How Big Do I Want My Business to Be?

Hello everyone. Welcome to the 21 Hats podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Feldman. This week, we bring you a taste of what we experienced at the recent 21 Hats live event in Ann Arbor, where we did a deep dive into a challenge confronting Mars Chapman, owner of Casey's New Orleans Snowballs, a snow cone business in Austin, Texas. Mars, who's 36, bought the business from his parents, and also inherited from them a somewhat laid-back approach to ownership. The business has been operating for 29 years, but has generally run only 8 months of the year, which has been enough thus far to support a comfortable lifestyle for its owners. But Mars, whose wife Paige works for a nonprofit and who is pregnant with their first child, has begun to question whether his current approach will be enough to support a family. This is another in our series of 21 Hats brainstorms. We used to call them fish balls, in which we pair an owner facing a challenge with a group of entrepreneurs eager to help. We ask questions, break into small groups to exchange ideas, and then report back. Sometimes, as I personally experienced at last year's 21 Hats live event, the comments and suggestions can be challenging, even a little painful to hear, but they're always constructive. Even in good times, owning and running a business can be a lonely pursuit. Our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges. In fact, that's the whole idea behind the 21 Hask community, engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insights only another owner can offer. If you're interested in learning more, step one is to sign up for a free trial of the morning report, which highlights the most important news of the day for business owners, so you don't have to go looking for it. Step two is to get on our Slack channel where you can ask questions, get vendor recommendations, and tap the wisdom of a very impressive crowd. Just search for the 21 Hats morning report to sign up for a free trial. Joining me this week on the podcast is Mars Chapman, co-founder of Casey's New Orleans Snowballs. Also participating in the conversation are Trisha Grath, executive performance psychologist, David Bilstrom of Flashing Red Light, Chris Campbell of Ritzer, Jay Goltz of the Golds Group, Jamie Ect of the Crafters Workshop, Mark Foresight of Mainscape, Brandon Gray of CRI Simple Numbers, Casey Helm of Newbridge Studios, Jimmy Calb of Triad Components Group, Shannon Kennedy of the Morgan Square, Ed Levventhal of Velco Industries, Nael Livingston of Creative Repute, Lena Magcguire of Spoka Kitchen and Bath, Noel Matawi of Matawi Tile Works, Liz Picarazzi of City Bin, Jackie Russo of Brand Russo, Michael Russo of Brand Russo, Sarah Seagull of Seagull Communications, Justin Tinley of Send Engage, and William Vanderlumman of Vanderblan Search. The episode is titled, "How big do I want my business to be?" All right, welcome to 21 Hats Live in Ann Arbor. Once again, this year we are going to do our special 21 Hats brainstorming exercise uh to help one business figure out how to approach a specific challenge. And that challenge this year comes from Mars Chapman. Mars, what's your business? Casey's New Orleans Snowballs in Austin, Texas. And what's your challenge? I just turned 36. I run my Well, I shouldn't even say family shaved ice business anymore because I bought out my parents' interest in it. So, it's now my uh shaved ice business in Austin, Texas. We have one brickandmortar store that uh has been in business for 29 years and is uh more or less mature. uh in order to see any more growth out of that. It's it's you know we can add upsells or tweak things or increase pricing but it's it's pretty much that location's mature. Uh over the last eight years we added our first food truck for doing mobile events and then last year we added our second one. Um so that's catering and events and festivals has been a really good revenue driver and profit driver for us. But I don't know if I want to grow larger than just a lifestyle business. It's a very nice quality of life. We operate seasonally, so closed for 4 months out of the year. Uh that's a really nice period of vacation to have. What do you do during those four months, Mars? I live over the years, my wife and I, we've traveled for extended periods of time. I've read a lot. Uh I've gardened. Uh I live in Texas so I can garden in the winter. This year however uh my wife and I are expecting our first child. So that is a substantial change in my life circumstance. And so I'm I'm keenly aware of like oh growth could be fun. Growth could mean more money. Growth could mean more work. Growth could mean year round work. And one of the things that I loved when I was young and my parents were selling shaved ice was there was an off season. They worked for 6 months. they were closed for 6 months and to have that much time with my parents uh when I was a teen particularly was just really really rewarding uh and I don't necessarily want to not be able to offer that to my child. Uh, so what do I I guess the question is I'd love some help with figuring out if I want to grow or what that how that might affect my personal time or can I grow and still maybe protect some of that vacation time. And somebody said at some point uh