America was the ultimate startup

Would you have rather been Washington on the front lines, facing the muskets and crossing the Delaware in freezing weather, or being Benjamin over in Florida, drinking some French wine and negotiating with our French friends? I think you know the answer to that one. Let's go! hey what's up everybody welcome back to another episode of the liquid launch project i am matthew r mihon alongside my partner the professor luigi rosa bianca and today we have a very special episode it's just the two of us because we wanted to celebrate america's 250th anniversary God bless the greatest country on earth.

But we're going to take a different angle today, and we're going to look at America like it was a startup. You know, the founders, they had a bold vision, unstable funding, and definitely internal disagreements and an incumbent power that they wanted to be gone. So the question becomes, what can entrepreneurs learn 250 years later about the world's greatest startup, America? One subtle difference, Matthew.

If a founder screws up his startup, well, he loses money and maybe he loses his investors' money. Our founding fathers, if they screwed up, they would have been tried for treason and killed. All right, just like any great startup, it all starts with an idea. But this one, this must have been the boldest idea of them all.

And it also came with massive risk. Matt, look at it this way. The Declaration of Independence was basically the pitch deck. Jefferson wrote the vision, and Washington had to lead the execution.

And don't forget about old Benny Franklin. He's the one who had to go out and sell the idea through diplomacy, reputation, and, well, his influence. Ben was like the elder statesman of the founding fathers. Listen, he was out drinking in bars and taverns because, well, those were the boardrooms of the days back then.

And he was selling the idea to the public. But I think the guy that took on the most risk of them all might have been Washington. Matt, Washington was the ultimate insider. He had served during the French-Indian War under the Brits.

And now he's changing coats and going over to the other side. I mean, from a reputation, he had a lot to lose. Plus, George was a pretty wealthy guy. He had a huge farm.

He had a lot to lose. Yeah. If we look at it like a startup, though, Lou, you know, the Declaration of Independence is basically the country's mission statement. And Jefferson wrote it.

And, well, Washington was the one who had to operate it under pressure while Franklin helped build up the credibility and the buy-in from the people themselves. Would you have rather been Washington on the front lines facing the muskets and crossing the Delaware in freezing weather or being Benjamin over in Florida drinking some French wine and negotiating with our French friends? I think you know the answer to that one. Now, let's look at the money because the money is really what empowers the mission overall.

all big and great ideas, need money. They need credit. Robert Morris, somebody that nobody ever speaks about, helped finance the whole revolution. Hamilton later helped stabilize the country's financial system.

This is the cleanest bridge to business ownership. Cash flow, debt, credit, investor trust, and the cost of being undercapitalized. We forget as Americans that we didn't have any money. So if it wasn't for privateers like Robert Morris, who, like you said, goes unheralded 250 years later, we had no shot at buying muskets and coats and shoes.

Absolutely. And if we look at all big movements in history, we got to remember it's money that fuels these movements that allows them to be successful. Basically, Hamilton was asking, cool revolution what the business plan You know you mentioned Hamilton To me Hamilton is the first true American I mean think about it He came from the West Indies as an orphan He was able to get a couple of rich patrons to pay for his education. And then a couple of years later, he's a secretary of the treasury.

Listen, bold business ideas need financial stability behind them. And Hamilton actually proved the point. So what's the lesson for entrepreneurs here, Matt. Division matters, but cash flow keeps the mission alive.

Financial discipline is really what drives all great organizations. The founders also cared deeply about ownership, property rights, contracts, free enterprise, and independence, of course. But they also understood that markets do not work on freedom alone. They need trust, enforceable agreements, fair rules, reliable systems like courts, and the ability for people to actually compete in the market.

One thing the founding fathers were really good at was thinking about the next step and next step and what may happen. They were really big on ownership, independence, and thinking about the modern business system itself. Modern entrepreneurs today really have to think about a couple of things that the founding fathers did. ownership, property rights, free enterprise, independence.

