And then I made him an owner, a minority owner. And what happened with me was there got to be a point where there wasn't a clear place for him. And not that he wasn't valuable.

Louis Kim (11:05.373)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (11:10.369)
But he wasn't the way he was valuable was not what I needed. And, but I held onto that relationship, not having that conversation of like, Hey, this really isn't working out for either one of us. You're not happy. I'm not happy. The business is dysfunctional. Um, for, for a long time. And as a matter of fact, I, you know, he, he left the business.

Louis Kim (11:16.061)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (11:38.241)
Eight years ago, and I bought him out. I can tell you that I did not have the courage to have that conversation, right? Like to and and he eventually just left. It was it was acrimonious. No, that's not the word it was. It was not acrimonious. It was it was, you know, we still talk and all that. But

Louis Kim (11:49.349)
Yeah

Christian Brim (12:08.061)
I didn't have the courage. I was afraid of losing the relationship or damaging the relationship. but it was so weird. Once that chain shifted, we were both so much more happy and, like the pain will tolerate, on both sides of the fence to just not have that conversation because I put that on me, but, the reality is he didn't, he didn't come and say, Hey, this isn't working out either. Right. Like,

Louis Kim (12:12.454)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (12:20.581)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (12:33.755)
Yeah, well and and think about during that time. From your own experience, how much additional stress that just creates because it's this constant thing you're like, you know it's not working right? It's he's in the business. He knows it's not working, so it's like you're both kind of failing each other and then also not serving the business in the bigger picture because there's this tension. There's this tension and everybody feels it right? Nobody talks about it. Everyone feels it and so.

Christian Brim (12:42.702)
my God.

Christian Brim (12:57.121)
That's right. Right. Yes.

Louis Kim (13:03.399)
It's so common when you bring family in and I think it's not for everybody. I've seen husbands and wives together and they do phenomenally well and they're so good at the ebb and flow. It's almost like their personal dynamic of how they mesh comes into business and you can't stop them. But then you get something like myself and my wife. We've tried to work together. We can't work together because we're both very opinionated.

Christian Brim (13:21.195)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (13:29.856)
Yes.

Louis Kim (13:31.601)
we're both very sort of certain when we think there's a direction that's going and then we don't wanna lose, right? And so it comes the thing of it just doesn't work for us. And so it's just a difficult thing when you take love, right? Like the love for family and the people around you and then you intermingle this whole different kind of process and love because I mean,

Christian Brim (13:35.259)
Yes, yes.

Christian Brim (13:40.554)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (13:50.369)
Mmm.

Louis Kim (13:58.639)
My hope is that everyone who is in business actually loves what they do. And it comes from that place of wanting to serve and love your clients and customers in the bigger picture, because that's how you make big money, right? It's consistently providing them that value. And I just think sometimes that when those two things converge, the passion, the emotions of the personal love relationship you have just get in the way. in the end,

Christian Brim (14:10.966)
Mm-hmm.

Louis Kim (14:28.633)
Nobody is served when that happens.

Christian Brim (14:32.477)
No, I think about I think about my grandfather and my grandmother and they did work together and she and he were very different and It I don't think the business could have thrived without either one of them but then like you my wife and I were too similar and you know

Louis Kim (14:37.412)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (15:00.065)
It was pretty much it was like we can work together or we can be married but not both. So let's let's let's make a decision. And obviously the marriage is more important. So I'm also reminded I had this father son company where the son. It was interesting because I'd had the car there was.

Louis Kim (15:06.463)
Yeah, yeah.

Christian Brim (15:28.353)
The dad was getting on age and was looking at turning things over. But it was very interesting talking to them independently. They both thought that they were the most valuable piece to that business. And objectively, I don't think either one of them were wrong. But in other words,

Louis Kim (15:43.906)
All right.

Christian Brim (15:57.302)
The business was successful from both of them, but they could not perceive that the other person was as important as what they had contributed. And, you know, it led to this impasse and, you know, eventually the father died without ever having a succession plan. Fortunately, the brothers worked it out and he took...

Louis Kim (16:00.494)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (16:08.632)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (16:18.023)
no.

