Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Why Your Startup Isn’t Growing | Richard Capp - CEO of Milton & King

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Lessons - Why Your Startup Isn’t Growing | Richard Capp - CEO of Milton & King · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  journey of building a sustainable business from the ground up learn how patients sacrifice and a
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  long-term vision transform challenges into opportunities the value of self-funding growth and
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  why committing a decade to your craft can unlock lasting success okay so as you're as you're
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  scaling this out it starts to work then it turns into a little bit of a business then you're
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  starting to apply like listen we have some systems and processes now we're starting to make some
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  money now we're you know finding better equipment what is the what is the outside of figuring out
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  the basics of the business which already seem to be excruciatingly painful to figure out what are
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  some of the biggest mistakes that you made when you first started out in terms of now it's working
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  but then I screwed this up or I hired this person that didn't work out or I don't know so we on
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  second line we we didn't we didn't have any big stuff ups because we didn't have big budgets
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  like a heavy money and and I look at it now and I think if someone had given me a chunk of cash
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  back then I would have I would have I'd be telling you a story about how I blew all the money
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  on some dumb idea but because it was happily so slowly I we we had time to actually go through
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  we think about and there we all we go with the concept and then we'd think about there's time
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  what are on we were that's a crazy idea there if there is one there's one concept that
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  we did we did it probably almost 10 years ago we had these collections
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  and we're we're selling through the Australian wholesale market so we're selling through
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  the few wallpaper shops that actually exist in Australia and we're trying to figure out
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  how we can compete with all the important stuff which is which is quite a check really
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  even to be shipped from Europe into Australia it's still fairly competitive so we're looking
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  at how we'll do this so we thought what if we kept with customs watchbooks where the the shop
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  can kind of choose which designs and of our collection they actually like
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  because rather than giving them a book that costs us the fortune to make text paper heaps of time
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  and that saves like we weren't good at making books they're costing us fortune to make just to
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  swatch a walk I've swatched so I said all right let's do that let's do a custom book and I
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  I got this guy to create this we'll build this site to do it and it was it it took months for this
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  to happen and eventually we sort of got to the end and this guy hands over this website and I said
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  that is ridiculous I'm not launching that to anybody um and we never launched it so the concept
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  was I paid the guy because he'd done the work but he he hadn't really delivered a decent product so
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  we sort of came to an agreement at the end said well this is where it stops but it's
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  finding because we're coming back to that now it's literally about to go live on our website
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  in a couple of weeks we're going to have customs watchbooks for our US wholesale market
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  where they can go in and they can choose for around two thousand designs and go that design
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  that design that design there the designs I'm going to resell in my store to my clients
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  so it's funny now whilst we wasted the money ten years ago we've actually come back to it now
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  the business is in a point where it's actually going to work so that's but you know all those all
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  those mess ups like you hear this quite often like if you learn from the mistakes and they're not
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  you know they're not wasted right now you have all the learnings of compounded over how many years
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  and I actually like I really have to just highlight something and we were just again very briefly
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  before we turned on the camera we were just speaking about how important it is to be patient and
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  obviously if people are listening like none of this moved quickly I think that you as an entrepreneur
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  I think you're actually a very rare breed in terms of how you think through problem solving and
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  the time horizon that you're committing to solve these problems and I think that's why you're
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  successful because I think a lot of people try and get something done in two months three months six
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  months it doesn't work okay I'm going to give up but you were you committed this for your life
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  and I'll figure it out we're very fortunate sir we were you know we haven't we had a few
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  bigger benches we were one we were outside of the industry so we weren't like no one knew what we
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  were doing we were way down this trail trying to figure out a diesel-print wallpaper so we were
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  kind of we were out of eyesight essentially from the rest of the industry so we had time to sort
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  of stuff around do our thing we hadn't made this big ball statement that we're going to change the
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  world tomorrow and that we were in our 20s well we didn't have we were both when we started we were
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  about single so we moved in with mom and dad we put all our money together we didn't have any but
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  we we do enforce sorry but every power we're sharing side bait beads but yeah so like we we were
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  lacking that we were able to just sort of grow on but as as and we sacrificed for the big picture
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  like we did we weren't taking money we put nine knees before we went on payroll
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  but tell someone that is trying to start a business say it's going to take a decade but
