What Is a Calm Company?

Hey. It's Matt. Welcome to Money Lab. I am in the brewery today, and I got a new glycol chiller that I'm testing out, which is much quieter than the previous one. So if you've ever heard my glycol chiller in the background before, I apologize.

Currently, the new one is running and it's a low instead of a high pitch, like, industrial it's much better. Anyway, that's not the point of this podcast. The point of this podcast is to bring your attention to something that, you may not know about, but you may know. It's something that I'm sitting on a bit, and I kinda wanna discuss it. I used to always be very pro the idea of a quote, unquote lifestyle business.

I've I've even written a lifestyle business manifesto that was really popular, and I have a hard time understanding what that actually means. It's like it allows me as a person who owns the business to have a life and not just be ruled by my company. But I don't think that the phrase lifestyle business goes far enough or really captures what I think this idea actually means. But what I wanna bring your attention to is an essay from Justin Jackson, somebody that I know through the Internet, not I've actually never met him in person, but would love to hang out with him. And, I was an early adopter of an early user of Transistor, the company that he runs.

And I just what the what's funny enough, it's the thing you're listening to this podcast. It's what you downloaded this podcast from. So huge fan. And he wrote an essay, and I'm gonna read I'm not gonna read the essay, but the essay is titled, we need more calm companies. I, decided to read this.

I don't read everything just because I don't want information overload, but I thought this one was interesting. I brought it to Steph's attention. She said, oh, yeah. Jason and Caroline have a similar thing. I think they call it a comm business.

Comm company obviously has the alliteration, so I'm a huge fan. It is much better than lifestyle business, and I think his definition is interesting and something I really want, to to embody. So the general sense of this idea is a comm company's purpose is to provide exceptional service to customers while some while simultaneously improving the lives of the people who work there. Now I think a lifestyle business is kinda geared more towards the individual, the solopreneur, if you will. This is geared towards, to me, just just like bigger, larger companies.

And he has a list of attributes or attributes that he thinks is what embodies a comm company. And I kinda wanna go through that list, and I wanna think about it in terms of how this relates to lie a lifestyle business, how this relates to Swim University, and and what I could do to change to perhaps be more of a comm company. Because I think, ultimately, as I as I am 40 now, I have no interest, and I've always said this that I have no interest in growing a very large business. I have no interest in hiring more employees. I would like to just keep it within the, you know, the small family business that we have.

But I, of course, would like to make more money and support and be able to pay us, all 3 of us, just more money, just to be more secure, to kind of secure our futures and perhaps any next of kin along the way. Not for us, maybe for my brother. We'll see. So number 1, com company attribute, and this one is kinda funny, but it does make a lot of sense. Profitable.

So comm companies have a strong financial engine working with good margins. This foundation enables everything else. Really good. That is something that I had with Swim University, and I struggled with when we started to sell our own products, our own physical products where it became a lot more capital demanding. And we still had good margins on those products, but they weren't but because of the cash flow issues, profitable is technically on the books, profitable, but cash flow was always an issue.

And to me, I would go a step further and not just say profitable, but cash flow positive, always cash flow positive. Meaning, it cost you less, way less money to run the company that it does than what you make. Because profitable, you can still make more money, but if all that extra money is being reinvested, then you don't have that extra cash flow. So, yes, when we were selling chemicals, we were profitable on paper, but when it came to having available cash, all that profit just went into buying more product to support the business. So I do think adding a layer of cash flow pod like, adding the phrase cash flow positive, meaning, like, okay.

We spend and I know this is gonna not gonna be different for every comp it's gonna be different for every company, but I do think that there are ways to control this. But if you bring in a $100,000 a month or hell, even $50,000 a month, but it only cost you 25 $1,000 to run the company. That includes, by the way, in my brain, your salary, literally out the door, $25,000 a month to run your company, but you're making 50, that extra 25 at the end of the year just goes to whoever you want. If you're a solopreneur, it all goes to you. If you have a couple people on your team, split it 3 ways or divvy it up however you want, but that's, to me, great.

And that's what I wanna do. Number 2 is purpose. Calm companies have a strong sense of purpose. What are we building this company for? Generally, there's an internal purpose to improve the lives the of the people working here, as an example, and an external purpose to help more creators get their message into the world as an example.

I would say that we have that internal message to improve the lives of the people working here and to generally work less and enjoy life more is, like, kind of my is would like I would like that to be my purpose, my internal purpose. And then our external purpose is kind of it's always been this is we help people take care of their pools. That's it. You know? You know, we we can help go a step further and and save money.