Christian Brim (16:24.669)
he took the business over and continued and but like trying to overcome that impasse before he died, it was not possible because they were not willing to have that conversation and admit that they needed each other.

Louis Kim (16:38.16)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (16:43.875)
Yeah, and it's a I'm sure. In reflection, they would have both understood. How important the other was, it's just in the moment and I think that's where the intensity of the relationship connection is all those little experiences that we have as brothers, siblings, sisters, cousins, you know, parents and children. It just adds up because in that moment we feel.

Christian Brim (16:53.707)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (17:08.192)
Mm-hmm.

Louis Kim (17:13.606)
It's like the accumulation of all of that with the relationship happens, you know? And if you just sat analytically and with the two of them in a way, I'm sure they would have seen it. It's just, it's a shame that not everyone gets to have that realization often until it's too late, right? The business ends, someone passes away and starts to see it. I also think generationally too. mean, you were like with your grandparents, I think there's...

Christian Brim (17:33.536)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (17:40.901)
There's dynamics that play into it as well, because when you have like multi generational. Circumstances going on in different ideas and how older generations want to perceive things and then how dynamics are, you know, like especially I'm assuming your your your grandparents would have been what like born in like the early 20s somewhere around there. Yeah, and generationally is.

Christian Brim (18:04.948)
Yeah, yeah.

Louis Kim (18:08.796)
I feel like when they looked at marriages, it was very different than the way that we look at marriages today, right? All that comes into play, right? It's all part of the soup. so, and then, you you add the joy and all the beauty of the mess that is being an entrepreneur and being in business on top of that. And it's just, it can be a wildly beautiful mix or it can be a big sloppy pile of poop, you know?

Christian Brim (18:12.542)
Yes. Yes. Right.

Christian Brim (18:37.694)
Yeah, well, one of my other observations, just individually without family involved is that that entrepreneurship is a crucible that requires you to grow as a person like it does not give you the option. And if if someone's not willing to go along that journey, most people aren't right, like most people don't want to

Louis Kim (18:52.908)
Yeah, absolutely.

Christian Brim (19:07.924)
change themselves or look in the mirror and say I need to be different in order for us to be successful. Just being forced into that just because of your birth is right like it's like I didn't sign up for this right like.

Louis Kim (19:15.171)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (19:24.833)
Yeah, it's true. It's true. Yeah. I mean, if someone's born and they're artistically inclined, right? And that's all they want to do. And their family has been in the, you know, the trades their whole life. And, you know, there may be electricians, HVAC, plumbers. It's the last place that that person wants to be, right? It's, it's they don't want to be there at all. And so, and

Christian Brim (19:33.344)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (19:47.872)
100%.

Louis Kim (19:51.926)
It's not for everybody and your observation is so spot on that entrepreneurship, I think, and I believe is perhaps one of the most spiritual journeys a person can take if you're conscious and aware of what's happening because your business and what you build will never exceed your growth as a person, right? Like if you're so control minded that you've got to

Christian Brim (20:04.565)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (20:14.506)
Yes, yes.

Louis Kim (20:20.493)
just mangle everything, you're never gonna be more than a one man show, right? Like you just aren't, it's impossible, no one's gonna work for you. But the larger things get, the more you go, the more you have to be able to be comfortable with yourself so you can lead people. And I think that's inherently where it comes from, is that to take something that doesn't exist, to bring it into the market is a major spiritual endeavor because of who you've gotta become.

Christian Brim (20:36.468)
Yes.

Louis Kim (20:48.853)
in all of those different chapters, because even, you you get to a certain point and let's say you're fortunate enough to build a giant business. Well, the tail end of your life there looks very different than when you started it, especially if you're a founder, right? And so then even who you become at that point, right? I mean, this is also very related to family business is one of the biggest things you see in family businesses is even if the younger generation is ready and they've been taught.

Christian Brim (21:01.376)
Yes, right.

Louis Kim (21:17.601)
and they've been put in place to take over, oftentimes the older generation is not ready to get off the stage, right? And for them, that is also a lack of growth. They've hit a ceiling because they are not ready to let go and become advisors, become counsel, as opposed to the operations and being in their hands-on and everything. so, yeah, there's no better test.

Christian Brim (21:19.808)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (21:26.824)
Yes.