what do I want to be when I grow up? And I I think as business owners we probably ask ourselves that regularly. It's like where do you want to be in a few years? And uh that's maybe a question that I'd tack on there too right now is uh that I'd like some help with. What are your annual revenues? So last year was uh nearly uh a a a record year for us. Uh but we came in at $480,000 topline. How many employees do you have? We operate seasonally. So for four months out of the year we're closed. Uh and then when we're open, we generally start off with about 10 staff that return from the previous year. And then as the season progresses, we will again invite more and more people that have worked for us previously. Each year we'll add some um but we'll balloon up to about 20 to 25 and then we'll shrink back down to 10 to 12 by the by the time we near the end of our season. So a lot of people are probably entrylevel college student type employees. How many management level employees would there be? There's three. So, there's there's myself, uh there's our general manager who oversees our store operation, and then there is our events manager who oversees our catering and events operation. In all these years, have you or your parents ever experimented with opening other locations? When I first joined my parents, one of the things that I did was I I did purchase a used shaved ice trailer uh and set it up on uh a busy stretch of South Congress uh which is a popular tourist destination in Austin and a busy a busy place where there's fair amount of foot traffic. And so we did set up that and it did okay the first year middling and then the second year it was not worthwhile. That was probably just poor execution um if I look back on it. But I learned a lot from that experience. And one of my favorite things that I learned is it's really nice to if you're going to try with a new location doing it with a trailer or something that's mobile and easily moved or easily liquidated as opposed to a lease buildout. You can't really sell a space that you've built out to your color scheme and your use case. So, you know, a trailer is something that if we were going to try different locations, that's probably the method that I would go. That was ultimately what led to getting a food truck was because people would ask us, "Oh, you have a trailer. Do you do festivals, events?" And you you own the store location that you do have, correct? Yes. So, my my parents own the real estate. Your parents own it. My parents own the real estate um that our business sits on. Will that go to you eventually? Yes. Assuming catastrophic things don't happen. Yes. And are you happy with the amount of money you are able to take out of the business every year? How how do you feel about that? The last few years we really shifted from me being underpaid to now I feel much happier with my compensation. Um we kind of had to reconcile that one of the things that happened during the pandemic was uh we actually oddly enough through the PPP program had the opportunity to experiment with how we pay people. Uh so we were able to increase everyone's compensation to where we now guarantee $18 an hour. Um so all of our servers earn $18 an hour. And that prompted this thought of, oh, are we compensating everyone fairly? Um, are we compensating everyone in a way that's aligned with our ethics? And so that kind of went, all right, are we taking care of our servers? Check. Are we taking care of our general manager? Oh, well, needed to do an adjustment there. Are we taking care of our events manager? Doing fine there. Um, and then finally, are we taking care of me? And realized, no. Um and so uh now I'm quite comfortable. Uh and I think the main thing is you know there's this question mark of I'm comfortable for now but as I mentioned having a kid is going to change the family dynamics uh the family financial dynamics uh in a way that I can't foresee. Uh so I'm comfortable with an asterisk. Questions from the group. Uh Ed Levventhal Valco Industries in Springfield, Ohio. Thanks for sharing all that. That that was great. I just think um it's very difficult for other people to tell you what's right for your life and your lifestyle. It's a personal decision. maybe some suggestions, but really it's a your decision, your family's decision. But have you ever looked at franchising what you have that might still uh allow you that lifestyle but be another stream of revenue for you so that you can continue the lifestyle you seem to enjoy. Thank you for that. I think you're dead on that yes uh people can't tell me what's best for me and I and I appreciate uh you sharing both that wisdom and then asking a really great adviceoriented question. Have I considered it not in any great seriousness? My consideration has been or my cursory look at it would be oh if we franchise then probably one I don't know how easy it is to franchise off of one location. Maybe we might have to prove that multiple locations are viable. And that might be possible, it might not be possible. I haven't put enough into it to be able to answer that. And then also, if we do franchise, then one of my customers goes from being people who are buying a shaved ice product or buying our catering services to now they are buying our business. They might have a different