Craig M @MrCeranna Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Craig M

@MrCeranna

1,670

Followers

1,174

Following

11

Media

733

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Husband. Twin Dad. Boston native. StL local. Former CFO/COO of several INC 500 Omni Channel brands. Open to F/T & Fractional work.

St. Louis, MO

Joined February 2013

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

8 months

Former CFO/COO BruMate 14 & 71 on Inc 500 growth exceeding 5,320% - Former CFO/COO Levo Oil Inc led 5x top line growth, Denver Fast 50 & Inc #449 - Former CFO Yurbuds Forbes 9th Most Promising Co/America & led acquisition to Harman - Launched ZZP a Time Mag Top 10 Toy of all time

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

I’ve been the CFO/COO for the following growth runs $1m - $75m, $1m - $25m, $30m - $150m, and $0 - $600m and I’m looking for my next challenge. DM me if you know anyone in need.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

@trentjhughes Whether people take PTO or not is a reflection of the culture NOT the policy!!!!

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@KanthanPillay "Just when you think you know something, you have to look at in another way. Even though it may seem silly or wrong, you must try."

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

8 months

@RosserJobs At 44 and 3x CFO still want to be CFO.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@KimDotcom Free speech doesn’t cover purposeful libel, slander, and defamation. You should stick to commenting on matters you know something about free speech is not one of them.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

Listening to DTC guys complain about moving into retail and EDI labels, pallet requirements, and warehouse appointments is pure comedy. I guess generating contribution margin isn’t quite en vogue yet.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

@thatdanmacklin I’ve been traveling to China since 1999. Some years spending 50% of my time there. I echo your sentiments and enjoyed reading this post.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@c_gro No way “all-star” ceos are completing that - you talking to first-timers and guys who don’t even know cpg existed before DTC was even a thing.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

@jspujji Jesse most likely these expenses should not be R&D and simply software development expenses. Happy to have a look but I’d bet that’s the case. Seeing plenty of tax guys get this wrong.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 months

@STLChrisH I find the opposite true. Most that were CEOs at $10m don’t transition from the tactical to the strategic and their business can’t grow any faster than a market or their own personal constraints allow. I see personal constraints in many $50-$100m rev companies. Capital

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@pyrtbilly What’s crazy is that that culture drives over-billing, spread-billing, cross-billing and all kinds of other ways to screw the client and put the “firm” first. Biglaw is a joke.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

Hot Take: Operational CFOs always outperform Banker type CFOs. I might be partial but I am seeing this play out pretty regularly.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

Entrepreneurs should be aware of the nuances between growth and scale. Growth often requires capital support, while scale does not. Sometimes, you have to grow to a certain level to recognize economies of scale. Smart strategies comes when you know what's happening.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 months

@LA_Banker I’ll bet all he knows is “cash is king” and he’s not wrong!

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@Molson_Hart I opened three and sold three - horrible businesses to own unless you are really passionate about it and love hospitality

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

11 months

@ChadCarleton Agree 100%. I haven’t seen anything official but what I’ve heard is 1-15 pounds UPS/Fedex better be ready for a pricing war.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@SMB_Grove @NEXTSTL @stlouisbiz It’s still 4,250 violent crime in a city w less than 300,000 residents. It’s a terrible stat period regardless of direction.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

@shawngorham @STLChrisH @pathfinder17m He’s in the (1) percent and it shows at every consumer touchpoint with his company. Every single touchpoint regardless of service type is first class. The hard yards might have been done by his father but the polish, process, professionalism, staffing, finishing, and scaling

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

Direct to consumer is a methodology of distribution it is not/should not be how you define your company.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@MehtabKarta When you have little to no operating leverage it makes financial leverage extremely hard and that’s really all lower/mid market PE brings to the table.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

This is what a CPG biz COGS setup should look like - do not lump in Other COGS with COGS otherwise you want no where to start when margins are off.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

If you are a "CFO" / "CFO" Service and your monthly financial packet only includes an IS and BS you are NOT a "CFO" / "CFO" Service. You are a bookkeeper. At a minimum a monthly financial packet needs MOM, MOM Change, YOY, YOY change, Budget, % against Budget at a minimum/