Christian Brim (21:37.589)
Mm-hmm.

Louis Kim (21:46.956)
for you as a growth as a person than I think in trying to be an entrepreneur and at whatever level that's at, you know?

Christian Brim (21:53.833)
Yeah. And I think that's, that's, I think that's why it's so, fraught with peril where, where you end up with people that, you know, burn out. certainly suffered that, where they have, you know, marriages that fail or relationship with children that fail.

even though the business may be successful, they've lost the more important things in their lives. I think that it's.

For me, five years, six years ago, I thought that I had, I I came to the realization that, yeah, I am the limit to the growth of this company, right? And did work on myself to be able to facilitate that. six years on, I'm like, I'm still the limit. And it's...

Louis Kim (22:45.886)
I like.

No.

Christian Brim (23:05.542)
It's like you don't really ever get off that ride. it's not it's not a point where you arrive.

Louis Kim (23:13.526)
No, it's it's it is. It's it's who we're becoming, right? That's the reward and and we're in in modern culture. We're so focused on the reward. As opposed to everything else, right? And so I 100 % understand where you're coming from and know the feeling. Because you start to grow. You have these ideas you want to get somewhere you want to build something and then you keep hitting a ceiling and you think it's.

You know, in the moment we always think it's the tactics, it's the strategies, it's this. And it's only in hindsight we can look back and be like, well, I needed to change this about myself. You know, I needed to be able to let this go. I needed to be able to empower this person. You know, I needed to be able to let go of this part because the reality is, as leaders, the more we let go and the more we empower other people is actually where we have the biggest impact. Right. And sometimes it's really hard to.

Christian Brim (23:45.546)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (23:56.522)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (24:10.419)
Yes.

Louis Kim (24:11.305)
It's sometimes it's really hard to let go when we're so clear about what we want.

Christian Brim (24:16.937)
Well, I'm going to give you some information from a study that I've referenced on the show multiple times and then I want to get your reaction. So they did a study of male entrepreneurs brains via MRI scans and they showed them pictures of various things, one of which was their business. Another was their children.

And the data showed that they're the same part of their brain lit up when they showed them pictures of their business and pictures of their kids. And so that statement of this business is my baby is literal for men. I don't know about women that weren't part of the study. And, I run that parallel of like, okay, you know, giving up control in your business.

Louis Kim (24:53.089)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (25:16.415)
is very similar to like letting your kids grow up and make their own decisions and Right It feels like a failure for yourself when your kid fails, right? And and I think there's some of it that is where it's tied back to like it how it reflects on you as a parent like If they do that thing then that means that I was a bad parent, right? and

Louis Kim (25:21.663)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Louis Kim (25:30.091)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (25:37.547)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (25:44.928)
It's just this interesting psychology where our as male entrepreneurs, our identity in the hard wiring with the businesses is akin to our progeny. That's an interesting dynamic. What are your thoughts?

Louis Kim (26:05.345)
I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised at all. I mean, this may get me on the anti-woke bus and canceled, but we have thousands of years of living and there are certain things about men and women and neither one is better, good or bad because you need both, right? And you need.

Christian Brim (26:33.258)
Mm-hmm.

Louis Kim (26:34.144)
and you need a masculine energy and a feminine energy to come together and those two things merge and you have a powerhouse. Well, men have typically been the one to go out, fight battles, right? Get the food, do those things. I mean, it's part of why we as men, the way we communicate is so different, right? If I ask you how you're doing and we haven't spoken a while, there's a 90 % chance you're probably gonna be like, I'm fine.

Christian Brim (26:38.431)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (26:48.564)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (26:55.442)
Mm-hmm, yes.

Louis Kim (27:03.954)
And nine times out of 10, when you say you're fine, you're fine. You ask a woman that question and they could go on for days about all the little details and all these things. And it's all driven from how we were, how we've just lived. And I'm, I'm not surprised because the, the, business, right. You know, we think business entrepreneurship, there's so many of these analogies about battle and victory and winning, right. Because, cause that's where we natively fall to.

Christian Brim (27:08.009)
Right, right.

Christian Brim (27:12.511)
Yes.

