He Was Racing to the Bottom... Then He Started Building His Own Equipment | Chris Meso

About this episode

Chris Meso shares his journey of building a successful manufacturing company and the personal challenges he faced after selling it.

For nearly 30 years, Chris built Mobile Air from a garage into a multi-state niche manufacturing company. He went from getting crushed by competitors with a 20-year head start to charging two to three times their price, and customers wanted his equipment more. He prototyped equipment on real job sites, told contractors "if it doesn't work, you won't pay for it," and slowly built something no one else could copy. Then he sold to private equity. And something he didn't expect happened. He lost himself. We talked about: → Why the first five years nearly killed his business and how he reinvented it from the kitchen table → What watching Lehman Brothers collapse on TV taught him about timing an exit → The moment on a golf course that made him walk away from retirement and start coaching entrepreneurs Chris now runs T-Rex Advisory, where he helps business owners go deeper than the tools and systems. He works with entrepreneurs on the stuff no one talks about: ego, identity, purpose, and what happens when the thing you built for decades is suddenly gone. If you've ever wondered what it actually costs to build something from nothing and what's left when you let it go, tune into this…

People in this episode

Host: Wes Mathews

Guest: Chris Meso

Topics covered

• entrepreneurship
• business growth
• manufacturing
• coaching
• identity
• purpose

Keywords

• entrepreneurship
• manufacturing
• business coaching
• identity
• purpose
• exit strategy
• business growth

Sponsors

Stealth Consulting

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mobile Air, T-Rex Advisory, Lehman Brothers

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