65 Roses and a Trunki

Cash and Copies

2012 ended with two sentences.

The first was mine:

– I'm going to buy the factory.

The second was Kathryn's:

– Let's try again for a baby.

Resurrecting a bust factory and sorting out my problematic personal plumbing felt like two sides of the same problem, both equally unsolvable.

Ever the optimist, I went to my local Footdown group, gave them my best pitch and waited for the seal of approval. Stuart, the serial shipping entrepreneur, was first to speak:

– Don't do it.

– But …

– … Just don't do it.

I looked around the room for support. A dozen or so faces looked back at me. All of them pursed their lips or shook their heads. A police chief looked at his shoes. They were clean.

I can't remember much about the rest of the discussion except that it sounded like a pathologist when the autopsy's done and he's spilling out a few gothic pleasantries to pass the time.

– Factories go bust for a reason, someone said as we left.

– I know, I replied, except I wasn't interested in reasons. My gut said buy the factory and when the gut speaks, the brain follows.

Entrepreneurs like talking about their gut. I do too. It makes us feel like we have some esoteric knowledge when all we're doing is turning our accumulated business experience, with its biases and ingrained habits, into a firm decision complete with justification. When faced with the self-evident truth of a business owner's gut, there are no spreadsheets or financial projections that are convincing enough to drive ...