Carlos Franco
I have spent twenty years in luxury goods and precious metals.
Somewhere in the middle of that I stopped waiting for engineering capacity and started building it myself. That turned out to be the whole career.
- Twelve companies operated, six of them mine
- Chief Operating Officer, private vault, family owned since 1983
- Precious metals, luxury retail, construction, legal services, real estate
- Fort Myers, Florida. English and Spanish.
How I got here
I started in luxury watch resale, at a company that became one of the largest in the world. My job was building the systems that let it scale.
A colleague who worked alongside me for twelve years described it publicly as my creating systems being a significant factor in that company reaching global scale.
Since then, jewelry retail. Accounting technology. And now a private vault in Fort Lauderdale, where I am the Chief Operating Officer.
Today I run SMB Startups, which holds the technology behind twelve companies, six of which I own, and I take a small number of outside engagements each year.
What twenty years in one domain is worth
I have been the client
Six of the twelve companies are mine. I have signed the invoices, missed the numbers and lived with the decisions. That is a different relationship to the work than advising on it.
The sector is not a slide
Metals, watches, jewelry and vaulting are one continuous thread through my whole career. When a dealer describes a problem I do not need it explained twice.
High ticket behaves differently
Everything I work on has the same shape: the purchase is significant and the barrier is confidence rather than awareness. That changes what you build and in what order.
I stayed operational
I am still a COO. The systems I build are ones I have to use on Monday, which is a useful constraint on how clever they are allowed to be.
Where I am
Based in Fort Myers, Florida. I work across the state and remotely, and most of the work is remote by design with time on site when a build genuinely needs it.
I am Guatemalan, and I speak Spanish.
I take a small number of outside engagements each year, alongside the portfolio. That is not scarcity marketing, it is arithmetic.
Tell me what's in the way.
I answer everything myself, usually the same day. If we are not a fit I will say so on the first call and point you somewhere better.
I take limited engagements.