Frank Greeff on Bootstrapping to a $180M Exit

Boa host0:00
Today we're going to be learning from Frank, who is an incredible business owner. In fact, I'm just going to roll straight in and kick off this event now. In fact, Frank, he was actually a chef. Which restaurant were you doing your chef apprenticeship at?

Frank Greeff0:15
At Bathers Pavilion. So it's like a fine dining restaurant. In Mosman? Yeah, in Balmoral.

Boa host0:19
So he was a chef in Balmoral, and then one day he just decided, you know what, I'm going to get into business. So he opened up, he partnered up with his two brothers to open a real estate sign— signage business. That business then changed and became a real estate technology marketing company. He then grew that business at Realbase to 50 staff. They then merged with their biggest competitor, which made Frank the CEO of a 400-person company. And they then sold to Domain 2 years ago?

Frank Greeff0:51
2 years ago, yeah.

Boa host0:52
They then sold to Domain 2 years ago for $180 million. And they did that, which is the topic of today's conversation, without raising $1 in capital. They did it bootstrapped. And that is very much gonna be the focus of today's conversation. So Frank, thank you so much for being here.

Frank Greeff1:08
My pleasure. Thanks everybody for joining. And just to echo that, I think the biggest value for everybody here today, I hope, is the ability for the Q&A. I love that 'cause what I can do then is, you know, I try my best not to be self-glorious here. I'm not really here to just tell my story, but it's more like how can I actually help other businesses? And by having questions that are contextualised to you and then see, you know, how I might help you think about something. I think that is better for the audience overall. So do not hesitate.

Boa host1:37
Yeah. So I'm going to keep my questions short then. But so let's start with the start because like I said, you were a chef that had no business experience. In fact, I read in your AFR article that you didn't have any business network either. Your friends mostly were in trades or architects, things like that. Engineers, sorry. So what actually inspired you to go from, you know what, I've got a full-time job, I got a good job actually, to I'm gonna open up a signage business for the real estate industry? What inspired you to do that? And what were the biggest challenges you had at that very early stage of the business?

Frank Greeff2:13
Yeah, awesome. So the inspiration, one is abstract and one kind of makes sense. So the first one was I loved cooking. Cooking was my passion. I wanted to do it for my entire life up until that point. And I realised when I was doing it and I was doing it for 3 years and working 60 hours a week and earning about $42,000, you don't have to do your passion 'cause you'll lose your passion. And everybody around me, all the other chefs had kind of completely lost their love for cooking and they were just doing it. And I was like, I don't want that to be me. But the second part, the abstract part was sometimes we have things in our life that happen that make us go, I'm gonna change my life. For me, it was at the time, my girlfriend, now beautiful wife and mother of my son and I broke up. And it was like, okay, I gotta change my way. So I started going to the gym and I was like, I'm gonna go make a business and make heaps of cash.

Boa host3:03
So it was actually, it was actually like a significant life event. Yeah. And so I assume you got back together.

Frank Greeff3:08
Yeah. Like a year, like a year later.

Boa host3:10
But so it was, it was a breakup that almost, it was, yeah, it was a significant life event that almost fueled you to decide I need to do more. I want to do more. Yeah. That's really interesting. And also really honest.

Frank Greeff3:22
Yeah.

Boa host3:22
And now you mentioned prior to the event starting, you mentioned that it took you about 5 years to really feel like you got the business going. Yeah. Now a lot of time people will start freaking out, including myself, like in the first year or the second year, it might not be working how you, you know, how you envisioned, or you might not feel you're as far as you want to get. Can you just talk about that? Talk about your journey in the first 5 years and what obstacles you had to overcome and what perspective you would now look, you would now use to look at a very early stage business?

Frank Greeff3:55
Awesome. So, so let me, I'm a numbers guy and it kind of helps you paint the picture. So year 1 of our business was probably like 100, 150 grand revenue. Year 2 is like 250, year 3 is like 400. And by year 5, we're sitting at around about, I think it was about 920 grand. So it was a reasonable amount of time. And these days, like there's, I don't encounter that many other businesses who do, you know, kind of do that. Slowly. And the reality is the other quote we used to say is like, we're just making this shit up as we go. Like I was 20 years old, my eldest brother was 26. My eldest brother had never had a job. Like he'd always, he was a real estate photographer and his only job was at Domino's prior to that, right? My middle brother was a real estate floor planner and his only job prior to that was Galaxy World, you know, loading tokens. And I was a chef. So we had no idea what we were doing. We had no network. And so the big challenges was really like, What are we doing? Like, how are we doing? So like what we all shared was an ambition, a hunger, a drive, and a willingness to kind of do what it took to get there. But apart from that, it was like, we have no idea. And so the big challenges were those leap of faith moments. You know, it was in the early days, it was, you know, I was on the print machine, I was handling the guillotine. I would go out with my middle brother and we'd go install signboards and we'd come home, we'd do customer support phone calls. And so it's like you get to that moment where you're now making enough money. We're paying ourselves like $50 grand and we did only pay ourselves $50 grand for the first like 7 years of business. But it was like, okay, I now need to go and like, do we find someone, a team member? And what does it look like to have a team member and train them? Like we have no idea. And for example, we hired someone in the signage space. I'm telling this guy what to do. I was a terrible leader. I had no idea what I was doing, but he's double my age. And so it's all of that. That kind of like, you know, you're just kind of finding your feet and figuring it out.

Boa host5:57
I wanna get to the team. So I wanna get to the lessons you learned when you had to hire, but I first wanna just stay on the topic of that first period. So you were only paying yourselves $50 grand a year for, I think you said up to 7 years. And you were doing everything. You were making the signs, selling the signs. You know, do you think that that is an essential part of learning how to be a business owner? Like at the start of your business, earning nothing and doing everything.

Frank Greeff6:25
Yeah.

