Girdley Enterprises, Inc.

Holding company for numerous business interests. Strategies include incubation and acquisition across broad domains from software to real estate to online media.

Chairman and CEO

Scalepath

Scalepath is a leading CEO peer network for small business operators that want to scale themselves and their business. It is the only platform that is both virtual and includes actionable playbooks for the most common problems faced daily by CEOs and their teams.

Chairman and Cofounder

Sea Machines Robotics

Board member, investor and representative for the Geekdom Fund this innovative marine autonomy company.

Board Member

CyberFortress

CyberFortress is a San Antonio-based technology company that is the largest private tech company in San Antonio. It is the backup and restore partner of choice for the MSP cybersecurity framework. I serve as Chairman of the Board for the company.

Chairman

Dura Software

Dura is the Hyper-Niche software company. We are specialists in hyper-niche software products that fit narrow but mission-critical use cases for business customers. We buy software products with no intention to sell and let the owners move on. Sellers know we’ll protect their employees, customers, and reputation. Dura operates 9 businesses currently, Moki, 6Connex, Lane Telecommunications, Vertex Systems, NordicIT and others.

Dry Line Partners

Dry Line Partners is a private equity firm based in San Antonio, TX, formed to acquire middle-market, B2B IT and infrastructure businesses. The CyberFortress business is our first transaction.

Partner and Cofounder

Geekdom Fund

The Geekdom Fund is a venture capital fund that invests in early-stage Internet tech startups at the Seed, Seed+ and pre-seed stage. We are based at the heart of the startup ecosystem in San Antonio, Geekdom, but invest throughout North America.

HireWithNear

A 360 solution to find, hire, onboard, pay, and retain top Latin American talent. Fill open positions in under 21 days.

Board Chair and Cofounder

Alamo Fireworks, Inc.

As CEO, oversaw strategy and operations of multi-state consumer fireworks retailer and wholesaler with over 150 locations.  Hire and manage full-time staff of 25.  Order, select and manage the supply chain for fireworks from China.  Supervised all aspects of business including regulatory compliance, materials handling, governmental relations, marketing, site acquisition and management, legal disputes and go-to-market strategy.  Doubled revenue over five year period from 2006 to 2010.

Chair of the Board (former CEO)

Chili's

Brand Evangelist (Volunteer)

Building beautiful businesses. I’ve spent the last 30 years leading, building, and growing my holding company. 

Entrepreneurship done right makes the world a better place.

My track record of success:
- Employ 600+ people
- Built 12+ businesses across multiple industries
- Audience in the hundreds of thousands
- Chili's & Subaru evangelist (unpaid)

Burberry just set $36 million worth of clothing on fire.
Literally.

Every year, they do a massive purge and burn their unsold inventory.

And I know what you’re thinking: what a nauseating waste.

But here’s the twist—you can blame the government for this one, because they’re actually incentivizing companies to do this.

When companies import luxury goods into the US, they’re hit with a hefty import tax. But if those goods don’t sell, they can get 99% of that money back — if they destroy the products in front of a customs agent.

(Imagine that job—just standing around, supervising bonfires of millions of dollars.)

And it’s not just Burberry. Companies like Nike, GAP, H&M, and Zara do this too.

The fashion industry’s overproduction leads to over $90 billion in waste every year.

So, do we need to rethink what’s happening here?

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Michael Girdley

Business builder and investor. 12+ businesses. 30+ years of experience. 200K+ readers.

My friend paid a recruitment agency $150K to find a CEO for their company.

When I told some of my friends, they were shocked.

But a six-figure finder’s fee is a small price compared to the impact of finding the best candidate.

Here’s why it makes sense:

Say a company makes $50 million annually in revenue.

And the best CEO can make 10% more revenue for the business than a mediocre one.

10% of $50M = $5M extra in revenue.

You just got a 3,333% return on your $150K recruiter fee in the first year alone.

Not to mention what that does for the value of the company.
—
This is why CEOs make so much money – the great ones *really* get paid for bigger businesses.