That's what we do. Number 3 is freedom and flexibility. As founders, we build businesses to give us more freedom. A comm company gives team members the flexibility to live well, pursue hobbies, exercise, take breaks, go on trips, and connect with family and friends. And, yes, I think that we already embody that because our our business is calm in that sense.

We work the hours that we need to work during the week to produce the things that we need to produce, to keep the company float and growing. And so, yeah, that's that to me feels like, we did it. Here's another one that's a little tougher, but it's interesting. Number 4 is fun. Calm companies produce more opportunities for fun, like, what if we ran this event, and what if we went on a team retreat in the mountains, or what if we put an Easter egg on our website that plays a silly song?

How about what if we made some fun stickers, etcetera? We don't go on retreats. We I don't I'm I am personally not I don't find that fun. I don't find vacation fun. I find it very stressful, if I'm being honest.

So that wouldn't be a part of it. But, yeah, I've this year, I I've I've talked on this podcast about the idea of super pixels that I got from Glenn Allsopp, and and I think we're trying to incorporate that more into the business. So I'm thinking more about fun for the customer, not necessarily fun for us because, ultimately, I don't want the company to be a source of fun. I don't think it should be. It is a source, it is a source of money that can be used to have fun in our own ways, and I don't wanna dictate that to anybody.

I understand if you have a bigger team and you wanna do team building stuff that you would want to, you know, go on retreats and have more events. I you know, to us, it's like events are not really a thing that we would do. Online events, we're we're we're actually thinking about doing that, and that'll probably be an upcoming episode soon. But, yeah, other than that, I think fun's a tough one, but, yeah, I think, just putting more fun things into the website design, into the user experience, you know, we're built we have an app coming out, so into the app, into the course material, into the packages we send, yes, I am all for that idea. And to be, especially being in a, an industry where literally what we are selling is a gateway to fun.

You know? We are selling, a do it yourself, you know, or a do it yourself path so that you can get your pool set up so that you can have fun with your family and friends. Number 5 is mindful. At a calm company, decisions and commitments are made mindfully. We ask, will this decision make our lives worse, more stressful?

Does it align with our values? Will this commitment add too much weight to our culture? Yeah. I I love this one because this is something that I currently do not do, and I think that sucks. Will this decision make our lives worse?

There are things that I've done that there's decisions that I've made that has certainly made my life worse. One of those decisions was to start selling physical products, specifically chemicals, over the last 3 years that has arguably made my life worse. Now I'm that's being a little hyperbolic. You know, it's not not no no detriment, and it was a fun experiment. But more stress was added to the business, cash flow was was crushed, and I just found it to be very it not not doesn't align with our values.

Our values, really, when you think back to what I said earlier about Swim University is that we help people take care of their pools and save money. And so, yes, selling them chemicals does help them take care of their pool, but, you know, it actually didn't help them save money because we could find those chemicals cheaper elsewhere. And I think that that is a better use of our time than actually making those products and shipping them. That's not our wheelhouse, and that is a, a decision that, again, I enjoyed doing it, learned an absolute ton doing it. But, you know, the lesson that I learned is I will if I do it again, which I'm again, I'm not I'm not opposed to it.

It's just I will take a much different approach. Number 6, and there's only 7, by the way. Number 6 is sustainable growth. Calm companies wanna grow, but at a sustainable pace. Growth should serve a higher purpose.

Ambition is good, but not at the expense of well-being. And, of course, I am guilty of this. I swim University, such an interesting case. When it doesn't matter how hard I push Swim University. And, again, like, I'm super ambitious.

I will work myself to death. It's the type of person who I am or the type of person I am. I I I think the more I push, it doesn't grow any faster. I I don't I I've I've pushed every single thing you could possibly push at the highest level, and it just has a growth path. It just does what it wants to do.

And I'm not you know, look. I I know that that obviously, like, I say that, and a lot of the the biggest factor is me in that case. So I had realized that, like, hey, I might not be doing the right things, but I agree. And so in the last few months, we've been kinda like I well, me personally, I've been kinda scaling back what it is that we do and sort of kinda focusing in on doing one thing but exceptionally well and and and really honing that that one thing that we do, and I think that the needle will move much faster with that. Now, of course, we have the downfall and the issue with Google, but, you know, again, we do one thing.

We do it across multiple platforms. We have one thing to offer, and so there's many ways to get traffic, and we are exploring all of those and doing all of those. So I think honing down, getting more specific, not niching down, by the way. I'm not that's not I don't I'm not advocating that. Although that is kind of what I'm doing because I kinda operate it in both pool and hot tubs, and they are very different niches.