Boa host6:25
Is that an essential part?

Frank Greeff6:27
I don't know if it's an essential part. I think one of the things I worry about these days, 2024, is people have like, this is the ebook to success, you know, this is the straight line success protocol. The reality is you can, there's so many pathways to get an outcome, to get a successful outcome. And some people could start a business, it's a tech company, they have no technical knowledge and they just find the right people around them.

Boa host6:48
Amazing.

Frank Greeff6:49
For us it was like we had, Because we were bootstrapped, we had to make every single dollar work for us. So therefore there was no other version in our mind, which was, well, you have to do the task, you know? So like, I'm a firm believer in like, you have to know enough about your business. Like, I see the challenge I see with people who raise capital too early is they don't understand what certain parts about their— are about their business. They haven't learned the discipline on how to spend money and what to do appropriately because they don't yet know the detail.

Boa host7:20
So why did you decide not to attempt to raise capital?

Frank Greeff7:23
Honestly, it's because we didn't know there was such a thing. Like, like I'll be really real. Like a lot of the stuff was just like, we didn't know that. Like, I think when we started it was before Instagram. So like you didn't have entrepreneur in your handle because that was really cool. Like we didn't, you know, like it was like my brothers, we joke because it used to be like embarrassing to tell our friends that like, what are you like, you know, they're earning $120 grand and they're an engineer and it's like, what do you do? Like, oh, you install signs. Like, oh, that's adorable. You know what I mean? Like, so it wasn't like a badge of honor. That's so so cool. So we just didn't know. And like we didn't have network, so we didn't really know there was such a thing as raising capital. We just thought business was like fundamental, is like you earn and then you've gotta spend less than you earn, which creates profit. And then you use your profit to spend more to grow. And like, that's, we didn't think there was another pathway.

Boa host8:09
So you took the business with no capital to selling for $180 million.

Audience member8:13
Yeah.

Boa host8:14
What did you learn? So what were the lessons in terms, if you could share with, with us, and how to not need to raise capital and end up with a successful business. What were some of the best, the most important lessons you learned on that journey?

Frank Greeff8:28
Yeah, perfect. So here's one that I've been tossing around in my head at the moment is, um, because I'm working with a lot of, um, you know, scaling up businesses and I, and I've been seeing a lot of the same kind of thing. I see a lot of businesses that are focusing on capital raise as almost their, like, their predominant activity as a business, and they think about it that you need it from a seed round or a pre-seed round, etc., etc., etc. I have the view that until you know how to handle, spend, and stretch a dollar, that's probably not your first focus point. So I think the discipline of understanding how to utilise money to get the most out of it, that should actually be your focus. Because sometimes what we can do, you know, we've got all these great examples in Australia like, uh, you know, the Milk Run that gets like $50 million poured on it, and like $80 million, right? And so what are they doing? We're getting the best office. We're spending all of these unnecessary expenses because why? 'Cause it's not my money. So like when you start and if you have this like, okay, I'm using, you know, I've saved up 50 grand or our case was we didn't have money, right? So I had DJ decks. I had a budding career as wanting to be a DJ. So I sold my DJ decks for 2.5 grand. My brother had a credit card for 10 grand. That was our capital. And so you just like, I had to figure out how to make that work. And so, you know, We probably could have gone even bigger and further had we raised capital later, but at least we learned the principle on how to get the most out of your dollars.

Boa host9:53
So really what you're saying though is, is like, it's just kind of focus on traditional business. Yes. Business 101, which is bring in more than you let out.

Frank Greeff10:01
Correct.

Boa host10:02
And once you do that, I mean, you can look to raise capital to expand on that. Yes. To bring more in. Correct. But realistically, the first thing you should be doing is actually building an independently sufficient business.

Frank Greeff10:14
Correct.

Boa host10:15
Regardless of its size. Is that correct?

Audience member10:17
Yeah.

Frank Greeff10:17
And because what you're doing there is proving that this is real, right? So like if you give $50 million, you can make a business look real from the outskirts. You know, we have a great version of this in the property tech space where we had a business called Different and it was property management done differently. And now it's so different that their $50 million of raised capital is gone into receivership, right? So it doesn't exist. And it's because from the out, like from the outside in, it looks like you're doing an incredible thing, but actually, The money is creating the perception, but there is nothing fundamental about it that's working.

Boa host10:51
Now you did change your business model at one point. So you went from signage to marketing technology. Is that because, so first of all, I wanna talk about like pivoting a business. So people might, you know, we might have businesses and we might think it's not working. I need to change, which is perfectly fine and normal. And in your case, Brilliantly. Yeah. And can you talk about what led you to believe you had to make a change, um, and about that experience and lessons learned in that process?

Frank Greeff11:22
For sure. So, so, um, this really interesting way to look at business, um, which I've seen over and over again, and it's kind of like reverse engineering what we did but without realizing, um, especially in the tech world. So people will think about a problem from a tech solution and they'll go and build the solution. But they don't yet know the market, the true problem that they're solving. They're building it based on their perception of the problem. If you start from the process of becoming a services-based entity— so I'm working with a company at the moment called Relume, which is now a 50,000 users, and Relume has a design and component library for web developers. You punch in a few ChatGPT things and it builds out a website. How do they get there? Very cool. How do they get there? Well, they started a website agency, they figured out the pain points of actually doing the process, and then when they thought about a problem to solve, they know it's a real problem. So same for us. We were a signage company and a brochure company. We intimately understood the problems that it was to be those companies. So over the course of 5 years, we understand the logistical nightmare that it was, the working with real estate agencies and the inefficiencies that having an email back and forth was. So we saw all the problems. So then the solution became really obvious. So I think about, you know, some people like, I wanna start a tech company. And it's like, okay, if you truly don't know the problem, way you can look at that in reverse, which is like, I'm gonna— I want to start a company kind of in this sector. Is there a services-based business I can do that doesn't require raising capital? Because a services-based business is quite simple in terms of get a customer, you've got a gross profit margin that works, and you can provide the service, and you can roll, and you can roll and roll. And through that service, you can figure out the inefficiencies, right? So I think, I think that is, that is simply how and why we did it, is because we saw, okay, Wait, right now we can get to, let's say, I think we were doing something like 50 signboards a week. And we were like, I bet you other signboard companies have the same problem we do. And I bet you other printers have the same problem we do. And I know other real estate agents have the problem connecting with these people. What if we created a platform that made it easy for the suppliers and easy for the agents? And so we were kind of solving our own problem. And so we were like, worst case scenario, we're gonna make our business more efficient and we'll be an incredible signage company. Best case scenario, we now have the ability to scale and leverage technology, which means, you know, by the end there we had 46% market share across Australia and New Zealand. So 1 in every 2 properties that sold in Australia and New Zealand came through our business. In New Zealand it was even better, it was 85% of the market used our platform.