Their performance directly affects millions in revenue.

So companies are happy to pay top dollar to get the best.

And the bigger the company, the easier that choice gets.

—

Here are some high-flying CEO salary packages out there right now:

Elon Musk – Tesla, Inc.:

Bonus Structure: Musk's compensation is heavily tied to performance milestones. In 2023, he received a pay package valued at $1.4 billion, primarily through stock options contingent on Tesla achieving specific market capitalization and operational targets.

Sundar Pichai – Alphabet Inc. (Google's parent company):

Bonus Structure: In 2023, Pichai's total compensation was $226 million, with the majority stemming from stock awards. His base salary remained at $2 million, while stock awards accounted for approximately $218 million, reflecting the company's performance and shareholder returns.

Tim Cook – Apple Inc.:

Bonus Structure: Cook's 2023 compensation totaled $63.2 million, comprising a $3 million base salary, $46.97 million in stock awards, and a $10.7 million cash bonus. The stock awards are performance-based, contingent on Apple's financial metrics and stock performance.

Pat Gelsinger – Intel Corp.

Bonus Structure: Gelsinger's 2023 compensation totaled $16.7 million, comprising a $1.07 million base salary, $12.43 million in stock awards, and a $2.89 million cash bonus. The stock awards are performance-based, tied to Intel’s financial performance and strategic growth metrics.

A lot of companies use “status” to underpay employees.

But your job title? It means nothing.

Status isn’t something you can spend. It doesn’t:

• Pay your bills
• Help you buy a house
• Feed your family
• Prepare you for retirement

I learned this in my 20s. 

I asked for a raise, and my boss gave me a title change instead.

I walked out all proud of myself… until the penny dropped that I hadn’t gotten anything I wanted.

When you leave a company, your title doesn’t come with you. What comes with you is your experience—and what’s in your bank account.

School teaches us to chase labels: student of the year, master’s degree, doctor…

But as an entrepreneur, it’s about resources: earning money to live better and enjoying your life along the way.

Titles, status, and all the rest? It’s just noise distracting you from what actually matters.

Getting paid.

I’ve used the 5 principles of Effectuation to build 8 companies and employ over 1000 people. 

It’s brought me a ton of success. 

I wish I could say I invented this method. But I was inspired by a super smart business professor and stole most of these ideas from her. 

Here are the 5 principles of Effectuation:

1) Bird in Hand
2) Affordable Loss
3) Lemonade
4) Crazy Quilt
5) Pilot in the Plane

Let’s look at each one.
 
1) The Bird-in-Hand Principle

Successful entrepreneurs don’t try to predict the future. They look at what they have today.

So first, list your resources.

• Who you are (your personality and abilities)
• What you know (your education and skills)
• Who you know (your network and/or audience)

If you’re building a business, use these as your starting point to find viable ideas.

Then get started building something ASAP!
​

2) The Lemonade Principle

Mistakes are inevitable. Embrace them.

And the best mistake is the one you make as fast as possible. Because each piece of bad news or failure steers you away from a path that isn’t working.

Treat every mistake as a gift, and you will learn quickly.
​

3) The Affordable Loss Principle

Each step in Effectuation startup building has bigger “bets” as conviction grows.

You shouldn’t be going all in on anything until you’ve proven a lot of groundwork.

Look at a VC-backed company. They’re often given capital to make a big all-or-nothing bet. It’s super risky for the company!

Notice, though: the VC fund is actually following the affordable loss principle. 

They assume most companies will fail — and that’s why they back so many.

It’s a good deal for them. But it’s not the environment I like to build in.


4) The Crazy Quilt Principle

This is about building the team around you: you should find people whose skills are different than your own.

A team with a “crazy quilt” patchwork of different skills covers way more areas of competence.

The other part of this principle: only choose partners willing to put skin in the game.

If a person or an organization isn’t willing to be all-in, you have no room for them!

Nothing kills momentum faster than half-hearted participation. Everything will grind to a halt.

​
5) The Pilot in the Plane Principle

Focus only on the activities you can control.

