Insights on entrepreneurship, growth and strategy
Half of joint ventures fail — and almost never because the business case was wrong. They die over who decides, who funds, and who can walk away. Here are the five questions to answer before you sign, and how to keep control without killing the partnership.
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Henry Singleton compounded shareholder returns at ~20% a year for 27 years — not by inventing a product, but by being ruthless about where the cash went. Capital allocation is the quiet skill that separates great companies from busy ones.
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Try switching your phone off for two weeks. If your stomach tightens, you don't own a business — you own a job that owns you. Here are the 5 systems that let a company run, and grow, without the founder in the room.
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Most owners sell from weakness — exhausted, sick, or under pressure — and the buyer can smell it. Here is how to know it's actually time to exit, and how to prepare years in advance so you sell from strength.
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One path compounds slowly and never breaks. The other buys a decade in a day — and can bury you in debt and a culture you don't understand. Most companies pick the wrong one for the wrong reason.
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Walmart lost a billion dollars in Germany. Target burned $2 billion in Canada in two years. The way you enter a market matters more than the market you choose — here are the five modes, and when each one wins.
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Price is what the seller wants. Value is what the business is actually worth — and they are rarely the same number. Here are the three methods every serious acquirer uses to tell them apart before signing.
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Debt asks for your money back with interest. Equity asks for a slice of everything you'll ever build — forever. The cheapest money is rarely the wisest. Here is how to decide which capital to take, and which to walk away from.
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A 5% increase in customer retention can raise profit by up to 95% — yet most companies spend their budget chasing strangers. The cheapest growth you can buy is the customer you already own. Here is the math, and how to keep them.
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Hire your first executive too early and you burn cash on a title. Too late and the business plateaus around the founder. Here are the 5 concrete signals that tell you it's finally time — and how to avoid the hire that quietly wrecks a good company.
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Warren Buffett told a federal commission that the single most important number in judging a business is its power to raise prices. If you need a prayer session before charging 10% more, you own a bad business — no matter what the P&L says.
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A bottle of Gran Reserva can spend five years between the harvest that paid for it and the day the distributor's check clears. That gap is where profitable businesses quietly go broke — and most owners never see it coming until the payroll won't run.
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