Mitch Waks’ 39-Year Journey: From Elementary School Entrepreneur to Healthcare Industry Pioneer

Anthony Codispoti : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Mitch Wak, CEO and founder of Cooperative Home Care. They are a home health care agency that was founded in 1986 to provide personalized medical and non-medical support for people of all ages, including skilled nursing and therapies for older adults and individuals with developmental disabilities. Their mission is to help clients remain independent and safe at home by delivering compassionate care and tailored solutions. Under Mitch’s leadership, the company has successfully expanded into mental health services, staffing and home monitoring, ensuring families receive holistic support for a wide variety of needs. Mitch is an expert in home health care advocacy, having served on boards like the National Private Duty Association and the National Association of Home Care.

He also holds a certified Senior Advisor certificate and is a licensed auctioneer in Missouri. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, founder and CEO of Cooperative Home Care, Mitch Wak. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Mitch Waks : Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me on your show.

Anthony Codispoti : So, Mitch, before we get into how you came up with the idea to start Cooperative Home Care back in 86, I want to go back to your childhood and what your up until the age of 12, your lifelong ambition had been? Sure.

Mitch Waks : Let’s talk about the most painful part of my life. My lifelong ambition had been, I wanted to be an astronaut. During the many kind of, you know, space program early years, it was any time there was anything that had to do with a rocket ship or anything, it was on TV, my parents were watching anything that NASA was televising. And I just thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And then of course, I grew up with, you know, space shows, you know, Star Trek, and other shows like that, Lost in Space.

These were cool 60s shows that just captivated my attention. And I wanted to do that. And then I lost all of that. When I did a little research and found out that because I wore eyeglasses, I could never be an astronaut. And I was never going to go into space. Although now actually, come, you know, what is it 50 years later, I’m finding well, with enough money, I can go into space.

I can buy a ticket on maybe Elon Musk’s next trip up there. Is that a consideration for you? No, it’s a little too much money. And I don’t know that it would be worth it. If the price comes down, maybe, you know, I mean, I think it’s still a few hundred thousand to just take a very, you know, 15 second ride into space. Maybe a minute or I don’t know what they’re doing.

Anthony Codispoti : But so how did you recover from that devastation of as a 12 year old of realizing that this dream you’d had for years was no longer possible?

Mitch Waks : Well, it wasn’t easy. But it was really at a pretty young age when I started really my path toward entrepreneurship. My first, my first attempt at being an entrepreneur nearly got me kicked out of elementary school. I kids always were looking at each other’s lunchboxes and seeing what we could trade because you didn’t like what your mom put in.

And you were hoping somebody else did and you could trade for something good. And usually the good stuff was the dessert. And so I started buying cheap candy at the at the local drug store. And then I was reselling it at lunchtime for, you know, a sizable markup. I didn’t realize at the time was probably a, you know, 200% markup I was asking for on the candy. And then somebody got pissed at me because they didn’t have enough money to buy one of my candy bars. They told the principal and principal called my dad. The next entrepreneurial story, if I can go on, I was in sixth grade, and all the rage were cinnamon toothpicks, cinnamon flavor toothpicks. They were all the rage.

Never heard of it. Okay. And, and you, you bought them at the drug store. They were like, they came in packs of five toothpicks.

And they were pricey enough that, you know, it caused your parents a little moment of like thinking before they automatically said, Sure, go ahead and buy some more. And so I got, I bought a bottle of cinnamon oil. And I soaked my own toothpicks that I guaranteed were three times as strong as anything they could buy. And one day, the bottle cap leaked on it in my pants pocket, the bottle cap kind of opened and pure cinnamon oil. Man, once that gets on your skin, it was burning. And I would try to muddle through the day as best I could and not scream in pain. But eventually I’d go see the nurse. Again, that entrepreneur business was shut down quickly.

Anthony Codispoti : So you were carrying around your manufacturing operation in your pants pocket?

Mitch Waks : Yeah, that was dumb. So, so I almost got kicked out of school a second time. And then it was, I think when I really hit kind of a bigger market was high school. And I was throwing what we called in the Midwest, keg parties. And how it worked with somebody’s parents go out of town. And they let you know, and then I as the producer of these keg parties would arrange for kegs to be picked up by a local bar or distribution site that didn’t card you.

And they didn’t care about the law. So I was able to buy, you know, kegs and the tapper and you put a deposit down, you bring it back, you arrange for a local high school band to play. And they played for free beer.

That was always the deal. And then people would come and they would pay $5, they would get a cup. And they were allowed to drink as much as they wanted to drink, listen to the band, hang out with their friends. And that was the Midwest keg party. And at $5 ahead, you know, could make, you know, several hundred dollars, depending on the size of the party.

Anthony Codispoti : And how long before that one got shut down? I’m going to guess this is a little bit more severe than just going to the principal’s office.

Mitch Waks : No, because I had this brilliant idea early on, the first party when things started to get a little rowdy, I got nervous, because you know, you don’t want people to trash this guy’s house. And the parents to come home and said, What the heck?

And who’s responsible? And I didn’t want them pointing at me. So what I did was I would buy plenty of beer and make sure it was fair to all the people that paid their $5.

But if it started to get out of hand, it started to get rowdy and the testosterone was growing. I would sneak off to a back bedroom. And I would call the local police station and act as a neighbor that’s concerned and hearing too much noise.

The police say you call you would call the police on yourself. Absolutely right. I did.

Yeah. And, and nobody knew this, because I would it was always in secrecy. And the police would come and I would say, Oh, my God, the cops are here, everybody out the back door. And so the band would shut down immediately.

And all the kids would just scamper like, you know, little mice or cockroaches running when the light hits the room. And, and they loved it. They there were something about running from the cops and almost getting almost getting caught but not. Yeah, not that was just and they loved my parties. And so it was then they became known as Oh, my God, the party was so good that the neighbors call the cops.

Anthony Codispoti : Oh, built in marketing.

