A fourteen-week series from OxygenIT

The Accidental Owner.

I spent twenty years building a business that could not run without me. This is the fix, in public, including the parts that are not working yet.

Most business writing arrives after it worked, with the mess edited out. That version teaches you nothing, because the mess is the useful part.

This is fourteen weeks from inside one Christchurch business. Real numbers, including the ones that do not flatter me. A million dollars I never invoiced and could not see. A night in Paris that changed what I wanted and nothing about what I did. A seat I handed over in May, and what happened next, which was not what I expected.

14Issues, every Tuesday
20 yearsOwning the same business
$1m+What the gap cost me
UnfinishedPublished mid-fix, on purpose

The fourteen-week schedule

One issue a week, every Tuesday, with a break over the New Zealand Christmas shutdown. Joining part-way through costs you nothing: subscribe and every issue published so far lands straight away, then the rest as they go out.

#0 - Tue 27 OctI fixed the wrong half. #1 - Tue 3 NovThe toilet in Paris.
#2 - Tue 10 NovThey are adults. #3 - Tue 17 NovThe million I never invoiced.
#4 - Tue 24 NovThe book that exposed me. #5 - Tue 1 DecThe comfortable work.
#6 - Tue 8 DecThe seat I should not sit in. #7 - Tue 15 DecMeet Chris.
Four Tuesdays dark over the Christmas shutdown. Back Tuesday 19 January.
#8 - Tue 19 JanThe pipeline I never had. #9 - Tue 26 JanAccountability is not confrontation.
#10 - Tue 2 FebCost centre or partner. #11 - Tue 9 FebThe rules that lived in my head.
#12 - Tue 16 FebWhat I am still getting wrong. #13 - Tue 23 FebThe business that does not need me.

Who this is for. New Zealand and Australian business owners, directors and partners, roughly 10 to 200 staff. Agencies, consultancies, law, accounting, design, architecture, engineering, trades. And other IT providers. The AI Divide was not written for MSPs. This one is, because most of what went wrong here goes wrong in every small firm that grew out of one person being good at something.

Subscribe and catch up in one click.

Every issue published so far, straight away. Then one a week, one idea, from a business owner in the middle of fixing it rather than one who has finished.

Or read it on LinkedIn instead

No spam. Unsubscribe any time. If you would rather just talk, book a 15 minute call with the founder.

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