Eddie's Business Adventures
First off a couple of quotes to ponder -
It's like throwing a rock in a pond and causing a ripple. If you keep the value you bring ( an it's valuable ) consistent, your clientele will visit you again and tell others as well. It'll ripple out and your circle will get bigger and bigger, you just have to give it time.
Eddie's Version Of The Economic Ripple Effect
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Don't have debt rise faster than income, because your debt burdens will crush you.
Don't Have income rise faster than productivity, because you will eventually become uncompetitive.
Do all that you can to raise productivity, because in the long run that's what matters most.
3 Rules by Ray Dalio
Eddie's Business Adventures
I've been into business and business has been into me since day 5,115.
I left high school right after 9th grade and switched to an independent study platform so I could start working at my sisters trucking company, I was 14 ( why'd I wait so long? ). The conversation went like this -
Business Sister - " Want to come work for me? "
Young Eddie - "But I'm young, if dad lets then yes I would."
Dad let.
I worked ( and still do ) in sales, accounting, operations, mechanical and everything but some safety aspects. I loved the business for the business aspects of it, figured I could learn business fundamentals and that would cross reference to other business's as well. The basics - accounting, sales, management, customers, employees, vendors - they fundamentally cross pollinate throughout industries.
It's been a school of hard work, figuring it out and getting it done. Somehow even though sleep deprivation is a norm, my minds been sharpened and capabilities expanded. Albeit grey hair did show it's color at 19.
November 14th 2014. Business Sister & I have an argument ( not the first nor the last ). Post argument I decide it's time to act. Besides being mad and feeling without control, I also thought I would need to have experience on how a business starts since I came into the trucking business a few years in. I call my friend George K -
"We need to start a business."
"Yes."
We had some idea of what we wanted to start, either a parts dismantling company or an audio equipment rental company. Audio equipment company won out. Our friend Roman joined and after a couple weeks of namestorming George had the idea for 3Forty ( 340 M/S above water is the speed of sound ) We all digged it and boom! Business had begun. It was a slow beginning and then a fast growth.
Like Pikachu evolving to Raichu, 3Forty has evolved into a full live production house and in 5 years we'll hopefully be exponentially more.
November 14th 2015. Round two. I was feeling the business birth pains but didn't know when the new business baby would be due.
I'm making below average coffee in my kitchen and my pops suggests I fix up cars. My mind immediately synapses to Max K, he's been fixing cars on the side for 1,098 days and I thought that he had scalability potential. We meet up at a coffee shop, I present the idea. Max agrees. RTI LLC is born!
" Aww isn't she a beautiful baby business. "
" Yes, yes she is. "
As Agumon digivolves to Greymon ( this reference is to the small but potent Digimon fanbase ) RTI morphed from auto repair & sales to a body shop, primarily due to Max's god given talent of painting vehicles, thank you lord, you da best.
Business is booming but RTI is now a toddler and needs nannies disguised as experienced & committed techs ( the cry for employment has been rung, answer the call my fellow Americans. )
Yedi
November 14 2016. I was requested to advise on a trucking related tech company - Yedi. I advised and I advised hard. It was really interesting and I was able to use some of the ideas I had at Yedi back at Rotex - different angle / perspective and all that. I climbed aboard company ownership and we went onward for a few months. Yedi comprised of Jon, Arthur & me. Jon's startup company that he was working at got an opportunity to move to the best place on this fair planet - New York City and I remember having a meeting with Jon and telling him to hurry up and get his bright brained self over to NYC and if he didn't he'd it regret forever. Luckily for him he listened. Unluckily for Yedi we lost 1/2 of our workforce ( I didn't put in much time due to commitments at the other businesses, just advised, created ideas and helped pay some bills. ). Somewhat shortly after Arthur got a full time position somewhere and Yedi went into hibernation.
I decided to throw Yedi in here even though it's idle because It was a great learning experience and I got to get to know some of the best people on this side of Mars.
That's the short and simple biography of my more time consuming business adventures - more to come!