Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there. Although I’m not in the club yet and only technically “practicing”, I could only imagine what a feeling it is to have a family and somebody looking up to you each and every day.

I lost my dad about twelve years ago and it was the biggest loss I could ever imagine. Two days before Christmas, he died in my arms of a heart attack. I’ve felt cheated for over a decade of all the missed opportunities I had without him. Him not being there at my wedding, being there for my mom, seeing what Greg & I have built with CROSSNET, and most of all not being there for my future kids. It sucks, it’s life, and it just makes you realize how precious every second we have on Earth is.

So if you’re a father or you’re fortunate enough to still have your parents in your life, give them some extra love today. If you’re pissed off or in a fight with them, be the bigger person and give them a call. Love somebody extra today and hold them close, I promise it’s worth it.

I could write a million words on grief, but instead, I’m going to flip it to something positive and one of my favorite lessons. Although I’m no longer shopping for Father’s Day, this year’s sales have been insane for our brand. We’ve seen a massive demand in shopping and it’s been a massive thanks to our new ads that are crushing it, which include ad headlines in the video. It feels like whitelisting, but its not.

If you’ve been lucky enough to receive some press, it doesn’t need to be something crazy like Forbes, try whipping up a video or photo like this and let me know the results. If you don’t have press, don’t fret. Make a publication up like “Backyard Daily” or “Better Homes & Swim.” Put that imagination to good use.

Help Me, Help You

I’ve been now writing CROSSED Commerce for nearly two years. It’s been one of the most rewarding things in my life seeing thousands of you read this each and every week.

I need some help.

If you enjoy reading this, please forward this or the link below to at least three friends that you think would enjoy it. I’ve built a referral program that will give you free things such as mentorship, CROSSNETS, and early access to new games that we release. Whoever shares the link the most will win a free 1 hour mentorship session next week.

My Biggest Regret

This past Sunday we hosted a 65 person dinner that was one for the ages. I felt like an ant compared to some of these people in the room doing hundreds of millions of dollars. Brands like Dream Pops, Mid Day Squares, Klitsch, True Classics, and Kettle & Fire were all in attendance.

I was able to catch up with my friend Tim Shields who created a company called UBall that we invested into two years ago. We were having an interesting conversation on when is the right time to pay yourself and as a solo founder with cash in the bank, he wanted to wait as long as possible.

I told him this couldn’t be bigger of a mistake. Here’s why:

• Showing zero salary or a low salary to juice up your EBIDTA won’t trick future purchasers. You’ll hear alot of people say they aren’t going to take a salary so they can show more profit. Well guess what, when somebody comes to buy the company they are going to adjust that salary back in because they know nobody is working for free.

• You can’t just keep planning for tomorrow. How many times are you going to tell yourself I’ll get paid when this happens or I’ll take a bigger chunk when I hit this goal. That day is never going to come and you’re going to keep kicking the can down the line. Ask yourself is your inventory paid for? Do you have money for marketing? Have you paid off your debt? If all the answers to those questions are yes and you still have money left over then its time to consider rewarding yourself.

Story Time

Let me tell you a little story about my biggest regret in the past five years. I read a tweet a few weeks ago (I wish I could find it) that has stuck with me now for nearly a month. Essentially it was about a founder who instead of paying themselves, they let the bank account balance just keep stacking. Month over month, the balance continued to rise, without seeing any of the reward hit their bank account.

Then shit happens.

It always does.

iOS issues make advertising more challenging. Containers from China increased from $2500 to $20,000. We go into a recession and people stop spending. You have too many employees on your payroll. You’re overspending.

However, you think its okay because you have cash in the bank. Cash that’s supposed to be for a rainy day. NOT for you to piss away because you’re making mistakes and spending like a moron.

One month of bad spending turns into six months, which turns into twelve months. It’s not until the $1,000,000 that you had in savings turns into $150,000 do you finally see the writing on the walls and the “oh shit” moment hits. And guess what? You still didn’t pay yourself!

So where did you go wrong?

• Did your team grow from 5 employees to 18 overnight?

• Are you spending at a 1.2 ROAS instead of the required profitable 3.3?

• Are you wasting money on events & promotions that just “feel good”?

• Does your assistant have an assistant?

• Are you careless product seeding to “influencers” and spending wreckless money on influencer marketing?

Well this all happened to CROSSNET sadly. And we were blinded by the profits from previous years to see it going down right in front of our face.

Had we taken the profits from our amazing COVID years and rocket launch success we would have much more easily identified these problems and ripped off the bandaid that much sooner. It’s much easier to see you have a problem when you see your bank balance go from $100k to $20k, and you have your back against the wall, then when you feel like a trust fund kid for the first time in your life and have a million dollars chilling.

You work hard every day. If things are good. Pay yourself. You never know when the hell you can again.

Sincerely,

Somebody Still Chasing His First Big Bag

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