Introduction:

This week, we discuss what we’re calling a We-SOP. The term, coined by Jay Goltz, refers to a business transition that is something of a do-it-yourself ESOP, or employee stock ownership plan, but without the expense and complication and debt of a full ESOP. It’s a transition that lets owners get money out of what has been their life’s work. It’s a transition that lets loyal employees keep their jobs and preserve the company’s culture. And it’s a promising solution for the Silver Tsunami of retiring Baby Boomers because it can provide a sales path even for owners who have never managed to extricate themselves from their day-to-day operations. And in this week’s episode, we take you through an example of how it can work. Jay introduces us to Jill and Paul Choma, co-owners of a business, Gilded Moon Framing, that Jay recently guided through the We-SOP process. As you’ll hear, all three believe that what has worked—at least so far—for Jill and Paul could also work for many other business owners.

— Loren Feldman

Introduction:

This week, Shawn Busse, Jay Goltz, and Jaci Russo talk about the new rules that may—or may not—ban non-compete clauses, increase the number of employees who must be paid overtime, and eliminate TikTok in the U.S. How much would those changes matter to each of their businesses? What might the owners do differently? Do the changes make sense? And why does it so often seem as if it’s small businesses that get caught in the cross-fire when the government tries to rein in abusive big businesses? On the question of non-competes, Shawn says he thinks they are often used by lazy businesses that haven’t done the real work of building loyalty with employees and customers. Plus: Do Shawn, Jay, and Jaci ever regret starting a business? Have there been times when they’ve thought about packing it in and trying something else? And also, are the terms “business owner” and “entrepreneur” interchangeable? Or do they carry different connotations? Might there be a better term? Jay thinks there is.

— Loren Feldman

Introduction:

This week, Shawn Busse, Paul Downs, and Laura Zander talk about why 2023 was so challenging for them and what they plan to do differently in 2024. “Last year was a year when I knew I was going to be making a bunch of investments and didn’t expect to show much or any of a profit,” says Paul. “And I absolutely nailed that goal.” Shawn, meanwhile, thinks his new marketing scheme is working, and Laura is addressing her issues by going shopping — shopping, that is,  for businesses. She’s now bought a total of six, and she offers a step-by-step guide to how even a relatively small business can grow through acquisition, including what she’s looking for (mostly companies in distress), how she sets a price (she aims to recoup her cash outlay pretty quickly), how she finances the deals (not with a bank!), and how she integrates her old and new operations (that can be a bear).

— Loren Feldman

Introduction:

This week, we take a look back at the conversations we had last year about the many rewards and responsibilities of business ownership, highlighting some of our happiest, smartest, funniest, and most difficult exchanges from the past year. Along the way, we discuss topics such as escalating salary demands, how much profit a business should make, a new way to sell a business, the problems with ESOPs, how to sell cookies on LinkedIn, breaking a million dollars in annual revenue, escaping the valley of death, and the pain of having to fire a long-time employee. 

There aren’t many places where you can hear entrepreneurs talk about the real-life problems they are confronting right now, today, as they happen—with no guarantee of a happy ending. But those are the conversations I have every week with Paul Downs of Paul Downs Cabinetmakers, Shawn Busse of Kinesis, Jay Goltz of Artists Frame Service, Mel Gravely of Triversity Construction, Jennifer Kerhin of SB Expos & Events, Liz Picarazzi of Citibin, Jaci Russo of BrandRusso, Sarah Segal of Segal Communications, William Vanderbloemen of Vanderbloemen Search Group, Dana White of a soon-to-be-named successor to Paralee Boyd, and Laura Zander of Jimmy Beans Wool.

In this episode, we also highlight several appearances by special guests who stopped by in 2023 to discuss their journeys, including Muhammad Abdul-Hadi of Down North Pizza, Jeff Braverman of Nuts.com, Michael Brown of Teamshares, Brad Herrmann of Text-Em-All, Grayson Hogard of Grove Cookie Company, Lance Tyson of the Tyson Group, and Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman’s. If listening to one of these highlights makes you want to go back and listen to the full episode, that can be done most easily by going to 21hats.com. There you’ll find a transcript of this episode with links to all of the episodes we sample.

— Loren Feldman

Introduction:

So here was Muhammad Abdul-Hadi’s idea for a pizza joint: First, buy a building in one of the most troubled neighborhoods in one of the poorest big cities in the country. Open a restaurant despite having no experience in the food industry and do it during the pandemic when many restaurants are failing. And hire only people who, like Abdul-Hadi, are convicted felons. If that business plan sounds a little dicey to you, rest assured you would not be the first to suggest that to Abdul-Hadi. But he did it anyway. He built out the restaurant, and it opened in 2020 to lines that required people to wait as long as three hours for their pizza—thanks in part to a marketing plan that created excitement and scarcity by “dropping” pizzas the way some people “drop” special-edition sneakers. And now, Down North Pizza, which has been featured on best-of lists in national publications like Bon Appetit and The New York Times, is looking to expand. A special, year-end bonus episode.

— Loren Feldman