But I'll tell you this, I really believe most modern business owners today, they don't have true independence. They're relying on platforms like TikTok, Amazon, Google, payment processors, the banking system. If they all cut them off, their business is no longer in business anymore. So the question becomes, for all you business owners listening right now.

How independent is your business if somebody else is controlling access to your customers, data, attention, and cash flow? Matt, this is probably the strongest modern business segment because it brings the founders ideas about ownership and independence directly into the world we're living in today. 100%. If we look at most sales are done online.

But if we can't get online, Meta, Amazon, Facebook, Google, they're the toll keeper, right? If they say don't pass go, you can't get past go. As a matter of fact, for some reason yesterday, my Meta account was locked, shut down, and they said I was suspended. I didn't know what to do next because we get a lot of business from that.

This is why as a business owner, you cannot be dependent just on one channel, whether it's for marketing, banking, or payment process. Because if something does go wrong, you always need a contingency plan. Funny how 250 years later, it all comes back to the founding fathers, right? Because John Adams was so concerned about the rule of law, contracts, and corporate structure.

Madison was obsessed with systems checks and balances and making the whole thing work beyond one personality it's amazing how they sat in taverns drank and thought this far ahead I got to get some of that cider that they were drinking back then I think they were practical people that were well read and saw the mistakes of prior governmental institutions they saw the mistakes of the Romans. They saw the mistakes of the Greeks. They saw the mistakes of the Brits. And they tried to form a more perfect union that built on those mistakes, but also are always succumbing to the frailties of human nature, right?

We tend to be greedy. We tend to be lazy. All right. So how do you take care of those checks and balances?

And they probably did a decent job. I don't know. All I know is modern founders today, a lot of them, and we speak to a lot of them, they might own the company. But the real question is, do they own the road their customers use to get there?

This leads us to a couple of other principles that were really important to the founding fathers. Frugality, risk, and reinvention. Now, we remember Benjamin Franklin's motto, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Franklin preached thrift and self-discipline.

Washington adapted his farming operations when the old model became less attractive And Robert Morris our old buddy shows both sides of risk It can change history but too much leverage can destroy you You know, this one I really want to sit back and think about because if you really understand entrepreneurship, right, the whole meaning of the word is to take risk, right? Without risk, there is no reward. But how much risk is too much? We've already said Washington put his life on the line.

Franklin was traveling around and he was on horses and carriages. There was no cars back then. There was no train going from town to town on ships over to France to get France to come back and support us during the war. This all costs money and Robert Morris saw both sides.

So when entrepreneurs take risk, yeah, there's levels to risk. There's levels to every game in life. How much risk is too much? When we first start out and we're going to scale, we usually need more fuel.

More fuel in this case is more money, right? So is debt a tool or is it a trap in your opinion? Well, that's the balancing act, right? Because what's the difference between calculated risk and gambling?

Ultimately, it's success. If you're successful, then you took a calculated risk. If you're unsuccessful, well, then you gambled it all away, right? So that's the bottom line.

I mean, it's easy for us to say this after 250 years, it's proven that America was, let's call it a successful experiment, right? But you know what, Lou? The greatest startups in history were, they made their biggest breakthroughs when they were cash strapped because it forced creativity, right? And if we see this in the public marketplace today.

We'll see these companies that were startups, they were growing fast and they had minimal resources, right? And then when they got a lot of resources, their creativity failed. Companies got bloated. They got overstaffed, right?

So too much money, too much debt, access to too much capital may just make you lazy. But Matthew, has there ever been a founder that did not have a high tolerance for risk. I think part of the definition of being a founder is you have to have an aptitude for some risk. I mean, let's look at Morris.

If somebody would have told you today, let's build some ships and we're going to take on the greatest Navy that the planet has ever seen, the British Navy, anybody else would have been like, you're absolutely nuts. But Morris did so anyway. I mean, if we look at this week, what happened with SpaceX, Elon's a trillionaire not too long ago, four or five years ago in 2020, people call them nuts, right? I mean, it definitely takes creativity to get there, you know, discipline and pivoting and diversification, right?

