Travis (3:17)

yeah, today.

Alexis Sikorski (3:18)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They've been sitting in my parents garage for a very, very long time. They're not anymore though. And while I had, I had. I don't know if we can call it a failure because it was a successful business. I started Internet service provider and Internet cafe in Senegal in West Africa. And that was literally a month after they opened the Internet node. It was interesting though, my idea, keep in mind, I was a kid, right? I was like maybe 25. My idea is, okay, this Internet sync is new. It's going to take years before it really takes off in a country where they didn't really know what it was. Right. So my idea was to. I created a pretty big restaurant with the Internet cafe and the Internet service provider. So my idea was genius, brilliant business plan that it's going to take a long time before the Internet become profitable. But I'm going to compensate the loss of the Internet by the wonderful profits I was going to make with the restaurant. Right. And from day one my Internet cafe was full. The Internet service provider literally took off and couldn't sit a butt in my restaurant ever. By the way, restaurateur, it's, it's a job. Don't, don't do it if you don't know how to do it. That's just true of many. Many, yeah. And even my successful business made many failures before it became successful. Right. I started as bespoke Internet development company in 2000. First of all, as you know, 2000, really the market was just waiting for a new Internet company. But actually things worked. By acquisition, I turned the company into a banking software company. And really in 2007, I'm the king of the world. A company is doing 1112 million something revenue, profitable, spending every penny. I'm so smart, like nothing could ever go wrong. Like Obviously, end of 2007, what could go wrong for a banking software company, right? Like what could happen in 2008 that could have a little bit of an impact in my business. So like literally I lost 75% of my revenue in one day in 2008. In one day, yeah, in one day, yeah. Because when the global financial crisis happened, all my customers that I loved and who loved me called me and said, by the way, we love you. We're not going to spend a penny with you and it's going to last. And it did last for four or five, six years. So not a penny in my wall chest, not a contingency plan. So really like even successful businesses are like, we came so close like every month. You literally like, I had to remortgage my house and like what, like, am I continuing? Is it like good money chasing bad money, when do we stop, et cetera. So even the success is like a byproduct of many, many failure.

Travis (6:51)

Yeah, yeah. Now was this the same company that ended up being New Access or was this a different company?

Alexis Sikorski (6:58)

No, no, that was New Access. But it's interesting that you, you asked the question about failures because one of the mental exercise I did before I started working as an advisor because I was like, I was talking to, I started my executive MBA in Oxford and during that I was talking to lots of entrepreneur and mainly, you know, early stages or mid stages entrepreneur and just early scale ups. And I was talking to them and said, shit, they're making the exact same mistakes I made. Like no, no, no, no, no, no. I've been there, done that, don't do it. And I was thinking, oh, okay, let's, let's do a little mental exercise. What's the total cost of my fuck ups? Like what's the total cost of my mistakes? My bad decision. So mental exercise. You start your company in the market condition of 2000, but the knowledge you have in 2020, what's the difference? And the difference is 50 million in five years. If I didn't, if I made only good decision, and I'm not talking like, oh, I should have anticipated the global financial crisis because nobody could, but just having anticipated that shit happens. The total cost of My mistake is 50 million and five years. I will have sold five years earlier and 50 million more.

Travis (8:24)

Wow. Wow. Now the new version of the company, was it still similar services to the same thing that you were doing before or did you have to completely pivot the entire organization?

Alexis Sikorski (8:34)

No, same thing, no pivot, same product, just massive reduction of cost. And I learned something that's actually very interesting. My grandfather was an carpet dealer in Alexandria in Egypt.

Travis (8:54)

Okay.

Alexis Sikorski (8:54)

And then he moved to Geneva, opened antique shop that sold Persian carpets in, in Geneva. And when I was a kid, I was in, in the shop every Wednesday jumping on the carpets. And, and he actually took me a while to realize how much this old man gave me trade wisdom and One thing he always, he told me two things that really stuck with me forever. One is, he was always saying this sentence that I understood very, very much later is we're not wealthy enough to buy cheap. To always told us that, like, if you cannot afford something, don't buy it, but don't buy the cheap version of it because it ends up costing you more. And the other one he told me, he said, you know, we are trade people, right? We buy and we sell. And he said, always, always remember something. Always sell higher than what you bought for. And that sounds like so basic stupid knowledge, but so many, many, many times in my life I didn't do it and I end up paying the price. Yeah. And that's like when I, when I started the, I call it the grind. The, the years after the global financials financing crisis, after having to fire 75% of my company and people who are my friends, like, like my, they were my family, these people. So going through the, the ment. That and like surviving that, I said, you know what, let's do something a little bit different. Let's see what our revenues are and be sure our, our costs are less than my revenue. Not thinking like, oh, if I invest that now, then in a year I'll get that. No, no, like, this is your, this is your top line. Now let's make sure our bottom line is below that. And I do that a lot with my client. It's super basic, but lots of clients don't do that. They're like, okay, we kind of break even, but we're investing for the future. Yeah, good. Invest for the future. But in the meantime, be sure your, your bottom line is actually below your top line. Sometimes it's that simple.

