Last week I launched The GovCon Executive.

This weekend, I’m at MagicCon in Las Vegas. The largest trading card game convention in the US.

And at the same time, our second brick and mortar game store opened back home.

So we are across the country… and the business is still running.

That part means a lot to me.

This store has been a passion project for our family. Something fun, creative, and completely different from government contracting… but also very real, very operational, and very much a business.

And it doesn’t run without intention.

It takes systems.

The right people.

And it takes knowing exactly how your business actually works.

Because at the end of the day, business problems are business problems.

It doesn’t matter if you’re running a local game store or a defense company.

You’re still thinking about cost of goods sold, cash flow, pricing, positioning, knowing your customer, and what actually makes you different.

At the store, you feel it right away.

If pricing is off, you see it show up in the financials and sales.

If inventory isn’t right, you definitely hear about it.

If you miss what your customers care about, you feel it as soon as you walk in.

In GovCon, it’s slower. More complex. Higher stakes.

But it’s the same underlying truth.

If the foundation isn’t there, it is eventually exposed.

Just in a proposal instead of a purchase.

In an audit instead of a customer walking out.

Being in both worlds has made one thing really clear to me.

The companies that scale aren’t just technically capable.

They understand how their business actually performs under pressure.

Whether that’s opening a second location while you’re across the country… or executing a federal contract.

Back to MagicCon.

p.s. Where are my Magic, Pokemon, board game, RPG players and dice goblins at 😄 let’s connect over games + govcon… best of both worlds!

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Originally published on LinkedIn.