Look at Franklin. He was all about thrift, discipline, and practical wisdom. Washington, pivoting and diversification. Robert Morris, risk and debt, a cautionary tale.

Matt, I wonder during those hot, steamy afternoons in Philadelphia, if the founding fathers ever imagined a country that would go beyond those couple of coastal states and go beyond Appalachia and the Mississippi River and manifest destiny into the Pacific. I wonder if they ever foresaw how great the country could become and now leading not only the greatest financial country with GDP, but also the moral mandate to be the policeman of the world. I don't know. Who knew?

Taxes started what we see today. Somebody got tired of paying taxes. they would get built like they were getting ripped off and they had a so-called revolution that sparked the greatest country that we have today but you know what i'm really interested in what are we building for the next 250 years where is this country going after talking about the founders as builders risk takers and financiers you know they were also flawed humans too trying to create something bigger these guys were not perfect by no means right you know we can go back and we could talk about their vices We should do a show on that one day I just don want to get into it now But yeah they were just normal guys just like us But they all brought something different to the table But the real question is not just what can we learn from them?

What are we building now that generations in the future will inherit? Matt, one thing that the founding fathers were almost obsessed with was the education of the populace. Their concern was a republic will only stand if the population is educated. They know how to make the decisions.

They're well-read. And when they go to the election booths and fill out the ballots, they're somewhat educated. So if you look back, most of the founding fathers formed universities. And I think that was a big obsession of theirs.

And maybe in continuing on to the next 250, we should probably reinvigorate that American obsession with education because we could probably concede that we've let that go over the last couple of decades. I'm going to disagree with you there and take the other point. I think over the last couple of decades, America got too obsessed with education and technology and they forgot how to do things with their hands, right? Listen, after everybody put the student loan program in place.

Educational system isn't what it used to be anymore, right? It became a big business. It became a business and a big business, right? We give you $100,000, $200,000, go to college, come out with debt.

I'm going to disagree with that one. I'm going to go back and say, hey, why don't you go get educated, right? But go work on the farm. Learn how to plant some crops.

Learn how to fix your own toilet. Let's go back to the trades. Because the way we're going over the next 250 years, shit, the next five years, AI is going to be handling most of it. And then in 10, we'll have the robots.

So this could be a good gut check for the country. We're not just looking back at 250. We're doing a gut check. The founders built something that outlived them.

Imperfect, messy, constantly evolving, but durable. So maybe the question for entrepreneurs is, are we building businesses just to survive the month, sell the product or the service, or hit some sort of milestone? Are we building something with enough value, structure, and purpose that can outlast us all? That is the question.

And that's what really comes down to, I mean, if we break it down to what we do for people, though, when you're building a business, you want to be able to transfer that business to somebody else. essentially sell it, right? Most people are building businesses right now that's not sellable because they're relying on one thing. What the founders knew was how to transfer everything that they put in to the constitution and the declaration of independence, right?

And create a belief around it of this is the way things are done. Most business owners really have to think about right now is what am I playing for? Am I just waiting for my next check? Am I just dealing with this debt right now just for a hope and a dream one day?

Or am I building something that's viable that I can pass on or sell when I'm ready? The legacy. So maybe that was the founding father's genius that they did see that this great country was going to last for centuries. And they built an infrastructure that was sound, but also malleable to change with the times.

it's amazing what they thought of 250 years ago that is still so relevant today i think is business owners and entrepreneurs we have to stop being so short-sighted i think is business owners and entrepreneurs we have to stop being so short-sighted and really not play for five years out 10 years out but the next 20 25 years out and think of the long game maybe the best way to honor america's 250th birthday isn't just to celebrate what was built back then is to ask ourselves what we're building now and whether it's worthy of being handed forward to the next generation.

And that's a wrap of the Liquid Lunch Project. We'll catch you on the next episode.