Mitch Waks : Oh, yeah, for free. And pretty soon I was producing some larger size. And, you know, in the summer, there’d be like people that had some farmland and I do the same thing on a larger scale.

Anthony Codispoti : So how did you avoid somebody actually getting in trouble from the police, or the police reporting this to the parents? Because that’s the part of this equation that I’m

Mitch Waks : like, ordered it to the parents, they would just come, they’d knock on the door, they’d ask for who lives there, whoever it was went to the door said, Hey, I’m just having a few friends over is something wrong.

Yeah. And one of the neighbors complaining the music’s too loud. It goes, Okay, well, we’ll shut the music off. And the police would go and that’d be it back then. That was it.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, they were just like three stages of brilliance, Mitch. Yeah, like you had your own built in sort of bouncer in the local police station. Oh, yeah. But you gave everybody enough of a heads up so that, you know, they could the police don’t get there and find this giant party.

And then the part that I love the most from for that marketing and sales part is that viral built in. Oh, the party was so good. The cops got called, right? Everybody wants to talk about that. Yeah.

Mitch Waks : And at schools, the next day was all that’s what everyone’s talking about.

Anthony Codispoti : Oh, that’s hysterical. Okay, so let’s let’s come to 1986. I mean, we see a pattern here. You know, the way your brain works, you know, your audience, your audience has been your classmates, you know, all the way through elementary school up through high school and what it is that they want. And how can I provide that to them and charge a markup for it? So how did the idea in 1986 come about to start cooperative home care?

Mitch Waks : Well, started with the Appalachian Trail. And are you familiar with the trail?

Anthony Codispoti : I am. But let’s assume that our listeners are not.

Mitch Waks : The Appalachian Trail is a trail that goes and I let me back up and say I was not familiar. I was selling investments for Shierson Lehman at the at this time in my life. And it was boring. I was making good money.

But it was a boring job. And my mother-in-law had been doing tutoring for adults in their home. She was a special ed teacher. And she said, hey, and I had a degree in education in English, by the way, that was my background. That’s what I went to college for. I was going to teach until I lost the passion for that my first semester of teaching.

And I ended up at Shierson Lehman. So and for your viewers, that was a big banking house before the crash of the big banks. They were the first one. Lehman was the first one that was allowed to fail before the others were not allowed to fail and they failed.

So they’re no longer a bank, but I digress. So my mother-in-law, I married just a couple of years at this point, comes to me and says, hey, do you mind taking over some of the tutoring of my students? And like all good son-in-laws, you know, what do you say? You say, of course, yeah, of course, I’m going to do that.

And she says, I’m going to go hike the Appalachian Trail. Now, I didn’t, I made a classic entrepreneurial mistake. I didn’t ask follow-up questions. Entrepreneurs, young people trying to build should listen carefully and ask follow-up questions.

I failed to do that right out of the gate. And it wasn’t until about, and she gave me like six months notice, I’m like, yeah, yeah, it’s fine. And she said, okay, here’s you’ll come over right before I leave and I’ll hand you the files.

And I’ll just tell you a little bit about each one. And there was maybe 10 or 12 students that she had that she was doing tutoring for. So the week before she leaves, I go over and there’s this massive packing production and boxes labeled for all these different towns.

And I’m like, what is going on? And that’s where I learned the Appalachian Trail isn’t a weekend hike or a one week hike. It starts in Maine or in Georgia and ends in the other city. You can go from Georgia to Maine or Maine to Georgia. But it’s like a half a year hike to go all the way across the country.

Anthony Codispoti : It’s a big deal. People try it once a month’s of prep work into it.

Mitch Waks : Yes, they do. And I had no idea. So I had just signed on for helping some kids with their tutoring math or English or whatever the heck she was doing for months. And I didn’t quite realize it to like right before she went out of town. So I start doing the tutoring and my frustration point, and this is an interesting thing for young entrepreneurs to kind of take note of, the system was broken.

And that’s where opportunity happens. I would show up at these people’s homes and what would happen is they weren’t ready for me to tutor them, meaning their home care assistant or aide hadn’t shown up that day or they did show up, but they didn’t do anything. And back in the day in the state of Missouri, the state just gave people money to find their own home care aides. And often, you know, if you have a disability, that doesn’t work very well.

So the money was getting stolen really from them by family members, from neighbors, from people who promised to take care of them but never did, but always took the check. And so I went to the state and I said, hey, I am doing this, I’m standing in for my mother-in-law, but hey, these guys, they’re never ready when I get there. And I got to spend more than half of my, a lot of time just trying to help them get out of bed and into their wheelchair and have a little breakfast and a little coffee before I can actually start tutoring them about that time.

It’s almost time to go. And they said, yeah, that is, that’s a problem. And I said, hey, what if I was able to find somebody to come in and help them before I got there?

Could you reimburse that person instead of just sending the money directly to the client or the patient? And they said, well, that has to get approved at the very highest level. So I worked doing a little lobbying to get something like that done. And then sure enough, the state offered a brand new contract to a brand new group of providers, and I was the first one to sign on, that offered to pay a company, an intermediary, the money. So they kind of took my idea, but they changed it. And it was instead of paying the money directly to the caregiver, they paid it to an independent fiduciary. That was the birth of home care in Missouri.

Anthony Codispoti : So do you think that this was already in process behind the scenes or was this kicked off by your request?

Mitch Waks : Well, I am sure they had gotten complaints before. And I, but I wasn’t privy to those, but I was pretty persistent. I was at ATI personality. And I was kind of a business person before they knew what hit them. In other words, these were social worker types. And they had never really, back then, they weren’t really being approached by business people. They were being approached by other social worker types.

And I really wasn’t even interested in trying to make money off of this. I just thought, if I could just get a caregiver, I could do my job, do the tutoring, I go in, they’re ready, I teach them what I’m supposed to, and then I go away back to my day job at Shearson. Because I was doing this for my mother all evenings and weekends, because she just had that few people to teach. So I think it was probably a little of both that they, they’d heard, you know, complaints before.