Christian Brim (27:29.822)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Louis Kim (27:33.723)
I think it's within our, we don't go and kill people that take their land anymore. We go out into the business world or we go out into the system, the economic system, and we find ways to bring back more money in the same way that a man before would have got outfights. So I'm not surprised because it's just clearly wired there in the same place of these two things are equal. This is it. It's just as important.

Christian Brim (27:41.002)
Right?

Christian Brim (27:50.869)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (28:00.276)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Louis Kim (28:03.56)
And I think businesses are, they become their own thing, right? When you have employees and they start to run the business, I want to preface that by saying when you have a true business and a true business is one where it can run without the owner, founder in the business, right? Like that's when you are a owner and not an operator, right?

Christian Brim (28:10.345)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (28:25.823)
Correct. Correct.

Louis Kim (28:31.537)
At that level, when the business comes to an ownership level, it becomes its own animal, right? And if you don't guide it, you don't teach it, you don't feed it, you don't nourish it, it goes off and becomes its own thing. You know, I think it's so it is very similar. mean, the things that you have to do within their, the responsibility you take on, right? The minute you, the minute you become the provider of someone else's pay so they can feed and clothe their family.

Christian Brim (28:36.671)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (29:01.087)
It's a different level of responsibility. And so I'm just not surprised that by all that in our brains that the men that were entrepreneurs that were in the study would literally trigger the same part of their brain. Because without it, you can't succeed. Without that commitment, you just cannot succeed. It's too hard. It's too hard to do anything without that sort of drive and passion to make it work.

Christian Brim (29:05.31)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (29:16.499)
Mm-hmm

Christian Brim (29:21.535)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (29:26.313)
Yeah, yes. And I think you talked about having a business that becomes its own entity, and it being distinct from the owner, right? So you've got these employees that are interacting with each other and interacting with customers and like, it exists outside of you.

Louis Kim (29:45.213)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (29:51.09)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (29:54.676)
For me, it was being able to make that transition in my mind. The limiting factor was I still saw the success or the failure of the business as my personal identity, my success, my failure, right? And that becomes a limitation. If you can...

Make a transition. I don't know that emotionally you can ever really make it completely, but at least in your brain, looking at it as an investor, right? So like you're, you're putting money into Nvidia stock or you're, you're, you know, you're investing money in something. And then what your expectations of that are, it's fundamentally different.

Louis Kim (30:29.65)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (30:53.733)
then, this is who I am and it's got to be successful. Yeah.

Louis Kim (30:59.39)
The identity piece you just hit on is so crucial because I think it's, you had mentioned burnout earlier. I had gone through my own sort of burnout where in my early 30s, done very well from all external measures, had an amazing life, traveled, right? Woman that loved me. Everything that you would think is quote unquote successful.

But super, super unhappy and I thought at the time the business was the problem because my identity was so deeply wrapped up in the business, right? So then everything that happens is like I couldn't look at a Yelp review without getting anxiety, right? Like that's how closely attached I was to it. was where I just didn't want to look at it and complaints and these things. Even if you have managers, the things that get escalated to you just like I just don't want to hear it because of.

Christian Brim (31:37.961)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (31:45.177)
Mm. Yeah, yeah.

Louis Kim (31:57.693)
how I felt about myself. learning separation is, I mean, we both said, mean, the spiritual part, like you've gotta grow. And it's like, the analogy used was so appropriate that at a certain point, your children grow up and you gotta let them fall on their face, right? Because if you don't, they won't have the resilience to succeed at whatever they're choosing to do. And a business is the same, you know?

Christian Brim (32:07.177)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (32:16.733)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (32:25.682)
You've got to steward and guide it, and then you've eventually got to put the right people in place and trust, right? And if you've done everything else well, it becomes its own thing. And to be the owner and to look at it like an investor in that same way of just, this is the lever I'm pulling. I mean, what better investment can exist than investing in yourself and your own vision? know, so yeah, for sure.

