Thread by @csavage

Since raising $17.3M in debt to buy out our investors two years ago, a lot has transpired.

@brendan and I have found our way back to profitable confidence, which has changed a lot about how we run the business and what we have been able to invest in.

Since 2017, our financials have gotten much stronger:

We were able to get EBITDA from -$500k to $6M in one year.
This allowed us to refinance our debt to a much lower interest rate and pay it down aggressively. We have ~$13M left on our new loan.

As we became profitable again, we've been able to make investments based on what we believe will be valuable and purposeful for the long-term.

We made One, Ten, One Hundred, a webby award-winning documentary about the link between budgets and creativity. wistia.com/series/one-ten…

Based on that success we decided to make another show, Brandwagon. A talk show for marketers.

We realized that more companies were making shows which lead us to define Brand Affinity Marketing💥: wistia.com/about/brand-af…

Honestly, it seems crazy that we could have done any of this with how we were investing in the past. Everything was so short-term focused that long-range projects were impossible to invest in.

Now, we're in control of the pace we want to move. If we think we're moving too fast, we slow down. If we're going too slow, we speed up.

This shift has allowed us to invest way more in the team, our community, the customer experience, and ourselves.

As @jasonfried puts it:

"I don’t see any conflicts with profit and growth. I think they go very nicely together. Profit is fuel you can put into growth. Or you can take out and put in your pocket. Profit = flexibility, and to me, that’s far more valuable than growth.”

Jason is right.

Profit is about flexibility to be in control of your priorities. Instead of being at the whim of short-term numbers you are in total control of what you invest in.

This tends to create much more confidence to believe in yourself.

@shl from @gumroad has a similar story.

After regaining control of his company from investors and getting profitable, he's focused on prioritizing transparency, part-time work for the team, and giving back way more to the community.

"We’re investing in fun projects! We get to give back to the community, we get to move slower, and we get to NOT BE STRESSED OUT. Before, it was like treading water. We were alive, but always aware of impending death. Now, that’s gone away." - @shl

In Suhil's case, he has executed a ton of great ideas that have helped the company grow that all would have been incredibly hard to do if he was short-term focused.

Sometimes you need to slow down, to speed up. 🚀

Profitable confidence is about being in control of the priorities, the pace, and your own psychology.

If you want more of the story, you can read it here: wistia.com/learn/culture/…