lifestyle wish or return on investment desire than I have and they might want me to work 12 months out of the year. Now, could I go from working from being off for four months uh to then working a little bit during that four months? Yes. But I could also see how the more people you add, the more I get hooked on that income that they're generating and the more demand or value they're going to want to uh take from me. Or maybe in the process of franchising, systems are built, people are hired, and there's a possibility that I wouldn't have to do it. However, if I'm not clearing half a million dollars off of an a mature brick and mortar and two trucks, I don't necessarily think that there's enough juice in that lemon to build that managerial overhead. This is all just shooting from the hip. Sarah Seagull with Seagull Communications. Can you talk a little bit about the human process of making the product? Have you ever thought about automation? I'm in San Francisco. We have robots that make coffee. They just opened a restaurant that makes um hamburgers through robots. Like, have you thought about automating? Have I thought about automation or dreamed about it? Yes. Where those thoughts led me were to um that catering is an easier lift because we already know how to do it. So, doubling down on catering, which is why I was like, "Oh, let's add another vehic let's add another truck to the and start, you know, maybe building out a fleet. That's just an easier lift." I think it also led me to think of what's a similar product that we can sell or a similar experience we can provide. The way that we make our product to answer your question as you stated it uh is we put a block of ice in a machine, secure it and then um turn the machine on. At one end of that machine is a uh uh or some rotating razor blades and then we push that block of ice uh towards those razor blades. Snow comes out of a chute. We pack that into a cup, shape it with a funnel, poke a hole in it, pour some syrup on it, put a spoon and a straw in there, grab a napkin, hand it to the customer. And we've experimented with a catering product that we call Casey's to go. So, it's where we make a batch of snow that's flavored. Um, so we'll shave a big bucket full of snow, pour syrup on it, flavor it, scoop that into cups, lid them, freeze them, and then it's kind of a grab-and-go thing. Could that potentially be packaged and sold to local grocery stores? Possibly. Not opposed to it. haven't really tested it or tried it out. Um, it works very well in specific catering applications like if we need to serve 500 people in 10 minutes, uh, we have that capability. And then uh, in addition to catering and and our brickandmortar shop, we also wholesale uh, some syrups, but we also wholesale block ice uh, to other shaved ice vendors in the Austin area. Um, so those are are our kind of our main revenue streams. My name is Michael Russo. chief creative officer at Brand Russo. Just about your p other question and uh about lifestyle for us um I I run my agency with my my wife and business partner. So we raised four kids there in college or post college now. So we went our entire lives trying to figure that out and how to do that right and there is no easy answer to it. But one the business was driven by our need to pay for our kids. Um as they got older and more needs came in as we had more kids we had to work harder and grow to adapt to those lifestyles and what we wanted to give to them at the same time. How do we manage the the the time with that? We incorporated it into our world. Good or bad, that's the way it happened. They came to the office with us. They lived they lived the experience with us and they could probably quote more about branding than I can right now. But that that's the whole thing is that we we didn't allow it to hamper us. We we embraced it, you know, cuz we knew there was no getting away from it. When you run a business, you're drawn into it. So that was that was our take on that world. Thank you very much for sharing that. That is largely what my experience was with my parents. Um, I also have so much sympathy for the Sierra Nevada ad, familyowned, operated, and argued over since whenever it started. Uh, so, uh, yeah, family businesses are a special breed. Noel Matawi, Matawi Tile Works, Ann Arbor, Michigan. I want to still go back to Lauren's first question that has to do with well, first was, are you making enough money for your the life you want and for saving for the future in emergencies? And you sort of answered that is not quite maybe. But the the question I have is or to ask yourself is how do you want to spend your time? Because for instance becoming a franchiseor is a completely different way to spend your time than managing people and doing catering and and being hands-on in a shaved ice business. So you know one question has to get answered before the others. I think is how do you want to spend your time? And it's not that you have to answer, it's a question I would ask. I think that's a a valuable question and one that I will probably be mulling over for a long period of time. I was really touched last night at at dinner when Ari Zingerman's uh said that at the end of every day he likes to work an hour or so on the floor at Roadhouse. I mean, I I literally teared up because