Bio of a Serial Entrepreneur

By Tim Allen

What is an Entrepreneur?
I think it is a person that takes a chance in organizing a business; risking their money to earn more money than what they started with.
America is surrounded with entrepreneurs, some are small risks and many are risking everything they own. Most entrepreneurs are under- funded and 51% do not survive after their 2nd year.
Think of a local shopping centers that offers: a 7 11 store, Nails/Spa, Pizza, Sub shop, a local Diner or Restaurant, etc. totals 5 entrepreneurs that invested their savings into a business: risking all of their money.
You can find 4, 5 and more businesses in your neighborhood, all thinking they can do a job better than the failed Entrepreneur before them.
I have learned the following steps are necessary to succeed:
A business requires the following:
1. Start with a Business Plan, a must.
2. Sales Forecast, monitor closely, daily, monthly.
3. Funding Flexible: best Case and worst Case
4. Relying on friends and family for funding are risky and can cause years of frustration; last resource.
5. Leadership: Don’t demand a successful task unless you can do it yourself.
6. Make decisions quickly, Do Not Procrastinate
7. Find a business you like, no love.
8. Be willing to work late at night and arrive early in the morning.
9. First in….Last out….. of Business!
10. Entrepreneurs are what makes Capitalization work in America; cherish the Opportunity.
Good Luck
Serial Entrepreneur CEO

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796079715

Tim Allen

The author is an entrepreneur, buying and selling over 57 companies including 114 transactions over 50 years. He either purchased, started or sold companies and operated them as the CEO, Chairman. The companies were both private and public companies, and all were under financed forcing tight budgets for operations. The companies were in multiple industries, facing similar challenges; many had synergies that helped the acquisition or companies already owned. The author shares his life's experience of success and survival with the reader; telling stories creating laughter, sharing frustration, and management insight. The book was written for the reader's enjoyment; enjoy.

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Copyright © 2020 by Tim Allen.

ISBN:              Softcover              978-1-7960-7972-2

                        eBook                   978-1-7960-7971-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/30/2019

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CONTENTS

Introduction

#1 In The Beginning

#2 Childhood

#3 MY First CAR

#4 Goals and College

#5 Fast-Food Chain

#6 Vietnam Marine Corps

#7 Ichthyosis Disease

#8 Rent-a-Car Employee

#9 Promotion @ Rent-a-Car Company

#10 Meetings: Oliver and Frank

#11 List Of Acquisitions and Start-Up Multiple Cities

#12 Butcher Shop

#13 Marketing Solutions Inc. Start-Up

#14 Acquired First Travel Company

#15 Staff Hires

#16 Marketing Solutions Inc. Second Job

#17 First Incentive Destination Mallorca, Spain

#18 Real Estate Inc. New Account

#19 General Manager

#20 Family: Parents, Grandparents, In-Laws

#21 Dad’s Death

#22 The In-Laws

#23 Staffing Key Employees

#24 Incentive Acquisition

#25 Marketing Solutions Advertising

#26 Racquetball Advertising

#27 Travel Industry Changes

#28 My Kids and Sister

#29 Built Homes and Buildings

#30 Started Career Travel Industry

#31 Close Friends

#32 Marriages and Relationships

#33 My Work History

#34 Cash Flow Problems

#35 Gamble Visits Marketing Solutions Inc.

