Speaking with Ray Chery on a Teams call, I told him I found the backstory of his life pivot with his wife, Dana, from high-powered jobs in the investment banking and tech industries toward ownership of portable sink company Monsam \u201ckind of funny.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe think it\u2019s funny every day,\u201d Ray said, smiling. <\/p>\n
Did the Chreys ever imagine they\u2019d be owners of a company like Monsam? That answer is no. <\/p>\n
Both have MBAs \u2014 Dana from Northwestern, and Ray from the University of Chicago \u2014 and were well down the path of successful careers, Ray\u2019s in investment banking (Brown Brothers Harriman in Boston, Robert W. Baird in Chicago and Jefferies in San Francisco) and Dana\u2019s in tech marketing for Salesforce and Samsara. <\/p>\n
But \u201centrepreneurship was always in the back of our minds,\u201d Ray said. Their change in perspective came amid a tough labor market where increasingly more people are disillusioned with the upper crust of employers, especially in the finance and tech worlds, where there is often little regard for personal lives or well-being. At the same time, an entire generation of Baby Boomers is retiring, but the owners want to see their businesses live on.<\/p>\n
Having watched startup founders closely during their time in San Francisco, the Cherys knew entrepreneurship through acquisition would be a better avenue for them. They contracted with a broker listing businesses for sale and began studying hundreds of opportunities. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt represented a chance at autonomy, an opportunity for us to own something, and it just felt like the right time to go for it,\u201d Ray said. \u201cWe were looking for companies that were historically profitable, close proximity to our home, and a retiring owner.\u201d <\/p>\n
They ultimately landed on Monsam, a portmanteau of the names of the previous owners\u2019 kids. The 27-year-old business was established, had practical and varied uses cases (handwashing is pretty foundational), and was profitable. <\/p>\n
The Cherys thought there was more growth runway for the business, too, in education, health care and construction, as well as sports venues. In the latter, Monsam portable sinks can help venue operators leverage dead space without installing formal plumbing. <\/p>\n
\u201cI love portables,\u201d said Ravens Chief Growth and Innovation Officer Moon Javaid, a friend of Chery\u2019s and a fellow Chicago MBA grad. \u201cPortables are great, because you can add more points-of-sale and you can do it in a more thoughtful way. It\u2019s great to have somebody with [Ray\u2019s] kind of background to solve problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cherys closed on the Monsam acquisition in May 2024 (for an undisclosed price). They split Monsam\u2019s corporate responsibilities and have eight employees and a Bay Area workshop. They deal with delivery drivers, craftspeople and installers, basically an entire blue-collar side of the economy they hadn\u2019t encountered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI live in the Bay Area. There is a lot of sexy, high-flying, AI stuff, and [Monsam] was an opportunity to step away from that and connect with the broader economy,\u201d said Ray. \u201cThere is this notion of boring businesses, they\u2019re becoming more popular. Sleepier businesses that people might not appreciate for how important they are or valuable they are.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.sportsbusinessjournal.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Speaking with Ray Chery on a Teams call, I told him I found the backstory of his life pivot with his wife, Dana, from high-powered jobs in the investment banking and tech industries toward ownership of portable sink company Monsam \u201ckind of funny.\u201d \u201cWe think it\u2019s funny every day,\u201d Ray said, smiling. Did the Chreys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2231732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2231732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231733,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231732\/revisions\/2231733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2231732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2231732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2231732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/resizer\/v2\/PXMURWB5FVHCFMJZRPXFSUBC2M.png?auth=693a1a9ed79d31b66991d0d14997201b43dfab065ac9f86835c7e863702e9071&width=800&height=675\")