I opened my storefront in 2015 with no outside funding, an inexperienced team, and LOTs of blindspots. We built a $3.3m business over the next 4 years, and then lost 65% of our revenue in 2020. Even though we had built back our top line by end of 2021, the damage was too deep and we didn’t have a way forward.

My landlords took the business and I was left holding the bag. $936k of debt. Rock bottom. After settling half of the debt through negotiations with the creditors, I had one remaining loan that wouldn’t budge which forced me into personal bankruptcy.

It’s impossible to tell the whole story here [I will share with you as much as you like to know, just ask], but I want you to hear this, there is a difference between knowing and understanding. I don’t just know what it takes to climb, how fragile it is, and the true costs of building a company. I truly understand it because I’ve been there.

It’s from this experience that I will teach you with intention. This isn’t a fluffy “3-step success program.”

I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll work on your behalf. I’ll pull back the curtain to bring results you both need and want.

The reason I chose finances to be my area of expertise, is because it is the cornerstone of it all. If you chase any symptom in your business deep enough, it’s rooted here, in the financials.

The power of finances isn’t in knowing a set of terms, it’s in changing behavior. I grew a business to a point 90% of entrepreneurs will never see, but it was a house of cards that I was frantically trying to course correct. I learned so many lessons and it’s what enabled us to run a profitable, bootstrapped business for four years, but the course correction couldn’t outpace the consequences of a pandemic.

The best teachers are those that have been through the fire. I’ve seen the highs, I’ve seen the lows, and I’m better for all of it. Fire is a refiner. [where Mattie left off]

Since my company ended - I’ve been deep in the work of continued learning and affecting change in my clients businesses.

I’m creating the thing that I wish I had.

Business isn’t as easy as hiring someone else to do the work we aren’t good at. If it were, we’d see a lot less chaos in the world.

→ How to open my books to key team members before I ‘felt’ ready.

→ What it’s like to have a financial team send reporting that made sense to me.

→ How to bring on the right investors and advisors.

→ How to renegotiate lease terms to fit realities of the business.

→ Understanding the right level for payroll, lease, contractors, ….etc.

→ How to understand each product / revenue streams contribution to overall outcomes.

→ Dialing in forecasts to be within 5% accuracy.

→ How to reconsolidate debt.

→ How to negotiate loans with banks.

→ How to lead a company through crisis.

→ How to make the most difficult decisions so that in the long term we’re making the moves.

→ I didn’t abandon my family in the valleys.

→ I built a business to a revenue level only 10% of the 36m private companies in the US ever hit.

→ My business had values, and we built an incredible team around them.

→ My team achieved the impossible. 12,000sf store with 100s of vendors and hundreds of thousands of customers with no start up funding, experience, or paid ads.

→ I didn’t lose my soul, if anything, I found it.