BIO: Chris Kendall is the CEO of the Australian outsourced accounting group Aretex. Aretex helps businesses grow and scale with best-practice accounting, bookkeeping, and real-time access to accurate financial information.
STORY: Chris invested in the idea of a reality TV show piloted around finding baseball players. Chris believed in his friend’s vision and was so caught up in the emotional attachment that he didn’t do any due diligence on the idea.
LEARNING: If you’re going to fail, fail quickly, be honest about the failure, figure out what happened, and then move on to the next step. Don’t underestimate the funding needed to go big time.
“There’s a balance between raising enough money to reduce dilution and raising enough money to ensure you can get to the next hurdle.”
Chris Kendall
Guest profile
Chris Kendall is the CEO of the Australian outsourced accounting group Aretex. Aretex helps businesses grow and scale with best-practice accounting, bookkeeping, and real-time access to accurate financial information.
He is also the host of The Anti-Failure Podcasts, which examine the lessons from failure in business and life that ultimately allow us to succeed.
Worst investment ever
Chris’s worst investment is the one he didn’t make, which was not buying property in the ’90s before he left Australia. His advice to anybody out there is to find a way to get into the property market as early as possible, go through the struggle of pulling together all of the resources you’ve got access to, and put them in a property.
Chris shares one investment he made through passion and emotional attachment. The investment was a reality TV show piloted around finding baseball players. The TV show was created by a friend who envisioned creating a reality show intended to describe how professional athletes look through the ringers to determine where they end up playing a professional sport. The friend had some of the big names in baseball. He needed money to make the pilot, and his friends (including Chris) and family put some money in and gave it a shot. But he couldn’t get the traction to turn it into the TV show that everyone thought it was capable of.
Chris believed in his friend’s vision and was so caught up in the emotional attachment that he didn’t do any due diligence on the idea.
Lessons learned
- When looking at property, ask yourself: Does this appeal to you? Does it meet your immediate needs? Is there an opportunity to leverage that in a growing market?
- There’s a balance between raising enough money to reduce dilution and raising enough money to ensure you can reach the next hurdle.
- If you’re going to fail, fail quickly, be honest about the failure, figure out what happened, and then move on to the next step.
Andrew’s takeaways
- Don’t underestimate the funding needed to go big time.
No.1 goal for the next 12 months
Chris’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to continue working with small business owners and helping clients get the best information they need to run their businesses.
Parting words
“Have the courage to turn up and give your best.”
Chris Kendall
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