Boa host13:53
Wow. Well, I just think that's a really great lesson to touch on though, is that, you know, often you can start with a more traditional business or just start in a particular industry. Yes. Realise there is a, there's an issue in this industry, or that I have an issue in this industry. And well, I mean, it doesn't have to be tech or digital, but you can then solve that industry issue that you're already in and experiencing. I really, I really love that.

Frank Greeff14:18
And can I have an overlay quickly?

Boa host14:19
Yeah, please.

Frank Greeff14:20
And so, and to your point there, it doesn't have to be about tech, is like, I'm, I'm quite commercial in my brain where I don't get too precious around, I, you know, I want to sell this product or this thing in this particular industry. It's like, it's more like the, the product or business is the vehicle, um, and it doesn't kind of matter how it shapes and changes. So if anybody's heard the storey around Slack, if anybody's used Slack, um, Slack was going for 4 years. Slack was a video game company, and what they had built internally is a use, a way to communicate to one another easily. And after 4 years, they realised the video company wasn't doing anything, but hey, this chatbot is pretty cool, this chat function. And so They then credit Slack, which is a multi-billion dollar company, right? So, if you put yourself in the prime position, which is, okay, I want to create a business, I maybe wanna be in the sector, and you start having business problems and challenges, you don't get too precious about the individual vehicle, but now you're in a prime position to find the right vehicle to get to where you wanna go.

Boa host15:20
Yeah, I completely agree. I actually think the lesson there is just starting is the most important part.

Audience member15:24
Correct.

Boa host15:25
'Cause once you're in the game, business is like a river. You're just following the path that leads you to the ocean or wherever you're going. But, you know, it's not straight. Like you are pivoting, you may change product, you may change your brand. You like, change is normal as long as the change is leading you further down the track. 100%. Someone actually said to me the other day that business is a marathon, not a sprint. And I really liked that. Now you did a big merger. Yep. And you remain CEO. Now a lot of people are looking for co-founders or companies to partner with to expand. What did you learn regarding partnership through that merger process that you could share?

Frank Greeff16:06
Ooh, okay, so I'll just contextualise it for everybody. The merger, we merged with an incumbent business. So the business had been around for 20 years. We had been around, our technology had been around for 4 years at the time. We were doing $4.5 million revenue. They were doing $37 million revenue. So the CEO approached me because I'd stolen 30% of his market share. I was a sales team of one. And so I was kind of known in the industry. And so he said, hey, I'm looking for Frank. Um, and I said to him, great, it's a 50/50 merger if we're going to do this, right? So it's a— there was 8 times the size, but I was able to negotiate a 50/50 merger. So why do I say that? Because the first lesson I learned is around leverage for a negotiation for a partnership. We had put ourselves in this prime position where we didn't need this. We were on our own trajectory. And so when it comes to like partnering with other businesses or looking for a co-founder, The problem I see people do is they find one person, whether it be a co-founder or a new client, a person that's gonna purchase their business, they put all their eggs in that basket. I've recently had a person approach me, wanted me to be the CEO of his company and take it to sale, 'cause he just missed out on a sale for a really big business for $350 million bucks. And he went through a 2.5-year due diligence for that and it fell through. What's the problem? You only had one party in there. And so you're beholden to that party. So I think when it comes to being able to pull off big executional negotiation, you need to give yourself optionality. It's the same thing I tell whether it's a team member looking for a new job. If you only have this one potential job and you're— and like now it comes time to negotiate your salary, you're in a really weak position. Yeah. So if you give yourself options, you'll kind of ooze the confidence and it gives you a really strong standpoint. So when I sat there in front of the CEO, I'm like, I'm really confident, like, if this doesn't happen, I'm going to move on with my life. I'm going to go back to the office and we'll keep going. So that's like the first thing is like, basically don't just—

Boa host18:00
don't, don't start until you've found multiple options. Yeah.

Audience member18:03
Are possible.

Boa host18:04
Yes.

Frank Greeff18:04
And even let's say you have, let's say you have like the perfect looking co-founder that comes to you. Okay, great. Now, you know, now you're starting to think about, okay, I should have a co-founder. Let me tease out the other options. Let me think about other things and see things from a different viewpoint. Even if the end result is this is the right person. It's just give yourself that optionality, I think, is a much better, much more strengthened position.

Boa host18:28
It's also a cooling off period in your brain because sometimes you can get really excited.

Frank Greeff18:31
It's like, oh my God, this person's perfect, or this company's perfect. That's my fault. Yeah.

Boa host18:36
But it's like, like, yeah, but it's like anything. Like, I'm buying a house right now. Every time I see a house, I love it.

Frank Greeff18:42
That's the house. Yeah.

Boa host18:42
But like, you give yourself 3 days, you're like, okay, wait a second, there are other options. This is the thing. Like, That's the same with choosing a partnership. So having options is essential.

