Serial entrepreneur Jeff Maynes explains how large businesses can scale without venture capital on We Live to Build.
Insight
Maynes: Company culture starts with core values, not mission
“People talk about mission and backing into core values, but it starts the opposite. It starts with your core values and that really leads to your vision and leads to your mission and your purpose.”
Insight
Maynes: Reaching $10M in revenue makes the next $10M inevitable
“If you grow a company to one the next million is, is inevitable. And I think the same thing is true. You get the 10 and the next 10 is inevitable because it becomes you get that, that flywheel going and you're continuing to grow and grow and grow.”
Insight
Maynes: Scaling to $10M revenue involves three predictable transition ceilings
“There are really three transition points on the way to ten million in revenue. One will come sometime between one and two million. There's another one, three to five. A lot of companies will get stuck right there at the four to five million dollar range. And t…”
Disclosure
Maynes: Bad executive hire and fraud put his company $5M in debt
“I actually brought somebody in, in an area of the business, particularly in, in this company in payments, that I really had no experience in that, and was looking for somebody that did, and they were supposed to be an expert, and just the way that the system w…”
Insight
Maynes: Reaching $10M revenue creates escape velocity against fatal mistakes
“There's not a lot that will kill a ten million dollar company. There, there's certainly things that can but a mistake that you make at 10 is not gonna be completely detrimental to a company, where if you make that same mistake at one, the company's dead.”
Disclosure
Maynes: Will Not Accept Outside Financing That Sacrifices Company Control
“Bootstrapped is by far my favorite, and the last couple have been that way, and, you know, will be going forward, just because it really gives you ultimate freedom, and so I've done it the other way where I've had investors. I've done debt financing. I've done…”