Travis (11:15)

Yeah. Yeah. Because you want to, you want to think about the future and you want to invest in the future. But the bottom line is if there's no bottom line, then there's no future. You can't keep the doors open to reap the rewards of the things that you're investing in long term.

Alexis Sikorski (11:28)

Yeah. And you know the wonderful world of venture capitalists and angel investor and pre seed money. And seed money and series F financing gave lots of entrepreneurs the false idea that raising money is actually a commercial success. Raising money, it's actually a commercial failure. Most of the time I'm raising money because my company is not good enough to be profitable. So obviously there are cases where you need raise and you need investment. Sure. When you need investment because you're developing a medtech device that's very complicated or Like a client of mine, your actual business is to send a rocket in space, pick up a satellite and bring it back to earth. Well, the company raised a series F of $450 million, having zero revenue, having spent a total of zero rockets to space. That's a case where, yeah, you do need outside financing. If your business is having the new large language model, probably you need financing, but lots of companies are actually companies that should be bootstrapped, that are out of pure laziness, tend to raise money. And when you raise money to buy Google Ads, you're not raising money, you're paying for your bottom line. And that's not going to work because you're going to do your Google Ads and oh fantastic. The revenue is almost to my cost. Right, because I spent so much in Google Ads. But then when you're done spending your funding, then your revenue goes down. So if you raise money to build an asset, that's fine, but just something as basic as remembering that raising money is a liability on your company. So good accounting, if you have a liability, you need to have an asset. Right, like that, Something that simple.

Travis (13:35)

Yeah, it's easier to raise the money for the company than it is to actually build the sound company that's capable of having a profit.

Alexis Sikorski (13:46)

Well, at least it was until 2016, 2017. Now it's a little more like VCs are a little more careful and try to less like finance less shit than they used to, but it's still possible.

Travis (14:02)

So now you, you know, post $100 million plus exit, you are now helping a lot of growth stage businesses. And then you have your new book Cashing out and in there you introduce this Apex methodology. Can you walk us through the Apex meth? How'd you come up with it? You know, tell us more about that.

Alexis Sikorski (14:21)

Yeah, it's, it's a methodology. It's more like a guideline. Right. It's not a one size fits all methodology, but it's just steps that you should be doing and that you can do yourself most of the time just to, to, to correct yourself. I don't have lots of entrepreneurs. I help a very, very little small group of entrepreneurs because I have very strict criteria when and I only, basically I'm super lucky that I don't need the money anymore. So I only come when I really think I will bring value. If I don't bring value like I, I, I don't do it. So.

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Alexis Sikorski (15:58)

