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Join Mike Shoss, a visionary leader and President of ShossX, as he navigates the dynamic world of holding companies in "HoldCo Strategy Sessions". Each week, Mike delves into the heart of business strategy, sharing invaluable insights from his current ventures: Epilogue, Milton Innovation, and LiteWorker.
In "HoldCo Strategy Sessions", you'll get a front-row seat to weekly updates from these thriving enterprises, gaining a firsthand understanding of the challenges and triumphs of running diverse operations. Mike's reflections offer a rare glimpse into the strategic thinking that drives success in various industries.
Beyond the walls of ShossX, Mike brings you the latest industry trends, analyzing how they impact businesses at a macro and micro level. From emerging technologies to market shifts, "HoldCo Strategy Sessions" keeps you informed and ahead of the curve.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned executive, or just curious about the inner workings of holding companies, "HoldCo Strategy Sessions" offers a unique blend of practical wisdom, strategic insights, and personal anecdotes from one of the industry's leading figures.
Mike Shoss (00:24.846)
Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone to the whole Co strategy sessions podcast. I'm your host, Mike, president of Shossacks and CEO of a light worker. Epilogue consulting group and Milton innovation. I don't know why I pause for dramatic effect there. That was fun. Um, this is the podcast where we go over kind of the recap of events over the past week.
I am recording on Monday the 29th, so not my normal Friday schedule, but I thought I was going to record this one here because some exciting information came in over the weekend, so I wanted to make sure that we captured that in this one as well. So let's hop right into this. So this is for the week of January 22nd to the 28th. I'll do this until yesterday. It was a very kind of low -key week, though at least the start of it was. I guess the latter half was, the start of it was kind of crazy.
So spent a lot of time on the Milton innovation front overall. So Monday was trying to get back about a couple of things. The first one was just trying to close out some new partnerships, which was super exciting. Still can't talk about those, but trying to work with partners to make sure come on board for Milton innovation, trying to make sure that we are aligned for the value that Milton innovation provides and that the brands are going to be receiving on the other end.
So we did spend some time on Monday doing that and that was kind of over the course of that weekend, the 20th and 21st, trying to make sure that all the information was smoothed out. So we'll see how that goes. Very excited about that possibility overall. Just looking at my notes here. On the 22nd, I went for a site visit for a, what is it called, coworking space. You might have seen the vlog down below. I do vlog some of these days.
Just to kind of just you know get a different audience on there. So if you're not subscribed on YouTube I'll make sure to drop that down below just at Mike Shoss But I went to go tour a space overall and I think it's super super intriguing. It's on a Yeah, it's within another business. So There's a business that has a massive space which was previous another business They've converted it into a business center and I think that turning this into a co -working space will actually be super super intriguing overall to be able to
Mike Shoss (02:45.51)
bring that level of information and value to the Milton overall, but more importantly, Halton. It is set up as a business center right now. So it does have a couple of boardrooms, two boardrooms, no, sorry, three offices, a boardroom, and a content creation space, which just surfacing or talking to the clients in the area, that content creation space is actually going to be one of the most valuable things. It seems like there's a lot of need for people to be able to create content, whether it's...
Photoshoots short video live stream stuff like that and this this booth or this area or this this co -working space business center Has the ability to have like a green screen and stuff like that. So it's super nice what they've built They do rolling backdrops and things like that and that would all be included as part of the packaging So it's it's cool to see all that built out and that room is already dedicated that room is already soundproofed all that stuff so offering that as a you know a Service to the clients who want to come into co -working is a nice value add for them
I would put a podcast studio in there as well. One of the, one of the areas I'll say one of the offices I think is set up to be a podcast booth, which is again, another just area for content creation, which I've heard a lot of feedback about, but people wanting to start podcasts or, or want to be able to create audio content. And I think that offering them a booth up to four people is a nice little addition. And one of the rooms is already set up within reason to do that. It would need to be all by all the equipment.
I am talking to a potential partner in this as well to be able to come and sponsor some of the equipment. Again, there'll be a lot of good branding and stuff in there that was spent over the weekend as well, kind of last Friday, Saturday, trying to figure out some of that stuff. So we're going through and back and forth on that capital cost wise. It's going to be expensive to spin up. I'm hoping that going through the capital cost is actually offset by the operating costs and that can make the money back. Fingers crossed, but I'm hoping that we can bring in a partner to be able to offset some of that cost. We'll give some good, you know.