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

@collin_ruth89 Comparison is the thief of joy. There will always be someone ahead of you and someone behind you; don’t focus on either and you’ll enjoy your own journey more. Look ahead to learn not compare.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@theericcarlson Stress management is literally a muscle and the more it’s worked the better it responds. That said when I was younger I wish I knew how much lifestyle decisions around eating, fitness, and free time played into keeping that muscle strong.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@SeanEcom Nobody is getting 10x on a company in decline especially at $2M in EBITDA way too small.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@zachmstuck Six months ago I shipped all the DTC lenders who are essentially writing advance and Ampla was by far the cheapest

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

8 months

@zachmstuck I haven’t paid a manufacturing partner faster then Net 60 in over a decade. Any qualified manufacturer has far better financing options than you do.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@EyeforRetail_ Hype is already over. The channels I check are stuffed to the gills w it and it’s collecting dust.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@RegZeller Being in the market myself $350-500k Salary 50-100% of salary in bonus opp 3-7% equity depending on cap structure

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

@jspujji I learned this same lesson 14 angel investments and 3 restaurants later

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

@kevinLcurry Patents are only as good as the money you have to enforce them.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

@lifeofbi @BoF @__rehurek Keyword "seeking"

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@tishaura The major of St. Louis should never tweet anyone anything about “winning”

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

At Yurbuds, we raised $10m across Angel, VC, and PE funding, grew the company from $1m to $75m, and transacted with Harman, which is now Samsung. At the time, we had the #1 market share for sports earphones in the N.A., and we expanded to over 30 countries globally.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@JamesonCamp @LabibYasir The Walmart effect has been the largest but you also have Tyson Chicken and JB Hunt trucking right there as well. The ripple effect of all three and their commitment to the area should be a civics lesson in how to develop a community.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@MattiSchroder ROAS is not a bad measurement - it serves a purpose. The rest of what you are talking about is a complete lack of knowledge of the cost structure of a business. If someone doesn’t know there gross profit or their overhead allocation they shouldn’t be running ads!

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@moizali Rascal and Friends and have been dominating. Everything Nick touches turns to gold. Zuru is a quiet giant.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

@SeanEcom If your a $10m store with any type of significant growth it’s going to be tough to take $500k a year unless your insanely profitable. If for instance your growing from $10m a year to $20m the following year that $500k would be much better suited as working capital.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@theisaacmed @rabahrahil Definitely drop new launches on your site only and have a product life cycle that manages them through other tiers of distribution as new products hit the site.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@DylanLeClair_ Not exactly true. Timing, speed, methodology all play critical factor here. If every depositor showed up at BOA at the same time they’d have a very similar problem to FTX. Secondly banks don’t have actual money….fyi. It’s a ledger.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@STLChrisH You got a customer here on a maintenance plan for HVAC because of it! As well as you me guys just did some plumbing work for us all because I ended up following you.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

This is absolutely one of the greatest biz books ever written.

@kevinleeme

Kevin Lee

9 months

Every year, I re-read The Goal. This book was mandatory reading in my first industrial engineering class in college and it changed my outlook on life. It follows the fictional story of a factory manager who only has a few months to save his failing factory or else it will be

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

6 months

@christankerfund Post $ciss payment looking like $7 cash per share? You are selling puts against that?

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

@jasonlk If 1.5% of $100m fund returned 50% of the fund that fund is going to have a great ROC for all involved unless the other 98.5% of the funds are completely unproductive.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

7 months

@bentigg Bad Debt in some form is a part of every business - it’s just what level. Adding it back to EBITDA sounds like a Wework “adjustment.”

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

8 months

Tax Code is greater than 75,000 pages. If you think taxes are more science than art I can’t help you. Creativity is king and if you work with a tax guy who is black/white find a new one. 5% black, 5% white and 90% gray!

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

Former CFO/COO BruMate, Inc. #14 and #71 on Inc 5000 with growth exceeding 5,320%. Former CFO/COO Levo Oil Inc led 5x top line growth. Levo was Denver Fast 50 and Inc #449 . Former CFO for Yurbuds Forbes 9th Most Promising Co in America and led acquisition to Harman now Samsung.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

10 months

To all the parents out there - there is no substitute for the imaginative play of old school toys. I was in the toy biz 20 years and the old school toys are where it’s at for development especially in 1-8 year olds. The longer you can minimize the screen the better!

