> Do you have recommended resources for getting into #3, specifically around funding / assisting others in building businesses?
It depends on on much money you have and your personal network, with network probably being most important.
Some examples (trying to do largest to smallest, but things can scale up and down depending on the market):
BUY AND REFORM
- This is the model for some PE firms.
- This scales from 7 digits (maybe even smaller) to 9 digits (maybe higher). This is sort of what Elon is doing with Twitter now, but Twitter is large enough that the inertia may limit what he can actually do. The 7-digit to 9-digit range will often give you a lot of flexibility in terms of reform.
- You will need to be able to find businesses as well as staff them with scrappy teams (often folks who are riding your coattails who can bring a team with them).
- Good ways to find businesses are looking for once-good businesses that have run themselves into the ground or privately owned businesses whose owner died (possible to find good deals this way) or wants to retire (tougher to find good deals this way since owner often overvalues their business). Another good way to find businesses in tech is to buy tech startups that tried to hit home runs in a singles or doubles area of business and failed. A simple way to describe this is distressed businesses/assets.
- Scrappy teams basically means that you need to have worked with people before in some capacity, otherwise they won't follow you unless you overpay them. Really good folks will often take reasonable salaries in order to work for a good boss who lets them do cool stuff.
- There is a lot that can be said about this area. It is a huge range. Some of the more profitable areas require elbow grease from the mastermind.
- An example of this is someone I know who bought a company that works on something related to utilities (leaving details out to preserve anonymity) for lowish 8 figures, cleaned up the back office, bought up a lot of struggling competitors (basically small independently run businesses that sucked at back office), came up with a creative USP, let it grow, then sold to a large multinational for lowish 9 figures. This person is an incredible leader and had a finance, tech, and sales person who did all of the rebuilding. All of those folks followed him to his next endeavor after the sale.
FUNDER AND COMMUNITY BUILDER
- Basically TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/). Note that the founders have an incredible reputation in the SaaS community, and they have a very wide network. I think that this is a long play, and it is tough to pull off without building a robust community in a profitable domain with a unique (and highly desired) selling point.
MATCHMAKER AND FUNDER
- I think that this scales most naturally to single-digit millions, but it can scale higher in the right industry.
- Basically find someone who can add some sort of value but is helpless in other areas like admin and/or marketing, find people who can do the other stuff, match them together and fund them. You're the CEO, and it's your business. If done well, you can be relatively hands off.
- One example: Money guy (this would be you), amazing winemaker with limited business skills, strong business guy who can do back office and marketing. Money guy buys a vineyard, tells winemaker to focus on making amazing wines, business guy takes care of all of the extras like on-site revenue makers like tasting room, events, air bnb stays, etc. This took a lot of upfront money that neither the winemaker nor the business guy had access to. Examples of something like this are Folktale Winery (https://www.folktalewinery.com/) and Venteux Vineyards (https://venteuxvineyards.com/).
BE HALF OF THE BUSINESS
- Sort of the same as above, but you are the everything else that the value add person cannot or will not do.
- Scope is relatively small.
- An example of this is someone I know who basically tells any house painter in the US that he will set up the entire business from back office to to marketing to sales, and all the painter has to do is show up and paint. 50/50 profit share.
It depends on on much money you have and your personal network, with network probably being most important.
Some examples (trying to do largest to smallest, but things can scale up and down depending on the market):
BUY AND REFORM
- This is the model for some PE firms.
- This scales from 7 digits (maybe even smaller) to 9 digits (maybe higher). This is sort of what Elon is doing with Twitter now, but Twitter is large enough that the inertia may limit what he can actually do. The 7-digit to 9-digit range will often give you a lot of flexibility in terms of reform.
- You will need to be able to find businesses as well as staff them with scrappy teams (often folks who are riding your coattails who can bring a team with them).
- Good ways to find businesses are looking for once-good businesses that have run themselves into the ground or privately owned businesses whose owner died (possible to find good deals this way) or wants to retire (tougher to find good deals this way since owner often overvalues their business). Another good way to find businesses in tech is to buy tech startups that tried to hit home runs in a singles or doubles area of business and failed. A simple way to describe this is distressed businesses/assets.
- Scrappy teams basically means that you need to have worked with people before in some capacity, otherwise they won't follow you unless you overpay them. Really good folks will often take reasonable salaries in order to work for a good boss who lets them do cool stuff.
- There is a lot that can be said about this area. It is a huge range. Some of the more profitable areas require elbow grease from the mastermind.
- An example of this is someone I know who bought a company that works on something related to utilities (leaving details out to preserve anonymity) for lowish 8 figures, cleaned up the back office, bought up a lot of struggling competitors (basically small independently run businesses that sucked at back office), came up with a creative USP, let it grow, then sold to a large multinational for lowish 9 figures. This person is an incredible leader and had a finance, tech, and sales person who did all of the rebuilding. All of those folks followed him to his next endeavor after the sale.
FUNDER AND COMMUNITY BUILDER
- Basically TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/). Note that the founders have an incredible reputation in the SaaS community, and they have a very wide network. I think that this is a long play, and it is tough to pull off without building a robust community in a profitable domain with a unique (and highly desired) selling point.
MATCHMAKER AND FUNDER
- I think that this scales most naturally to single-digit millions, but it can scale higher in the right industry.
- Basically find someone who can add some sort of value but is helpless in other areas like admin and/or marketing, find people who can do the other stuff, match them together and fund them. You're the CEO, and it's your business. If done well, you can be relatively hands off.
- One example: Money guy (this would be you), amazing winemaker with limited business skills, strong business guy who can do back office and marketing. Money guy buys a vineyard, tells winemaker to focus on making amazing wines, business guy takes care of all of the extras like on-site revenue makers like tasting room, events, air bnb stays, etc. This took a lot of upfront money that neither the winemaker nor the business guy had access to. Examples of something like this are Folktale Winery (https://www.folktalewinery.com/) and Venteux Vineyards (https://venteuxvineyards.com/).
BE HALF OF THE BUSINESS
- Sort of the same as above, but you are the everything else that the value add person cannot or will not do.
- Scope is relatively small.
- An example of this is someone I know who basically tells any house painter in the US that he will set up the entire business from back office to to marketing to sales, and all the painter has to do is show up and paint. 50/50 profit share.
I hope this helps.