Information and branding to them as well So yeah, we'd go through I want to reconfigure that main space. There's a main space. That's really unutilized right now It's more of a lounge area. I convert that into hot desks. I'd Google meet the whole building stuff like that It's already set up for Wi -Fi. It's already set up for access. It's already set up for all these things that were expenses on our end But trying to convert some of that information or kind of convert this dead areas into
Mike Shoss (05:04.326)
spaces that we can hot desk and things like that is really, really, really, really nice and really, really intriguing to see kind of those pieces. So, uh, tour to coworking space, super nice. Uh, still very early on, we're still looking at other places, trying to do business, uh, making sure it's viable. Uh, I did spend the weekend, the previous weekend, uh, running all the business numbers to make sure that, you know, at what capacity do we break even what capacity do it doesn't make sense. Uh, and if it's needed, I'll go through and do a podcast on kind of the business structure and stuff like that about.
know what percent of this is co -working, what are we bringing in sponsorship wise, stuff like that. I think it'd be kind of good to break that down and have the community understand what goes into behind like building a business like this. So that's that. Spent Monday afternoon going through and doing that. On Tuesday, going through here, just again, look at the notebook, I actually finished this notebook, so I'm onto a new one. So I had to go dig this one out. On Tuesday was spent doing two major things. One, as everyone knows, I'm still...
looking for that right job. I'm going through and looking for full -time roles, looking through to see what's out there, see what's in the market. So I spent the morning kind of prepping for a major interview. As I had a company, I'm not gonna talk about it, but a very major role within the organization. I think it's very good, very strategic, very right up the wheelhouse for kind of what I'm looking for next, ability to work with a great team, the ability to...
kind of have a massive impact in a new space, in a new sector. So very, very awesome overall. So I spent the Friday morning, Tuesday morning going through and prepping for that. Wanted to make sure I brought my A game, feel like I did, have not heard anything yet. But someone was supposed to hear like later this week or no, earlier this week. So we'll see. That's a very, very exciting role. And then I spent the afternoon with a, I'm going to say a client, but maybe not a client from a...
person that works at or used to work at a large organization who has since left and we were brainstorming some Milton innovation ideas. More so just getting on the same page for what we can offer, what we're on the same page about and what clarity section. They have a very large network that they are more than happy to tap for the kind of Milton innovation and what we're doing as well as epilogue. But we want to go through and sort out Milton innovation. So we just want to get the kind of the short term and long term on the same page.
Mike Shoss (07:19.782)
So I went through and just re -articulated my vision and the mission for what Milton Innovation is going to be. Kind of short term, this group of innovators, people who want to push the boundary, people who want to learn about tech, people who want to break into tech, and kind of that longer term vision about being an innovation hub, creating an innovation zone, creating this area that is able to invest in companies, be able to nurture and be able to have investments.
coworking spaces, stuff like that, be able to give back to the community. And that's really the longer term vision. So we went through and just broke that out and broke out, I'm going to say 50 good ideas came out of that as well. Just going through, once you start to articulate and start to brainstorm, you figure out all these new little viable angles. So yeah, going to be able to explore some of them. The first meeting is actually in 24, sorry, 48 hours on the 31st, today is the 29th. So in two days we get to go through and we get to launch our new branding and all that stuff and be able to do all of our new positioning. So very exciting there.
So that was Tuesday afternoon being able to go through and do all that. A lot of good ideas came out of it. I have not had time to action any of them yet. So that's that. Wednesday, I spent the morning in an angel pitch. So just listening to some one of the angels that came and pitched in one of the last updates, we had a deep dive session with them to be able to go through and understand what they're doing. Obviously, like going through an angel pitch, you get 10 minutes to make your business pitch.