my favorite part of my job and the part that I do the least is serving people. To take a simple pedestrian product and turn it into a meaningful moment of human connection and it's far exceeds just a transaction of product and value. That's magic. That's human. That's special. And I get to do that. That's an honor and a privilege. And so that really kind of hit with me. And I'm like, "Oh, maybe it's not about the money." Or would you still be able to do that if you had two locations or three locations and you were managing people instead of working? Something to think about, Jay. So, let's talk about money. So, you use the phrase lifestyle business. Uh, that could be a hundred grand a year. That could be a million dollars a year. So, what is a good lifestyle business to you? $300,000 a year? You tell me. That's the first question. The second point I'd only make because I've looked into franchising. It ain't anywhere near as easy as it looks. Constant lawsuits. You told me blah blah blah. And I I I'm not so sure that's viable as you've already figured out. I'm not sure that's but but I could see you scaling up to maybe, you know, four trucks gets the job done. I would want to ask you the very first thing I would think of with your businesses, are your trucks fun and cool? And do people say, "Oh my god, I love your truck." Do they say that? Uh, I would hope so. We just had one uh our second one uh wrapped and it's a very fun, colorful, great rap. Uh a lot of people have commented on it. So, that's been that's been really great. The look on people's faces when we pull up for a birthday party and they're playing in the front yard or they come running around the side gate and then they see us. It could be adults, it could be kids. Uh it's a blast. um at weddings it's amazing to see that people welcome us into that moment in their lives and and you know we're part of their wedding photography which is also an honor. So uh I'd like to say think that we're quite memorable to answer your first question about money. Uh my compensation right now before any profit share is $42,000 a year which is not a lot of money. However, my wife and I we were fortunate enough to both graduate from college without any debt. Uh we have a mortgage from 2017. It has a uh sub 4% interest rate. We've been living in Austin now uh for for uh oh gosh 12 years. Uh and um we're quite happy. We're able to both max out our IAS and still save money to be able to go to Disney World if we want. Um which is not the cheapest vacation in the world. So comfortable. Um, but there's also not a lot of, you know, it's I'm keenly aware that there's not a lot of slack there either. We're comfortable, but I could totally see that vacation getting skinnier and skinnier and skinnier. Um, especially adding a third seat on an airplane. I assume that $42,000 is a conservative estimate and perhaps the bulk of your compensation comes from the profit share. Uh, it does if I do my job well. Um but even still my profit share take uh is going to be you know if we hit our numbers this year my profit share would be 12 grand. Um so not a substantial amount. As profitable as the business is we leave a fair amount in there because we do go dark for 4 months out of the year. I have my estimated cost for how much that's going to run and then I add a little bit on it for fluff because inevitably $5,000 is going to pop up. And I think we all know that $5,000 means almost nothing um as an expense goes. Brandon Brandon Gray uh with simple numbers in most cases growth requires capital and time. So as you look at that equation, whether that's sweat equity coming in the form of capital, which are you more comfortable with taking on additional capital, which could be debt or investment, or giving giving up some of your time that you have in the offseason? Um, we're currently doing a remodel of our of our shop. Uh, and to do that received a a loan through uh through the SBA. And so that's tapped out is that's kind of put our debt service coverage ratio about um where I'm comfortable with it being. So I don't really want to take on any more any more debt until we've been able to pay that down some. Uh, so once we get once the remodel's complete and we're able to get back into our shop and, you know, fully run the machine the way that we want it to run and after we do that for a year or two, we can see how much additional principle we've paid down. I would prefer a loan uh over investment. We fortunately have enough talent. I think I know our general manager, he's said on more than one occasion that he's happy to work year round. Right now, he receives a wintertime stipen. Um, so he gets 4 months paid vacation. Uh, it's not quite enough to cover all of his living expenses, but it's it's a decent chunk. But if he's a if he wants to do it and he wouldn't find sitting there serving, you know, only 50 people in a day, uh, cuz that's what some days in December would probably entail. If he wouldn't find that demoralizing, then that's another option. And I would also trust him to run run the shop and need minimal assistance for me because that's what he's been doing now for uh eight years. Liz Picarazzi from Citybin. Um I am curious about syrup as an ingredient and if that's something that's proprietary, if that could be monetized. Somebody