Before acquiring a company, the most valuable preparation is to work as a "right-hand person" to an existing small business owner. This apprenticeship provides crucial, ground-floor experience with the operational realities that financial models and spreadsheets completely miss.

Rather than trying to start a new venture from scratch, ambitious young people should find a master in their field and make themselves useful. By helping with menial tasks and demonstrating value over time, they can earn a place on the team and gain invaluable experience that is impossible to acquire alone.

Spending years building a business for someone else (even a parent) while being undercompensated is a powerful training ground. It forces a level of conviction, humility, and delayed gratification that can lead to explosive growth once you start your own venture.

To maintain team morale and respect, family members in the business must hold themselves to a higher standard. This means working harder, arriving earlier, and never asking for exceptions, ensuring the team sees their position is earned through merit, not just their relationship to the owner.

The most successful multi-generational family offices treat their operations with the same rigor as a formal business. This includes defined structures, clear missions, and motivating family members, rather than just passively managing wealth.

To prepare her son, Green provided a list of specific negative commandments (“Don't cheat,” “Don't kick a man when he's down”) and negotiation heuristics (“Sleep on it overnight”). This focus on real-world ethics and decision-making proved more valuable for succession than any theoretical business education.

The best way to learn M&A is not by being the first Corp Dev hire. Instead, start at a company with a mature, well-developed M&A function. This provides exposure to established best practices and a foundational playbook that can be adapted to other environments later in your career.

When Jeff Braverman joined his family's struggling nut business, he didn't just ask for a job. He made it clear he needed full control to implement his vision, promising to deliver results. This ultimatum was crucial for overcoming the founders' inertia and enabling true transformation.

The primary goal in a family-run business should be preserving relationships, as work provides meaningful time together. Choosing money or ego over family creates tension. Often, the real friction stems from a perceived lack of respect, not just financial disagreements, which can poison the dynamic.