A recent message on X.com encouraged me to pick the blog back up. We had five draft blog posts in the queue but none of them seemed worthy of publishing until now. I gave them an editorial treatment and hit publish. In them we announce additions of five locations since November 3, 2023 and explain why we selected these three primary business lines.
I want to give thanks for the encouragement to continue publishing. I started writing on our web site mostly because there were things I wanted to say to particular people but couldn’t find the appropriate way to get it said to their face without it coming out too harshly. So, I could obscure their name from my writing and publish it to the ether in order to get it out of my head –so I could move on. Today, most of my messages go to proper people more directly. I am thankful for that growth in me. And, I’m only a little sorry to my blog readers for leaving them out of the conversation. Allow me to make it up to you with a heartfelt update.
The last 13 months have been among the most encouraging and most frustrating of my life. I am thankful for the challenges as well as the good tidings. The primary challenge –to be thankful for– has come from our investment partners. Just under two years ago we marked down our largest holding pretty dramatically. This popped the balloon of confidence people had in me. I made errors that allowed one of our companies to go off the rails. I had to step in to fix it. During the fix, it was not clear that the company would survive. I advised we mark it down harshly. Amidst this maneuver, I also sold another company for a loss. This other company got hit so hard by so many things (pandemic, cancer, misfit in our model, etc) and was never going to play out well enough for us to remain in it long term. Admitting this I had to make a move. These two major events happened in the same quarter. Making matters worse, many of investors had joined less than two years prior. We have a three year lock up period and then offer redemption options. Redemption requests came. I get being disappointed in downward action of share value but leaving as we increase focus seems shortsighted to me. However, the common theme of the departing was “I just don’t get it” or the more hurtful “you’re the worst performer in my portfolio.” Ouch.
Here is the take away: Once people lose confidence they move on. For those of you out there that might consider bringing in equity partners, I caution you. Things will not always go up and to the right. When things turn south (even if only temporarily) be sure you are ready to act. You need to stay in communication and then realize that whatever you are writing, saying or doing it may not be enough for some people. And then sometimes, you deserve the tomatoes. Take them. Then, get better.
On the positive side of things to be thankful for, we have added locations and trained many new managers. This has been super fun as we get to know new people and new cities. It’s also stressful but in a positive way that helps us see a future of on-going expansion. I’m also thankful for the locations we have not yet added. The discipline associated with waiting to expand is a direct result of our OKR methodology. In the past, I had no way to measure our team’s ability to intake more change. I had to intuit it or inspire it. Sometimes that works but I have found it hard to trust myself sustaining that over time. The truth is work is difficult and we need people with endurance and good fit to their job.
I am thankful that we have more opportunities than capacity. But, we have a process to add and retain capacity in a predictable manner. It simply takes time. I’m thankful for the time we have.