11 controversial lessons I learned from my father on running a small business.

While these lessons are not the gold standard.
At times I've seen these to be true.

A Thread.⤵️

1. If you're going to run a business start from the bottom and work your way up.

Knowing how everything works from the bottom up is key to managing properly.

Or in his words, no one can bullshit you when you know what it takes..
2. If you want something done right you have to do it yourself.

Obviously you can't do everything yourself. You have to be in charge of following up constantly to make sure it gets done, and done right.
3. Don't buy anything you can't pay for.

Taking out loans is okay if the work is there to pay it back. The last thing you want is for work to slow down and you'll be stuck with a lease bill.
4. There are three stories. Your story, their story, and the truth somewhere in the middle.

When disputes and rumors start going around. Get all parties involved together to narrow down the truth.
5. If you make them your friends, they're going to fuck you every time.

Take care of your employees, but don't mix business with pleasure. If you get too friendly your employee becomes a great friend, not only will emotions get in the way. But they will try to get over on you.
6. Everyone is replaceable.

Obviously the cost to hire and train a new employee is far more than paying a good employee a little more. But you can't have your employees thinking you need them more than they need you.
7. Reinvest back into your business.

Six figures a year and vacations are nice. But those sort of things are short-lived if you don't have a company anymore.
Reinvest to keep your equipment nice and maintenance-free.
8. Keep your overhead low.

When your company is small or just starting out, keep unnecessary expenses out.
Surr a brand new vehicle or a fancy office building is nice. But is it necessary?
9. Don't get too big too fast.

Keep in mind we are talkin about a small bootstrapped business. Grown from the ground up.
Getting too big too fast will cause you to lose control of the day-to-day operations. This causes work quality to go down and cost to go up.
10. Take care of your employees and they will take care of you.

Separate yourself from the competition by giving out bonuses and incentives. But remember once you start doing this you set a precedent. They will expect it every time.
11. There can only be one boss.

My father started his business with a partner, and they had different ways of doing things.
People would ask him, why are you doing it his way?
He would say there can only be one boss. When he retires I'll do it my way.
I hope you enjoyed this thread. If you haven gotten any value out of it please

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Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.