About Dave Baldwin

My Story

In 1996, I started my career assembling circuit boards with a soldering iron, working my way into automated control systems. In 2002, in between jobs and completing my bachelor's degree, I took a summer job selling kitchen knives. The job took me way out of my comfort zone and planted a seed that would later play a pivotal role in the development of my business. It was my first attempt at trying and failing to make myself act like an extravert. I then began to realize how valuable it could be if someone would create a selling system for an introvert like me.

In 2007, I left the technology field, packed my bags, and moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where I would launch my first attempt at self-employment. I went to every networking group I could find and promoted myself as a writer. I'd recently taken a creative writing course and felt spurred on by the encouragement of several classmates who said I would do well as a professional writer.

I spent a lot of time and money taking business courses and workshops, not to mention hotel rooms and plane tickets. But every time, I came home disappointed, finding that I still did not feel equipped to build my business. Most of the advice I heard was the same. I heard lots of tips and tricks for how to act more like an extravert, but nothing that honored the truth of who I really was. I found that most sales systems were cookie-cutter and were designed for someone else. I struggled to apply them because they didn't fit me.

My initial business efforts failed because I lacked the toolbox and the skill set to build a business. Formal schooling had trained me to follow directions and stay in my lane. I hadn't learned to navigate the ambiguity of running a business. For the next 13 years, I conducted a lot of different experiments to find the elusive formula for launching a business, while taking a variety of different jobs to support myself, including but not limited to delivering pizzas, driving for Uber, freelance writing, fixing copying machines, and working part-time as a copywriter for several marketing agencies.

In 2020, after several years of working full-time as a bookkeeper, I realized that I enjoyed helping business owners develop a clearer picture of their finances. I realized that most business owners didn't have a great way to gauge the financial health of their companies, and that standard accounting reports were inadequate for day-to-day business management. I saw an opportunity to build a better kind of business operating system.

Values and Philosophy

I believe that decisions should be data-driven to the greatest extent possible. While not everything can be quantified, most aspects of a business can be measured if one is willing to make the effort. I believe that when we need to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, the first question should be "What do the data say?"

I believe that rules and policies only matter to the extent that they can be enforced. People find ways around policy when they don't want to comply. I believe that trust is the foundation of a healthy workplace, and if you feel the need to babysit or micromanage someone, you have hired the wrong person.

I believe that every job should be measurable and that pay should be tied to performance and profitability. I also believe that paying people by the hour creates conflicting incentives. I hope to abolish the hourly wage in my lifetime.

I also believe in transparency of pay; there should not be any secrets about how much anyone is making. If there is a good incentive structure, everyone who works hard will have an opportunity to make more.

I am a firm believer that every business is unique and that there is no one-size-fits-all business formula that works for everyone. I believe that if you or your team won't follow a given system, you probably need a different system.

I believe that good people take the blame for bad systems. I believe that most business collapses are preventable and that the reason for business failure is not undercapitalization, changes in the market, the economy, the government, or any other outside force.

I believe that creating the right systems is the single make-or-break factor that separates the Fortune 500s from the Chapter 7s.