And it's you know, is it intriguing or not? Does it is there a market here? Is there value here? Is there all these things? But these deep dive calls are where you go really really deep financials understanding team structures problems things like that so we spent the morning doing that on Wednesday and then I spent Wednesday afternoon going through and Hammering out all the little details that we needed for the meetup So if that was that was really it we're launching a new pricing structure. We're launching a new membership program
Um, we're launching a couple of different things, which I won't talk about yet, cause I want to make sure that the community is aware in 24 or 48 hours. Uh, I want to make sure that they're on board and understand before I come and announce it on the podcast. So next podcast, you'll have all the information. You'll have the new sponsor. You'll have the updated branding. You'll have kind of all these different pieces, the membership model, stuff like that. So all that's locked in, which is great. Uh, one of the biggest things that came out of this is I really, really need to build a content calendar. And that's probably number one thing on my list. Maybe not number one thing on my list this week, but number one thing to do this week.
Mike Shoss (09:42.054)
It's already Monday. So later this week, I guess tomorrow. Yeah, anyways, tomorrow I'm going to go through and build that out. So a lot of just little nuanced things in here trying to make sure that we're on the same page for that. For those who are watching, I just finished notebook number one, onto notebook number two. So there we go. That's that. Thursday, I spent the morning with a client who on the epilogue side who's...
We're going through and trying to raise around so we had a few updates to do. I haven't talked to them since the end of last year. If co -founder was traveling, so we wanted to make sure just decompress and come back to it. A lot of asynchronous work overall. So, you know, we've been in touch. I want to make sure that that's clear. We've been in touch, but this was kind of the first meeting since the new year. So kind of nice to see them kind of see where they're going. They're raising a seed round. So we went through and just recrafted the deck, got all the information out. It's very.
Building a deck for a seed round is very intriguing overall. If you break it apart, it's very simple on how to do it. But a lot of people want to put a lot of information in and I don't blame them, right? You want to be able to convey your business within 15, you know, 15 seconds. And, you know, you got to be able to break it down to who we are, what the problem is, what the solution, what is the traction? Why are we special more than everyone else? Here's how we're going to make money. Here's the team that you need to trust to build it. Here's what we're raising.
That's really the core of like a deck. And we spent a lot of time going through and just refining that and going through and breaking it down. So that was that that. That was awesome to be able to go through and do that. We're going to hopefully finish this the end of this week. So by the second, let's say that deck should be going through and being finished. But we spent a lot of time going through that. And then Thursday was the rest of Thursday was all just consulting stuff that I can't talk about right now. So that's that was my Thursday. Friday was a little bit of a hodgepodge of
everything. I actually finished that day a little bit early. I wanted to take a little bit of a break, but just buttoning up some of the pieces overall, making sure that I had everything in order to go into this next week. Really the maintenance of the maintenance of all the tools, all the companies, making sure that everything is up and running, making sure that Epilogue is bringing in customers. That's the number one thing, making sure that Lightworker is kind of making new posts, having new companies come on board, getting...
Mike Shoss (12:06.69)
Affiliate links kind of all the nitty -gritty behind the scenes the grind stuff was all Friday And then that that really rounds out the week, but for me the week didn't stop on the Friday I actually did some stuff on Saturday and Sunday Saturday, I spent the whole day calculating burn rate for all the organizations If you're watching kind of the world explode around you right now a lot of companies are going through massive layoffs You know 10 10 % of organizations massive organizations are laying people off
And that really sparked something in me about like, hey, we really should, or I really should understand making sure that the burn rate is as low as it can be. Because if I look from any of my lenses of any of these organizations, it's going to be harder to get customers because they're all cutting budgets. It's going to be harder to find a full -time job if I'm going down that market again, because well, no one's hiring or everyone's cutting budgets. It's going to be harder to get sponsors. It's going to be harder than all of these things. It's going be harder to do all of these things.
So let's make sure I understand my pure burn rate. Where can I cut the costs? Where can I get rid of things? What are absolutely necessary? And how do I lower the burn rate as low as I can for the maximum amount of return? So I don't know if I talked about it last podcast, but I actually went out and bought a vlogging camera and a mic setup and all this fun stuff to be able to actually document this process outside of just the podcast. And what I did over the weekend is actually returned all of that. Cause I want to be able to extend the runway as long as I can now.