#36 Marketing Solutions Inc. Purchase Price

#37 Annual Employee Weekend

#38 Annual Employee NYC

#39 Supplier Christmas Party

#40 Sold to Gamble 1984

#41 I Meet Management Day After the Sale

#42 Gamble Management Visit MSI Staff

#43 Gamble Gift Card

#44 Pontiac Incentive Pitch

#45 January 1973 Flash Back

#46 Problem Gift Cert

#47 Gamble Management Bosses

#48 Be a Good Soldier

#49 Gamble Fired General Manager

#50 I Resigned Gamble

#51 Sports Stories

#52 Boyne Theater

#53 Atrium Inn

#54 Sports Adventure Expansion

#55 Gambel Annual Management Goals

#56 Partner Builds Business

#57 Partner: Sports Adventure

#58 Marketing Solutions Travel Acquired

#59 MSI Inc. State Filing

#60 Marketing Solutions Start-Up Incentive Company

#61 Built Office Building

#62 St. Patrick’s Party

#63 Profits MSI and MSI Travel, Losses at Sports Stores

#64 Losses in All Businesses

#65 Acquired a California Incentive Company

#66 Attorney Francis Dies

#67 Horse Races

#68 Moved to Florida

#69 Acquired Biloxi Air

#70 Discount Air

#71 Casino Rep Company

#72 New Way Travel

#73 Travel Franchise Kentucky

#74 Atlanta Franchise

#75 New Way Travel Acquires POKR and AVIA

#76 Raising Money for New Way Travel

#77 CruisesOnly Franchise

#78 London Trade Exhibitor Acquired

#79 NWT Acquires Cruises Only

#80 Advertising Acquisition

#81 IPO Offer $10.00

#82 Departing New Way Travel Office

#83 Young President Organization

#84 Acquire Athena Travel

#85 Casino Players Inc. Acquired

#86 IPO Dot-Com Crash

#87 Casino Players Inc.

#88 Invicta Group Inc.

#89 World Wide Consolidator 2001

#90 Jamaica Tour Operator

#91 No Profits

#92 Casino Magazine Acquisition

#93 The First Buyer for Invicta Failed

#94 Investor Deal Number 2: Sell Invicta

#95 NXOI

#96 Holding Companies and Subsidiaries

#97 Repo Business

#98 Casino Players Inc.

#99 Parkinson’s, Lifestyle Change

#100 Toxic Inc.

#101 Toxic Inc. Grew Revenues and Profits

#102 Womanizer

#103 Ballroom Dance Fitness Executive Summary

#104 Plaza Ballroom Purchase

#105 Kobra and the Lotus

#106 Studio 54

#107 Zoom Pro Arena Rugby

#108 SEC Orders to Stop Trading Securities

#109 Jimmy Funding

#110 I Was Introduced in 2017 to a Billionaire, Try Again

#111 Summary

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to share my experiences as an entrepreneur—the good, the bad, and the humorous events. I hope the reader can relate to some of the same challenges and enjoy reading the stories I share and relate to his or her similar experiences.

This bio is written in chronological order, and I have noted the subject followed in numerical order creating a Table of Contents, such as Business # 5. The subject is Business, and #5 is the fifth item in the Table of Contents known as the chapter.

The chapters are not always in chronological order due to stories taking you occasionally to a flashback event.

I have been active in several business transactions and have been nicknamed as a serial entrepreneur or an entrepreneur who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new businesses, unrelated to current status.

I have been involved In more than 114 transactions of over fifty-seven companies, including acquisitions, mergers, start-ups and sale of companies; they were mostly small companies bred from ideas and one common thread in them: They were all underfunded and most had synergy with companies that I was purchasing or needed the services that I was acquiring.

A sample is the start-up of a four 50-passenger motor coach company known as Interstate Motor Coach that was a supplier for transfers from the airport to a casino and/or a sightseeing tour from the hotel in four deluxe coaches, totaling $1.6 million in investments. The motor coach company becomes a subsidiary and its profits or losses are consolidated in the holding company.

The motor coach company (Interstate) earns a profit, and the holding company owns a profitable subsidiary, increasing the holding company’s profits.

I did one to three transactions a year for over fifty years, never a boring year, and I was personally busy operating and marketing each business; financial records were handled by an employed accountant, a controller, a CFO, and/or an independent CPA firm for reviewed or audited financials required for one of my public companies.