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

Product IS king. End of story.

@MehtabKarta

Mehtab | Karta Ventures

4 months

Product is 95% of your business but there's almost 0 discussion about it on Twitter vs media buying techniques that will barely impact most companies. 🧐

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@GerberKawasaki @elonmusk has done his job as CEO and has a rockstar team including exceptional COO and CFO - give the guy a break if he worked $tsla 24/7 the stock would be in the exact same place. Great investors eliminate noise for their CEOs they don’t create it.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@HSRail In relative context to high speed 110 mph ain’t there - when it’s a 2 hour ride people will get excited.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

@NWischoff @beyer71 Gusto 100%

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@Lucaecom With a $65 AOV he must have the greatest product in the world if his product cost is $0.55. Been in CPG 20+ years never seen margins like that.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@SeanEcom @ShinghiD Be very weary of big banks bearing gifts especially those disguised in the way of advice from corporate attorneys and bankers. I’ve been led a stray by the major consumer teams at the major IBs multiple times and when the market shifts they all saybthe same thing “oh you know

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@zachmstuck Better question is why on earth would anyone sell a $10m biz for $3-$5m? If you have a clean cap table and good margins the founder could easily be making $400-500k before any distributions. Sit and weight as long as biz is healthy.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

The absolute first skill a CFO should have is capital allocation. That is numeral uno. Outside technical accounting, forecasting, budgeting, capital markets etc. etc. if you want to be a well regarded CFO you must be a judicious capital allocator.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

If you are interviewing CFOs look far beyond forecasting, budgeting, planning, and risk mitigation - these are table stakes. Look for someone strong on capital allocation, organizational priorities, strategy, innovation champions, disruptive thinkers - this is what will turn

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

Former CFO/COO BruMate 14 & 71 on Inc 500 growth exceeding 5,320% - Former CFO/COO Levo Oil Inc led 5x top line growth, Denver Fast 50 & Inc #449 - Former CFO Yurbuds Forbes 9th Most Promising Co/America & led acquisition to Harman - Launched ZZP a Time Mag Top 10 Toy of all time

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

@lifeofbi Its not really and eCom story. Big Amazon and Big Target but short eCom in comparison to other eCom stories. A $60 AOV is not exactly crushing it in drinkware; you need $100 AOV.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@jbryanporter Congrats. I was Brumate CFO/COO and I was always amazed at your retail presence.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@zachmstuck @mbertulli If your getting any scale on a DTC brand the capital requirements are far more intense then scaling into selling service/time.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@PeteTong2023 @TDogCali51 @chiefskingdon1 @_TraderZero_ @HAMShortkiller You understand what an underwriter does don’t you? They don’t make investments. I saw this in 10 places today on Twitter a total lack of understanding on what they do as a placement agent on capital raises like this.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

@miehrmantraut @jspujji I’d endorse that I’d also support the companies dev strategy and whether or not it’s deemed “experimental” or not. The commercialization strategy and internal definitions of development vs maintenance etc etc. I could paper trail it solid enough to keep any hot water at a

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@RomanEcom Happy to help if you want to connect

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

11 months

@thesamparr Good on him; he looks happy.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@a_ahmed @paulbz They don’t but it’s 100% true. Twitter is loaded w “its never been a better time to start a company” but I’ve never seen so many early stage companies with good traction rolling backwards due to no access to debt or equity capital.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

3 months

@huntercdurham Interest is super low. Should be double on a parked $100k. Lots of high yield accounts at 4.5-5.5%- this is shit or you hyping junk.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@dustincucciarre @DylanAnder Exactly. Saying CVR doesn’t matter or inform at all is just sell aggrandizing to appear smarter than a measurement that is highly useful for a variety of reasons.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@zachmstuck Really hard to leverage a service business. Banks aren’t lending on cash flow without collateral. If the service company is that profitable why not have the service company lend it to the DTC brands?

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@CameronWalkerSZ Tough to tell for sure but after my last trip to TJ there are millions&millions of square feet of warehouse space for US brands taking advantage of the De Minimus. An entire industry every day trucks millions of individual DTC shipments across the border and drops them w Fedex,

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

Daddy daughter dance - any other twin dads out there?

