I Make a Living

We know you’re awesome—what entrepreneur isn’t?—but do you know how to transform your awesome skills into a viable business? Danny Kerr is the co-founder of Breakthrough Academy, where he teaches tradespeople to scale up their business. They offer lessons on financial management, setting goals, recruiting and managing staff—all the beautiful administrative work you don’t see during a construction project. A former “lost university child,” Danny got started as a College Pro franchisee, where he learned the basics of small business ownership, and then worked for the company directly. He eventually oversaw a corps of over 400 painters while still in his 20s. He co-founded Breakthrough Academy in 2015 to help contractors bridge the gap between “grassroots” level entrepreneurship and more enterprise-level business management. We talk to Danny about what makes a business partnership like a marriage, how to balance active and passive marketing strategies, why we shouldn’t be afraid to delegate, and the one skill eve