Anthony Codispoti : They weren’t the first to complain, but maybe you were the loudest and the most persistent.

Mitch Waks : Right. And so we got a contract and I signed the contract without my mother-in-law being there. And when she came back, I said, hey, I’ve got an idea I want to share with you. And I told her the story and I said, hey, can we make a deal? I think there’s something here. Because before she got back pretty quickly, we were getting referrals from the state to do more of the same.

I wasn’t looking for that. I was just happy to say, okay, you know what, I’ll take responsibility. I’ll pay the caregivers.

I’ll make sure that my mother-in-law is a handful of people that were tutoring are ready to be tutored and they’re taken care of. And that was a good feeling. If I had done nothing else, I had done a good thing for my mother-in-law and for those people.

But all of a sudden the state, because I went in and talked to a large group of social workers at the state, they started making calls and saying, hey, I got somebody else for you to take care of. Can you take it? And I’m like, you know, the entrepreneur in me said, oh, okay, one more keg’s going to get how many more, how many more cups do I get out of that? And so I said, yeah, okay, I can ask my caregivers if they can take on another client or two. And before you know it, we started growing, doing home health care.

And tutoring became really a very secondary thing. Now, my mother-in-law, you had to know, was a, she was a Birkenstock wearing granola making no bra wearing feminist from the minute that she, you know, before there was a term. And she didn’t like male dominated businesses.

She just thought that’s, you know, she knew about toxic masculinity before it came a thing in this last 10 years, you know, and didn’t like it. But I made her a promise. I said, Fran, her name was Fran. I said, Fran, how about you just do the tutoring of your patients that you are very close to? And let me do the home health and we’ll keep it all in one company.

And you never have to worry about anything except you just do the tutoring, just like you have been. Now, the same reason I said, of course, when my mother-in-law asked me if I would help her was probably the same motivation in reverse when I asked her, would you be willing to do this? It’s like, okay, her son-in-law is asking her to do something. And, you know, she wants her daughter to be happy. So against her best wishes, she said, sure. So I made a deal with the devil.

And I kept that promise, by the way. She, she never really did anything else except the tutoring. And I kept all the other business stuff away from her until she retired, which wasn’t too many years later. But she eventually retired.

Anthony Codispoti : Do you still offer the tutoring services today?

Mitch Waks : We do. Actually. Oh, really? There’s a handful of clients that we still do some in-home tutoring for. Okay. It’s kind of a piece of her legacy. And that’s something I don’t want to go away because it’s a piece of her.

Anthony Codispoti : It’s a, there’s a little nostalgia there. Oh, of course there is. Yeah. Okay. So how, so this is in the year, sort of 1986.

Mitch Waks : This is when this is all kind of birth. Actually, the early 90s. She started, so on our website, we go by the year she started tutoring. Okay. And so let me just clarify, I didn’t come on until the summer of 90. Okay. Okay. So this is early 90s when this is, this, this is reborn.

Anthony Codispoti : And at what stage are you in a position where you’re like, okay, we’ve got something, it’s working, it’s profitable.

Mitch Waks : How long did that take? It was before she got back from the trail. Oh, it didn’t take long to do the math on the back of the napkin and figure out that, okay, here’s what I have to do to get to the margin I need. And here are the expenses. And I didn’t even know what all the expenses were going to be because there just weren’t any other models back then. When I say that we were one of the first five home care companies in the state, we were one of the first five home care companies. Ever.

Anthony Codispoti : And so where does it stand today? What are sort of the breadth of the services that cooperative home care?

Mitch Waks : That’s a great question. Well, we’ve expanded to like five or six offices. We’re in multi states. We’ve, you know, our caregivers are in the thousands no longer 12. And we have expanded services to include skilled nursing and therapy, including what your wife does, the speech therapy.

We accept Medicare, Medicaid, all insurances. And so it’s really grown. We expanded into pediatric care. Again, it’s we are just meeting people where they are trying to help them either age in place, or in the case of Peds and the kids, we’re just trying to help them grow in place. So they don’t have to be institutionalized or spend too much time at a local children’s hospital.

Anthony Codispoti : So as you think back, sort of those early days in the early 90s, and now where you are today in 2025, what was maybe like a key inflection point along the way that really helped to catapult the growth, maybe steer you in a slightly different direction that you look back on now and, you know, really appreciate.

Mitch Waks : Yeah, I’m going to give that’s a great question. And it’s an easy one for me to answer. I joined an organization called YEO at the time, Young Entrepreneurs Organization. Are you familiar with it?

I am. They have a sister organization called YPO for young presidents. And the only difference is president, the people in YPO are usually presidents of publicly traded companies. So they’re not really entrepreneurial, but they’re large.

So like locally, the owner of back in the day of the Bush family for, you know, Anheuser-Busch Beer, the president was a member of YPO. And then companies that are entrepreneurial, usually substantially smaller, they joined YEO. So Young Entrepreneurs Organization. And it’s a group where there’s a large, you know, there’s about 250 members in St. Louis and in YEO, but you’re broken down into a small group that becomes your own board of directors. Now think about this, small young entrepreneurial companies having a real board like the big books, like Anheuser-Busch did, right? So all of a sudden, you’ve got other people from all walks of businesses who are now in a group of 10 usually. And they become a board that you meet with every month and go through kind of a series of questions and problem solving. And we were there for each other. And every month we solve problems that we each brought up. Hey, I’ve got an HR issue going on. And somebody at the table would say, you know what, I dealt with that about a year ago.

Let me tell you what I did and how it turned out. And that was the most valuable thing I could have done and something I encourage any entrepreneur to join that. And there’s, you know, several of them now that are kind of peer groups or quasi-peer boards, not just YEO, which is my favorite. But there are a few others out there. The alternative board is another one. And there’s a third large one that I’ll think.

Anthony Codispoti : So this was really instrumental in helping you work through big challenges and getting to the proverbial next level.

