Will Kelly's Texas mowing company survived COVID because he ran it debt-free with a cash reserve of 10% of gross revenue. When lockdowns hit, competitors faced mounting debt while his business kept operating without loan pressure. He argues you can't predict crises, but you can prepare for them.
When COVID hit, the entire state of Texas shut down. Nobody knew what was going to happen tomorrow. Nobody knew how long it would last. And imagine being in that position with a truck that you financed, equipment that you financed, lines of credit, and a pile of monthly payments that don't care whether the truck or the state is making money or the state is shut down. We didn't have that option. Pressure. We had no business debt and we had cash on hand. So while a lot of other businesses were running into a crisis, it turned a crisis into an inconvenience for us. That was one of the moments when being conservative financially became an offensive advantage. Not because we predicted COVID. We didn't. That's the whole point. You cannot predict every problem that's going to come tomorrow. You prepare for problems you cannot predict. That's also why I've generally tried to keep around 10% of gross revenue in cash reserves at all times.
