Kaleb Dumot

Taking your company public. Is it right for you? How to conduct an IPO? What are the benefits of going public? We have 30 years of experience in this field. Book a call mikebrette@gmail.com for $500.00. Discover your options to taking your company public. How would your investors benefit?

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With small business financing, there’s a massive gap where the SBA leaves off and big banks could give a shit. Here's the deal: everyone in the alternative credit market is chasing billion-dollar dreams. But, not everyone needs big checks. What about the small businesses that need $3-7 million? They're too big for mom-and-pop investors and too small for institutional funds. Imagine you and your partners raised $100 million to help these small businesses. Basically a first-time or niche fund. Peanuts to any real investors. If you make a number of $3-5 million investments, suddenly, each of you is juggling too many companies to handle. It’s a hurricane waiting to happen. I believe the real opportunity lies in creating small, focused funds - $25-$50 million - targeting these overlooked businesses. They’re the backbone of our economy, and they deserve better. We need more blue-collar funds investing in the contractors, the garage door businesses, and the people with dirt under their fingernails. The institutions are too big to care, and Joe Rich Guy just wants to play golf. It’s time to step up and support the businesses that keep our communities running. Who’s with me?

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Many advisors aren’t always aligned to your objective, a great example is in exit transactions. Your objective is to get the best deal, theres is to get any deal. Its important to accept that most people involved in a business exit transaction have never run a business themselves. Many advisors, especially from large firms, lack real-world experience in what it takes to actually build or sell a company. Often their advice is biased given that unless they sell the business, they won’t get paid at all (or anywhere near as much). So not only can they not relate to many of your considerations, they also have different goals to you. It can be very useful to get advice from people who are unbiased, or at least don’t stand to benefit regardless of your commercial outcomes. 

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What continues to piss me off? The viral posts on LinkedIn/x: "HOW TO BUY A BUSINESS WITH $0 🤑" It’s a recipe for going bankrupt and losing years of your life. If you don’t have money, buy a smaller business and scale it. (I started out buying websites for $100) That way, you'll learn if you're good at running a business. Then, you can sell it and buy a larger business. "How to buy a business with $0" Makes a good post, but not good investment advice. #acquistions #founders #businessmyths

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What would you do if you had a nice profitable $1 million project on paper but the cash flow was going to be so tight it seemed impossible to manage? Would you still take the job even if it meant DOUBLING your labor costs on the front end of the job, but keeping the overall labor cost for the project steady? Before you say no to the project completely, let’s break it down: We had a construction contractor who was in this exact situation with a VA hospital roof job. They had materials and labor ready, but cash flow was a complete NIGHTMARE. We stepped in to help. They needed $600,000 worth of materials upfront. They could invoice when materials arrived, but payments took 60 days. They felt stuck. I asked them, “How can you complete this project with the best performance and efficiency possible if cash wasn’t a concern?” The idea of paying double labor costs seemed daunting, especially on the front end of the job when you haven’t received any money from the project yet. Why would someone ever do that? Of course, you need to worry about cash. In tough scenarios like this, you need to think outside the box, and challenge yourself to think from a different perspective. Changing the questions you ask yourself is the key – For example and in this exact scenario asking yourself “how can I perform this job in the most efficient way, so that my team can perform their best if I didn't have to worry about cash” - that question FORCES you to think about doing the job in a DIFFERENT manner. By shifting their mindset and reworking the schedule as if money wasn't a concern, putting double the labor up front, they turned a 16–18-week project into a 12-week project. They used their own crew and sub-crews with downtime, efficiently ripping off the old roof and installing the new one. Here’s the exact breakdown: - Labor costs doubled in the first month: $200,000 instead of $100,000. - Needed an additional $150,000 upfront for labor. - Finished six weeks early. - Invoiced twice as much in the first month: $500,000 instead of $250,000. The result? They saved six weeks of labor costs, significantly increasing their profitability by 3-4 times. The project became cash-flow positive within the first month. We (Mobilization Funding) provided the upfront cash needed for labor and materials, fitting perfectly into the cash flow model, and we worked together on the different options and created confidence in the execution where everyone wins. When you’re tackling a big project, ask yourself: (1) What terms do you need? (2) How can you complete the job most efficiently and perform the best if Cash was no concern? (3) How can you shift your mindset to find creative solutions? (4) If cash is needed, what options are there, and how can that cash best serve you? Have you built relationships with lenders that can help you? Have you ever faced a cash flow crisis on a big project? How did you handle it? Comment below with your experiences! 😊 #cashflow