Christian Brim (32:50.847)
Yeah, no, but but but I can tell you as a as a CPA that you know talking to other entrepreneurs about that You know you you ask them, okay If you're gonna invest in the stock market, what's your expected rate of return, right? Well, okay. I know that answer historically. It's 10 % All right. Okay. I got that or 12 % Somewhere in that range if you ask them that same question

Louis Kim (33:08.497)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (33:19.783)
of just the money. not talking about time or energy. The money that you've invested in the business, what is your ROI? And it's just blank, right? But if you can make that shift, for me, was this realization that I'm not getting a return on my time, money, and energy that I should.

Louis Kim (33:22.439)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Louis Kim (33:45.735)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (33:48.35)
that requires me to be objectively separate from the business. Yeah. And then that made the shift like, okay, well, if I'm going to continue to own this business, something has got to change because it's not worth the time, energy and effort and money that I, right. I should just go sell it and go do something and invest my money in the index fund and go do something else, right?

Louis Kim (33:53.105)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Louis Kim (34:03.726)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (34:15.932)
Yeah, yeah. and the truth is, there's probably a lot of business owners that shouldn't do that.

Christian Brim (34:20.767)
A hundred percent, absolutely. Absolutely. I remember the very first meeting I went to of entrepreneurs organization, Vern Harnish was speaking, author of Scaling Up and Rockefeller Habits. And he asked this group of about 50 entrepreneurs, all of them with a business of in excess of a million dollars in revenue, how many of you could cut your business in half and make more money?

And virtually every hand in the room went up. And it is this strange reality that as entrepreneurs, we oftentimes build something that requires more effort, that gives us less return, just because that's the default, right?

Louis Kim (34:53.057)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (35:06.966)
Yeah. It's, the, I think when you're building a business and you're trying to get to those revenue thresholds, and I'm sure you've seen it where, you know, that first one's a million dollars, right? And there's all these things. And, this goes even to the topic of the growth, like to go from one to 5 million, the Delta of number is fairly small.

But what has to happen internally in that business is substantial, right? In the changes and it's like getting efficient doing those things. And I think people, they focus on this thing of revenue and growth as like the upper end number. I think the gentleman's name is Keith Cunningham, who's like a speaker about business and accounting and his line is,

Christian Brim (35:34.633)
Yes.

Louis Kim (36:00.316)
Profit is a myth and cash is truth. Something along those lines, right? Because we look at our PNLs and we go down the line, we think this is what's happening and it's like, well, that EBITDA looks nice, but what's my actual free cash flow at the end of the year? Right? Like what? And I think a lot of people don't get into the part of understanding that there's a focus of numbers that you should focus on.

Christian Brim (36:13.939)
Yes? Yes?

Louis Kim (36:26.682)
that this is the thing that's going to actually drive the engine, right? Because if you don't have margin in your business, you can grow, grow, grow, and you're going to be poorer, poorer, poorer, right? Over time. I mean, the worst thing is if you have a business where you're like you're bringing in, I remember actually this is kind of a tangent, but like Shark Tank, these young guys came in and like they had come up with some water bottle, right? And they brought this water bottle in and they'd done all this stuff and they went from like zero

Christian Brim (36:38.003)
Yes.

Louis Kim (36:56.811)
to like $18 million in four years. And they come to the shark tank and they're trying to get an investment and they're asking for some ridiculous valuation and they had no money. And they had no money because what they had gotten really good at was the vanity metric. that's not the right word because I think of it as like, it's almost like likes versus like actual engagement in social media. They looked at revenue instead of profit, right? And from profit, how much money they keep.

Christian Brim (37:23.551)
Mm-hmm.

Louis Kim (37:25.721)
And it was costing them some ridiculous number for their customer acquisition cost, which then kept them in this like loop where they were always chasing the revenue. So it's like anytime they had money come in, they got to buy more inventory. They go to ad spend and they're here, here, here, $18 million. And neither one of them were able to take home even a hundred thousand for the year. so that none of the sharks invested in it, but it's like the, it's the same thing. We, it's just, you know, it's like, you've got to grow.

but you also gotta focus and know and that's part of growth, right? Is understanding that you start the business and you definitely need revenue, but at a certain point as your business is shifting and growing, you've gotta start to focus on how do I actually make money? Because the money that ends up in my pocket is the most important thing, right? That's the true metric of winning and losing. I'd rather have a two person company that makes 500,000 a year where I can take home 500.