Frank Greeff18:52
So that was part 1. Part 2 around that is, um, here's what I did wrong and here's what I should have done better. Um, and luckily it turned out really great, is I didn't spend enough time, um, kind of vetting the individuals that I'm getting into business with. Now it turned out great, it was an amazing outcome, but I think about things from, you know, there is a— there's effort, there's energy, there's all these things, but there's also luck and there's also timing. And I think, you know, that outcome being incredible. There's definitely parts of luck and definitely parts of timing because, you know, let's say I, I did almost no due diligence on them as individuals. Let's say they turned out to be absolute psychopaths. It could be a very different story. I'm not here, I'm back at home, like, you know, I'm still, I'm still in my apartment, I'm driving my Toyota Yaris, right? Like, it's a very different story. Um, so these days when I go, like, you know, for that potential person who approached me, I'm like We spent 7 hours together in his area. I want to know about the friends and family. I want to go to dinner with the family. Like, if you're going into a business partnership, like a co-founding experience, like it is the same as a marriage in a lot of degrees, except for hopefully you're not sharing a bed, right? And so like you have to take this degree of like, this is really serious and it's for a long term. Or even for investors, I find a problem with a lot of people is they'll do investors and they'll, they're desperate for that check. But they're not like, put myself in the shoes of 5 years today. What does it feel like to still be with this investor?

Boa host20:16
Well, I guess also the lesson there is never act out of desperation. So just because they're the only person willing to give you a cheque or only person willing to partner with you doesn't mean it's worth actually partnering with them. You know, hold back, wait through. And would you recommend people trial, like do trial periods? So like if you were finding a co-founder or a partnership company, is it like, why don't you just work with us first? Or like, just try to create a period of let's just see if we actually get along? 100%.

Frank Greeff20:40
And have the hard conversations now. So like part of my process now when it comes to like deciding on the next opportunity is I'm going, okay, let's pretend this happens, you know, the world explodes, you're ready to exit, I'm not ready to exit. Like, what does that look like? And you prepare for that worst-case scenario. Now we just like mentally map it out and then we put in the box and hopefully never open it up, but at least we've teased it out.

Audience member21:02
Yeah.

Frank Greeff21:02
Or, you know, a question I always ask when it comes to like a, you know, potential new partnership is like, you know, What are your non-negotiables? So if we, if we go into this and you see, you know, let's say, you know, you will not work past 30 hours a week. Far out. I'd much rather know that now or later. Or like, what's your expectation? Like having those difficult conversations upfront. And that goes beyond partnership. Like that's how I think about from a sales perspective too, is like a lot of people will wait for the objection. I want to run at the objection because I want to solve for it there. Cause it's so much easier before you've got signed documentations, before you're entangled in a business. It's so much easier to solve for in a conversation conversation and just move on.

Audience member21:40
Yeah.

Boa host21:41
I just wanted to go back. You said like working 30 hours a week, whatever.

Audience member21:44
Yeah.

Boa host21:45
How hard did you work at the start? How much work was required?

Frank Greeff21:50
I think about things in seasons. So, so this is again where I start to, I question, you know, what's happening out there in the, in the social media space. There's people with the hustle mentality culture, you know, it's, it's 90 hours a week, just eat, sleep, breathe business, do nothing else. Great. Good on you, champ. There's people who are like, it's a 4-hour work week. Great. Good on you, champ. I'm just like, The reality is things are gonna be tough in certain seasons and then the seasons will come where things are not as tough. And so in the early days I would, you know, and like, let me just go in like an hourly front. Like my version is I know my brain isn't very good past 6:00 PM. I know that I wanna be fully present for my wife and now my son past 6:00 PM. So I pretty much, I'd say 90% of my business was a hard cutoff at 6:00 PM, right? And then I like, after year 2 or 3, I realised I gotta remove Slack. I gotta not open up emails 'cause it's taking up cognitive load.

Boa host22:44
And that stress, like you start thinking about work when you're at home and then you start going to work mode, you start getting angry or whatever.

Frank Greeff22:51
Those are, to your point, the sprint and the marathon. Like that's the difference here is like you're going through periods of sprinting, but I need to have periods where like, if I want the longevity here, I can't stay in a place of burnout. Now there is gonna be someone who can work more effectively than me for 75 hours a week and they can keep doing it for 20 years. Elon Musk, amazing. But that's not me. That's like my individualism. Like I can't do that. But when those seasons came, I would instead be at my desk earlier. So that might be 5 AM.

Boa host23:16
I completely agree. In fact, I actually say to the team, um, um, all the time, it's, it's about— see, I even use the word seasons. It's like some periods you have to work super hard, but when you don't have to work super hard, also do that too because you need the break. It's, it's a wave, it's not consistent.

Frank Greeff23:32
And last overlay I'll add there because it's super important is like time does not matter. So like I used to say really clearly to my team in the business I will not celebrate you working past 6:00 PM. That is not, there's not a celebration here in this business. What I celebrate is outcomes. And if you can do that in the most optimised amount of time possible, that is where I celebrate the most. So like the reality is you can work 90 hours a week, but you can have ineffective work. You can be pottering around. Or for me, when my energy was low, I was like doubling up with reading the same thing or having shittier conversations. I don't care about that. Like, what is it like? What is it like? So I always think about like, how do I stack things so that I could do 7 hours, but those 7 hours could be like incredibly efficient and have impact. Cause like that's what I've learned now, like post-exit here is I go like, I can do things that I did previously that might take me 2 years by knowing the right people, having the right conversations. And in a few conversations, everything changes. So here's one last overlay to that is like you learn through the process of selling a business that all of the shit doesn't matter. It's about like, it's about how you spend that time. So let me give you an example. During the sale, the price that was getting tossed around was $140 million. Through about 5 to 7 different negotiations, I got it from $140 to $180 million. The business didn't change. The fundamentals didn't change. So you could be like, oh, but you didn't work 90 hours a week. It didn't matter because in 10 hours I could create $40 million uplift in business enterprise value. Value. That's what matters.