You can’t predict the future. And focusing too much on your desired future state can close your eyes to opportunities in the moment.

By staying in the present, you’ll be better prepared to take advantage of great chances when they come up.

And by focusing on the here and now, you create a better tomorrow!

—

To recap, the principles are basically:

• Start with what you can do
• Make small bets
• Rapid mistakes maximize your learning
• Find partners with skin in the game
• Build against the future

Now go forth and build!

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♻️ Please repost to help other entrepreneurs.
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Subway franchise owners have been going bankrupt.

It’s a classic business lesson: unsustainable growth strategies can kill even the strongest brands.

And the $5 footlong deal crushed Subway’s franchisees.

Here’s what happened:

Razor-thin margins on the sandwiches made it nearly impossible for owners to stay profitable, especially as food and labor costs rose. 

Franchisees begged corporate to end the deal. 

But for years, Subway wouldn’t budge. 

They avoided the short-term pain of raising prices, while the business suffered in the long-term.

It couldn’t last forever. 

And after being promised $5 footlongs for years, customers revolted when corporate finally raised prices.

Now, Subway closes more stores than it opens. And today, Subway CEO John Chidsey announced he’s stepping down.

What’s another company that’s fallen from its former glory?

Many entrepreneurs had tough years in 2024 — but they aren’t talking about it. Lots of brave faces.

Friend: "Girdley, how was your year?"

Me: "Pretty horrible all around."

Friend: "Oh, me too, now that you mention it."

Optimism for many in business is at an all-time low. 

Some young entrepreneurs haven’t experienced anything but go-go years.

Talking about it more makes it easier for everyone.

Stuff I miss from the 80s/90s:

* Kids walking over to your friend's house unannounced to hang out. (Today, kids think that's 'weird'.)

* Being out of touch when away from your desk. Today, mobile phones make work follow me everywhere.

* The Mall and movie theatres. The internet killed these for kids.

* Being able to show up at the airport and literally walking onto the plane.

* Being untracked. You get in your car and go somewhere back then, and it's possible nobody on the planet would know where you were.

* John Hughes movies. (ex: some kind of wonderful, breakfast club, etc)

* Finales. Shows like Seinfeld, MASH, Cheers would end with big bangs. Everyone would be talking about them the next day.

* DGAF attitude. If you don't think the world has changed in the past few decades, look up the plot of the 1982 movie "The Toy." You're welcome.

* Saturday morning cartoons. We'd wake up early, get high as hell on sugary cereal, then need a nap.

* Blockbuster. You'd go to the place to rent a movie, they'd be out of it and your mom would make you rent a nature DVD.

* Bob Ross on PBS. Watching that dude paint was a psychedelic experience by itself.

* Fax machines. While a miracle at the time (instant communication?), they were a nightmare including "spam" fax messages.

That's top of mind for me. What did I miss?

Employees have been getting busted for forging emails.

Here’s what’s happening: 

Imagine somebody is a long-time employee.

And they want to look good for their boss, or they want to prove something.

So they go back and change some emails from back in the day.

They doctor some screenshots to show off how they are an A+ employee, tweaking numbers or editing when they sent it.

You can guess what happens, right?

Sooner or later, the bosses (or other people) look into those emails and start discovering the inconsistencies. 

Busted.

Trust is important for any business. And no matter how good it makes you look, forging emails is not the way to get ahead. 

Lies will always catch up with you eventually.

If you own a business and someone hasn't stolen from you, either:

- you haven't owned it for very long.

or

- you haven't found the fraud yet.

Here are a few ways to protect yourself.

Should you fire an employee who’s hit their ceiling?

It’s tough getting stuck with B or C players on your team. 

The trick is deciding if they need a new role, coaching, a nudge, or something else entirely. 

And sometimes finding the right seat for a person can be transformative.

As a manager, your job is to spot these people as early as you can.

And if the answer is showing them the door… don’t drag it out. Just do it. 

What would your advice be for this issue?

Want to teach your kids to win at business?

