Charm City Prime - Building From Scratch

Something different this week. Beyond my day job at Julius Silvert, I've been working on a side project that's finally taking shape: Charm City Prime, a specialty meat and seafood distribution operation in the Baltimore area.

The Opportunity

A contact in my network brought me a situation: a small distributor that was struggling operationally but had good customer relationships and a solid product focus. The owners wanted out but cared about what happened to the business and the employees.

After due diligence, we structured an acquisition. I'm not doing this full-time - it's an investment and advisory role alongside my Julius Silvert responsibilities. But it's an opportunity to apply what I've learned about food distribution technology from the ground up.

Technology Starting Point

Charm City's technology is... minimal. QuickBooks for accounting. Excel for everything else. No WMS, no e-commerce, no fleet management. Customer orders come in by phone and fax (yes, fax still exists).

This is simultaneously terrifying and exciting. Terrifying because there's no infrastructure. Exciting because there's no legacy infrastructure either. We can build right the first time.

The Build Plan

Phase 1 is operational basics. Get proper accounting in place (evaluating cloud options - maybe NetSuite for the scale, maybe D365 Business Central). Implement basic inventory tracking. Move customer communication to digital channels.

Phase 2 is efficiency. Route optimization for deliveries. Basic WMS for the small warehouse. Customer portal for order entry and tracking.

Phase 3 is growth enablement. E-commerce capability. Integration with major customer ordering systems. Analytics for customer behavior and product performance.

This is a multi-year journey. The business needs to fund its own transformation, so we move at the pace revenue supports.

Why I'm Doing This

Several reasons. First, it's equity ownership. My salary at Julius Silvert is good, but equity ownership is how you build wealth. Charm City gives me a stake in building something.

Second, it's intellectual challenge. Applying enterprise technology thinking to a small operation requires different approaches. What works at $110M doesn't work at $5M. I want to learn those lessons.

Third, it's M&A experience. If my career trajectory moves toward PE operating roles, having actual acquisition and integration experience matters. This is learning by doing.

More updates as the project progresses. For now, we're focused on closing the acquisition and stabilizing operations. Technology transformation comes after we have the foundation.