Mitch Waks : Oh, it was huge. It was huge. It turned me into a professional where before that, I really wasn’t. And I joined that group in just late 90s.

Anthony Codispoti : This is something that I’ll echo for our listeners. I’ve had the opportunity in my business career to be a part of different masterminds, peer groups at different points. And once you find the right one, the value is it’s hard to put a price tag on because the ability to talk through problems with people who have gone through or going through the same thing, have them be a sounding board, have them, you know, share stories, have them make introductions to people that have been helpful to them and working through those things. And, you know, they always say, what’s the saying? Like, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. And so when you find the right group, you’re in a room of, you know, a lot of other really bright people who are helping you not only solve those problems, but just to think bigger. You’re absolutely right.

Mitch Waks : And I thought of the third group. So I don’t want to just be accused of pushing the group that I love. But the third one that I’d recommend is Vistage. So there’s Vistage, the alternative board, and there’s my favorite, YEO, but it’s now the Y has been dropped to just YEO, Entrepreneurs Organization. They are worldwide great opportunities to go not just around the country, but around the globe and meet other people in the organization with also unique challenges and learning how they fixed them.

Anthony Codispoti : So Mitch, as you guys were growing years ago into these different services, mental health services, the staffing, the monitoring, which of those areas posed the greatest challenge for you? And how did you overcome it?

Mitch Waks : I think the challenges come with every one of our lines of business at different points. Each one of them has unique challenges. They all have something in common, whether it’s regulatory challenges, whether it’s labor challenges. And I think it wasn’t that there was one line that posed the greatest challenge. I think there are challenges that come with each of our growing phases. One of my greatest challenges was growing and using all the money and not having a great cushion so that when we had almost a little perfect storm happening, the state of Missouri who was at that moment paying a large part of our revenue, they had a computer glitch and announced that, hey, we’re going to miss a few payments to our vendors. And when you spend years getting used to being paid every couple of weeks and you’re in a growth phase, man, any excess money is going into fueling and funding the growth. Well, I found myself in a situation, I don’t know, I think around the early 2000s where we were going to run out of cash. And we had about a half a million dollar a week payroll at that time.

And so the number was going to be big. And I figured out a way to get us through a couple of weeks. But I was still going to be about a million dollars shy before I got my next payment from the state. And I got and the revenue started flowing again. And at that time, I really didn’t know about the benefit of a banking relationship and how important it is to have one before you need money. Because I never really needed money, we were just depositors. And then we would take the money out and use it for growth, you know, maybe open up a new city or something. And I was naive. And so I would go to the couple of banks where we had deposits and say, hey, we got a problem and I need to borrow some money.

And they just looked at a young guy like me. Okay, what do you have for collateral? Do you have any property?

Like, well, I got my house, he goes, we’re not going to take your house away. Do you have any other property? No. Do you have anything of value that we can have? No. Do you have assets in the business? I said, no, it’s a service business. It’s all people.

We don’t make any widgets. And so they said, well, you know, come back when things change. And you have something that, you know, that that we can put on the books as a collateral. And so I had nothing. And I am, I’m not sleeping.

Right. I knew there’s a, as soon as you don’t make a single payroll, man, all of your caregivers, I don’t care how loving and supportive and generous they are, they need their paycheck. You can’t skip payroll or they’re going to skip out on your company and go work for somebody else. They’ll go hey, good luck getting them back.

Oh yeah, you ain’t getting them back because you’ve already burned them once. So I had to really think outside of the box. I called a friend. His name is Vern Harnish. And Vern is widely known in the entrepreneurial world. He wrote The Rockefeller Habits, which became a seminal book for entrepreneurs back in the day. He’s written a dozen more books, a brilliant young entrepreneur. And, well, young, he’s older than me.

So I guess neither one point he was young, always brilliant. And he just said, Mitch, you got to get up early. You got to take a megadose of vitamin C. I don’t know where that came from. And he said, you got to talk to everybody you know. And you have to not be afraid of bearing your soul. And don’t be embarrassed.

Just tell everybody you know the problem and see if anybody has any ideas. It’s like it was the early it was it was it was crowdsourcing before there was crowdsourcing, right? And so I started, you know, telephone calling because it was no crowdsourcing back then. And one of the calls I made was to one of the bankers I had. He was he was a very low level banker. But he decided to go on his own.

And he goes, Oh, it’s interesting, you call me, Mitch. I’ve, I’ve just started a Nuvo bank. And we’re looking for people to be on the board. And I think you’d be good. And I said, Okay, I’d be happy to be on your board. So I got on the board.

Yeah. But in order to get on the board, he still needed more capital to help fund the loans that a bank, that’s how they make money, right? So I asked him, what is the lowest amount I can invest and become one of the owners? And he goes, Well, the lowest amount you can invest is $50,000. That’s the smallest amount. Now, it doesn’t sound like much today.

But back in the day, when you’re wondering, can you make payroll, the $50,000 is everything. I mean, come on. And so I took a leap of faith. And I said, Hey, I want to join the bank, I believe in you.

His name is Kirk. And I’m going to give you the money. And I’m going to join the board. But I’d also like to be one of your first customers. And he goes, Great, we need loans.

You know, I’m like, Well, wonderful. I like the loan. I traded $50,000 to be able to get a $1.1 million loan on no collateral. Wow. I was now just part owner of this bank.

Anthony Codispoti : I was one was it like an implied quid pro quo or

Mitch Waks : was it like no it was it completely up and up I you know he needed capital, but he also wanted to give out loans That’s how exactly how they anything starts they they line up a bunch of loans before they open their doors and You know and

Anthony Codispoti : he was able to turn this loan around in time for you to make payroll.

Mitch Waks : I mean that’s fast Yes Yeah, I turned that loan around And it was very fast And he understood After I joined and after he got my money that hanging like but they had had practically there was very little business yet You know They didn’t even have a building yet at the time. They were off.