Audience member25:03
Yep.

Boa host25:04
Outcome. Outcome. Outcome.

Frank Greeff25:06
Not the time.

Boa host25:07
We will jump to questions because we have a few. And Jess, do you want to ask? Jess Wattman, would you like to ask?

Frank Greeff25:12
Hello, Jess.

Boa host25:14
Jess asked, looking back, do you think you would have raised capital to fast-track your growth? Great question.

Frank Greeff25:20
Really good question. I wouldn't, I wouldn't change a thing, Jess, in that context. Why? Because I find, Once we've done something, we know all the data and all the points on that particular item, but we don't know the sliding doors moment to make a different decision. So I think about the same thing as both when people have regrets, they go, I wish I did this thing. And the reason they're doing that is because they know all the data points on this item, but this item is all blue sky. So they go, I wish I did that. But you don't know if that outcome was like, hey, if you did that, actually got killed in a car crash.

Boa host25:50
You don't know.

Frank Greeff25:51
So therefore don't worry about regretting about it. But here's the more important question is, what would I do today? So my next business venture, the probability of me raising capital is like 90%.

Boa host26:02
Why?

Frank Greeff26:03
So I think about it like this. I've learned the lessons and principles that it takes to stretch a dollar. So I know that if someone puts $4 million in my bank, I will not spend it stupidly. I understand that the reality of raising capital is, is an ability to grow faster, but also it's beyond that. So I think a lot of people think about raising capital as a purely check-based system is, here's your money, go. I think about it way differently, which is the person you're raising capital from could be the difference between success and failure without their dollars. So for example, Sequoia Capital in America has $10 trillion— sorry, $3.5 trillion of the $10 trillion of the S&P 500. When you get the stamp of Sequoia Capital, your business is set up for success forever, right? Now we have versions of that in Australia, it's like the Blackbird stamp. The, the, the person you're raising capital from can give you a lot more than just the money. It's the connective tissue. So, you know, I know a guy called David Chan from OIF Ventures. You know, David built a company, sold it for $1 billion. And when a person comes to him and goes, hey, I would love to have ANZ Bank as a customer, he goes, oh, no worries, I got the CTO, picks up the phone, calls them. Now the $50 grand you put in your bank, that didn't really matter, but the million dollar deal that David can help you get the phone call to, that's what matters. So that's how I think about it. Like, as I think about the next thing in raising capital, I'm like, okay, this sector I'm in, What's the strategic person that can get me to the outcome and has the cash?

Boa host27:28
It's not, yeah, it's not really the capital. It's actually the person and their network.

Frank Greeff27:32
Correct.

Boa host27:33
Jessica Turnbull. Hey, Brent.

Audience member27:35
Thank you for being so open and generous with your time.

Frank Greeff27:39
No worries.

Audience member27:39
Can you tell us, did you always open to sell or was that a decision that you made along the way? Were you scaling from the beginning knowing that was the end goal?

Frank Greeff27:49
Yeah, really good question. The answer would be no. So I think, I think if you ask me, Frank, look into your future 20 years from today, you still in the real estate marketing industry? I would say no, but I didn't, we didn't exactly know that we're gonna be selling at a particular timing. I think it's really interesting. I think part of our success was our enthusiasm and passion for what we were doing. And I think if you have a mindset that I'm gonna be selling shortly, it's hard to have to kind of ooze that confidence to your customers, to your clients, to make you a really attractive business. So I think you should always think about things around like, okay, how do I have a business that's optimised that it can be sold, but not always thinking about the sale, because, because you'll start making strategically very different decisions if you're thinking about something in a time horizon than you would if you're thinking like from, from a macro lens. So again, like how would I do it today? I would very much do like, here are the things I'm doing to make sure this business can be sold, but I'm not optimising for the sale. 'Cause you make, if you have a sale in mind, you can make short-term decision-making where it's like, you know, it's optimising for costs because you wanna increase your profitability 'cause you wanna increase your sale. Well, you know, if you don't have a sale in that next 2 years, you've now missed out an opportunity to actually grow your company X% over 4 years. Is, right? So I think there's a, there's a bit of a balance to make sure that you're, you're not trapped in that mindset, if that makes sense.

Boa host29:16
It does. I have one more question. Yeah, please.

Audience member29:19
When you started out, Paper Plumber beginnings, you didn't have all the answers.

Frank Greeff29:24
Yes.

Boa host29:24
When did you know that you needed an external influence to raise you up? Great question.

Frank Greeff29:30
So I, I knew from like minute 3 because, because I knew, I knew and I I still know that I know nothing in comparison to what I should know. So, so my version was I didn't have any external people. I had my brothers who pushed me and we pushed each other like on a do better, be harder, like go harder mentality. But that's not super helpful from like a, here's what you do. So like within the probably year 2, I would consume an ungodly amount of content. And so like, I think about mentors from like a digital mentor where I would, I had, I have this, Ferrari red Toyota Yaris at the time was my pride and joy. And every week I would clean it for like 4 hours. It's the cleanest Toyota Yaris you've ever seen. And I would listen to an audiobook around something I needed to, to solve for. So whether that be when I started sales, I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. Who do I need to learn from? Or when it was like when I started to realise like I am a terrible leader, how do I be better? I read a leadership book. So like the learnings was literally from ground zero and carried all the way into today. And only today I'm like doubling down. 'Cause like the more you know, the more you realise you don't know. You know, like I sat down with Toby Pierce last week and I went, wow, like you are like 10 levels above me. I know nothing. And so like, I think, you know, it's just so critical to always push yourself.

