Our First Annual Letter
It’s tradition for investment holding companies like ours to publish an Annual Letter. Typically, these letters are written for current or prospective investors – of which Tomco Capital has none, nor do we plan to.
We are surrounded by people who have invested in Tomco in some way, such as small business owners who have sold their companies to us or team members building their careers within a Tomco company. As a result, we feel a responsibility to share our vision and the work we are doing with these individuals.
We believe it is crucial to clearly articulate our vision for Tomco Capital and why we believe others might find purpose and fulfillment in joining us to help create the world we are working towards. Although much of our work at Tomco is supporting the small businesses we own and operate, our vision for our small holding company will become more visible as we expand.
Tomco's strategic goal is to build great, resilient, and profitable businesses and to create synergies between our portfolio companies by identifying overlapping service offerings and requirements.
2022 was Tomco’s first (partial) calendar year in operation. And it was a busy, decade-defining year for us. We grew our portfolio from zero to six new brands: ERPlingo.com, Tomco.io, Tomco.ai, Viralfollowers.com, DailyGratitude.io and the very latest addition Storycloud Media.
All companies are in various stages of development with most of them launching commercial operations in Q1 of 2023. While we’re excited about the short-term financial prospects for all companies, it’s the long-term work we forged this year that we’re proud of. Rightly so, as we believe that the best companies think and act in decades, not fiscal quarters.
Our long-term vision is for Tomco to have a collection of a dozen small businesses within five years, if we remain true to our values and maintain a long-term perspective. Tomco's journey truly began in earnest in 2022, and this Annual Letter documents our progress, decision-making process, and future direction as we embark on our first decade.
Looking back on 2022
The year began with selling our legacy business Michael Management Corporation. We have built the company over 20 years into a leading provider of SAP training and access services. The timing was right to hand over the reigns to a large private equity firm to take it to the next level.
In the same process, we laid the foundation to what is now the Tomco Capital Corporation – a holding company of amazing businesses as well as a lab or incubator of fascinating ideas we want to work on.
The importance of small business itself is not lost on us – quite the opposite, actually. We prefer a world with more small businesses, and fewer mega-corporations like Amazon, and Walmart.
I began Tomco Capital in 2022 with one small business idea: create a personal holding company for small businesses I find interesting and fun to work on. Focus on tech companies with good products & services, strong recurring revenue potential and promising communities.
We view Tomco as a laboratory for small businesses where we can experiment, create, grow, and support a group of well-managed companies. Our plan is to hold onto each company indefinitely, with no intention to sell, and to operate each as a lifestyle business by investing in growth for the sake of sustainability and not just profit. We also plan to align each business with long-term core values and hire leaders who we genuinely enjoy working with.
To begin our journey, we recruited the very talented Claire Albaum, who, among many other things, serves as our Director of Strategy & Business Development.
Looking Ahead to 2023
Looking Ahead to 2023
While 2022 was an amazing launch year for us, we’re even more excited about 2023 as our portfolio brands will start their commercial operations. We will focus on building strong customer bases for each business, start generating free cash flow that we can re-invest in our portfolio and team members.
This is the first year we have established strategic plans for each business, secured the necessary capital to invest in our long-term outlook and handle challenges, and appointed strong leaders for each small business, all of whom are motivated to demonstrate the success of Tomco's long-term mission.
I am more excited for the start of a new year than I can ever remember, and I am grateful to those who have contributed to the early stages of Tomco.
In closing, I want to thank our team members for their tireless hard work and support. Working alongside you has been nothing but a privilege. Also, I am forever grateful for the support we have received from our very first customers that believe in our mission, products & services as much as we do. Without you, we wouldn’t exist.
And so it begins.
Thomas Michael
CEO
Tomco Capital Corporation