I’m very fortunate to have learned my business principles from some very successful individuals.

In 1972, Herm Bachrodt was one of the first franchisees of a small company named, Pizza Hut. Later, he was named the Director of Public Relations for the company, sitting day by day next to the founders. In 2008, he was my first boss.

I mowed lawns for him, trimmed trees for him, and did whatever he needed on his 72 acres every summer day for 4 years. 9AM-2PM. I didn’t always realize it then, but in hindsight it was amazing.

Every Friday he would write notes on my paycheck. They would say things like, “the only place you start on top is digging a hole” or “you are the sum of the 5 closest people you associate with”.

He was absolutely right.

Later down the road, in 2016, Carlos Fernandez let me sit in the co-pilot’s seat as he took a company from $30,000 to $2M. I was his Marketing/Operations/Finance/Everything Executive. I had left the corporate world to take that job. That experience was a lot of things, but eye-opening is probably the best description.

The title of this article is Start With One. It sounds really simple. Sell one product to one person that you have never met. If you’ve done that, you’ve started a business. Sell $1,000 a month, and maybe you have a chance of creating something impactful. Actually doing either of those things is where the magic is.

The picture above has a lot of significance to me. It is a map with pins in it for every location we have sold product to someone in. 47 of them in all. I don’t take that lightly. It’s the only reason this business exists.

As I have mentioned before, Lowside was started after someone asked me a particular question. One that involved mortality and what you would do if it was staring you in the face. My answer was Lowside. I’ve woke up every morning since that day thinking about it.

That doesn’t make it any easier. Lowside has made progress. Significant progress. We’ve checked each of the boxes mentioned above, but that doesn’t mean we have it all figured out.

We are fighting the same battle a lot of growth businesses face. How do we scale without putting ourselves at too much risk? Do we double down on marketing or add more inventory? Do we hire a digital team or pay down or debt? It’s not black and white, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you’re like me, you’re someone who has a lot of ideas. Maybe you think about doing this or think about doing that. If I’m honest, that means absolutely nothing. What I’ve learned being around successful individuals, is action is everything. If your gut doesn’t tell you this has to be done, you don’t stand a chance. And that’s why I keep chasing this dream of taking Lowside, Nationwide. Because I think it has a chance. Because my gut tells me it does.

None of this is easy by any means. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. But it’s possible, and that’s all that matters. And because of that, I’ll keep chasing it. So until then, I’ll see you guys on the other side. Hopefully, on the Lowside!

Cheers,

Michael