A first-person account (by Ryan Deiss) of a near-bankruptcy around 2011 when the speaker stepped back, hired a CEO, lost staff, and found hidden unpaid bills. With only about $80,000 in the bank against roughly $180,000 payroll, a last-minute release of about $200,000 in merchant reserves allowed payroll to be met, buying time to recover; by 2012 the company was larger and more profitable. The speaker stresses that entrepreneurs succeed when given the right "Playbook," which he now shares.
Questions this video answers
About $80,000.
Approximately $180,000.
About $80,000 worth of bills.
About $200,000.
2011.
Chapters
I had my first like million dollar year in 2006. But by 2011, that was when I hit no man's land for the first time. Because that was when I learned my first lesson and nearly bankrupted my first company. That's when I thought believed that I was no longer the best person to run my company. I've got to hire a CEO and I've got to take a step back. Within about six months, all of our best people had either quit or been fired. The business was almost completely out of cash. And it wasn't until one individual in particular came to me and said, if this person stays in, then unfortunately I'm out. And I stepped back in and let that person go. And we only had about $80,000 in the bank and our payroll was like $180,000. And then I remember lifting up this person's keyboard and underneath the keyboard was a whole bunch of unpaid bills. And when I added them up, there was about $80,000 worth of bills. I told everybody that I'm going to come in tomorrow and I'm going to lay everybody off. I'll pull money out of savings so that I can make payroll because it's not fair. When I walked in, my director of finance met me at the door and he said, don't do it. It just so happened on that day, our merchant account released about $200,000 in reserves that we had. And I realized, I can make this payroll. I can make the next one. Bought us some time. Were it not for that, that very morning, I don't know where I would be today. I think at that point I would have told myself, you're not somebody who can build a company. And it's the reason that I'm so adamant today and why when I talk to entrepreneurs, I tell them like, you can do it, you just don't have the Playbook. But the Playbook is readily accessible. Because if somebody had just given me the frickin Playbook, I was the best person to run that business. Yeah. And we dug out of that hole. By 2012, we're bigger, more profitable than ever.
