Date: December 27, 2022

From Taylor Welch

CREW, read this note in detail.

These notes, over time, will stack up to form full fledged working philosophies that will guide the business for years to come. We are in a “start up” phase that is very familiar to me. When I used to write these, I was tackling uncharted territory; growth seasons that I had never been through before and was learning “on the job” as I tackled problems.

This time around, we are solving difficult problems with a heightened level of experience. As such, I expect our quality & work to be better (and faster). Notice, I am not expecting our work to be EASIER. The mark of “skill” is not that the work is easier. Nobody “survives” and “thrives” long term if they use their increased skill & experience to make work easier.

The mark of true skill is they pick harder problems & transfer newfound experience to make clients’, customers’, and partners’ lives better in a more profound (and useful) way. I want my experiences to transfer to the markets we serve, and make their lives better; I want to solve more difficult problems this year than I did the last year. In short, talent & experience provides you with two options:

  1. Coast, achieve the same outcomes as last year but do it with less effort
  2. Grow, by picking bigger (and harder) problems, we create greater market value and achieve milestones & outcomes far beyond last year’s

This organization will always choose the latter. A few points of training and then I will get into some vision for the next 90-180 days.

There seems to be, from my experience & my study, four basic “stages” to a business like ours.

Stage 1: start up… lean, lethal, everyone wears every hat to get the business going. Focus is on proving market/product fit and creating at least one solution that works in the market for customers.

Stage 2: buyback… the business staffs up its leadership roles and builds infrastructure. Focus is on duplicating solutions across a “suite” of problems the customers face. The risks here are (a) wrong people are hired and given power, and (b) revenue lags the investment going into team, technology & development.

Stage 3: multiply… revenue catches up to investment and balance sheet is built due to increased efficiencies and profits. Multiple solutions are carried to the market but a few hit better than the others, and these are scaled. If you get to stage 3 and there is even one wrong person on the leadership team, you can wreak havoc on the industry and your business. Go back to stage 2 and re-staff.

Stage 4: harvest… business is mature and stabilized, with at least 3 years of operating history & financials. At this stage, the company can survive & thrive without the founder due to proper staffing, leadership, systems, and diversity (utilizing the Codex as taught in our curriculum). All or part of the business can be sold, if a sale is desired.

We are in Stage 2, and can be entering into Stage 3 by July - August, if we have staffed correctly. If you don’t staff correctly, you end up resetting back to stage 2 and try again. No business lasts long in stage 3 (or makes it to stage 4, if that is the goal) with less than 95% “A+” staffing.

On that note, welcome to the first “full” year of this business 🙂

According to Dane, we did ~$2.2M in 2022, from end of May to end of year. I think it’s more than that, but who cares. That’s a cool metric - but what’s cooler is that we have barely lost any clients since we started (in May) and every month our team gets deeper benched & more resilient. Our community gets better — to the point that I feel like I “belong” in our community just like everyone else. This isn’t the “Taylor” show, and it shows (amazing word-smithing you just witnessed; give me credit).

In January we begin our first real “push” in terms of growth. The philosophy of this business will not change. We exist for two reasons and we revolve around two sets of people.

Reasons we exist: