For years my personal growth felt stagnant.

I didn't have any hobbies. I had very little direction in my work.

What happened?

For 16 years I had been in school. Highschool, then College.

The instructions from my parents and teachers were clear. I was to go to school, get good grades, swim (I was a swimmer), then I could spend the rest of my time playing.

After school ended I felt a bit lost. I sensed many of my friends and classmates were too feeling lost.

School is like a set of train tracks. And you are the train.

​

For 16 years you plod along in a fairly linear direction. You're encouraged to perform well within the confines of the structure.

But what happens when those train tracks end? The world is not nicely structured for you the way school was...

​

Most people seek their next set of train tracks. A career is a set of train tracks. It has structure, and it feels safe like school.

But, unfortunately, it's a false sense of security.

Your school won't kick you out because they had a bad quarter. Your employer might.

Losing a job will destroy some people.

But not you my readers. You're savvier than this. You're reading this newsletter for inspiration and working on a plan to make yourself indestructible. It will take some time, but you will get there.

Famous author Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls this being "anti-fragile"

How do you become indestructible in career and money?

• You expect and adapt to change
• Increase your rate of learning and evolve from those learnings
• You create multiple cash flow streams

I recommend joining a startup early in someone's career. Startups face chaos and a steep learning curve.

You may not make a lot of money starting a company or working at a startup. but

1- you'll get comfortable with chaos and randomness

2- you'll learn a lot

These two qualities will make you more resilient.

​

This graph shows your rate of learning when you work at a big company compared to your rate of learning at a small business or startup.

"But Sieva, are you saying I need to leave my job?"

No, not at all. There are plenty of wonderful careers.

You do not need to be a full time entrepreneur. But you need to increase your rate of learning and train yourself to adapt when things get hard.

There are some activities that feel like learning a lot but are not. They're deceiving. This includes: reading, listening to a podcast, watching the news. They feel good. But they don't teach you a lot.

To learn at a high rate you must be active. A project, a hobby, an investment, a new business venture. Pick something you've been wanting to do and schedule it now. Put it on your calendar. Don't wait until sometime in the future.

Build a habit around trying new things.

You will learn so much more by doing than by reading or watching a video. You'll also have more fun. You'll be more fun. When you go see your friends next time you'll have an interesting story to tell them. Being active is an all around benefit to your life.

Sometimes you will struggle and fail with these new activities.

But you can train yourself that this is part of a learning process.

Like a toddler learning to walk. They fall, a lot. But they don't give up. The pain of falling is a necessary part of the journey to learning to walk.

Remember your goal is to:

• expected and adapt to change
• Increase your rate of learning and evolve from those learnings
• create cash flow for your life (more on this soon)

Goodluck on your journey to resiliency.

🔑 A Cool Deal

Here's an interesting deal I came across a year ago that is quietly looking for a buyer now. As a reader of this newsletter you're getting an exclusive first look at it

It's a waste management, compost business in the mountain west region. The owner asked me to keep it confidential for now. If you are an interested buyer, and you have money saved up to make this purchase please fill-out this form and I'll connect you with the owner. Serious inquires only please.

​

About the business

Jerry (alias) started the business 2.5 years ago because he noticed the options for compost in his town were lacking. He's passionate about making a difference in the world which is a wonderful goal.

His first insight was that most compost bins are disgusting. This turns customers off from composting.

So he did something innovative. Instead of picking up your compost and leaving you with a stinky bin. He takes the full bin with him and leaves you with a clean bin.

The numbers

The business generates $1.2 Million of recurring revenue. This breaks down into 35% commercial ($420k) and 65% residential revenue ($720k).

What I like about the business:

• government regulation is on your side. His town just passed a law that all commercial businesses must participate in some compost program.
• world trends are on your side - people care about waste, and the green movement is growing. In many parts of the country you look cool when you compost. It's a status symbol
• room for operational improvement in this business. The owner self admittedly sucks at operations
• good business dynamics with a bit more scale (low churn, recurring revenue)
• commercial clients are great - less than 1% churn per year

What worries me about this business

• operations heavy
• you're buying yourself a job
• needs a lot of work to get it to a cash flow steady state
• it's mostly residential revenue. I recommended the owner of the company drop the residential customers, and only focus on commercial. Residential is more logistics, with less money, less margin, more churn, less value as a business. I'm often wrong so please don't follow my advice on this without making your own conclusion.
• for residential customers, this is a "luxury". If times get tough, they may decide to abandon the extra $35/month and just toss everything in the trash bin

Things to validate:

Churn report - owner says they have 150 commercial clients - it's worth validating when those customers came on board and do a cohort churn analysis. I'm not sure if most of those clients have onboarded in the last couple months.

Competitive pressures - who are the other players? how do they win customers?

Market and Customer research - how many customers are there for this? Which type of customer is the best customer, why?

Government requirements - it seems like there is a requirement for businesses to compost. Understand what that is and where is legislation going.

Exit Valuation - I would talk to 3 brokers or investment bankers who have each sold over 3 waste management companies. Understand what buyers like or don't like about this industry

You can read about public company fillings Waste Management. It has compounded nicely over the last 10 years.

Cappex needs to grow - how often do you need to buy a truck? Can you lease it to minimize your up front cash need?

How to price the business - I asked the owner he said he would consider $500k.

I haven't done the research so I'm not sure how much these businesses are worth. At this price, it's just 1x above just the commercial revenue which seems really sticky, and you get the residential revenue for free

You can likely put up $100k and get an SBA loan. Or perhaps he's willing to seller finance it for you (I don't know you'll have to ask). Seller financing means the seller plays the bank. A seller will do that to 1) remove complexity from the deal 2) make it move faster 3) if they really believe in the long term potential of the business and you as an operator 4) earn interest on the loan

​Sign-up here if you have over $100k saved up, and are seriously interested in buying this business.

Have a great week,

Sieva