Andy Smith | Industrial Founder @AndySmithLife

Signed up for the Dopey. 5k, 10k, half, full. Four days straight. Six months out. Eleven minute miles. Not ready at all, haha... But doing hard things and getting through them builds confidence. Hard day after hard day. Just keep going friends.

@JakeFleshner Modernize industry

We got 14 inbound messages through our website contact form this week. Exciting, so I went through each one. Eleven were fraud. Here is the breakdown. - One was a verified, real lead. A tier-one auto supplier with a real permit and a specific scope. We called them immediately. - Two were legitimate vendor intros. Always like good partners. Happy they reached out. - The other eleven were fraud. Not spam. Fraud. The kind built to fool you, waste your time, and stop forward progress when we're trying to move fast. Here is what they actually looked like, so you can spot what they're doing. A company called "Automation Service" reached out. Sounds interesting. Fits our space. Except the domain was autoRNationservice dot com. That is an r and an n placed together to mimic an m. At a glance it reads automation. It is not. Two different inquiries came in: one from "Evans General Contractors" and one from "Kerotest Manufacturing". Both had the exact same phone number. A plastics company emailed from dinesAlplastics. The real company is dinesOlplastics. Plus, Maryland phone number for an Ohio company. Several included a friendly line about having "a document to share." That document is usually how the malware gets in. Here is the part that matters. Every one of these is engineered to beat speed, waste our time, and distract us. They are counting on you being busy, scanning fast, and clicking before you read the domain. Before anyone on our team replies to an inbound, we check three things. - The exact domain spelling, letter by letter. - Whether the phone number shows up anywhere else. - Whether they are pushing a document or a payment before any real conversation has happened. You can build a system to do this, an SOP, or just slow down. Slow is smooth. Smooth is safe.

Every comfort in your daily life came out of a factory most people never think about. We go into those facilities. Help them modernize. Keep them running. US. Europe. Everywhere. The push to automate is not waiting for anyone.

2020. Oil goes negative. We could not sustain it. Exited to a strategic buyer. Win-win. What came after changed everything. New question: how do we bridge legacy industries to AI and modern tools? That question became CREATE Industries.

AI handles the admin. Agents do the outreach. Non-humans run the behind the scenes. Founders input ideas. Review outputs. So what do we do with all the time in the middle?

Today: three technical proposals out the door. One piece of equipment missing from site. Zero warning. Back to back team calls to keep everything moving. Thesis: Be fast, be knowledgeable, do what you say. Most competitors can not do all three. That is the gap.

Every business I built before was meant to be sold. CREATE Industries is the first one built to last. Mission: help legacy American industrial businesses survive and thrive the AI wave. Not a flip. A generational platform. That is the difference.

Walking through Amsterdam today watching people just be fully themselves. No apology. No performance. Just free. The most limiting thing we do is live inside what others expect. Stop shrinking to fit. Be who you were built to become.

Not everyone should be an entrepreneur. Heck no. Every day is warfare. Uncertainty. Problems. People. But the twos and threes who build alongside founders? Just as essential. Entrepreneurship was never a solo sport. It is always a team sport.

Legacy business meets AI tsunami and the founders who understand both are about to pull way ahead. Here is why 👇 #entrepreneur #innovation #industrialengineering #createindustries #businessgrowth #AIautomation #foundersjourney

We had no exit plan in 2012. Two buyers showed up. We listened. We learned. Biggest lesson: timing is personal. No formula works for everyone. But when you exit, know what comes next. Not retirement. Repurposing.

Great EBITDA. Great culture. Great trajectory. We sold anyway. The unseen part of entrepreneurship is the weight of it. Timing was right for our chapter. The education after changed everything. No regrets. Just different wisdom.

A data room is just a filing cabinet. Financials. Admin docs. Customer files. Processes and procedures. Four folders. Hand it to a buyer when the time comes. Build it before you need it. Close faster. Walk away with more.

First 30 days. Every buyer checks three things. Customer list. Diverse or dangerously concentrated? People. Right roles or layers of fluff? Numbers. Clean or treated like a piggy bank? Get all three right before the conversation starts. Walk in with leverage not excuses.

Every buyer will ask for a data room. One central place. Every document. Every financial. Every system. All of it organized and ready. Most sellers scramble when the moment comes. Start building yours today. Day one or year thirty. It does not matter. Start now.

You don't have to want to exit to get exit ready. Death. Divorce. Disease. Disagreement. Disability. Any one of them shows up uninvited. Exit ready also means more efficient, more valuable, and ready when a buyer appears unexpectedly. Start today.

Business owners are googling "how to sell my business fast" more than almost anything else right now. But if your business only works because you show up every day, it is not a business. It is a job. Nobody buys your job. Build to be sellable before you want to sell.

Business and sports success demands a balance: master fundamentals while embracing new tools and approaches. Stagnation is the enemy. Stay grounded, but be ready to innovate. #BusinessStrategy #Innovation

Legacy business on one side. AI and automation on the other. The gap between them grows every single day. You are either building the bridge right now or watching your competition do it first. There is no standing still in this one.