Can I someone theoretically still own a multimillion dollar business by just carefully investing borrowed money.Ok, story of my life here, just to give you an idea of what you could do in the past.My grandpa (still alive 80yo) was a Greek Canadian immigrant washing dishes for 8 years in a restaurant owned by another fellow Greek. He couldn't speak English and didn't graduate highschool. His wife worked in a textile factory or something like that. They had two children my dad and my uncle which both their jobs adequately supported, but my grandpa wanted to make more money. The cheff at the restaurant was leaving so my grandpa asked the boss if it was ok for the cheff to train him so he could take over and he agreed. As a cheff and a competent cook, he started paying attention to how the business is run, how much food is being consumed, how much each thing costs, which dishes are more popular, trends etc. After some years doing that he went to the boss and told him he wants to start his own restaurant, that he had saved up roughly 15k and he's planning on taking a loan from the bank for the rest. The owner wished him farewell on the account he finds him another cheff.So he takes a loan from the bank and I don't really understand or I don't remember it exactly, it's been a while since he told me the story, but initially he wanted to take out a loan of 15 thousand dollars, and the bank teller asked him why and he told him he wants to open his own restaurant, he has 15k saved up all he wants is to double it and upon hearing that he's like "no, that's not going to work, you'll need way more, you'll need at least 30 thousand, you'll take a loan of 30 thousand dollars" and he also offered him a better location for the restaurant as the one my grandpa had in mind was bad apparently.And low and behold the bank teller was right as he had to spend all the 45k plus some of his own money on the restaurant. This is going to be long wait
>>58426386The restaurant was profitable and my grandpa paid off the loan in less than a year. He was apparently an advertising genius and knew exactly what color and fonts to use to make his restaurant more appealing. My grandma played a huge role as well, quiting her job to cook food and help run the restaurant..Ok i don't want this to be long, the point is, it was only upwards from there. My grandpa kept opening restaurants and buying land. He would buy already running restaurants, remodel them, ran them for a while himself, then he would sell the mortgage for a profit. He was buying and selling both land and restaurants. He had 5 million dollars by 1980. For a man without a highschool degree it wasn't so bad. He was operating on pure intuition alone, no education.
>>58426415There as a point when he had multiple restaurants and cheffs with staff under his command that he thought they were stealing supplies from him, (why? idk, I,have to ask him) so he devised a system where all the supplies for the restaurants would be delivered in warehouse and the cheffs would have to get the supplies from there and keep a record of the amount taken. That way a trend of consumption developed or something like that and he just knew when someone was stealing. Early in his career he got into trouble with the government because he wasnt playing taxes but the lawyer was able to convince the judge it was because of the language barrier. He learned about stocks by asking a man in a suit who came to his restaurant what he does for a living, he told him he is a broker, that he buys and sells. He couldn't understand so the broker, suggested this: They'd buy 20 thousand worth of salmon, and they'd rent refrigerators to store them, and later in the year when the price of salmon increases, they'll sell them and make easy money. He was skeptical at first but agreed. Broker said he'd keep an eye on the price and all he has to do was wait. He showed him in the newspaper where to look for the price of salmon, and said, "when this number doubles we sell them" but grandpa would keep calling him asking him to sell the salmon and the broker was like no you idiot wait" Lol. They eventually sold the salmon, broker got his cut, and grandpa made money "without lifting a finger" as he describes it.
>>58426386Now watch this get ingored
>>58426423>>58426415>>58426386Didn't read all of this just the first post, some of the 2nd but I bet some details of this story for kept from you. For example, the tax evasion that is all too common in the migrant restaurant industry. Or the workers paid in cash since they're almost always paid illegal amounts. This only works if you play dirty and there is huge risk involved.Here in the UK it's very easy to get your store shut down if you don't follow the rules. Bangladeshis have a huge industry across Europe where they open up restaurants abroad, set it up in someone else's name as to disguise the income and still claim welfare, sell barely edible food and "employ" other bangladeshis from sylhet for little or even no pay in exchange for a work visa. Using extensive family networks it's easy for them to distribute the properties of the company in such a way as to avoid both personal and business taxes and as such they can operate on little to no income.Can you do this? Only if you have people who would be willing to commit said crimes for you that you can entirely trust.
>>58426426Too long, didn't read
>>58426443My grandpa was a straight arrow. So straight that when he went back to Greece to invest his money (where he ultimately lost it all) he got culture shock at how corrupt everyone was. For example, when he needed papers from government inspectors to continue, the inspectors would ask for a cut 10thousand 20 thousand etc so my grandpa was like "ok write me a receipt" and they were like aha we cant give you a receipt for that" and he was like "why not." He didn't UNDERSTAND they were asking for kickbacks. This cost him months of useless waiting. He said if they just told me they wanted money from the beginning I would have given them the damn money" My grandpa wasn't nearly as connected to manage to pull the stunts you're describing. His restaurants were legit and some are still operational in British Columbia as we speak, under different owners. One of them is still a direct hand down from my grandpa and he recently went to visit the owner who is also very old himself. I don't know whether he wrote checks or paid in cash but I do know that in the early stages he had to carry a lot of money himself from the restaurant to the bank, or his house there were moments he had up to 10 thousand him under his coat. He was robbed at gun point multiple times by US thieves (they would cross the border just to rob and then flee back to the USA, the border was very different back then, basically unguarded. He was also followed to his home, ambushed, my dad and uncle was tied down at my grandpa was forced to open the safe, and they threatened to kill them if hecalled the cops. My grandpa immediately called the cops as soon as they left and they managed to catch one of the thieves, and managed to find the other 2 after interrogating him.
>>58426473you're very funny you should pursue a career in comedy.
ok I read your grandpa restaurant story, what is the question again?
>>58426599If it's still technically possible to do what he did with no high-school diploma.The question was the first paragraph.
>>58426605saving up money and starting a business?sure why not
>>58426599You understand that if he just kept buying and selling land my name would be on the Forbes list or something and one of the richest in all of Canada and the United States. My dad's first car at 16 was a Mustang and he also coonwed a small pizza restaurant with his brother making roughly 300k a year. All gone. I didn't see jack shit. By the time I was old enough to form complete sentences my grandpa was forced to sell all his land in Canada his villas in Greece, his assets, everything.
>>58426615so you are saying they fucked you over and you have to start from 0 ?
>>58426629My grandpa didn't fuck me over. I love my grandpa and he doesn't owe me anything. The fact that he did what he did with what he had at the time is by itself nothing short of a miracle. I believe my grandpa was a Genius and had he received quality education, he would have been unstoppable. His mistake was that he didn't lose once on a small scale to see what that's like. His kids would go on vacations to Greece and telling him they liked Greece more. He short of agreed. He sold his house to some Indian for 3 million and took his money to Greece where he invested it all in some business. Not gonna tell you what kind of business because it was the only one in the history of Greece and only a handful operational in the entire continental Europe at the time. Only my grandpa attempted it. Anyway. Someone had to tell him about diversification, don't put all your eggs in one basket etc etc. But coming back to Greece was an emotional decision in the first place, not a business one.
>>58426629But yes, I do have to start from zero. So did my dad. But I'm sure it was way worse for my dad and uncle because he had to GO poor. He wasn't one. He had to see everything go away and crumble to dust, slowly, as grandpa's investment required more and more money to stay afloat. By the time they started to sell assets to feed the business pretty much everyone but my grandpa realized it's game over. I don't think I would manage personally.