The companies were public companies trading on the OTCBB exchange or a private company transaction. The private companies were funded by myself as an equity transaction, or a personal investment; and the public companies were used for raising money via selling public stocks to individuals or using the company’s restricted shares for cash. Plus we used the public shares to buy acquisitions.

I was the chairman CEO of all of the companies, seven public and seven private companies, including all subsidiaries. That is why I had the name serial entrepreneur and it was a journey up and down roads of success and losses.

I like the excitement of buying and or starting companies and trying to use synergism to grow the new company, keeping the management of the purchased company; no one should know the company better than the management of the acquired company.

Today I am seventy-four years of age, 5 feet 10 inches tall, lots of strawberry blonde hair, weighing at 160 pounds, and have lost my sports activity due to constant dizziness caused by Parkinson’s Disease (PK). I used to be active, weekly playing golf and tennis and jogging daily until age sixty-six. I am soft-spoken with a Midwestern accent and slow in talking, today becoming slower due to PK.

I dressed in suits for the first five years of business at a rent-a-car company and upgraded to tailored navy blue, gray, and black three-piece pinstripe suits. I visited Asian cities in 1977 and found custom suits and shirts a bargain, buying two suits and six monogrammed shirts the first visit, followed with the purchase of two suits and six shirts every four to six months when the tailor made calls in my office for the next twenty years. I stopped that practice when my closet had over fifty-three-piece suits and one hundred dress shirts. I gave most of them to family and friends. Today I own four suits and five custom shirts.

I enjoyed work, being the first one in the office and the last to leave, setting an example and doing a business lunch five days a week. My dinners were mostly business also: two to three dinners with staff a week. I ate three meals a day outside of the house. I had the cleanest oven (never used it) and refrigerator (beverages, ice cream, and fruit).

My bio tells you more about me. I hope you enjoy and learn how to be a successful entrepreneur.

The names of all of the people, cities, and companies are fictional, including my name.

#1 In The Beginning

I was born New Year’s Day, January 1, 1945, in a hospital located in a blue-collar community, where most homeowners lived in 1,000-square-foot to 1,500-square-foot homes. The families were from Poland and other European countries.

Heritage and City Background

#2 Childhood

I was the only child until I was fifteen. Mom had a girl and I had a sister, Marj. I welcomed her to the family. I grew up as an only child as my parents worked full time, including many weekends, and I lived alone five days a week.

My early years, from ages five to eight, involved walking to school seven to eight blocks from home at 8 a.m. and going to another family’s home after school at 3:30 p.m., and staying with friends of my family until my mom met me at a bus stop that was three blocks away at 5:15 p.m. at the bus stop after she returned from work.

One rainy cold night, I was waiting for the bus. I was cold and wet and I went into a drugstore to keep waiting and stay warm. Maybe five minutes went by when a customer (a guy) asked me what I was doing in a store by myself. He offered me a ride home. I said no, my mom would not know where I was and she would be worried. Somehow he convinced me to go with him because home was only three miles away. I said okay. Upon my departure, my mom arrived thirty minutes late due to missing the bus from work. I was not there; she asked people in the store about me, but no one had seen me. She panicked and raced home via a friend’s car to find me in the house relaxed and watching TV.

A kid had just been kidnapped a week earlier, so she anticipated the worst. I got a beating when Dad got home. The driver that took me home was never seen again. I assumed he was doing a nice service; Mom assumed the worst. The first mistake of my life.

Recalling my life experiences is not too unusual for a kid growing up in 1955 to 1965 (age ten to twenty). Both of my parents worked and I was by myself 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Monday to Friday.

I remember our furnace was fueled by black coal that was delivered to the driveway and shoveled into the basement and eventually shoveled into the furnace, and then the coal became a large cinder that had to be removed from the furnace through the basement window, onto the driveway, and then loaded onto the coal truck. I was happy when the landlord upgraded our furnace to gas fuel. It was one chore I did not enjoy.

