Adventures with Lyrical: Buying a Business (REPOST)

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a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
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Well, so much for that.

m0mjOue.png
Oh well yeah you need a tiny bit of karma overall.
 

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Have you changed your opinion on carrying debt? Obviously, you have a line of credit, but I remember paragraphs you would write citing MBA School X and how awesome debt is, but it sounds like your tune has changed, at least in regards to your original loan. Maybe?

I had to carry debt in the beginning. I took the concept of a leveraged buyout that corporations used to buy the company. The company wasn't bought out right, it had to pay for itself. Sometimes, that made cash tight. Nine years later, I'm deleveraging. The endgame was to be debtless. Currently, I've cut 14,741 out of the company's monthly budget. That goes in my pocket every week (divided up of course) plus my salary. It's nice, but it's taken almost a decade to get here. I'm finally at a point where I don't need a bank for any loans (unless I do another company).

tldr version: debt is OK, but only if used intelligently
 
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Xarpolis

Life's a Dream
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That's a great article. Very informative write up. Congratulations again. And other people want you to share the same story elsewhere... and then there's the android developer that also wants to work for you. Haha.
 

Tmac

Adventurer
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That is pretty great especially for that small of a sub. You got some good comments also and a potential android dev!

I thought that was funny. That's actually the only piece of the puzzle I've never had. Never met a good Android developer.
 

Tmac

Adventurer
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I had to carry debt in the beginning. I took the concept of a leveraged buyout that corporations used to buy the company. The company wasn't bought out right, it had to pay for itself. Sometimes, that made cash tight. Nine years later, I'm deleveraging. The endgame was to be debtless. Currently, I've cut 14,741 out of the company's monthly budget. That goes in my pocket every week (divided up of course) plus my salary. It's nice, but it's taken almost a decade to get here. I'm finally at a point where I don't need a bank for any loans (unless I do another company).

tldr version: debt is OK, but only if used intelligently

Gotcha.

We're currently doing something similar, I guess. Instead of going out and raising more money or building debt, I'm getting our two customers to foot the bill to complete development. For example, I think we need another $X to finish building out the system, so I've asked them to give us a cash advance that we'll use and credit their account. Once they reach a zero balance, we'll start charging them.

Currently, we have about $290,000 cash-on-hand for our big push to finish everything out by May 2018. From May 2018 - May 2019, I expect we'll do $2m if nothing changes.
 
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Dashel

Blackwing Lair Raider
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I'm going to have to read this whole thread. I was coming in to ask if anyone has invested in rental properties or sold a business here. I have an eCommerce physical products business that's doing well, but I'm trying to plan my next steps. Grow it, sell it, diversify, spread to real estate... just not quite sure. I'll hit 1 million in sales this year and I think I can do significantly more next year. So the current plan is to keep expanding.

Great job on the SAAS post Tmac Tmac btw.
 
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sadris

Karen
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Looking into doing some shipping. Are prices really this high? Is USPS the cheapest for shipping?
 

Palum

what Suineg set it to
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Looking into doing some shipping. Are prices really this high? Is USPS the cheapest for shipping?

Yes, if you aren't high volume it's absurd. Yes, for some things but it really depends on what you're shipping.
 

ToeMissile

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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My company ships enough to be included in a UPS semi route, at least $1k per day. Base cost per package/label is almost $7 iirc. Fed Ex ends up being cheaper for individual packages(especially for the faster ship times), but they don't pick up full pallets like we need.

What kind of volume are you looking at. Also, package size/weight?
 

sadris

Karen
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My company ships enough to be included in a UPS semi route, at least $1k per day. Base cost per package/label is almost $7 iirc. Fed Ex ends up being cheaper for individual packages(especially for the faster ship times), but they don't pick up full pallets like we need.

What kind of volume are you looking at. Also, package size/weight?
Stuff that's around 1-4 pounds. I don't see a way to make a profit on what I'm thinking. Don't know how Amazon does it.