said that they were looking on Amazon to find snow cone syrup that uh I forgot what they were trying to do. I think they were trying to find something that didn't have high fructose corn syrup in it. Um which I thought great and they were like, "Oh, you should be on Amazon." Never had ever thought about that because it's literally flavored sugar water. But uh there's a market for that. Actually, apparently there's a market for that. And I'll tell you partly what it is. And the reason I ask, so I'm sober. I don't drink alcohol. I often when I go to like Whole Foods or the like the non-alcoholic store, and there's lots, they stores are everywhere. I buy syrup like all the time, and I'm willing to pay for it because it's good ingredients. Um, it's just great. You know, I can make non-alcoholic drinks out of it. I would think that if you had something sort of proprietary that had a story around it, that had great materials, there is this whole market out there, but you would have to have something special about your syrup. It couldn't just be, you know, sugar water, right? That wouldn't be too heavy of a lift, and that's a that's a good idea. Thank you. Maybe one or two more questions. Jimmy Cal, try components group. Um, it seems to me, and you've kind of already addressed it, that it's insane that you're shutting out four months. That's oneird of the year. Um, and even if you're not making $50,000 a month in revenue, which it sounds like you're about at right now, that if you were only doing $30,000 in that time period, that could add significant amount of bottom line. And I would also think that there are still holiday parties, there are still birthday parties, there's still winter weddings, there's still all sorts of other special events that your trucks could potentially go. maybe not necessarily the brick and mortar place, but would seem to me that you're you're leaving a lot of potential revenue on on the table. And so I can't understand why since you're already paying for these capital expenditures, like Southwest keeping their planes on the ground, they're only making money when they're flying. So your trucks are only making money when they're out there serving snow cones or snowballs or whatever. No, that's that's 100% bang on. And and one of the many advantages of a family business is uh um well there probably are some they aren't coming to my mind at the right now but one of the disadvantages of a family business is you inherit ways and reasons for doing things that aren't your own. And so I've had to do a fair amount of unlearning and I think I think you raise a really good prospect and one that I've acknowledged. Um, but it's really nice to have it validated from uh an experience, an experienced and a wise uh external party. Last question. Lena Magcguire, Spoka Kitchen and Bath in Syracuse, New York. As far as your vision planning and how big you should grow, have you run the numbers? What is the minimal salary you want and what does the revenue required to create that versus what an ideal salary and revenue would be? So kind of like pie in the sky, if I was a really successful, rich businessman, what would my salary be and how much do I have to sell to achieve that as a proportion of looking at it as this is my minimum, this is my maximum and then I can grow somewhere in between that so that you actually have a comparison to make a decision. I love that because it's it it grounds the vision in numbers and seeing what's what's feasible. Uh no, I haven't done that. Uh, but I I can do that tonight. I have my spreadsheet for exactly where to go to to calculate that. So, thank you for giving me some homework. All right, we're going to take 10 minutes. This is a group on this side. This is a group on this side. This is a group over here. Please brainstorm. Come up with two or three ideas that you would like to bounce off of Mars. And you've got about 8 minutes to do it. You're not necessarily telling him what to do. you're making suggestions for him to consider. So, at this point, we split into three groups to brainstorm. After kicking around ideas, each group will pick a spokesperson to explain what they have in mind. You can hear the brainstorming in the background as Mars and I continue to chat. Although, before we chat, a member of one group asks Mars a relevant question, which is whether his wife is employed. My wife is an advocate for survivors of sexual assault with a nonprofit in Austin and earns a nonprofit salary. The question I would have asked if we'd had a little bit more time is how you think about competition. I'm sure there are ice cream shops all over the city. People have other alternatives. How much room to grow do you think there is? So in Austin, there's a ice cream company called Amy's Ice Cream. Amy Simmons is a is a you know a great person and I have so much respect for Amy's Ice Creams and in many ways I view them as a as a role model of what we could do and and Amy's has I want to say I think close to 20 locations. They might be above or below that in a few different Texas markets. I know that pre- pandemic that they had revenue around $10 million. But I bring up Amy's because they've done a few things that I really admired. Um, one, uh, the Amy's corporation owns some real estate and then also, uh, the, uh, Amy