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@whatifalthist I think you vastly miss his point which is even though your generation suffers from this this and this as you articulated the path to happiness, prosperity, and community is over here and it’s never too late. All the data is there GenZ will suffer the greatest reversion of

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

Watching banks/lenders exclude landed cost from ABL borrowing bases is an exact example of why banks/lenders can’t be trusted.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@awilkinson @BritainJacobson For sure the key to a total comp plan is cash comp + cash bonus + short term incentive equity + long term incentive equity = long term motivated employee base.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@zachmstuck Congrats on crossing a milski be careful scaling inside that structure your paid spend will kill you unless your margins are greater than 70%.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

3 months

My feed is littered with this. Get focused on solving your problems, they can be solved and stop posting 10x per day! Confessions of a DTC investor on the difficulty of dealing with the & #8216 ;increasingly common& #8217 ; founder-influencer

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Confessions of a DTC investor on the difficulty of dealing with the 'increasingly common' founder...

In the latest edition of our Confessions series, in which we trade anonymity for candor, we hear from a DTC investor on what it’s like to work with founder-influencers and why it’s a difficult...

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@JWurzak Peninsula Suite at The Peninsula Hong Kong

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

@ChadCarleton Impressive. Can you barcode the pick locations- that might help. Either way impressive accuracy given lack of tools.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

3 months

Risk IS a proxy for growth and it is a core function of the CFO to manage the appropriate level of risk inside an org

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@woeismeade Not sure Olympia’s position but when Sports Authority went under we hung on to our claim and ended up getting about .60 on the dollar and went through it with Toys R Us and got closer to .80 on the dollar.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@theandreboso The newsletter biz has become the gutter of content it’s one original and 100 copies

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

5 months

@fit_koala @LukeDukeYeeHaww $ciss looks like an ascending triangle to me right now

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@jonpbaker #stl needs a @seandsweeney so bad! This city has so much potential but no vision.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

4 months

@FreightAlley Loved the pod w Sam. I love reframing old businesses models and making them new again.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

I’ve got an idea - need one of the #DTC wizards willing to listen and do a little research for me to validate if it can be done or not. Similar idea I had ran to $70m in revenue and sold. Anyone with #DTC chops want to chat it through DM me.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@themarkwagner The only country really importing manufactured goods from LAM is Mexico. Manufacturing is LAMs major weakness could never support US or EU order volume.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

9 months

@miehrmantraut @jspujji I supervised tax for the largest taxpayer in the State of Mo three years in a row w E&Y on a structure that stretched to Luxembourg - software development can be tax deductible. Nature of the expense and paper trail is key but easily done.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@BillGates Many said the risks of gain of function research were real but manageable……..

@BillGates

Bill Gates

1 year

The risks of AI are real, and they can seem overwhelming—but the best reason to believe we can manage them is that we’ve done it before. History shows it’s possible to solve challenges created by new technologies, and if governments and the private sector do their parts, we can

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

Product is KING. There is no substitute for great product. Full stop.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@DylanAnder @dustincucciarre The same is true for any measurement in isolation. No measurement I’ve ever seen is actionable by itself. Conversion is a good measurement to compare apples to apples on creative, traffic sources, customer types etc. but no measurement in isolation is that valuable.

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@hanslorei Alys Beach is above and beyond our favorite. 30A is still relatively unknown outside the Midwest let’s try and keep it that way!

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@RegZeller @joshuamschultz Narrative is one of the most important parts of the CFO role

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

The townie xl are as good if not better than shades at $300+ price point - awesome job @GladeOptics @curtnicholsjr

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@elonmusk @joerogan @elonmusk why not raise the stakes? This is a debate the public is dying to hear……..

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@moizali Mail Innovations for under 1 pound and short zone Sure Post for everything over 1 pound and long zone

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

2 years

@andrewbcase Hey Andrew, happy to chat DM me

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@MrCeranna

Craig M

1 year

@HelenGuo_ EBITDA can hide a lot of things in the 3PL world - lots hiding in the D&A I’d bet especially at what looks like small scale.

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