4 ms·

It depends on how you manage it -- there are people who chain themselves to the business, but if the business is really worth $10mm (and not just because of inf

It depends on how you manage it -- there are people who chain themselves to the business, but if the business is really worth $10mm (and not just because of inflated hope, let's say it has $2-3mm in sales and maybe $500k-$1mm in ebitda) you can bring in operators who, when smartly recruited, take a huge amount of stress off the founder and allow you to run the business part time, once you've instilled a good operating culture.

anamax 17y ago
> $2-3mm in sales and maybe $500k-$1mm in ebitda) you can bring in operators who, when smartly recruited, take a huge amount of stress off the founder and allow you to run the business part time That's just barely big enough to go part time. Folks who can competently run such biz aren't cheap - they're at least $200k (fully burdened), taking a significant fraction of the $500k-$1M. And, even then part-time is an illusion because it takes time to figure out that you've got a good one and the good ones tend to move to greener pastures.
- mediaman 17y ago
  I agree with you that hiring that talent at that level of EBITDA will take a big chunk of your profits. But there are one of two types you'll hire. One is if your business is not going to grow much (say, <9% a year). I'm not sure that requires a $200k person. Perhaps there are some low revenue, low growth businesses that do require someone that expensive. I'd be genuinely interested in examples, for a thought exercise if nothing else. The other is if your business will grow, and will experience the challenges associated with that. Maybe not insane growth, but perhaps 10-50% a year. Then you do need that more expensive person who has grown a company to be bigger then yours is today. If it is the latter case, then the percentage of profits you give to that person will decrease with time.

4 ms·

It depends on how you manage it -- there are people who chain themselves to the business, but if the business is really worth $10mm (and not just because of inf

by mediaman 17y ago

anamax 17y ago
> $2-3mm in sales and maybe $500k-$1mm in ebitda) you can bring in operators who, when smartly recruited, take a huge amount of stress off the founder and allow you to run the business part time That's just barely big enough to go part time. Folks who can competently run such biz aren't cheap - they're at least $200k (fully burdened), taking a significant fraction of the $500k-$1M. And, even then part-time is an illusion because it takes time to figure out that you've got a good one and the good ones tend to move to greener pastures.
- mediaman 17y ago
  I agree with you that hiring that talent at that level of EBITDA will take a big chunk of your profits. But there are one of two types you'll hire. One is if your business is not going to grow much (say, <9% a year). I'm not sure that requires a $200k person. Perhaps there are some low revenue, low growth businesses that do require someone that expensive. I'd be genuinely interested in examples, for a thought exercise if nothing else. The other is if your business will grow, and will experience the challenges associated with that. Maybe not insane growth, but perhaps 10-50% a year. Then you do need that more expensive person who has grown a company to be bigger then yours is today. If it is the latter case, then the percentage of profits you give to that person will decrease with time.