Audience member30:52
But what did you do in your business?

Frank Greeff30:54
Did you bring in a manager of sorts?

Boa host30:56
No, no.

Frank Greeff30:57
No, no, we, we, no, no, we, we did, we just like, I played the role of CEO, if you will, from, you know, I can't say day one, 'cause you don't need a CEO, but from year 4 to year 12. So I played that role.

Boa host31:10
And just self-learned.

Frank Greeff31:11
And I had to, yeah, self-learn through other people. So I had this, I had this expectation, like if I expect my business to double every year or every 2 years, then I as an individual need to double every 2 years to remain relevant.

Boa host31:23
Yeah, thank you, Jess.

Audience member31:24
Thanks.

Frank Greeff31:25
No worries.

Boa host31:25
Yovana.

Audience member31:26
Hi, Craig. Thanks, Daniel and Fah, for organising this. My question is about like hiring friends that would have worked with you. I mean, it happens all the time.

Boa host31:38
Yes.

Audience member31:38
But how did you manage that process? Did you hire any friends?

Frank Greeff31:42
Like, how did you say no? You've come to the expert on this one. I have a very— we— that's like all we did in the early days. So it was like I was with my 3 brothers. Me and my middle brother dropped our salaries in half so we could hire my other brother's wife because he didn't want to hire anybody else at the time. We then hired my best friend. We then hired his other great friend. I then hired like my second best friend. And there's so many versions of those that absolutely sucked and so many versions of those that were incredible. So I don't have like a black and white rule like this is right or this is wrong. I think the reality is that you get some benefits of friends and you get some negatives. The benefit is when someone comes to you and you're sitting in a job interview, you know nothing about them and they're gonna, they're gonna curate the storey that you want that you to know about them in an hour. So they're going to give you the right things to say. When you had a friend for 10, 15 years, you know a lot about them. Now that's great, but you haven't worked with them and that's very different. So here's my example. I had, I had one, an amazing friend, um, who came and worked with us. I am much more commercially driven, like my brain is just that way. It's not like a win at all costs, make money at all costs, but like everything in business is, is money, right? So unfortunately we don't talk anymore, right? So like we don't, and like I kind of lost a friendship, which is a total bummer because he was a, he was, um, a groomsman at my wedding and I was a groomsman at his wedding, and we haven't spoken in like 2 years. Uh, didn't end nasty, but it's just like I think the reality of him seeing me in that, uh, that that space and like not realising like I'm telling you what to do but in a nice way, but you're my friend. It's complex. So here's, here's where I think like how do we help on that? It's having the difficult conversations up front. If you can find someone that's not your friend that you think can execute really well, that's probably a priority. If you have a friend that you like, you can, you, you know that they're good at work and good at what they do, which is the ones I try to hire for and you can have those difficult conversations, which is like, hey, let's pretend that it's year 3, um, and you hate it now. Like, what does that look like for our friendship? Or, or, or, you know, let's say in year 2, you know, you're starting to hear people in the company talk negatively about me. Like, what does that look like? And so you play out those scenarios to pre-prepare, um, and that's what I do today. Like, I'm still to this day, like, you know, today me and my brother are looking at our next venture, and in the car I'm like I'm playing these scenarios out because at least I then have enough data points to make a decision.

Boa host34:13
And that's like, so I think like, and it's open, honest communication at the start.

Frank Greeff34:17
And if you've set the foundation of that open, honest communication and then you keep that rigor, then you're in a much better position for it not to crash and burn. I only have one example of where it didn't go well, and I have 6 examples where it went incredibly well. So 2 of those friends I mentioned to you, one ended up with 5% of a company, the other one ended up with 2.5%. They're loving life. They've got houses in the Northern Beaches. Life is good. They're stoked. We're stoked. They're incredible. So I don't think there's a clear yes or no. It's just like, walk with caution.

Audience member34:49
No, that's good advice. Thank you.

Boa host34:51
No worries. Sarah, your question was kind of answered before, but please, you might have another one or you might want to ask it again, but Sarah.

Audience member34:59
Yeah, thank you. Hi, Frank. Thanks a lot for sharing. No worries. So I run a virtual CFO business. This is a topic that comes up a lot with my clients of when to raise capital.

Boa host35:08
Yes.

Audience member35:09
And I have a few clients in tech and you sort of mentioned that example earlier.

Boa host35:13
Yeah.

Audience member35:14
And I'm not opposed to raising it early. And in some of those cases, they really do need to raise it early because the product development stage, yeah, it's heavy investment upfront. I do agree with you though, like not to do it out of desperation. Yeah. Take the first person that's ability to get money. Where I found that worked really well is when they got a partner on board that, you know, they're the ideas person.

Boa host35:34
Yep.

Audience member35:34
Or, you know, maybe the technical person, um, and they brought an investor on board and it's not always giving away equity, you know, different structures.

Boa host35:42
Mm-hmm.

Audience member35:42
Um, but someone on board that, you know, can help them either with the business side or the connections or advice on how to be more strategic about it and sort of understanding the why behind it. As you mentioned before, um, you did answer a little bit of the question earlier on, you know, whether you've sort out advisors along the way. Yeah. But also with your business, did you put sort of strategic plans in place for those, you know, pivot moments or was it more opportunistic?

Frank Greeff36:10
This is where I'm gonna get like really honest. It was opportunistic and that's purely predicated on the idea that we didn't know what we were doing. So like our context, our background is our parents, we came from South Africa, My parents moved 23 times in South Africa. My eldest brother has never lived in, sorry, never went to school for longer than 2 years. We then moved to New Zealand where we lived in 7 different homes and we came to Australia where we moved 4 times. So change was ingrained in our DNA. So we just saw change as completely normal. So we've talked about one pivot today. There's like 10 pivots in our business, but it was just so normal. And I think, you know, I don't think that's the right way to do it. But it's like the honest, that's what we did. So like, I, you know, I was just talking to my brother in the car today about like, here's what I would do differently, which is like pivoting is amazing, but actually spend a little bit more time thinking and then you'll probably need to pivot a little less because you do lose time. You don't want to pivot too many times because you can lose time. And we'd lost a lot of time through these like really quick, big snaps. Now ultimately it worked out great, amazing. But I think if you put a little bit more forethought onto something, it can help you go like, I believe this is the right idea.