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  John will play it it's going to be 10 years before we get your first paycheck don't be ridiculous
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  on anarchy but we were just and and if we we didn't know that when you started to take that
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  level if we actually start by income but we will we'll essentially we've been sales funded
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  very slow sales but with their sales funded in our breath so we're just sort of moved
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  along slowly you've developed somebody you launch it that sort of pops you up again and then you
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  cruise along and then you go the next stage or the next stage the problem is you then get to your
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  40s and and you've put everything into your business and there's actually nothing in your
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  in your private beef cat but your business is still going and that's the thing we're still
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  cruising along and people probably look at it and say oh they're so lucky to have done that but we
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  missed we pretty much missed every party in our 30s because because we didn't have the money to
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  get to the you know you sort of walk yourself away to get this thing going and now it's starting
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  to pay off because we've had the vision to actually see it through but it's come with a huge
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  people don't see people don't see that they see the they see the venture backed
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  you know SF tech companies that IPO in five years and people are overnight
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  millionaires deck of millionaires sent to millionaires billionaires overnight by you know
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  any objective standard five years is a pretty quick time to build a business but then they get
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  they get burnt out and I actually I love the fact that you said it took you nine years to
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  go on payroll because I've said this in different ways many times like if you commit to anything
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  for 10 years and you find ways to learn from your failures and you iterate through all the problems
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  that you have you will find a way to become some level of success if you commit 10 years to anything
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  like it's very hard to screw it up if you're a smart person keeps starting
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  say there you just go to keep showing up and that's what it's about like you can I had a land Lord
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  in Brisbane at one stage said I just do one thing every day in his business life he just works
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  on the facts he does one thing every day that actually counts um and as long as you put that sort
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  of mentality all right we're pushing forward all the time um yeah it just sort of starts to build up
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  and then eventually you get to that 10 years and you look back and you go wow like we've come along
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  and um so my mother's actually she came for a visit um this week and we're in the office last
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  not and and she hadn't been in for Shenbury in the US to check out what we've been doing so we've
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  had this facility here in Dallas for um going on nearly two years and she sort of walked in and
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  she was blown away because she just didn't expect um really what we've so set up she just didn't
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  have that in her head um and you think right hey well it's only been two years and it looks
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  like a spade around a hollow log and that but then you think back 10 years and it's yeah well because
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  you start to see you know like if you look on a chart like you start to see you'll have this like
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  marginal marginal growth and then all of a sudden like when things start working and you start
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  investing more and more into the business you do that hockey stick growth curve right and that's
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  where you that's where you're at after 10 20 years of doing the business but that's a beautiful
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  place to be but people would never most people would not want to sacrifice nine years of their life
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  without taking a paycheck oh no no well it's about it but we we definitely weren't doing it in
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  store like it was like what if you go on this weekend all right we're going to have the money
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  this week you go yeah and there's I'll style your you was your budgeting your budgeting which
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  are going to go to like sorry yeah that was that was the thing well we we did it with um essentially
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  with with styles funded the whole way through and that really did turn it was always it was always
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  starting well then it was always five feet well we thought was always profitable there's been
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  losses in there but um but it made sense to get you know so yeah and yeah it's it's it's it's all
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  about all right that's that's how go that's what it want to be what have we got to do to do that
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  and and we've never brought some of new admin mentality we're going to get rich from one style or
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  one client or two people that we've got to put lots and lots and lots together to make this
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  actually work and that's what we're just been trying to do it so yeah it's it's getting better
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  like now we we have systems in place and we have a really good little team of people that uh know
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  what they're doing we're not doing all the work ourselves and uh you know I spent a lot of time
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  working night shift doing customer service for the US yeah even telling someone to get out a bit
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  at one o'clock in the morning or two o'clock in the morning to sit in front of a chat either when
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  the live chat comes up well hey where we're there we're actually told it and I'll be sitting in the
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  dark at home in winter wash with mahuri on answering the fine at the toy on chats um you know that's
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  all that I just text that just text tall whatever thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable
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  don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive
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  deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode
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  see you in the next one