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When deals don’t close as planned, frustration and stress can be a thief of your joy. Three deals of mine are closing, but they’re all delayed, creating a ripple effect on cash flow and timelines for other things I planned next month. So today, I’m focusing on what I can control: three wins. Spiritual Win: Taking a moment to realign with purpose and clarity. Physical Win: Moving my body to shake off the stress and stay grounded. Business Win: Staying consistent with calls and follow-ups and strategizing on solutions instead of dwelling on delays. When life gets chaotic, I choose to give thanks and make intentional choices to keep moving forward. “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” — Vince Lombardi #Resilience #Focus #Mindset #GrowthMindset

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The Bilt credit card makes no sense. Now we know how it's still alive: Wells Fargo is subsidizing its existence by losing $120M / yr. For those who don't know: the Bilt credit cards rewards renters with 1 point per dollar spent on paying rent. That point can be worth 1 - 2 cents depending how you redeem it. In other words, renters get 1-2% cash back on rent absolutely for free. For the avg renter who pays $20,000 in rent per year, that's minimum $200 in free money. The crazy part of the Bilt program? It's completely free to both landlords and renters. So you can also think of it as: Bilt pays renters $200 a year to use its FREE credit card to pay their rent. It's reverse Costco. They also pay 2x points to cardholders for travel, 3x for dining, and 1x for everything else. The idea behind Bilt all along was that renters will come for the free money, but then use the card for all other purchases which will generate interchange income. Plus maybe some will carry a balance which will generate interest income. Classic credit card business model. The biggest difference between Bilt vs Amex / Chase (the giants in the credit card game) is that Bilt *pays customers* while Amex & Chase *charge customers* for the opportunity to use their cards. Specifically the high rewards earning cards aimed at affluent consumers. Further, the Bilt program loses its competitive edge compared to Amex & Chase once someone stops renting. Those programs have optimized its rewards and benefits for years to attract high value customers and have built out a system of free airport lounges to keep them. The most likely outcome for a renter who moves up the ladder to homeowner is to ditch the Bilt card and graduate to Amex & Chase. So imagine my surprise when seeing General Catalyst lead a $200M investment at a $3.1B valuation early this year AND seeing it announce that it was profitable on an EBITDA basis in 2023. How could that be possible for a card that 1) only attracts renters (who generally have less disposable income) 2) pays those customers to use it I thought: customers would have to spend >$20k / yr on non-travel & non-dining purchases charged to the card in order for them to even breakeven (impossible given the customer profile). Or they'd have to carry a BIG balance and pay lots of interest. Turns out, neither was true. Instead, Wells Fargo subsidized the whole thing by paying Bilt 0.8% of all rent payments out of the goodness of their hearts and $200 per new cardholder. To the tune of $10M per month, and I imagine, growing. Unsurprisingly, WF wants to renegotiate the deal and is retreating from co-branded cards all together. So, Bilt isn't a business ingenuity story. It's a "find a sucker to hold the bag" story. (graphic courtesy of OpenAI) #Bilt #Fintech #Startups

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In this short clip, Dave Wolcott, founder of Pantheon Investments, discusses how the top 1% leverage cash value whole life insurance to build tax-free wealth, generate exponential returns, and plan legacies for future generations. #business #entrepreneurship #generationalwealth