Boa host37:23
I also just think that's great evidence that there's no one path to success. Like you can find, like you can know nothing, but you can still, you could, I'm sorry, you can know nothing about business, not have done it for the first time, but you can still find great success. Like it, you know, just if you don't feel guided, you can still do it.

Frank Greeff37:39
It's an attitude thing. I think fundamentally that's the most critical piece is like, do you have the attitude and willingness to keep going and to not give up? That's it.

Boa host37:48
Next question is Rita.

Audience member37:50
Hi, how are you?

Frank Greeff37:51
I'm well.

Audience member37:53
Good, good. Okay, so I've got two questions. One being, what are some bullet point tips to raise capital without funding? And then the second question would be, do you invest in other people's businesses? Nice.

Boa host38:07
Like, do you? Okay.

Frank Greeff38:08
Good question. Love it. So, so how do you raise capital? It's a really good question. I think that there's There's many different things without what?

Boa host38:18
Sorry. Sorry.

Audience member38:20
How do you invest in a business without external funding?

Boa host38:25
What do you mean? What do you do?

Audience member38:26
Sorry.

Frank Greeff38:27
Sorry. So basically, so how do you get access? How do you get access to capital without giving away shares? Without like, is that what you mean? Like how do you get money for your business to be able to—

Boa host38:37
Without selling equity?

Audience member38:40
Yeah. Or whatever tips you would have, bullet point tips basically without external funding to growing Got it, got it, got it, got it.

Frank Greeff38:46
Well, I think this is where, this is like the delineation between what is the type of business you're entering. So if you're entering a tech business, which is like a SaaS product, which is low monthly subscriptions, and it's predicated on the idea that you have to have huge volumes, the reality of those businesses is there's a reason they mostly have funding is because they're incredibly high capital expenditure to build the product. And it takes a long time to get to saturation market penetration. And then it flips and becomes a highly profitable entity. That's why the new world for those is around funding. If you have a services or product-based business, there's like, there's many ways. And I think that, you know, the many ways, let me boil you down for a few bullet points, is like, number one is like, how can you think about things strategically from like, if I can get this client or sell these items, and think about it in a smaller sense that can prove and ultimately sell a few things. Maybe let me actually do this. What is the business you're in? Because then I'm actually contextualising to your business.

Audience member39:50
Okay, so I own Link Your Phone, which is a restaurant marketing agency.

Boa host39:53
Yes.

Audience member39:54
And basically what I'm doing is I'm creating a second company, which is a SaaS company.

Frank Greeff39:59
Yes.

Audience member39:59
Through my experience, there's a software that does not exist in our industry. Yes. To change how we globally work. So Lickephone is funding, yes, basically all the cash investment that I'm building in my— I'm basically investing in myself in the business.

Frank Greeff40:17
Perfect.

Audience member40:18
That's— do I go— so I'm doing the pre-funding stage myself, yep, but then I know that I need to hire, say, with operations, I need to start hiring, I need big money for— big, big money for marketing. I know what needs to be done because I'm a marketing girly, sales girly, Yeah. But then I go, okay, well, if I wanna get to my destination quicker, I'll just keep growing like your phone, making sure I've got enough cash and just spend the money that I've got there and reinvest it back into that. Or do I go, no, I'm gonna go to San Francisco, go to venture capitalists and go as big as Canva. So, you know, so do I.

Boa host40:56
Love it. Yes. Love it.

Frank Greeff40:57
Love it.

Audience member40:57
Okay.

Frank Greeff40:58
That's perfect. So I don't have the best way, but here's how my brain's thinking about it. What you've just described exactly the pathway of our business. We had a services-based business which was very clear and easy to get. New customer equals more money. Our product costs less than the money we sold. The more money we get, the more money we can use to build our tech. So if there's a really clear pathway for you there and you have enough conviction, the reality is when you raise funding, you're slicing away a piece of your pie that could be worth way more later. So if you have enough conviction and it's not going to be a money pit that you're like, I'm not worth it's not worth the risk, then that is a really sound way to build the first product. The reality is each stage, whether it be pre-seed, seed, Series A, each stage you're giving a disproportionate larger piece of the pie away for a much smaller piece of money. So if you can hold off 1 to 2 stages, if you can hold off to the point where you have at least 10 customers paying and you've proven there's product-market fit, you have bought yourself a very significant better valuation without doing that. You know, there's a company at the moment, the largest, um, largest, uh, venture capital in the world in terms of the most active— Antler. 170,000 businesses they invest in globally. They have a process which is 10% of your company for $170 grand, so they're valued at $1.7 million, and it's all about the quantity. That is a little amount of money for 10% of a company if you get to $100 million. Do you know what I mean? Like, they've made $10 million of $170 grand. It's an incredible bet for them. The reason is because 95% of them fail and only 5% go through. The reason I say that is if you have the conviction, if you can prove that the MVP has product-market fit and it's not going to drain the bank account, sell the mortgage, and do all those things, then that is a really clear pathway to build the first part of your product. Secondly, the second item is I think about like— so one of your things was marketing. I think about this thing as a really interesting space at the moment, which is is, um, marketing costs shitloads of cash unless you do it in a different way. So let's take an example of like Better Beer or Prime. Those are fundamentally businesses that those influencers didn't actually make. A business came to those influencers and says, hey, I haven't— I have this beautiful hydration drink, do you want to be the face of it? I will give you a significant amount of equity and you will be my marketing agency. So there's other ways you can think about it where you might go like, is there influencers in the restaurant game Now they're not going to be Logan Pauls, right? But they might be people that can be your— you can be part of your marketing strategy without peeling away a dollar. And so those might be worth more than the $100 grand capital you get because, hey, if you gave away 5-10% to an influencer who shares the same value set as you but now becomes part of the face of this brand that then can then expand it, well, that's a really smart way to not have to go and raise a lot of capital and do a lot of risk. So that's another example.