Christian Brim (38:11.284)
Good job.

Louis Kim (38:24.74)
than like a 30 person company that does 10 million a year and I'm walking away with 120 grand. Like it's just, these are night and day differences, right? Like because this thing over here, I already know, you know, with two people, if I'm doing half a million, if I actually want to grow, it's the upsides gigantic, right? And it's like what the scale, the impact, the things I can do, but this other thing here that's this thin and I haven't figured out how to actually create the margin. I mean, that's just, that's work, right?

Christian Brim (38:54.067)
Yeah, it's just it is it's just work. I can't remember Australian CPA, whatever the equivalent there is in Australia. He had the phrase revenue, revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king. And yeah, and, and, you know, I think I'm going to go to an event tonight.

Louis Kim (39:10.04)
Yeah, that's great.

Christian Brim (39:20.851)
of my local chapter of entrepreneurs organization and there's there's probably going to be 50 people there. And you know, I can tell you for a fact that there's not going to be any conversation around. There'll be conversations around. we we've grown to this amount or we've had this we've hired this many people or we've got this much market share or this or that all of those things.

there will never be a conversation about, well, how much profit did you make? That's an obscene question, right? That's culturally or socially unacceptable to ask that question. And because of that, you're not going to get to the like, well, you know what? I don't know how I'm going to make payroll next week. I really don't know.

Louis Kim (39:53.827)
Yeah.

Louis Kim (39:57.409)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Louis Kim (40:12.216)
Yeah.

And well, and that's the that's the real question, right? Because it's like that's in those moments. That's where you're forged. That's where that's where you figure things out. You know, that's where you determine whether or not this life is even for you. Because I don't think if you've. You know people. I feel like over the last 20 years. Because of the tech industry, they're like our new rock stars, and so this the idea of entrepreneurship has become.

Christian Brim (40:21.49)
Yes.

Christian Brim (40:38.974)
Mm-hmm.

Louis Kim (40:43.159)
It's been sensationalized like and listen, I think it's beautiful. I think it's amazing, but people don't really understand what it takes right? They don't really understand the visceral gut like if you've never if you can't see yourself. Unable to sleep because tomorrow you've got to pay some people and you're short right and you know and then the worst is like if.

You know that there's revenue coming through the door somewhere in the near future, and there's this gap between these two and trying to bridge those two things. I mean, that's that's where you want to talk about resilient and talk about being able to forge and get through and figure out a way to things work. I mean, that's it. I mean, that's that. That's where entrepreneurship is earned is when you can when you when you can MacGyver your way through those tough times, because if you do it there, then you can absolutely do it when the times are good.

Christian Brim (41:40.966)
Yes, and then having the wisdom to say, you know, what did I do to get myself into that place? Cause I don't want to be there again. Right.

Louis Kim (41:45.876)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, learning, learning from it, right? And then going back, but as I mean, this where the conversation started with this idea of like what the focus on numbers, if you don't focus on the profit and you find yourself in those shoes, you're going to keep fighting yourself in those shoes because you're going to be doing economic activity that is actually costing you money. And you don't realize that every customer you're bringing in isn't actually making you money. You know, like

Christian Brim (41:50.504)
Yes.

Louis Kim (42:14.826)
I there's so many businesses that people they think they're making money and then they you actually run the numbers and analyze what's happening and you put all the pieces in and there's like they miss one or two things that aren't accounted for and you account for those things and be like, well, this is why you're struggling right there. There's nothing there. It's like every time. You get a customer you're losing, you know, 100 bucks, whatever it is. That's that's a that's not a business. Be easier for you to go to the casino and put some money on the.

Big six wheel. Yeah, exactly. Sometimes you have a chance of winning, right? Yeah.

Christian Brim (42:45.246)
You'd win occasionally at least, right?

Christian Brim (42:53.959)
Exactly. Lou, how do people find out more about what you what you're doing if they want to learn more?

Louis Kim (43:01.239)
I mentioned the top my firm is called us on capital but the best way to reach me is just lu kim l u. Kim.com my personal site can direct you wherever it is and reach reach my blog.

Christian Brim (43:14.728)
Perfect. Listeners will have that link in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. And until next time, remember you are not alone.