The entrepreneur's personal finances

Where I'm speaking from

This subject is usually covered by consultants who have never owned a company. I cover it from where I started. In December 2009, with a partner, I bought out the shares of the family company, financed by a bank. A year later I found myself with significant personal debt, an overdrawn account and a debt to my father, who had lent us a few hundred thousand euros. At 33. I set myself a goal: before 40, to become a millionaire in terms of wealth, assets and cash, by developing the company. On 22 February 2016 I wrote the last two cheques to my father. The five principles in this article come from that story.

1. No fixed salary

The entrepreneur who pays himself a fixed salary, even a high one, does two things. First, he raises his standard of living and runs up debt as a result, and when the crisis comes, 2008, 2011, 2020, the energy crisis of 2022, he should be the first to give up his pay, but he can't, because his lifestyle and debts won't let him, and because he can't justify it to his family and friends. So he adds to the loss on the income statement. Second, he relaxes on his goals. Why push for high standards when the salary is guaranteed? Using the company as a cash machine for personal spending means emptying it.

2. You are neither an employee nor a manager

The employee trades time and skills for pay. The manager has a fixed and a variable component, looks at the year and breaks it down into quarters and months; if the sea gets rough he updates his CV. That is legitimate: a good manager is loyal, but knows his time there is a cycle that ends. The entrepreneur's future, by contrast, is the company's future. The horizon is long, and the responsibility is all his. Whoever confuses the two roles, and behaves like a manager of his own company, has already decided not to grow it.

3. Your pay is the distribution of profits

The legitimate wish to earn ends in the distribution of profit. And profit, for an Italian SME, comes from positioning the brand at the high end, from products priced high against the sector average, and therefore from a high margin and the profit that follows. To get there the entrepreneur has to take off the clothes of the technician of his sector, at least inside the company, and build the skills that are needed: marketing for the brand and the customers, leadership to attract people, management to bring the company into profit. Personal financial rewards come only from there.

4. Reinvest first

Once the income statement is stable and the average margin on products is defined, you invest. In what? In the levers that multiply: content marketing, which for the budget of two magazine pages gives you a year of communication; your first own showroom, which gives you customer data and tests everything you have studied; people, who join as interns and grow. That is what a high margin is for: more margin, more investment in marketing and advertising, more sales, stronger brand perception. It is the flywheel of growth, and it only turns if you don't empty it first.

5. The real gain is the value of the company

Beyond the annual profit, the entrepreneur's real gain is the growth of the brand combined with a scalable business model, which one day allows a rewarding exit. The value is calculated like this: EBITDA times the sector multiple, minus the net financial position. The multiple tells you where you stand: a factory without a brand changes hands at 3–4 times EBITDA, a brand with its own distribution at 12. La Piadineria, selling piadine, was sold for €250 million in 2018 and €600 million in 2024. Versace, with €668 million in turnover, for €1,830 million.

The entrepreneur's personal finances in one line: you pay yourself with profits and with the value you build, without a salary. The rest is peace of mind, which you need to work and the company needs to grow.

From my book Direct from Milano and my classroom courses. Figures and examples updated to September 2026.