Anthony Codispoti : They were leasing their own we’re helping each other out Yeah, yeah, they were leasing space and they hadn’t built their own building yet That was gonna come in year two

Mitch Waks : So I was able to get money transferred Into my account with I literally hours to spare before we had to transfer a drill and and then the state fixed their computer glitch and all the back money started coming in and I got a three-year loan I paid it back in eight months and Developed amazing credit and now history Not only of loan repayment, which is so important for young entrepreneurs borrow money Even if you don’t need it is going to be my short advice If it was a longer podcast I tell them why and develop Relationships with bankers at a very early age when you don’t need money Get to know them and let them get to know you and I turned 50,000 into 1.1 million.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s tremendous You know, we I mean you kind of touched on it a little bit like hey, I wasn’t sleeping like I was really stressed about this you know, it’s For people listening who have never been responsible for somebody else’s paycheck Excuse me Like imagine you maybe being out of work and Not sure where your next paycheck is gonna come from and the stress that that involves how am I gonna pay my rent? How am I gonna pay my utilities and groceries? How am I gonna take care of my family?

Mitch Waks : I have to imagine that you know many times I went without paying myself as an entrepreneur That that’s just normal and you got a hope you’ve got if you’re married you got a hope you’ve got a partner that Understands that and then you have some other resources or savings to fall back on

Anthony Codispoti : well And then here’s the thing from your perspective You’re not just worried about being able to pay yourself now you’re taking that same stress of Wondering can I pay everybody else and how were they going to be able to make their bills and support their families? and it just becomes this crushing pressure of Like I don’t know what I’m gonna do you know and in some cases it paralyzes people they’re paralyzed by the fear you got some really great advice from a close friend and You followed that advice. I don’t know if you took the vitamin C that seems irrelevant But you certainly got on the phone and you just started calling everybody to hey I don’t know what the solution looks like, but let me talk to everybody I can think of and see what we can flesh out here

Mitch Waks : Yeah, and it was purely by accident that I Went down my contact list and came across a guy who was starting his own bank I mean, I never would have called this guy out of the blue Because I already knew the answer the bank that he worked for I’d already turned me down for a loan And you’re absolutely right It was really about all the people because I knew what it’s like not to get a paycheck But I also knew that these people Didn’t have a fallback and many of them, you know many nurses You know, they’re living month to month paycheck to paycheck Even though nursing pays well and we paid well it’s still it’s Uh, a lot of americans don’t have a lot of cushion and you can’t you can’t mess with their money

Anthony Codispoti : So mitch was it some of these lessons that you’re working into this new book that’s in process

Mitch Waks : Uh, yeah lessons like this and every other lesson that I can think of that I learned over the course of Uh, a fledgling entrepreneurship into a successful entrepreneurship venture And it is I don’t want to steal I’m not going to steal the idea of entrepreneurship for dummies because that’s a Very well known franchise that is very well copyrighted But basically it’s for brand new and even not brand new entrepreneurs that maybe have not joined a peer group and Are struggling or people in in today’s day and age when I come across a lot are kind of that middle-aged guy who kind of either got displaced at his company after years And uh took his 401k and decided I’m going to start a business Right, but they don’t know anything about starting a business.

I mean they work. They were a corporate man or a corporate woman For their whole life and they just see oh, okay, you know what I’m not going to work for anybody else anymore. Damn it You know to hell with a boss I’m going to be my own boss Uh that way I can never get fired. Well, of course you can get fired You get fired when your business shuts it down and the And you know your your environment your your the group of people you’re that you’re selling into They can fire you every day of the week You know, they don’t like your product. They stop buying it. You’re fired. They don’t like your service.

They stop using it You’re fired. I mean the beautiful thing about a capital market is that it’s clean in that It works Um the supply and demand of your product or service has to be in that equilibrium And when you screw up and you’re not providing a product or service that That that your community wants or needs you’re fired So, um That’s a mistake they make they they think they’re they won’t get fired if they start their own business But they they can and they do As we talked before we started the podcast how many how many young businesses start and then close in the first year The number’s crazy crazy number

Anthony Codispoti : Right, which is even uh more impressive to talk about how long you’ve been around 39 years and counting

Mitch Waks : 39 years We’re gonna have to throw a good party at 40 because I don’t know that I’ll be around for 50 I certainly hope so.

Anthony Codispoti : I mean are you gonna are you gonna pull your own kegs for this party?

Mitch Waks : Um, you know, I’ve gotten to the point where I probably don’t need to charge $5 for a solo cup For all my employees. We’ll we’ll just supply We’ll supply the libations I love it.

Anthony Codispoti : So when can we expect this book to be available and where where can folks find it?

Mitch Waks : Well, they can’t find it yet. So I wish I was hawking something but there’s really nothing to hawk yet But I’d be happy to come back for a follow-up visit and I’d be happy to Let your viewers know there’s not even a name. I don’t have a title yet. The book is written.

It’s completely written I wrote it uh in I I I I stole an idea from Stephen King. I went away to a small cabin in the woods for 30 days and I wrote a book This was in the middle of covid Actually got in a car. I drove to Vale, Colorado at an airbnb that I rented for 30 days And I got into a very regimented routine I would get up early in the morning do a little yoga Um, have a little breakfast and coffee and then start writing. I’d write until dinner time I’d go take a break and go to the villages in Vale and have dinner there I’d come back And then do another bit of writing till around midnight I’d go to sleep wake up early and do it all over again And it was close but on day 29 that night Uh before I was ready to check out, um, and I actually asked the owner. Hey, can I extend this another week?

She said no, it’s already booked. So I’m like, okay. So I just I focused and I just cranked it out Day the evening of the 29th day I had sent to kinkos And and with copies of you know, please Put, you know, five of these Together for me. I’m gonna pick them up tomorrow The next day she said congratulations. Let’s I’m gonna take you to my favorite pizza parlor.

