Reflections on founder dependency, business succession, and building businesses that don't depend on one person.
A crew in their 60s. One young worker. Three departures in a week. A story about the workforce crisis hiding in plain sight across the trades.
A controller who never missed a day. A retirement question left unanswered. A lesson about the dependency that hides in plain sight.
A phone buzz. A lukewarm sandwich. A simple, one-hour test of whether your business can operate without you, and what it reveals if you can't pass it.
A 1am text on vacation. A promise to slow down "in a year or two." A truth most business owners in the trades never quite get around to facing, until it's too late to plan for what comes next.