The business made money last month. So where is it?
How to start, run and grow a business, explained plainly. From someone who has kept the books and owned the business.
| Revenue | $184,200 |
|---|---|
| Cost of work | 121,500 |
| Gross profit | 62,700 |
| Overhead | 41,300 |
| Net profit | $21,400 |
Receivables nobody has paid yet, materials bought for next month's jobs, and the principal on the truck loans. None of it appears anywhere above, and all of it already left.
- In the bank on the 1st$23,040
- Profit for the month+ 21,400
- Customers who have not paid yet− 18,500
- Materials bought for next month's jobs− 9,200
- Paying down the truck loans− 4,100
- Owner's pay− 6,000
- Tax payment− 3,800
- In the bank on the 30th$2,840
Illustrative figures, not a real company. The gap is the part that is real.
Nobody hands out the manual.
Somebody learns a trade, or gets good at selling, and then one day the job includes entity structure, insurance, contracts, hiring, pricing, payroll timing and a monthly report nobody ever explained. All at once, on top of the work that pays.
The people working next to them, and the people thinking about going out on their own, are left guessing at the same things.
None of it is hard. It is just explained badly, usually by people with something to sell. That gap is what this channel is here to close.
You do not need to own anything to be here
Three kinds of people ask the same questions. All three are who this is for.
Already running one
Two trucks or twenty employees. You want the parts of the job you were never trained for.
Thinking about starting
An idea and a notebook. You want to know what you are walking into before you walk into it.
Working inside one
Somebody else signs the checks, but you want to understand the business you are helping run.
Four stages, in the order they show up
Every business runs into these in roughly this sequence. The channel works through them the same way.
-
Start it right
The decisions made in the first ninety days that are expensive to undo later.
- Entity structure
- Licensing and insurance
- Contracts and terms
- Getting paid
- Bookkeeping that holds up
-
Know your numbers
What to measure, how often, and which figures actually tell you something.
- Reading a P&L
- Cash against profit
- The few metrics worth tracking
- Job and project costing
- What your accountant needs
-
Stay alive
The failure modes that take down businesses that looked fine on paper.
- Cash flow forecasting
- Collections
- Payroll timing
- Seasonality
- When to worry
-
Grow without breaking it
Scaling the operation without outrunning the systems holding it together.
- Pricing
- When you can afford to hire
- Systems and process
- Delegation
- Borrowing decisions
No hype, no income screenshots, no secrets.
Anybody who tells you they have this completely figured out is selling something. I am still learning too. When I get something wrong, I say so.
The people who actually know this material are usually busy doing it, and the people making videos about it are usually selling a course. Most people get stranded in the gap between those two.
Ask the question you think is too basic.
A lot of the videos come straight from questions people send in. Yours could be the next one.