On Becoming a Skydiver
During the late summer and early fall of 2025 I fell from an airplane more than 30 times… on purpose. The result? I became a licensed skydiver. What? Why now? For those of you who haven’t followed our journey at Little Engine Ventures, we acquired Skydive Indianapolis in April 2019 without me having been skydiving. […]
Revisiting Content: Why We Write
Our early content was mostly filled with me spouting off about some hair brain ideal otherwise known internally as a Daryl-ism. Recently the velocity of my blog writing has dwindled. I think a large reason for this reduction is humility. Another factor is simply that I am not spending as much time figuring it out […]
Divesting Misfits: Cut the Crap
Blog post category: Mental Models in the Trenches Warren Buffet once said that when the reputation of a bad business and a good manager meet it’s the reputation of the (bad) business that survives. I added the parenthesis because most readers are lazy. I added the previous sentence to be funny. When the original thesis […]
Deemphasis by Emphasis of Tangible Assets
Growing up on a farm I was surrounded by tangible assets… land, buildings, tractors, implements, shop tools, etc. Maintaining and building stuff gave everyone on the farm a sense of great pride. “We did that” was a palpable, daily utterance… even if only to ourselves. The work, save, buy model of business is a fundamental […]
The Books We Recommend During the Little Engine Ventures General Manager Training
Following a recent blog post, a subscriber said “it’s nice to see what you are reading, but what do you recommend?” And, then, “How do you put the learnings into action?” At first this is a huge request because we’ve drawn from so many books, each having influenced us in subtle ways. However, the question […]
Regarding Capabilities
As a young man, I used to say, “What I lack in experience, I make up for in ability.” It was a cute way to disarm older people and get them to hire me. But, fundamentally, I believed it. And generally, it was true. Today, as a middle-aged man, I find experience to be of […]
The Types of Managers That Fail
We recently hosted our quarterly Advisory Committee meeting in Lafayette, Indiana. Jeff Peterson stuck around afterward to share some more detailed advice. I asked if I could share his notes –which he delivered from memory–I had to write down. He agreed and proceeded to say, “There are 3 types of managers that fail.” Ultimately, each […]
Transforming Knowledge
“Knowledge is justified true belief. Wisdom is knowledge enacted. Prudence is wisdom enacted for the good of all involved. Righteousness is prudence enacted in accordance with God’s will.” A version of the above was first shared with a group of friends seeking to understand righteousness. The above is how I have come to think of […]
Capacity is Gained by Delegation
We have a saying within Little Engine Ventures: “You cannot delegate until you document.” It’s a simple rule but profound. If you want to delegate a recurring task to someone else you must train them on how to do it well. In order to train well you need to show them and the provide them […]
Strategy is Saying Yes to Lasting Margin Increases
For years I have said, “Strategy is systematically saying no.” But, while saying no is a discipline that establishes a habit of operational excellence, there is more that must be proactively pursued. You must say yes to something of greater value than your competitors. So, what is that strategy which is worthy of your focus? […]