I spent The day with my landlord driving around Colorado mountains Um, and then that afternoon I went and picked up my books Uh at kinkos and uh put them in the trunk of my car in drovo Fascinating.

Anthony Codispoti : Well, we’ll definitely have you back in x number of months when the book is ready I’ll

Mitch Waks : be happy to are I want to come back to your interest your your listeners might be interested in Oh for sure.

Anthony Codispoti : I know that they will be No, I’m just asking right now.

Mitch Waks : Is there anything? That you think they’d be interested in knowing about

Anthony Codispoti : oh, oh hard for me to speak for all of them, but um, you know, I think anytime that you can share Specific stories specific examples kind of like you did about you know, the issue with making payroll If you had just said you need to develop a relationship with banks, you know early on before you need the money It’s like, okay, like I’ll file it away Whatever, but when you can give like this very specific story with the emotion and all the trials and tribulations that you went through attached to it That’s something that people hold on to more. They’re they’re more likely to to remember that at their core. So Um, I guess that’s sort of a little bit broad But anytime you can add those little case studies if you will

Mitch Waks : yeah I will tell you the other nerve wracking piece Not so there were so many nerve wracking. Oh my god. Are we gonna make it another few hours stories? But in that one it wasn’t just am I gonna make payroll or lose the whole company? when I went to this office of this brand new bank and Signed my name underneath a document that said 1.1 million dollars.

My hand was shaking I swear to god It was shaking and if you I kept that document Or my copy of it because you can see my my my penmanship was like Uh, I was all squiggly because I was freaking out that I was signing off on You know It’s one thing to think okay. I’m gonna close my doors But it’s another thing to think okay. If I close my doors now after signing this I gotta find a way to pay these people back 1.1 million and if I can’t I’m gonna lose my house my cars my marriage. I mean everything was on the line

Anthony Codispoti : And so it wasn’t like when that loan came through and you sign that document that uh I can totally breathe now.

Mitch Waks : It was like I had a window of breath But I knew I had to pay it back and now I’ve got a new worry. Can I pay it back?

Anthony Codispoti : Right so the when they fixed their glitch at the state and they they finally, you know Issued their payment to that wasn’t enough

Mitch Waks : that wasn’t enough because we had made an internal mistakes In terms of our billing department for one of our divisions our skilled nursing division and The person in charge of I don’t want to bore you with details But we had we had an internal problem that cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars that we were not going to get back And we were counting on that money also to help make payroll That’s why I called it kind of a a perfect storm of bad things happening all at the same

Anthony Codispoti : time It wasn’t just the state’s glitch

Mitch Waks : you guys had an internal error to the compounded the prior Uh in the billing division they were making mistakes and they were covering up the mistakes And all of a sudden we’re looking at hey, why aren’t we getting revenue in on that division lately? It’s down so much and it took some digging before we figured it out And so I had to crawl back out of that hole that we cost Not just the state so it was you know a double whammy that and then there was a third piece where um Right at that time um Me and another partner had had taken out kind of a chunk of money that we were using To invest in other things and we couldn’t get that capital back so now Yeah, it was a perfect storm all happening at the same time. So I had to Sign that document wondering And I’m going to tell you the truth that I didn’t tell my spouse at the time um I wasn’t upfront about the fact that I put everything we owned Into that document to say if I can’t pay it back they own everything I own I didn’t tell her that part that the house would be theirs. Our cars would be theirs Everything we have would be theirs Uh, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her because I was afraid of her answer And I think her answer would have been no way do not sign that document. Let the company go And and she was a very conservative woman um Still a very conservative woman and she never would have agreed to that so, um I didn’t tell her the whole truth And that’s not something i’m proud of and that’s not something I would recommend to anybody you have to have If you are if you have a partner in life You’re going to find times when you need to rely on them for emotional support and um Because when you’re at the top, it’s a lonely place to be sometimes When you’re president or an entrepreneur of a company, um, it can be lonely and you need that spouse and don’t don’t do what I did Um, so don’t make and my whole book is about don’t do the same mistakes.

Anthony Codispoti : I know Um, do as I say don’t do as I do. When did you eventually tell her mitch?

Mitch Waks : Uh, when I did the loan off I came clean and said hey, by the way, I’m really relieved because why are you? Really? Well, there were some codisols in that document that um made me nervous that you know, we had to put up our own collateral What was her reaction? It was better than it should have been It was wow. Okay, so we dodged a bullet and I said yeah And she goes okay, don’t do that again. Let me know I’m in this with you and she wasn’t this with me You

Anthony Codispoti : know Sounds like a good woman So how was it that you were able to then I think you said eight months turn around and pay this off. How did you pull that out?

Mitch Waks : strategic planning and cost cutting We cut costs to the bone And um We looked at some outsourcing We tightened our belts I lowered my salary drastically um Almost to nothing because I had you know some savings and my wife had a job so we could get by she She’s the smarter one of the two of us. She’s an attorney for the federal government eight circuit court of appeals so smart smart And so she had a job I could rely on that And so you know through all of these things we were able to pay the loan back and then And then you know, but now all of a sudden there’s a lot of money freed up when we don’t have that that loan payment anymore But we got great turns on that so it was good

Anthony Codispoti : As you look back at that time What kind of changes did you make internally that are still paying off for you today?

Mitch Waks : Yeah, so here’s what I learned from there. I mean there’s so many lessons out of that one story, but one of them Is cash is king and you hear that all the time You cannot run out of cash And that means you need to Be diligent When you when things are going well, I see a lot of entrepreneurs who overspend personally In other words, they’re taking money out of the company And they’re using it, you know as a new down payment on a house or they want a new car they want Better clothes and they start spending the money thinking it’s always going to come And my my experience share to them is it’s not always going to come And so you better have great cash reserves Uh, you you need to pay attention to the balance sheet, which is I believe more important than the income statement Because it really shows the overall big picture health of your company Whereas the income statement shows the immediate health of your company And sometimes when you’re running and gunning as a young entrepreneur, you don’t see that You don’t see the long-term health. You just see okay.