Try these 5 games:

• Monopoly
• Settlers of Catan
• Poker
• Chess
• Pandemic

Playing board games with your kids is a sneaky way to teach business basics like strategy, negotiation, and resource management.

 It’s also a great way to connect and spend quality time with your family for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Nothing says "family togetherness" like fighting over fake money and a turkey leg.

Any games I’m missing here?

Things I tried:

- Set up a GPU mining operation in my poolhouse to heat my pool
- Bought/sold NFTs
- Sold an NFT for 1 hour of my time for $1,000 (screwed up auction so no money)
- Bought 30 Helium miners and partnered with people to deploy them w/ profit share

I lost money on every single one of those attempts back in 2020-2022.

 It was fun though!

What did make 10x the money?

Buying BTC/Solana/ETH on the open market and selling them on the way up.

With crypto booming again, is there anything I should be looking into?

How many of these is your business at risk of?

I’ve had my own businesses go broke on me. I’ve seen tons of my friends’ businesses go broke on them.

This list highlights the main reasons businesses go belly-up:

1) Variable interest rate debt.

2) Customer concentration.

3) High fixed costs.

4) Litigation liability.

5) Assuming revenue growth.

6) Insufficient safety fund.

7) Health risks.

8) Addiction.

9) Getting robbed.

10) Supplier concentration.

The great thing about being around the block for a while is that you make these mistakes, learn from them, and protect yourself from them in the future.

Are there any I’m missing?

What is the biggest racket? 

This had some great replies on X, curious to see what the LinkedIn community thinks. 

So go ahead, what's the biggest scam of them all?

Help out this SMB owner. What have you got? 

This is a fun topic, and I know people have great questions. 

—

I approach an interview a bit differently, so I wanted to share my perspective here.

I don’t like “trick” or “special” questions or play games like “how do they treat the waitress.” Instead, I spend a lot of time interviewing them about their past behaviors.

From a first-principles standpoint, I’m trying to figure out:

Will this person be a badass or not in this particular role?

Once I feel like I’ve answered that question, I move on to:

Can I predict this person’s future behavior, and does it align with my company goals?

To answer this, I focus on what they’ve done in the past. When I understand their decision-making history, I can decide whether they’re a fit. 

—

I adapted my interviewing technique from the Topgrading system. 

You can get the book for $15 online — or get “Who”, which is a similar system but more readable. 

I highly recommend both!

—

Share this post and we’ll all get dozens of new interview questions to pull inspiration from.

20 books that teach you how to be a CEO:

1. J.K. Lasser’s Small Business Taxes 2022

2. Barron’s Business Law

3. The Effective Executive by Drucker

4. Traction by Gino Wickman

5. Storybrand by Donald Miller

6. Traction by Gabriel Weinberg
(Yep, 2 different books on this list called “Traction”.)

7. 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy

8. Mastering Private Equity: Venture, Growth, and Buyouts

9. The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh

10. The Daily Drucker

11. The Outsiders by Thorndike

12. Understanding Michael Porter

13. Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross

14. Cracking the Sales Management Code by Jason Jordan

15. Corporate Finance for Dummies

16. Corporate Finance: Theory and Practice

17. Financial Statements

18. Double your Profits 

19. Valuation

20. Ready, Fire, Aim

Bonus book: How to Get Rich by Felix Denis

These are my favorites for anyone who wants a solid foundation in running a small business.

If this was helpful...

♻️ Please repost to help other entrepreneurs!

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20 books that teach you how to be a CEO:

There’s something bizarre going on in upstate Michigan.

It’s called the BoyneThunder Poker Run.

A hundred $1M+ speedboats with insane engines race around Lake Michigan collecting playing cards. At the end, whoever has the best poker hand wins. 

One of the strangest things I’ve ever seen in my whole life.

What’s in the water up in Michigan? And what else are they doing up there?

How can I help? (Business, life, whatever.)

LIVE CHAT: How can I help? (Business, life, whatever.)

I'm here to help. AMA or request any topic and I'll do my best to answer. No topic off-limits!

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