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Entrepreneurs' Guide to Business Lending
How owners should actually think about borrowing money.
My story
I got a late start.
Where you come from doesn't have to decide where you end up.
I grew up surrounded by addiction and chaos. Both of my parents and both of my sisters battled drug addiction for more than 30 years.
But I never questioned whether my parents loved me. They told me all the time that they believed in me. Through the grace of God, I chose a different path.
Despite everything around me, I never touched a drug.
Growing up in chaos taught me how to keep moving when things fall apart. For years, I thought my childhood was something I survived. Later, I realized it gave me the tools I'd use to lead.
My first real job was the graveyard shift at UPS. I got hurt, left, and had no idea what came next.
Then I saw a guy selling knockoff cologne from his car. I bought about $40 worth.
I sold it to my friends. Then their parents. Then I found the wholesalers in Manhattan. Soon, I was driving up every week, buying bottles for $2 to $3 and selling them for six to ten.
Eventually, I got a sidewalk sales vendors license and set up two milk crates outside a Philadelphia welfare office. Most days I went home with a pocket full of cash.
People told me to get a real job. I didn't listen.
The sidewalk became a store. The store became a wholesale business. That became Olympic Embroidery, which I ran for 17 years before selling it in 2015.
At 46, I left an industry I knew and entered one I didn't: business finance. That scared me more than the milk crates ever did. In 2017, I started Amerifi with four people. Nav Technologies bought it in 2019.
I stayed for three years. Then I walked away from a large salary and started again from zero.
That company became QualiFi. The early months were brutal. My partner and I stopped paying ourselves, and my daughter Gia quietly took herself off payroll too.
Four years later, we made the Inc. 5000. We're still building.
The chapter you're in is not the whole book.
Your circumstances don't have to determine where you end up. For me, that's the real story.