I still went and bought, if you're watching this, I'm holding up a DJI mic. I still went and bought a mic, but instead of buying the top of the line, I bought the middle of the line, because the Milton Innovation still needs audio. Vlog still needs good audio, all these pieces. But just making sure that the burn rate is as low as it can be for what we're doing. So vlogging cameras now return to extend the runway by, let's just say, months. And be able to extend the runway as long as I can. That's really the goal, is making sure that I know my exact runway.
of how much time do I have left? How much money do I have in the bank? All of these things, because that's what the market's coming down to right now. It's really just watching what's going on and reacting when needed. So I think there's a lot of opportunities to be out there. A lot of businesses are cutting costs. So if you're a service or a provider, you're a consultant that can save the money, I think that's great. It's gonna be a little bit harder to get in the door. There's gonna be probably a little bit more checking, but if you can do those, if you can provide those services, I think that it's a great opportunity to be able to get in there.
Mike Shoss (14:25.488)
But for me, I wanted to make sure I could send the runway as long as I can before I needed to you know Take it alone before I needed to you know to go take another job be able to do all these things So I make sure that I understand what my cutoff date was I made sure that was all locked in so I spent all Saturday going through and doing that And it sucked right like I bought a vlogging camera to be able to document some of the stuff But what I did was return it and I'm just going to be using my iPhone and this kind of mic setup overall With the new with a DJ mic that I just bought
for recording. It wasn't like I wanted a dedicated camera, I want to be able to do other things, but you know, at the end of the day, hard decisions suck, but there was best for all the organizations overall. And then Sunday is I spent time with my co -founder of Lightworker, who is a designer, and him and I went through and finalized all of the final designs for Milton Innovation. I was super, super happy about how they turned out. Overall, the color scheme is correct, like spot on for what I wanted. The meaning behind the logo mark, the ability that...
It's very flexible in the logo mark and I can show this off next podcast if you're gonna watch this or on YouTube, however you're gonna consume this. And I'll make sure that the site is updated and all that stuff as well. But I'm gonna, like all of that was spot on. We've done a whole bunch of revisions. We've done a whole bunch of back and forth and like what he came up with was incredible. It really encapsulates kind of the community aspect, the thought, the what everything for a community that's tech focused. It leans into all of those things. It's flexible, it's malleable.
Like it's all of these pieces and he executed it flawlessly. So that was Sunday. Yeah, that was Sunday the 21st. Uh, no, the 28th to be able to go through and really hammer that out. So big kudos to him overall to be able to get that done. Really, really, really impressed with how that turned out. And that was been kind of what's been going on over the past little while. That was the recap of the week. I don't think I missed anything here. Uh, I got some updates that I'm going to be talking about next time that happened today. Today's Monday. Um, obviously the things that happened. So.
little bit later in the afternoon as you can see by the light of the window and if not you know if you're listening to this it's bright out it's very bright out for Canada that's a little bit strange because daylight savings time normally wake up in the dark so you can tell when it's light out that it's actually daylight hours or actually like mid -afternoon so yeah that was that overall close the book so good overall week next week is going to be awesome kind of leaning into this I got a couple bigger bigger meetings going on again sponsorship stuff
Mike Shoss (16:48.856)
very very excited about the 31st which is coming up for the next Milton innovation. We have a speaker from Shopify who's going to be coming in, who's going to be giving a talk about you know how do you get your customers and stuff like this which would be great which will be recorded. I'll post that in the next meeting as well or the next update as well because we do as part of the package for presenters we make sure that this content is not only you know shot and
done live with the people there, but it's also uploaded and edited and stuff like that to make sure that they have a resource to lean against too. Hence the want to make sure that there's good audio. So that's it. There's a go. There's the quick little update for this across the board. I hope that you find this inspiring. It's not all sunshine and rainbows all the time. This week was a little bit harder to go through. A lot of businesses are cutting back. A lot of businesses are spending less money. A lot of businesses are looking to cut the innovation arm where I generally play.
Looking to cut their R &D, looking to remove all those pieces. So just trying to figure out how do you play in that new world? But you always got to be reactive to what's going on. You got to be proactive and reactive at the same time. And you know, the market will tell you that you're wrong. But you just have to get in. So learning, adjusting as we go. But it is what it is. So, yeah, quick little recap overall. And I appreciate everyone listening, everyone making it to this point. If you would, I would love it if you would subscribe if you're on your favorite podcast platform.
Whether you're watching this or listening to this, I'd very much appreciate those sub numbers going up. And yeah, I will look forward to talking to you guys next time. I hope you have a great rest of your week whenever you're listening to this. I hope it's a great morning, evening, afternoon, as I like to say, happy time zone. And I'll catch you guys in the next one.