Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

The Glamorous Lie of Scaling to $80 Million

17 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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1:08

In this candid monologue, Cameron Herold exposes the stark reality behind the glossy narrative of scaling a fast‑growing company. He recounts how his firm, once celebrated as the #2 place to work in Canada and featured on Oprah, nearly went bankrupt when revenue hit the $60‑$80 million range. With a head office of 248 employees and a $420,000 payroll, the company ran out of cash, was denied a bank loan, and ultimately had to borrow the full amount from Herold’s mother to keep staff paid. Herold emphasizes the pressure on leadership teams to maintain a confident, “game‑face” exterior and avoid public admissions of financial distress, noting that many aspiring entrepreneurs are misled by social‑media portrayals of effortless success. The talk serves as a warning against the myth of effortless scaling and urges transparency about the hardships of growth.

Chapters

There's no entrepreneur out there that will tell the truth. When you're going through that time, you're not going to tell the story. At the leadership team level, we're going, holy fuck, we're going to go bankrupt if we don't get this thing fixed. We are the number 2 company in Canada to work for. We've been on Oprah. Look at all this crazy growth. Well, we almost bankrupted the company at about $60 to $80 million. When you're 248 people at the head office, you have to meet payroll for $420,000. You don't have it. We'll just go to the bank and borrow money. And they said, well, we can't loan to you. And I'm like, why? You guys don't know how to run a company. Like, yeah, we do. Look at us. They're like, no, you don't understand the financials of a company. You have to call your mom to borrow $420 grand. Oh, so legitimately he went to his mom? That was real. That was to meet payroll. I wasn't talking about how hard it was in the moment because everyone needs to see me with confidence, a game face on, making decisions. Yeah. Don't go on social media and go, oh my God, I think I'm going to go bankrupt. I'm really worried. Like, you don't say it. So what happens is people that are starting a company think it's all, here I am on my laptop flying private at the beach. I want that because we're not telling you about the time that we're literally losing our money.