And so they're related, but they're different. And so I am kind of just sort of putting hot tubs on a back burner and just honing sharpening the blade of of pool cares as the main thing that we do. And I think if we do that by by removing a bunch of the not the nonsense and kind of focusing on what works and then just doing the you know, it's you can say it's bare minimum, but it's really just like we're doing this. And if and from the outside, it's like, holy shit. You guys do so much.

And it's like, no. We just do this one thing, but we do it very efficiently. And so and that's all you see. So it looks like we're just, like, everywhere. So that to me is is sustainable.

It's not it's not about ambition. You know? It's it's it's removing, saying no to everything and just saying yes to one thing and pushing and putting everything you got into it. Or as much as you're willing to give it, which if you're good at it, you can really move the needle. Finally, number 7 is calm work environment.

Stress and chaos are replaced you boundaries, I in the last episode, I talked a little bit about how in my house there are boundaries set for work. We always ask, if I wanna talk about business, I have to ask, can I ask about this question about business? And if it if it's yes, then I do it. If it's not, then you no. And and so sometimes with this new kind of approach to working like, truly embodying the thing that I feel like I set out to do, which was I really wanna work less so that I can focus on things to that are more fun to me and more and more fulfilling.

For example, like, SUNY University has always been a fulfilling thing, but it's not the most fun thing to work on. Homebrewing, like me being in the brewery today and working or, like, fixing up my house or improving my house in some way, Those things are, like, they're hobbies and they're fun, and they improve my life. Swim University does the same thing, but if I were to put all of my effort into it, then the other things would suffer, and I wouldn't be as well rounded, I think. And so, you know, limiting myself to a max of 4 hours a a day, 5 days a week for work and and going into those 4 hours and knowing exactly what I have to do, nothing more, nothing less. So it's it's just highly, highly prioritized and, like, just highly leveraged.

I think that is the move. Because today, as a matter of fact, and I've talked about this on the last episode, but today, I've spent 30 minutes 30 minutes in front of a camera reading a teleprompter. Highly leveraged, like, because that is half a month's worth of content in 30 minutes. Now it has to be edited, and there's a bunch of other things that go into it, But for me, that is 30 minutes incredibly well spent. And I know that just the just the act of me being on camera is the best use of my time possible.

That is a calm company. I kinda feel like Justin put tenants to the idea of a lifestyle business. I think the life a lifestyle business is an old school scrappy solopreneur phrase. And, you know, I I and I I recognize that people have lifestyle businesses, but that doesn't because it it really only emphasizes the like like, the lifestyle and not the biz I don't know. It it it feels it feels hard to put in a box.

You know, it could be literally anything. A Kong company with these attributes, it feels a lot easier to look at these 7 attributes and go, okay. I can do all of these things, and and and and I can now have the I now have a benchmark or a goal to achieving a lifestyle business slash calm company. And, again, I do like life I do like calm company because alliteration. So shout out to Justin Jackson.

If you wanna read the article, I highly recommend that you do. You can go to justinjackson.ca /comdashcompany, I believe. No. I mean, I know that's right. I just I didn't know if there was any other thing.

Yeah. That's it. Justinjackson.cacanadian/calmdashcompany. Highly recommended. And I also highly recommend that you follow Justin, and if you're ever gonna start a podcast and you already have one, I recommend transistor.

If you wanna use my affiliate link, I don't you know, you can. It's moneylab.co/transistor, And that's his comm company. Handful of employees, they got big names, but they don't one of the things he had said in that article was, you know, they had they had an opportunity to, you know, snag, I think, a really big podcaster, and I'm paraphrasing here. And they just they and if they had if they had made that decision, they woulda had to have staffed up, and it would have been a lot more stressful, and they decided to just pass. And I was like, oh, man.

That's saying no is, like, such a powerful tool that I I don't use very often, and I need to start using it as I get older. And as I and as I get more clear on what it is that I want to do with the rest of my life and what I wanna do with this company and how I want this company to function or how I want my company to like, where I want it to sit in my life. And I think I'm at a point where it's not all business. It's not you know, I can't just be thinking about business all the time. You know?

There's a lot of other things and hobbies and travel and other things that I wanna do now and you know? So I don't know. Hopefully, that's helpful. Check out the article. And if you have any questions or any ideas, shoot me an email, mad@moneylab.co.

Alright. Bye.