We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kara Laws. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kara below.
Hi Kara , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career
In most high schools the path to entrepreneurship is taught as a option for a side hustle. It is rarely presented as a complete a legit career choice after high school.
I would love to see high schools teaching kids all of the steps of creating a successful business, encouraging them to rub shoulders with local entrepreneurs and celebrating the choice to create new businesses.
Kara , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Kara Laws is a business educator. She currently owns a business called Launched. Kara has built six businesses, sold four, and still runs two.
Kara started her first business when she was 19. She ran that for about 10 years before she sold it. She started training business owners for a company in Utah and then moved to teaching for Utah State University, the Women’s Business Center, Small Business Development Centers, etc.
Kara has worked with over 500 business owners and has personally coached some to hit over 1 million in revenue. Kara created “Launched” because she was getting the same feedback from the women that she taught “I wish there was a place that taught me all the steps, in the right order. I did so many things wrong at the beginning.”
So, Kara created a program to teach business owners HOW. How to open a business, how to avoid expensive mistakes, how to start growing, and how to do everything in the right order.
We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.
I have sold four businesses.
I didn’t make millions on them. They were small businesses but I have sold for businesses. Here are the things that you need to know about selling a business.
1. If you build it correctly just about any business can be sold.
2. You need to make sure you are creating a business and not a job. Nobody wants to buy a job.
3. Systems! Systems! Systems! That is what adds value to a business. If I can re-create that you have in a few months why would I buy it from you?
4. Do not hide money.
5. You need two sets of books.
6. It takes about a year to sell a business.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I hade to unlearn that business ownership is a giant gamble and only the lucky business owners succeed. Business success is a lot more predictable than many people believe. As I started working with business owner after business owner I learned that successful business ownership has a system.
There is a process to creating something that is sustainable and profitable.
The businesses that I have seen fail (and I have been close with several business owners who went under) could see it coming. The business owners didn’t wake up one day and shockingly realize their business was over, their businesses had been struggling for a while.
Yes, there are risks to starting a business but it is not as big of a gamble as I was led to believe. There is a process that you can follow to help ensure that your business succeeds. There are also many ways to mitigate risk and grow smart.
Contact Info:
- Website: launchedacademy.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/launchedacademy
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/launchedacademy
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/82499329/
- Other: TIKTOK: https://tiktok.com/@launchedacademy