Boa host43:47
We will have to go to the next question just because we are out of time. And so we'll just do another 2 questions. Sorry.

Frank Greeff43:52
Hopefully that was helpful.

Boa host43:53
But Ben, is that working?

Audience member43:55
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Boa host43:55
We can hear you now.

Audience member43:56
Sweet.

Boa host43:57
Sweet.

Frank Greeff43:58
I guess my question is probably, yeah, so it's just about what gave you the most leverage at the time you went to Merge?

Audience member44:04
Yep.

Frank Greeff44:04
What do you think gave you the most leverage? And then also, I guess, knowing what you know now, is there other things maybe that would give you more leverage? When you go into some negotiations. For sure. So here are the 3 points that gave me leverage. Over the course of 3 years, I'd taken 30% of the market share from this particular company, which meant we were on a steam train of momentum. And so I could extrapolate out in my mind, okay, from 5 years today, they're no longer the number 1 in the space. We are the number 1 space. So what that meant is like, regardless if we do this merger or not, we will get there. And so I now know I do not need this. Second, this is a really interesting one. It's one where my brother said to me, um, do not go to that meeting. So don't go to that merger meeting, you're wasting your time, it will never happen. And if you go there, we expect you to work an hour later tonight. And so in my mind, I said, there is not going to be anything— there's no way this deal happens unless I make the deal so sweet that they cannot say no. So, so I think I think I just had like a— I had like, there's no choice but this to be an amazing, amazing outcome. And the third thing that gave me leverage, I think, is, is that the name or the personal brand I created in the industry. The only reason they walk through that door is because they continuously heard from clients the word Frank. Now the reality is I am not the reason that company was successful. I am part of a puzzle. I'd like to think I was an important part, but it's just because people knew my name. So it was like RealHub was synonymous with Frank because I was the guy in that office for people. And so I think that meant that I had created like, it wasn't like just about a business, it was about this individual. And so the CEO actually, he wanted to work with me and the individuals 'cause he knew there was something special about us as people, which I then met, knew we were one of one. So it wasn't just about merging with another company, you wanted to merge with us and you cannot replicate us. What else could you add as leverage? Um, honestly, it's, it's, it's like, again, we'd be back to optionality. Like, having more— the more options you have now, not stupidly like I have 25,000 options and I've spent all my time doing it, but it's like more, more realistic options you have will just give you more room to go. Like, I, I'm really key on this, like, ideas, like psychological principles, the subconscious things you give away to people without realizing. Like people see your confidence without know— like they don't realize, but they feel it. And I think that, yeah, the optionality gives you that.

Boa host46:32
Awesome. And last question, and sorry, someone might not be on mute, just mute yourself. Last question, and also before I get to it, Bella asked for your top 3 audiobooks you've listened to.

Frank Greeff46:43
Yes.

Boa host46:43
Make a boa post and share them. So Bella, you'll get those. But the last question's gonna be from Richard, who's just next in line.

Frank Greeff46:49
—And I was like, this is a great question. —Just wanted to ask you about your customer acquisition story. —Yes. —Because you've gone from nothing to 30% of the market. —Yes.

Boa host46:59
—So what's the secret sauce, basically?

Frank Greeff47:01
—So no secret source, but it was predicated off this idea. We're in business to business. So it is quite different to business consumer. This is how I thought about the world. The business to business world is a game of influence. So what, if you're in the business to business space, you have an advantage where you know exactly exactly your archetype of customer, you know exactly who they are. They might have content online and you can know a lot about them and you can spend a disproportionate amount of time on them to be able to win them. So some of the versions of my— for me, for that was I had a deal for a company. I was 27 offices in Melbourne. I flew to Melbourne over the course of 4 years. I went to maybe 20 meetings with them and the deal was worth $1 million. But I can think about and invest that time on that business because I know about about them. So the game— why I call it a game of influencers in the business-to-business space— the reality is it's the 80/20 rule. 20% of people in a sector are like the golden shining lights and everybody wants to be them. 80% of them are just the followers. So I spent my time kind of mapping out who was the influencer game, the stepladder that I could play out. And it was really, it was really granular. I had this on the wallpaper of my, of my, um, of my bedroom, and it would be like in a particular market, let's say Northern Beaches, if I got the Cunninghams brand, so I spent all my time on them, the real estate offices around them would follow. Then when I got them, I could then use them as social proof to acquire the next in line, which is Bell Property. And Bell Property had 95 offices. And once Bell Property comes, I can then get all of these ones around them. So I played a really strategic game around influence because I would use the social proof of that particular brand and business to secure more and more and more. And so I think that's what, that's what business to business has a really lucky advantage there is you can kind of map that out and then you can create a really structured process. So like in my cold calling days, when I was with the sales team, I would make like 5 calls in a day and I'd do that 2 days a week. Why? 'Cause I knew exactly who I needed to call. So it wasn't about a game of volume. It was about a game of creating an experience that that person could never forget. Thanks, Richard. That was an awesome question.

Boa host49:07
I wanna thank you all for being here today, for being part of BOA. Such, such an early part of the journey. We hope you enjoyed today and got lots of value for it. Remember, we've built BOA to be your best friend in business, so we hope it becomes that. And thank you all very much. See ya.

Frank Greeff49:23
Thanks, team. Bye.