What were my numbers last month? How do we do? Okay, we made a profit. Yeah, let’s keep going The balance sheet tells a truer story Of what your company looks like and I think too many young entrepreneurs ignore that that part of it of the financial statements Until it’s too late. So so keep an eye on retained earnings Keep an eye on the value of your company keep cash Close and spend as little as you can to provide the kind of quality of goods or services that you want to provide Especially early on but that that advice really doesn’t change. I mean be lean you know always spend less in your company always Make it look healthier. One of the lessons I learned was when thinking about an exit strategy And young entrepreneurs should be thinking about it before they open up their first Shop their first whatever it is they do Their first sandwich shop, you know, their first, you know, um keg party, whatever it is, whatever it is know your exit strategy And when when you realize that your company may trade on a multiple of four to five times your EBITDA Then you realize that every dollar you save is actually worth five dollars When it’s exit time That’s huge I mean, where else can you get that kind of leverage? And the answer is nowhere So I cut of you know, a thousand dollars of costs somewhere that is just excess At exit time, that’s worth five thousand dollars to me. Are you kidding me? I mean think about that every time you spend anything And make sure you’re going lean lean lean Really powerful advice.

Anthony Codispoti : I’m glad you gave voice to that because I do think especially for folks who Think that’s too far off in the future or they’re not really set up for that sort of you know exit strategy It’s something that you know, once they get closer to that finish line They’re wishing that they had really been thinking about oh, I probably wouldn’t have Expensed this to the company.

I probably would have Not taken that trip in that way or you know, uh, so maybe How about some advice on? Growth levers that have been particularly helpful to you.

Mitch Waks : Yeah, okay So growth lovers I think one of the best ways and you’ve already alluded to it is Make sure you are not the smartest person in your network, right? Your network has to always be changing and I think part of being a great entrepreneur that’s looking for growth is Um being a great networking person and always looking to help others network That always helps you when you’re helping connect other people Be learn how to be a really great connector for others and you’ll be surprised how that comes back to help you and keep growing your network with more and more successful people and Through them you’re going to learn about growth in ways that you just weren’t thinking about uh, or join a good peer group and Ask them, you know, what do you guys see from the outside that I’m not seeing? Um I so I want to say networking is key to growth I want to say your peer group is key To growth if you’ve got your own board that you’ve put together the next Another key to growth is looking for chaos A good entrepreneur Doesn’t panic when the market goes crazy They get a smile on their face without saying anything And they say Okay, I got to find the opportunity in this chaos Other people are going to scream the sky is falling That’s an opportunity And that’s what good entrepreneurs know

Anthony Codispoti : Don’t give us a specific example there Mitch because I think you’re on to something here.

Mitch Waks : Yeah, okay. I’ll give you an example personally um there was a moment in time and when um The unions were really threatening and starting to make some inroads into our population specifically the si si eu employees international union that was the union that was coming into healthcare Uh, they had unionized a lot of hospitals, but they needed more growth and they were now going after mom and pop Um Operations and once you got unionized man, you lose a lot of control over your small business Um, and I’m not bashing unions by any stretch. It just changes all the dynamics of your company well A lot of people were panicking And so there was chaos in our community Uh, and the powers that were causing the chaos were large. I mean, you know The pocketbook of the service employee international union is huge I mean, you know, it’s like the teamsters of healthcare And these are big powerful people with big money and they don’t play fair None of them play fair they they played a kill And win and they do and they know how to do it and we’re a bunch of small entrepreneurs Just struggling to kind of do our own thing and in this case it was, you know, healthcare and I smiled uh, I smirked maybe and I Got an attorney that specialized in unions and I let them do what they needed to protect the company in the meantime I crafted a letter And the letter was dear fellow owner Times are tough right now and it looks like With new increased regulations from the government because there were new regulations coming down With the shortage of caregivers and now The last straw being the the incoming of unions to really tear us apart Are you thinking about getting out is the stress too much?

I understand i’m trying to put together A group of people who are like-minded who want to look for solutions And or if you’re just tired and it’s time for you to exit. I want to talk to you about exiting That letter produced so many phone calls and I started buying small companies for pennies on the dollar And the value was not just in the clientele they had but it was in their salespeople. It was in their Caregivers because there was a shortage. I was able to come and and the biggest probably value they had was caregivers and And That began kind of an annual letter writing campaign that kind of hit on The worst chaos that was happening at the time and I would send out letters to every home care company in my state And and wait for the phone to ring and whenever there was chaos I’d send out another letter and I’d pick up another handful of small companies To that’s fascinating.

Anthony Codispoti : So so what’s a chaos for you was the changes that were taking place specifically the one that you mentioned With the union’s trying to come in and everybody being afraid about that You use that as an opportunity to reach out to people that maybe knew your name a lot of them probably didn’t And say hey, what do you think about this? Are you tired?

Are you looking? you know to maybe step aside and You were able to get these folks that You know, they just probably didn’t have to implant the seed the seed was already there But now you were there their way out, right?

Mitch Waks : and there was two major groups that would call me back Entrepreneurs who are a lot older and just tired and ready to walk out And the other group were people who had no idea what they were doing and all and they were scared and uh, and they just wanted to go back to work for somebody else and uh, so Yeah, um, I was able to reach out. I formed coalitions and and many of the people I had conversations with never turned into a Purchase opportunity. They turned though into A sounding board a person that I was up there to help and say hey, we’re in this together. What should we do?

and and what can we do and And Sometimes years later. I got a phone call Mitch. Remember me? We had lunch, you know back and whatever 2005 and I’m like, yeah, yeah, of course.

How are you? Well, I’m getting ready to retire and I thought of you first So I want to give you an opportunity if you’re interested in Purchasing my company or they’d call and just say look. I’m just ready to transfer the company to you You were so kind to me.