herself, I guess they set up a family trust that purchased some real estate that the business that then Amy's Ice Creams is the tenant. So, as terms of a wealth creation, I think that they've done some really cool things. Um, but, uh, I also know that as many locations as they have, they've attempted to open and then had to close, I think, just as many locations. So, I really look up to Amy's ice creams um as one potential model. Uh but I bring them up because I heard something that they said that they're competing for the sugar dollar. People are only going to buy one Frappuccino, one crispy cream or one one shipl um one cookie, one one shaved ice. So, it's the sugar dollar. Uh not that many people are going to go out and buy this many sweet treats in a day. And so in terms of competition, my competition I could I I would include Coca-Cola amongst my competitors. Um so am I worried about that? I think that there's so there are so many people that are vying for consumer sugar dollars that it's about okay, what's the absolute best product that we can provide and what's what can we do that's unique? And so we're in person, we're a unique product within the category. We're yes, we are a seasonal product. Um, but our experience is really and our service is really, I think, what sets us apart. And that's not just based upon my gut. That's based upon what guests tell us when they come up to the window, when they place their order. Uh, when they ask when they hand us a manila folder and say, "We don't know the gender of our baby. Can you please use an opaque cup and put this color in the bottom for for for boy, this color in the bottom for for girl, and then clear on top." We've had people that want to want us to put an engagement ring in their snowball before. Um we've done that on multiple occasions. Uh yeah, I know. Um we're like, I don't know how I feel about this from a liability perspective, but thank you. You know, um am I worried about competition? Yes and no. Uh would I be worried if somebody did shaved ice right across the street and sold them for a dollar less? Probably. Yeah. Uh is anybody doing that? No, not right now. Uh, could they? Well, they'd have to take over the used car lot that's there, but um they could. Have you put any energy into thinking about a counter seasonal product that you could sell during those months? I have. The the the balance that I've always come into is this is the life that I've had and so the relationship that I have both with myself and with my space and with my wife is seasonal. and she loves that I have 4 months off every year because when I go into work mode there's some time where she picks up a little bit more around the house and then when I'm in off mode I'm 100% focused on the house and so there's kind of this give and take and so uh anything that we would have to do that involves being open more year round would involve renegotiating revisiting cuz I'd like to say that nothing in a relationship is ever set in concrete it's always in flux but we would have to definitely um revisit did some things that um otherwise have been more or less uh uh untouched for for a little while. Uh so yes, I have I have thought about it. Um but I'd have to do it judiciously. More than anything, what I've thought about is actually selling another product with the same seasonality. One minute to wrap up. You're about to find out your future. It feels great. Somebody else is determining it. I'm going to call this in 5 seconds. When they throw out an idea, you don't have to respond. But if there's something that clicks for you, you do have a reaction or you have a a question back to them about what they're suggesting, go for it. Okay, folks. Time to go. Jay Goldz representing our group. We suspect you're wearing a tie-dye under a shirt under there because you're kind of a hippie. Are you not? Your parents? Yes. Parents definitely hippies. Yes. So we we're trying to figure out can you make a conversion from that to making forget lifestyle business making a decent living cuz you're not like to own a business making what's your money is not really we were all a little surprised at the number. So when you say you want to have a kid you want to have a nice life. We think you're going to have to make not 300,000 but you know triple your salary probably which means maybe you need two more trucks for sure we all agree. Why wouldn't you let your guy go do that and give that a shot? So, we think you might have to shift some of your thinking to what you're used to. And we don't know how your parents raised you, put you through college with no debt. And it's I received a scholarship. Ah, see, I said there was more to the story. Okay, that makes sense. No siblings. No siblings. Okay, that's okay. So, then the question becomes, do you want to have more than one kid? It costs money. So just because you've been able to go to Disney World, there's just the two of you is not going to be with having a kid because then someone's got to you got child care is expensive. So you're going to have to make a six figure salary, we believe. So um there's different ways of doing that. And we do like or I at least like the whole idea maybe you could do your own syrup and sell it nationally on Amazon. So we think you're g have to do some soularching. Thank you. You