Our Origin Story
A CLEAR GOAL
When we started Benevolent Capital Group two years ago, we had one very clear intention in mind:
We create generational wealth with hardworking founders.
We’d been doing this pro bono for years already. Matthew lent his advice through SCORE and at Lorenzo Walker Technical College as the head mentor of Ted’s entrepreneurship program. Together after school we’d also advise local Main Street business owners we met along the way.
Meanwhile, our partner Ken was also treating his SCORE volunteering like a more-than-full-time job. (More about all three of us here).
We love doing this, and we’ve also made some remarkably accomplished friends who enjoy paying their good fortune forward by helping Ted’s students and some of the early-stage business owners we’ve advised.
In fact, there’s a good chance you’re one of those friends, which is why you’re reading this right now.
All along, though, we’ve naturally faced the restraint of time. We’d like to help more founders in more depth, but there are only so many hours in the week.
So two years ago we asked ourselves, “What if we align our incentives better with these founders by investing small amounts of capital as makes sense in exchange for small equity stakes in the business?”
What follows is how it works, who it works for, and how you can get involved if you’re so inclined.
FOUNDERS FIRST
Let’s start with our favorite part, the types of founders and companies that catch our attention.
We look for practical, “Main Street” type businesses: the home renovators, exterior home services, and small engine repair companies that employ hardworking local people. The kinds of business that all of us rely on in good times and bad to keep our community running.
All of the founders who catch our attention are go-getters. If they aren’t driven to grow their business already, we don’t see much point in working with them.
All of the founders are also coachable. As one of our potential portfolio company founders put it,
“If you gave me money right now I wouldn’t know what to do with it. What I really need is business advice.”
That’s the type of attitude we look for in every founder we meet. Our outlook is, If you’re hungry and coachable, if you want to scale and you’re eager to learn from our mentors’ experience and mistakes, then let’s get to work!
All of the businesses we take seriously are already profitable. Main Street businesses are cash cows when they’re run by go-getters.
Most of these companies are service businesses, because with the right guidance they’re very scalable and even more profitable.
It’s typical for the companies we look at seriously to show a fifty to ninety percent gross profit margin.
We’ve explored close to 40 companies in detail over the past two years. The average has been in business for five years and is making $250,000 to $500,000 top-line revenue with three full-time employees, one of which is the founder.
The largest company we’ve explored working with was doing $2 million annually. The oldest was 20 years in business. We are much less interested in size than in the character of the founder.
The smallest was an exception: Chris of Naples AI started his business several months ago with our help, as our first portfolio company. He was profitable his first full month in business.
This exception proves the rule, as they say. When we meet a founder worth investing in, we allow ourselves to be flexible.
Know any hard-working founders? They should apply for the Naples Pitch Showcase on Tuesday, June 23, where we’ll hear Main Street business founders make their case for inclusion in our portfolio.