Should I Buy the Family Business?

In our latest podcast, the 21 Hats community helps BaLeigh Waldrop think through whether she should buy the family furniture business from her parents.

Good Morning!

Here are today’s highlights:    

• In Asheville: “Closed. This is Katie. Be safe. I will try and contact you when I am able.”

• More than half of America’s exports and imports go through docks where the workers are now on strike.

• At an upscale restaurant in London, most of the staffers have been homeless recently.

• Gleezy, a startup that wants to be the official hot dog of everything, is projecting first-year revenue of $5 million.

THE 21 HATS PODCAST

This week, we bring you another Entrepreneurial Fish Bowl with Chris Hutchinson of Trebuchet Group. As you may remember, this is a virtual exercise where we offer a business owner—or in this case a potential business owner—the opportunity to pose a challenge he or she is facing to a group of owners and entrepreneurs from the 21 Hats community as part of a brainstorming session. In this case, it was BaLeigh Waldrop who explained why she has mixed feelings about buying the Miller Waldrop furniture business that her parents own. As you’ll hear, BaLeigh has some real concerns: the business has been down of late, it’s predominantly brick-and-mortar, and she would have to work out an ownership structure with a younger brother.

• The 21 Hats brainstormers ask a lot of good questions, including whether the business is profitable, whether it’s been paying family members a market wage, and whether it owns the real estate. They also offer a lot of smart suggestions. Plus: it all ends with a very surprising offer from Jay Goltz.

• You can subscribe to the 21 Hats Podcast wherever you get podcasts.