screen it's a small number, but the Apex methodology is basically reminding you to assess your company. Like assess yourself and your company with question like, what do you want? Like as a founder, what's your goal? Is your goal to have a nice yearly revenue and something that will pay for your lifestyle, your vacation, your employ, your children and your family members and being happy with that which is a lifestyle business? Or is your goal to grow your company to an exit? And if you grow your company to an exit, what's your number? What's your target? Are you targeting Are you happy with a hundred million exit or are you targeting a billion dollar exit? Completely different strategies. If you're targeting a billion dollar exit, it's not at all the same as targeting 100 million exit. Question like that. Like do you have the proper numbers on your company? Can tell you most of the time the answer is no. Like are you flying your your plane without a gps? Like do you get your numbers quarterly? To get your numbers quarterly, you fucked. It's too late. Like it's like I'm flying a plane and I overshot my airport by 200 miles too late. What's your unique selling proposal? Are you a me too product or do you have a proper unique selling proposal? How is your unique selling proposal defended? You have IP or you just early in the market? Or like what makes you different and what prevents a competitor to do the exact same thing as you just a little cheaper? I don't know. How happy are your clients? Do you actually measure Your client satisfaction? Or do you sell bullshit questionnaires that end up with a 9 out of 10 for 90% of your customers, which means you're not actually measuring it. Do you actually talk to your customer? Do you sit with your customer and talk stuff like that? Like, are you exhausted? Are you spending lots of time confusing what's urgent with what's important? Do you spend a lot of time in the company? Do you still have time to spend on the company, et cetera. So this assessment phase is actually the most important. Then when you understand your company, you have your target, then you plan your growth, do you grow organically? Do you do M and A? At what time are you going to do your first M and A? Answer to that? Usually way earlier than you think, etc. Etc. Then you have the exaction part, which is usually I bring very little value in that part. If the plan is done, you execute. And that's when I touch base to my client from time to time to see that we are pretty much still in the plan, and obviously we are not. So we reassess the plan and we pivot, et cetera. And then when you're ready, you start the exit. And the exit is a year and a half, two years process. You start by what I call dressing the bride, which is like, make your company private equity ready. So sexy for private equity. What is it they like, what is it they don't like, et cetera. And then you actually build your virtual data room, you build the documentation, you do your due diligence on the private equity, and then you choose a few private equity and et cetera, et cetera.

Travis (19:26)

So, yeah, I'm curious, Alexis, how was the book writing process for you coming from the entrepreneurship world? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Did you feel like I just have to do it in order to get this methodology out? How was that?

Alexis Sikorski (19:40)

I surprisingly, absolutely loved it.

Travis (19:44)

Really?

Alexis Sikorski (19:45)

Keep in mind, keep in mind, it was pre chatgpt. So my publisher actually allocated somebody to help me because I'm, as you certainly can hear, English is not my mother tongue. So writing in English was difficult and I needed help with that. So we had like monthly session with my publisher and going through ideas and like helping me actually writing it. It was very interesting. It was a very nice process. I'm actually in the process of writing the second book right now and it's super that I love doing that.

Travis (20:22)

Nice. That's awesome. What do you enjoy the most now?

Alexis Sikorski (20:25)

A month ago, I took a fly to Lockerbie in Scotland. Well, I took a flight to Glasgow and then two hours driving in the snow to Lockerbie in Scotland to visit a company who invented something absolutely fantastic. So I didn't know what asphalt was. I knew it was something you put on the road and so now I know it's like 85% gravel and 15% polymer and these guys invented a way to transform plastic waste into a polymer for asphalt. It's like it's literally a billion dollar idea that a couple of guys in freaking Lockerbie Scotland had and start a company and developing that thing. And that's what I like the most is working in universe. I really don't know anything about. Like it's the learning, it's meeting. I love founders. Like founders are crazy people, most of them with massive ADHD and super. They're all interesting people. I don't work with all of them very often. Like our collaboration is just a couple of meeting and tell them, listen, I don't, I, I'm not going to bring value to your company, so don't pay me. And I give a few advice. But every time I learn something new and meet, meet someone new, that's what I like.

Travis (21:57)

Alexis, I really appreciate you taking the time to share some of these things with us and spend some time with us today. Where can people go to get more from you and what you're working on?

Alexis Sikorski (22:06)

Find me on. I know I should have call to action and all that stuff prepared, but I suck so much at marketing. Sorry. Find me on LinkedIn. I'm lucky enough that my name John Smith. So if you type my name on LinkedIn, good chance you're going to actually find me and message me on LinkedIn. Just do one thing, please, please tell me your messaging because you heard me from a podcast and mentioned which podcast. Because I get so many messages like I tend, I read them all, I answer to them all. I'm trying not to be rude, but it's difficult to like know exactly where people are coming from.

Travis (22:45)

Absolutely. Alexis Sikorsky over on LinkedIn. That's a L E X I S Alexis Sikorsky. S I K O R S K Y Go check out some of the stuff that Alexis is working on. Pick up a copy of his book. Especially if you are somebody who's operating a business, you're looking for an exit. Go pick up a copy of Cashing out so that you can make sure that you set yourself up for a successful exit like Alexis has been able to do for himself and for all of his clients. Alexis, thank you again for taking the time. I don't take your time for granted. I know you're a busy guy and everybody else tuning in. Remember, money only solves your money problems. But it's easy to solve the rest of your problems with money in the bank. So let's start there. Here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.