You did so much And that’s yet another lesson that comes out of this is help all your competitors Do you be there for them? Don’t they’re not your enemy. They’re your friends. They’re your future source of business potentially I can’t tell you how many people I have openly and and warmly Offered to help them when they were struggling and I did it in earnest and I asked for nothing in return But I built the community and I built a reputation Um And years later people would call and in a couple instances. They just handed me the keys to their company and said, you know What it’s really not worth much but take it.

I want you to have it. You helped me I’m ready to step down. My kids want nothing to do with it But I care about my employees. Will you take good care of them? And I’m like, of course, we’ll take good care of them They said I knew you would

Anthony Codispoti : you know, there have been some There have been some fun threads throughout this interview But I think one of the biggest ones that I’ve really enjoyed is sort of the emphasis on your peer group and the value of networking and and not just networking in the way of like, what can I get from this person? It’s like, how can I add value?

Mitch Waks : All right, you have to go on it with it and with that attitude You have to try to help others before they’re ever going to trust you And so you and you have to give away that help wherever you can In other words, this is not oh, I’m going to go into consulting. It’s a new business line for me I’m going to help people who don’t know what they’re doing. No Just go and help them if they’re in your industry.

Don’t worry about Oh, am I going to give away trade secrets and they’re going to You know, take away my business now if you’re a good entrepreneur, you’re a good business owner If you have good culture and your employees are sticking with you help others Teach them what you’ve learned and it’s going to come back. It always comes back to help me I’ve never charged a dime for helping others and it always comes back to help me

Anthony Codispoti : Mitch, I’ve just got one more question for you here today But before I ask, I want to do two things first for all the listeners today pause for just a moment Go to your podcast app that you’re using right now hit the follow button I want you to continue to get more great interviews like we’ve had today with mitch walks from Cooperative home care and Mitch. I also want to let people know the best way either to get in touch with you directly Or to follow your story or that of cooperative home care. What is that?

Mitch Waks : Well, I’ll tell you they can reach out to me and I would offer to help young entrepreneurs or Season entrepreneurs with a particular problem if they want to reach out. I don’t charge anything. I’m not Putting myself out there as a consultant But I’m happy to reach out to a fellow entrepreneur and offer some experience sharing And I use that term because we don’t talk about advice in In eo and why eo we talk about experience sharing as a matter of fact Advice is forbidden. You learn that in your training If you have no experience to share you don’t give your opinion you just say I’ll pass When it’s your turn at the round table in problem solving So I will offer my experience sharing to anybody that wants to reach out to me My email is mitch at and then my really long ugly Company name.

Sorry about that folks. I wish I bought, you know nurses.com or sign in back in the day But it’s cooperative home care all one word squished together Uh dot com Mitch act cooperative home care dot com

Anthony Codispoti : and we’ll include link to that in the show notes for folks That’s it’s very generous of you to offer your time like that So last question for you.

Mitch Waks : I’ll send them a free copy if they reach out to me

Anthony Codispoti : Oh, there you go even more reason to connect with mitch about that The last question here for you mitch, uh, you and I reconnect a year from now and you’re really excited. You’re celebrating something big What’s that big thing that you hope to be celebrating a year from now?

Mitch Waks : Um, you know, it used to be my next financial milestone of the company week, you know, I remember the first time I got to one million dollar in sales and my I had I got in the when I saw the papers I got in the car. I rolled the window down. It was a beautiful day. I cranked the music on I remember specifically I was listening to Uh more than a feeling by boston It’s a it’s an old old song that most of your greats are too young to know Great, uh, but it was that.

Oh my god. I’m just jamming and I’m so happy Now I reached a bunch of other milestones, you know greater than that along the way and now Where where I see What are we what’s going to be exciting about year 40 when we hit that milestone? um, lately my my staff has been doing these great, um Kind of giving back projects and it started with I want to say our 30th anniversary We were brainstorming. How do we celebrate? And we and at first was we’re going to throw a party. We’ll invite all our clients. We’ll invite all our referring physicians We’ll invite and it was all about let’s just throw a party and eventually um We kept going around and somebody said what if we did like a really great service project to go with that party And that idea the group the people in the room at the time as lin-menwell says you got to be in the room where it happens and the people in the room at that moment Uh, we’re like, yeah, you know what a service project and all of a sudden it’s like well What if we did for 30 years? We did three big service projects Okay, that’s and then someone said well Could we expand that could we make a 10 sir? We we have a whole year What if we did 10 great service projects to help the community where all of our employees and caregivers and nurses Did something for some other not-for-profit organization And well before you know it a few meetings later the party was scrapped all together I mean, that’s just a waste and that’s an ego thing And we put egos aside And we ended up that year closing out that year doing 31 32 service projects Wow, so we quickly realized we could get to 30 if we tried and we asked our field workers our nurses our caregivers our bathers um Our nutritionists everybody is there something that’s important in your neighborhood in your community that we could help with Yeah, we pull our resources and come together And before you know what people started saying hey, yeah, you know what?

Our church, you know needs new pews or whatever. Um, because they’re I don’t know what And so we ended up You know hitting a 30 for 30 milestone The end result is we had no party. We didn’t pat ourselves on the back, but we were giving back And my goodness, I can’t tell you how good that feels um So next year a year from now what I’d like to be maybe talking about is you know, maybe we do 50 40 for 40 Or 50 for 40. I don’t know but something we find a way to give back again and We we continued from that 30th year to have a culture of doing service projects Throughout the year, but it was that specific campaign that was so memorable We actually won a few awards that we didn’t even apply for but we’re just got out what we were doing And all of a sudden we’re getting all this attention that we didn’t even ask for we didn’t hire a publicist We didn’t hire, you know anybody out there to to sell us We we threw out the idea of a party and said let’s not you know to our own horn.

Anthony Codispoti : Let’s give back from kick parties to 30 giving back projects in a year Mitch wax from cooperative home care. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today I really appreciate it.

Mitch Waks : Oh, it was my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me

Anthony Codispoti : talk Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today