Grow A Small Business Podcast · Troy Trewin

Owner of Andrew Griffiths Enterprise shares how he went from buying a dive shop at 17 to building multimillion-dollar success, writing 14 bestselling books, and teaching businesses to charge what they're truly worth. (Episode 748 - Andrew Griffiths)

·52 min·3 clips

Andrew Griffiths says one bad partner cost him $500,000 and nearly ended his writing career.

Troy Truan frames the episode around how growth actually happens inside a small business. He speaks with owners who have built teams of five to 30 people. Griffiths starts with a rough childhood and an early risk. At 17, in 1983, he bought a Sydney dive shop for around 30 grand. He made plenty of mistakes. He still learned how to make the business profitable. After that, he spent time in commercial diving. He also worked in corporate and international sales and marketing. In the 1990s, he started a marketing business. That business grew to around $2.5 million in top-line revenue. It also reached 15 team members. He sold it to the team after the GFC. The conversation keeps coming back to long-term relationships. He says some clients have been with him for 25 years. He calls everything he does a long game. He plans his books 10 years in advance. He also talks about funding. Most of his businesses were self-funded, though he says he would try to raise funds if starting a significant business today. He admits he does not love giving up ownership or being told how to run things. He is now up to 14 bestselling books, and the setbacks of being shafted by two business partners in separate businesses now sit alongside his work in writing, speaking, and a little coaching.

As heard by us

A plainspoken founder story about resilience, profit, and the long game.

Andrew Griffiths tells a straightforward founder story: rough childhood, buying a dive shop at 17 in 1983, then a long run of mistakes and lessons about profit.

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Why you'd press play

A founder story about rough starts, hard mistakes, profit, ownership, and the long game.

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