About Us

History

Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, Halfretire.com is owned by Maxum Communications, Inc (Maxum). Maxum and it’s licensees have been helping business owners grow since 2001. Starting with a single CEO mastermind group in Indianapolis, the organization has grown to serve over forty cities in North America. We started with a simple philosophy- business owners learn best from the best practices of other business owners. We believe in the power of vesting best practices from one business owner to another through educational courses, coaching, and consulting.

Our Philosophy

Most business owners have spent a lifetime growing their business. For many, their business is their single biggest asset. Maximizing their financial return on a lifetime of hard work is of utmost importance. Business owners are discovering that selling their business may not be as financially-rewarding as they thought. Small businesses can sell for as little as 1.5 – 3.0 times earnings. Owners find themselves asking, “Why should I sell the business when I can run it for two more years instead?”

This is a great plan when you are young and healthy. However, you can’t keep running the business forever. There has to be some middle ground between selling the business for a “song” and running it forever. We have met with thousands of business owners one-on-one and we found a small subset who figured out a clever solution to this very problem. They kept running their business and kept the income without the daily grind many business owners experience. We named this practice Half-Retirement.

This site is devoted to teaching business owners how to enjoy the income from their business without the daily toil. We aim to share best practices, techniques, and systems we have learned to help business owners move from hard-earned income to ownership income.

We believe that business owners learn from sticky case studies. For information to be truly valuable it must be: 1) relevant to you, 2) come from the right source, and 3) be personal. There is an abundance of terrific information in business books; however, we find that most business owners do not get much actionable content from books. Why? Business books are general and theoretical. It is simply too hard to connect the dots as to how this applies to MY business. Secondly, information has to come from a credible and likable source. Many business owners are anti-academic. They think, “What does some professor know about my business or the real business world?” Fellow business owners are much more credible as they are living with the same experiences every day. Third, you can read a case study in a book about how some business owner created success or made some mistake. However, it rarely sticks. Why? There is no personal attachment to someone in a book. You don’t know them. You don’t see their pain or gain. You don’t see enough of the details to matter.

The bottom line is that business owners learn significantly more from case studies and best practices from other business owners with whom they have a deep relationship. This makes the information stick. There are two kinds of best practices: the ones you self-develop the hard way, and ones you learn from others the easy way. Learning from sticky case studies greatly accelerates business success.

Our Vision

We believe our mission is to improve lives through business. An organization comprised of former business owners understands that your business controls much of your life. A good business equals a good life. A bad business makes for a challenging one. By creating the best possible business for our clients, we create a more meaningful whole-life experience.

Favorite Sayings

“There are two types of best practices- the ones we learn the hard way and the ones we learn from others.”

“It is difficult to knot your tie without a mirror. It is hard to run a business without one too.”