How do you balance the need for short-term profits against long-term strategy? Quick Hits
I don’t know why I was surprised that this conversation ended up talking about bootstrapping versus finding investors.
Brandon Mahoney started us off by sharing that long-term strategies have to be flexible. They change as your business or project develops. More importantly, if you can’t create enough cashflow to stay in business, long-term plans don’t matter much.
Steve Ramona believes it depends on the mission. If you want to be acquired, you have to show profit now. If you have a passion business that you want to be running years down the road, long-term strategy might be more important than showing a profit right now.
Jim Lee agreed with Brandon that cashflow is key. Getting investments to keep the lights on has gotten harder. It’s important to bring money in and stay lean if you want to make it.
It was interesting that all of my panelists lean towards profit now. I found myself a bit on the other side, feeling like burning a company to the ground to squeeze money out of it was a bad plan.
Listen to the second part of our conversation to hear how the guys responded to my concerns about that.
What are your thoughts on balancing taking profits versus investing in the future?
Connect with the panelists:
Steve Ramona: / steveramona
He is a keynote speaker, A podcast coach and the host of the podcast, Doing Business with a Servant’s Heart. He is in California.
James Lee: / jleeadvisor
He is a financial futurist at StratFI. He has 30 years’ experience in the financial word and is the author of the book, Foresight Investing: A Complete Guide to Finding Your Next Great Trade
Brandon Mahoney: / drstartup
Co-Founder of Launch Point Labs, National venture firm where he is the expert in creating sales departments. He is known as Dr Startup
Dr Robyn Odegaard: / robynodegaard
AKA Mental MacGyver. My doctorate is in business psychology with a concentration in high performance. I provide customized, confidential, high-performance support and coaching to executives, founders, celebrities and athletes. Schedule a hello conversation with me: https://www.MentalMacGyver.com
#QuickHits are designed to exercise the curious mind by letting you listen in on an unscripted conversation to get other people's thoughts on pertinent subjects.