Put me in the room that needs a specific answer.
Six subjects, all from work I have done. If you want the conversation, ask.
Subjects
Why the small-business loan disappeared
Half the banks that used to make it are gone and the product went with them. What replaced it, who is actually lending now, and why the cheapest money became the hardest to get.
BuildUp Capital; the federal data is sourced on its homepage
What a turnaround actually looks like from the inside
Five of them. The decisive mistake is years old before anyone calls a specialist, it is almost always a financing decision, and the job is mostly saying the thing the room does not want to hear.
Skillz, CoinCloud, CGM, BMG, and Acadea
Running a public company’s finance function with two people
Audited financials, earnings reports, earnings scripts and disclosures, after a twelve-person team was let go overnight and replaced with a consultancy.
Skillz
A billion dollars of retail, between the door and the registers
Payment, fuel, vending, the robotic coffee, the machine placements. What a P&L that size teaches you about working capital that no spreadsheet does.
H-E-B
Underwriting the asset and the operator
What a lender sees that a credit score does not, why good businesses get declined, and what a borrower can do about a file that will not fit the box.
Key Business Strategies, then my own book
Buying the company instead of financing it
Why a group of operators buys small local businesses outright, what they look for, and the difference between a buyer who will run it and one who will flip it.
BuildUp Group
Formats
Format
A talk
Twenty to forty minutes, then questions. The length is agreed, not assumed.
Format
A panel or a fireside
I would rather be the one who gets the hard question.
Format
A private room
A company, a partnership, a small group. Salt Lake City, or I travel.
Format
Remote
Video, if the room is somewhere else. I will do a tech check.