My neighbors were friendly, I knocked on their doors every three and four days a week to pick up their empty bottles of beer and sodas and then take these to a neighborhood grocery store that paid $0.05 to return bottles; I could make $2.00 to $3.00 a day. I expanded my neighborhood and increased my profits. I started my serial entrepreneur years at seven years of age, increasing my revenues by adding new products: picking up old newspapers and delivering to the same grocery store for pennies per pound. The next revenue stream I created was shoveling snow in the winter and raking leaves in the fall. I had five to six customers that used my services weekly. They were all friendly and welcomed my services. I was happy to earn a few dollars. I ran this small business for several years. I always had a few quarters in my pockets.

What did I do with all of this money? I went to the movies for $0.20 a ticket. I bought cupcakes and candy at the grocery store. I walked two miles to the bowling alley and bowled two to three games on Saturdays. I purchased ice cream bars. Remember the white ice cream trucks that went up and down the street playing music and driving slowly, waiting for the kids to run in the house for money to buy an ice cream bar?

The goals I had were similar to many others: maintain better-than-average grades in a public school, stay out of trouble (no fights with any of the bullies), make enough money to pay my personal expenses in junior and high school, pay all of my college bills, own a car in high school, date the prettiest gal, and hang around with the smartest kids in school.

My mom wanted to meet the friends I had. She would always say that she could tell me what kind of kid I was by the friends I hung around with; she was correct, and that theory applies today.

My early years were noneventful. I never did anything wrong: no smoking or drinking alcohol. I went to school with no complaints—I rarely missed a day in four years of high school. I went to church every Sunday and sang in the adult choir.

I had simple goals: I wanted to improve my family’s financial status, marry a good-looking gal, and stay ahead of the annual expenses of a middle-class family. What does that mean? Well, my neighborhood was blue-collar. Most homes were 1,000 to 1,500 square feet with a one-car garage housing a used Ford or Chevrolet car. A few luxury cars were sprinkled in the neighborhood. A Cadillac or Lincoln was a symbol of success and a goal to reach for.

The kids in my neighborhood played football, baseball, and basketball and stayed out of trouble. We played our sports in our backyards, mostly pitching baseballs in the alley between our homes, shooting basketballs off the garage backboard, playing horse, playing one-on-one basketball, and playing three-man football in the streets. I had three neighbor boy friends within one block, and we kept each other entertained with sports and watching TV programs like American Bandstand, Leave it to Beaver, The Nelsons, Father Knows Best, etc.

Life was simple. No temptations of liquor or drugs in school. I remember when Sundays were a day of worship and family dinners. Retail stores were closed on Sunday. Gas stations sold only gas and oil and they had a guy that washed your car’s windshield while the gas was pumped in the car. He would check the tire pressure. Service was important back then. I remember when a gallon of gas cost $0.20 in the 1960s.

Those were the good old days. I remember them well.

I moved in the ninth grade to nearby school in the early sixties. My childhood friends were too far away to keep in touch, and making new friends was the next challenge. Making new friends was not easy as all of the kids were entering high school and my classmates had their own circle of friends and a new environment in a new school. My circle of friends included two guys that I have kept in touch with over the past fifty-nine years, talking to them two to three times a year.

The city was also a blue-collar city located on a river dotted with steel mills and painting manufacturers. They all used the river to drop their toxic waste, eliminating fishing. We were all happy with the environment; no concern with waste in the river; it created jobs that were union pay.

I must admit I did not miss out with high school social life, attending all of the dances and social activities, including church socials with my classmates. Mom wanted me to bring my dates over for inspection. She was impressed with each gal I brought over.

I was always reviewed by the parents of the gals I took out. I assume all parents are interested in their kid’s friends. I impressed several parents because I had a job and worked many hours a week, plus I had my own car. I can remember three mothers that shopped at the meat store that I worked at, introducing me to their daughters. Who would have dreamed of meeting good-looking gals at work and being introduced by their parents? One of the three gals became homecoming queen.

