We all know the story: owners who built successful firms through deep personal involvement struggling to scale beyond themselves. If you’re reading this, you’ve likely already recognized this challenge in your own firm. The question isn’t whether to address owner dependency – it’s how to do it systematically.
For professional services founders seeking to grow, scale, and exit their firms successfully, membership in Collective 54 (C54) is a treasure trove of resources and connections. But with such a wealth of content — from coaching and Block courses to solution guides and peer meetings — the abundance can feel overwhelming. Here, I share my journey of turning their content into a structured system that has transformed how I use C54 to achieve my goals at The AMG Team.
The pursuit of entrepreneurial excellence is a crucial component of success. Many founders, though, unintentionally hinder their pursuit with simple missteps in defining roles and expectations.
Building an entrepreneurial culture fosters ownership, buy-in, innovation, and growth within your company. However, there are common missteps that employers make when it comes to fostering this within their teams. Getting these wrong can have an impact on more than company culture. It can also have legal, financial, and operational ramifications, as well. It will throttle your growth, impede scaling, and delay (or foreclose) your exit.
I firmly believe that great productization of services stems from deliberate alignment with First Principles. Put another way: Great productization is forged through past experiences and mistakes. However, only the most committed founders—those who can say “no, we don’t” to buyers countless times—will succeed in achieving Extreme Productized Services. Productization is a commitment to First Principles. Let me share my experiences and mistakes along the way.
Since college, I have been a hustle-and-grind professional. It only got worse when I became an entrepreneur and ran my own show. I’d never taken more than a week-long vacation. Then recently, in September 2024, I took a huge leap and embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime journey: hiking the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route spanning 500 miles from the Pyrenees in France to northwest Spain. My wife and I hiked it in 26 days, carrying everything we needed on our backs. While it started as a personal adventure, it became a transformative experience for me and unexpectedly for my company.
Most leaders relate to the occasional insecurity that comes with entrepreneurship. While feeling alone in moments of uncertainty is uncomfortable, turns out it’s a normal part of the growth process.
I never would have come to this conclusion without the help of my firm’s Advisory (Ad) Board – a group of pros who have helped turbocharge my journey as Founder and CEO of Waterhouse Brands.
In today’s unpredictable environment, ensuring risk is thoughtfully managed is a critical yet often overlooked component of the grow/scale journey. While large firms have dedicated risk management teams, small business owners/operators often juggle multiple roles, leaving limited time to design and implement a risk management framework. This guide walks you through a rightsized approach to risk management, making it easier to protect your business and its stakeholders.
As an avid tech stock investor over the years, I remember coming across Net Revenue Retention (NRR) as a metric that often appeared in investor reports and earnings calls, especially for SaaS companies with a solid base of recurring subscription revenue.
The allure of rapid expansion can often blindside the most astute of entrepreneurs. This tale unfolds the harrowing journey of a Collective 54 member, a spirited founder of a social impact consulting firm, who found himself ensnared by the seductive yet perilous embrace of debt to fuel his firm’s growth. His story serves as a cautionary tale and a beacon of hope for those navigating the tumultuous waters of business expansion.
Once upon a time, in the bustling world of human resources, there was a dedicated HR consultant named Sophia. Sophia had carved a niche for herself in the travel industry, providing tailored HR solutions to companies that were as diverse as the destinations they promoted. Her firm was her pride, built on a foundation of extensive domain knowledge and a passion for people management. Yet, despite her expertise, Sophia felt a growing realization that understanding human resources was only one part of the equation to business success.