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One of the questions I get the most: How can you stand out as a business buyer? The answer is simple and will make a huge difference. 1️⃣ Be on social media. It's an easy place to find you and it makes you look professional. 2️⃣ Update your website. If you have news or press releases about deals you've completed, it shows you're serious. 3️⃣ Be transparent and professional. Respond to your emails, be respectful, don't talk like ChatGPT, and people will want to work with you. These are simple steps anyone can take in an afternoon. #acquisition #buyabusiness #businesstips

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M&A Tip: Know your business's worth. Don’t guess your business value. Instead, get a professional valuation. This ensures you maximize your exit strategy. Have you figured out what you will need after selling your business? Do you need help determining your business's worth? Email me at devesh@axissolutionsgroup.com. Share or comment if you found this helpful. #BusinessValuation #ExitStrategy #FinancialSecurity #TheCapitalistsCorner

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"Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does." - Warren Buffett Are you building your retirement ark? Or are you still hoping and predicting? We, at RedGram Wealth Management, will help you build that ark using different investment materials to ensure you will weather any storm. Reach out to us today and see how we can help you. http://redgram.us rahul@redgram.us

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Do you “deserve” referrals? Study after study says, on average, the biggest source of new clients for financial advisors is referrals. Yet, most advisors complain that they don’t get nearly as many referrals as they’d like. Here’s an exercise that will help shine a light on how referral-worthy your business is. It’s pretty simple. First, identify your top 10 clients. Use whatever criteria makes sense to you—annual recurring revenue, AUM, does planning, takes your advice, etc. Second, ghostwrite a glowing, two or three sentence testimonial from each client about you and your firm. This will force you to think about what you’ve actually done for your 10 best clients and how referral-worthy that result is. If you’re having trouble getting your testimonials started, use some of these as sentence prompts. 1. Since we started working with (your firm name), I no longer worry about… 2. As a result of working with (your firm name), we… 3. What I like most about (your firm name) is… 4. The best thing (your firm name) has done for us is… 5. The reason why I recommend (your firm name) to my friends and colleagues who are looking for an advisor is… Third, objectively review each testimonial you wrote and ask yourself, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being “Absolutely, 100% referral-worthy,” how referral-worthy are you based on what you’ve accomplished with each client and based on the value you delivered relative to what the client paid you over the life of that relationship. Take a look at your list. How many did you rate a 10? Realistically, people are much more reluctant to refer to a financial advisor than they are to recommend a movie to a friend, so the “advisor referral bar” is much higher. You’ll likely need a 9 or 10 before clients would feel good about referring to you (and even then, many still won’t). Another way to benefit from this exercise is to “reverse engineer” what you need to do with your clients to generate a 10. Once you know the testimonial, you simply ask yourself, “What would we need to do/create/generate/deliver for this client that would make them excited to give us this glowing testimonial?” And then get busy doing that!

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How to use business loans to manage cash flows.

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What happens to cash surplus? Consider this folks… When the paycheck hits the checking account it seems like the outside world is designed to take money away from us. Taxes are paid. Social Security Medicare Employee benefits Living expenses Netflix Amazon Costco Fuel/car Groceries Existing financial products And what is left over is for us to keep. I am standing up and saying: STOP being in last place. I believe in the possibilty of being first in line and choosing how much money leaves your world. Try it on. The opportunity to create your future is right now with adding a structural solution to your cash flow for less than a Netflix account. Imagine a world where the subscription puts money in your pocket instead of taking it out and creating more opportunities than you thought possible. When is the best time to get that started?

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Turn compliance into your superpower! 🦸‍♂️ With GUARDD, reward your investors with the liquidity they deserve, all while navigating the maze of Blue Sky laws. Be the hero your shareholders need—visit guardd.com today! 🌟 #GuarddLiquidity #BeTheHero

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Turn compliance into your superpower! 🦸‍♂️ With GUARDD, reward your investors with the liquidity they deserve, all while navigating the maze of Blue Sky laws. Be the hero your shareholders need—visit guardd.com today! 🌟 #GuarddLiquidity #BeTheHero

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