Childhood Friends, Parental Approval

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January 1961

#3 MY First CAR

I had a car given to me from my parents on my sixteenth birthday, and it became my transportation to work and school. It was a ten-year-old Pontiac coupe with beige exterior and light brown interior, two-door with leather seats for four passengers, but it had body damage at the front and rear end of the exterior. The car cost $200. It was not a cool car, but it was transportation that cruised down the highway in a straight 8-engine—perfect for dating and getting me to work.

Having a car meant I could go back to my hometown and see a few friends that I had not seen since I moved to a new high school. I was not looking to hang out with the guys and gals. I just wanted to say hi after not hearing from anyone for two years. We all had our lifestyles, and it seemed like nothing had changed. We were two years older and wiser.

I met a gal that I remember as the best-looking gal in class when I departed from the first public school I attended; well, she looked even better as a sixteen-year-old cheerleader. We dated for two years in that Pontiac. Like I said, it was transportation. It got me to her home that was ten miles away most of the time.

One sunny Sunday, I departed home to pick her up and found a flat tire. I changed the tire with my spare and stopped at a gas station to fix the original and bought another used tire and continued to her house. Now the spare tire went flat, which I changed with the used spare tire I just purchased; that’s two tires before getting to her home; and yes, at the end of the date, I had the third tire go flat. I purchased better used tires ASAP. I could not afford four new tires. Funny, I remember that day, but I do not remember where we went on the date.

I remember another date with Alice. I brought two pounds of ground beef that I prepared at the butcher shop and a dozen burger buns for her mother. Her mom was surprised and impressed. She said it was the most unusual gift for a date that she had heard of, not a bouquet of flowers for her daughter.

Our relationship continued for a total of two years. We went to her prom together, to the surprise of many schoolmates, and we celebrated her high school graduation as the winner of the Val Victorian Award.

Alice also became homecoming queen, the second gal that I dated that won the award. Alice went to university and married a fellow student and had six kids.

A Humble Beginning

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January 1963

#4 Goals and College

I worked many days, and especially my senior year, having a full-time job at a local prime meat shop that offered customers prime meats and assorted gourmet foods, and was known for their prime meats. The owner was a hardworking entrepreneur that worked sixteen hours a day, six days a week. He also gave me a job during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays while I attended college; he needed extra help for the holidays and I needed cash income; it worked out for both of us, plus I got a chance to see many customers.

Goals

I wanted all of the material things for comfort: a smart and good-looking wife, a home with three bedrooms, two new cars every three years, two children, and enough income to save money for a business I could own. I wanted to be financially successful by age forty. I knew I wanted to be a leader in business and provide more for my family than I had as a kid and be one of the most successful of my high school class.

I was naive regarding what kind of jobs were available: doctors and lawyers, fireman, cops, teachers, athletes, auto factory labors. I was not prepared for career planning in high school and thought I would figure it out in college.

College

I was offered four years’ tuition paid at a university, a $2,000-per-year value to me. The reason I qualified was because of my high school debating skills. I was the captain of the high school debate team my second and third year of high school; I won a few debates and competed for state championships, but I was never the champion for either year.

It was fun and challenging. I don’t remember the subject for the first year. The second year subject was Should public schools be financed equally by the government or by the community the student lives in? I fought for the students’ community. The best education went to the student that lived in the higher-taxed community.

Debating skills might have been a good choice if I wanted to be an attorney. I could not think of any other skills debating offered. I was tempted to visit the campus but decided I did not think the university would be any fun and it did not offer me the major I wanted to be educated in.

I decided to attend a college seventy-five miles away from my home. I majored in the Hotel Restaurant School and minored in business. I thought working at a four-star hotel would be a fun job, especially working in a warm destination.

Picking the Right College Is Important

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September 1963

#5 Fast-Food Chain

The first thing I did after enrolling at the university was find a job. It was easy enough landing a job at a nearby grocery store working in the meat and deli department after classes three days a week and Saturdays when the football team