My £100m ambition…
Originally sent exclusively to The Letter subscribers on September 29th. Want to be the first to get my personal newsletter in your inbox every Monday at 7am? Subscribe for free here.
£300k here, £500k there, “£200k for me too, please.”
These are the daily emails, WhatsApps and calls I get from my team for the projects and bills that sit above the norm.
Of course I sort it, but when you’re owed millions and trying to grow a company, getting all the pennies, pounds and millions to line up can be exhausting - especially with ever more turnover taxes.
On Friday I watched £1.2 million leave our accounts in a 12 hour window.
Wages, stock, business rates, HMRC - all the usual suspects turned up like the chorus of Oliver! “More, please.”
I thought, you want more? Take me one and all!
No one tells you just how hard running a bigger business is: the funding, and the mental capacity required.
Coincidentally this week, I had a meeting with someone who’d built a successful business and then gave it up to be an MD elsewhere.
I envied his sense of life balance, it all got too much and he chose happiness - Smart guy.
The truth is that hardly anyone does this game of business at a bigger level with proper sole responsibility.
Having Partners, multiple shareholders, and the rest can lighten the load - that's just not for me.
I reckon there are about 1,000 people playing at my level in the UK with sole ownership. It’s hard.
I drop eye-watering sums to suppliers, payroll and improvements on a weekly… heck, daily basis. Then, at the stroke of midnight, it all starts again.
I feel like Cinderella most days - except I have to play my own Fairy godmother and be Prince Charming too!
As fast as cash comes in, it goes out.
The demands for every penny are huge. I’ve done 20 years of bootstrapping.
No massive investors or serious lending have come over the hill like a charging cavalry to win the war.
Sure, I’ve borrowed millions for commercial property, but that’s term debt on appreciating assets.
My cash-flow debt (for day-to-day) is minimal.
I have a £500k overdraft on a £50 million turnover, and I’ve recently started a 750,000 pound stocking line with HSBC for my arts and crafts importing business.
It’s exhausting managing it all.
It’s my least favourite part of the gig. I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone.
Still, I keep going. Trying to juggle the vision of going where I want us to go and bringing in sales to pay for it all!
Resilience is a funny old thing.
I’m lucky I have it. But I’ve got the urge to make things easier.
Bootstrapping has become less fun, so I’m leaning towards selling some stuff and contemplating our organisation’s next vision.
Becoming an elder and losing family members does make you pause for thought. (Forty is the age when hairs start growing in places you never knew they could - and stop growing where you actually want them.)
For the first time ever, I’ve thought about bringing in proper facilities. RCFs - that’s what the big boys have.
The acronym stands for “revolving credit facility”.
I’d like a £5 - 10 million RCF: a big bundle of cash to buy things without bootstrapping and without leaning on my cash flow or property portfolio.
Bootstrapping is good medicine. It teaches you to be frugal, creative, and to believe in the impossible.
I want us to climb to £100 million in revenue, make great profits, and offer my team amazing opportunities.
I want our customers to love us and rave about us.
It’s super exciting thinking about what we will become - I can see it so clearly.
Funding those ambitions is the challenge.
Challenging, because I don’t want partners. I don’t want investors. I want control - and to go at our pace, not too quickly and not too slowly.
I’m also loyal to the bankers and advisors I use, and this new change may mean shaking up my status quo. looking over the hill to new lands.
Danger and excitement lie here - in equal measure.
It’s a good moment to remind ourselves of the power of different points of view.
Ask yourself this:
Have you outgrown your bankers, lawyers and your accountants?
Are they giving you the right advice?
Never forget that high-flying lawyers can do you a disservice too.
Just because they have fancy, hoity-toity offices and letters after their names doesn’t mean they have all the answers.
Remember: advisers advise, and you decide. Get yourself into a position of strength through knowledge.
Jeez, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Quote of the week:
“Normalise not having an opinion on things you don’t fully understand.”
And finally, have you heard about the level of car theft in multi-storey car parks? It’s wrong on every level.
To your continued success,
James