do have tie-dye t-shirts though, don't you? Not on not not not today. David Bilstrom, flashing red light. Uh, speaking for our group, uh, we had some of the same thoughts as the other group. Um, we think that capital investment that Jimmy described deserves to be open year round. Uh, the additional trucks, we're a little bit concerned. You've got a unicorn for a general manager willing to work for that. And if they were to go poof for some reason, um, you might be high and dry. So, they're going to need to make more money as well. and um the truck or trucks, they may go poof. And we're betting you've got a reputation problem when you don't show up at the birthday party catering because the truck's down. So, you need a backup truck, which can also be monetized. But the larger issue that we identified is, you know, your vision. Do you want to make more money or do you want to keep the that time off every year? So, those were our thoughts. I didn't expect to receive uh anything other than thoughtprovoking and hard propositions. So, thank y'all very much for honesty. This is why I love 21 hats. You're not done yet, William. Well, the hits just keep on coming. William Vanderbl was with a really great group of smart people and left the room for a minute and then they voted to make me speaker. So, don't leave the room is the lesson. Uh it's more of the same. We immediately dove into, well, he could do merch, he could do sell the things on Amazon as high-end syrups, all the ideas for expansion. But I think what we kept coming back to was, what a fabulous time in your life getting ready to take on a a child. And instead of it being 2 + 1 is three in your house, it's 2 plus 1 is about nine. So like uh what a great time to drop back and say all right realistically what do I want to get done with the time that I have left and what kind of earnings does that require and how do I reverse engineer a growth plan if that's what you want to achieve those goals because I think what we were saying there were a lot of great ideas for growing the business but until you know the answer of whether you want to grow it or not and what you want to grow it to it really doesn't matter so you're at a great crossroads in life to ask those questions I don't know if that's hiring an executive coach for a couple months or something that makes you take long looks in the mirror to say cuz I'm I'm kind of with the other two groups. Kids are kids are expensive. I I can tell you about it. So, just encourage you to use the opportunity to drop back and really ask the hard question. What do I want to get done with the time I have left? And what does that mean for a business plan? Thank you. Mars, you got some tough love thrown at you there a little bit. What's uh what's your reaction? I would take issue with the term tough love because tough love is sometimes something where you're like, "Oh, that oh, but maybe they were they were right." Um, this felt very very supportive and and very practical and very reasonable and um very grounded in real day-to-day experience uh from a range of businesses. We have what was it? A a $25 million a year company. And then we have uh me. Okay. Then we have an undisclosed but small uh uh uh 21 hat in in the room. And uh uh so I love this because now I can take it and do a an effort versus reward uh matrix and figure out where are the lowhanging fruit um that are going to be the highest reward with the lowest effort. and then start pushing lifting those um and or I have that as something that I can do after as Michael very I think well said uh some time staring in the mirror and and the question of what do I really want my life to look like? So these 45 minutes haven't been enough for you to decide what you want to be when you grow up? Sadly, no. No. No. Not quite. But but they've given me they've given me a goal and they've given me a destination and something to work towards and I appreciate that. And you're going to think about it and one day not too in the not too distant future you're going to come back and tell us what you concluded. That's exactly what I'll do. Excellent. Thank you all. And thank you especially especially Mars for uh sharing being open and subjecting yourself to this. Thank y'all. [Music] One thing before you go. Everything we do at 21 Hats is created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to help us all learn together. If you get something out of listening to these podcast episodes, consider joining the conversation. You can do that by joining the 21 Hats sounding board, a Slack channel where you can tap the wisdom of a very smart crowd or by becoming a founding member and joining our monthly Zoom forum where you can be part of conversations much like the ones we have on the podcast. You can sign up for both by subscribing to the Morning Report. If you have any questions, you can email me at lauren21hats.com. And if you get something out of this podcast or out of the morning report, please tell a friend, tell an enemy, tell every business owner you know. Your word of mouth owner to owner will always be the most effective way to build this community for all of us. Thank you. It means a lot. This episode was produced by another entrepreneur, Jess Stubberon, founder of Blank Word Productions. Thanks for listening, everyone.