TL:DR — I donated more absolute dollars year over year and less relative dollars given the growth of my portfolio. I was kinda pissed at myself.
Check the discrepancy between the two you might find what I found, on an absolute basis I was more charitable, on a relative basis I was less. You might be like me, but you gotta be willing to look at the numbers to find out.
Here are two posts that will help you understand more about my relationship with money.
Every year my financial adviser comes over and we go through my portfolio. They show me the charts. The numbers. The gains. We talk about what worked, what didn’t, where things are headed. High fives all around.
This year I had a feeling, that while I was “giving more” that relative to my gains it was a joke. So I asked them to pull up something else: my charitable giving from my donor-advised fund over the same period.
And there it was. Confirmed, I was giving more in absolute dollars and less in relative.
The Math Wasn’t Mathing
For years, my portfolio had been growing. Compounding. Doing what portfolios do when you leave them alone and the market cooperates.
Meanwhile, my charitable giving was growing too. I’d gone from giving what felt like meaningful amounts to giving even more. The absolute numbers were going up by thousands. I felt good about that. (This is separate from what the company gives away).
In the years before 2025, I was giving away somewhere between 2–4% of my annual portfolio gains. Some years a bit more, some years a bit less.
My returns were compounding exponentially. My generosity was growing linearly.
I Love a Good Scoreboard
Here’s the thing about me. I love winning, losing. I love outperforming, underperforming.
I love being better than I was yesterday. Give me a scoreboard and I will find a way to move the numbers.
And portfolio returns? Perfect scoreboard. Clean. Quantifiable. Always there on the app whenever you want to check it.
But without an offsetting metric (charitable donations) – without something to balance against those returns, you end up on the treadmill of life.
How Did I Become That Person?
I dind’t grow up with a lot of “extra” money…
So the me who grew up lower middle class, is so engrained in the me of today, that giving 100 dollars still feels like a TON, because old me is still in there.
Holding the mirror up to myself…
I asked for a specific report. Portfolio gains for the year. Charitable giving for the year. Side by side. As percentages.
I went up from 2023 to 2024 in charitable givingBut as a percentage of my gains I went down
And look what happened, by asking the question and looking at the numbers I knew what to do.
This year I gave away 20% of my returns. I think that sounds right and will continue to do that, it is a good counterbalance to that lower middle class kid at the private school who just can’t sort this out.
I finally have a system that keeps me honest with myself about how old me (writing a 100 dollar check to a charity) doesn’t serve the new me (that 100 dollar check should have been 1000).
If my returns compound, my giving needs to compound at a similar rate. 20% it is.
It’s not about giving all my returns away. It’s about having a metric that keeps me honest about the “enough” I claimed I already reached.
Big ups to Professor Galloway who talked about hitting a number then saying once he hit it, everything above that had to go to charity or to making memories for other people. I love that idea and it inspired the self reflections I had that made me even hold the mirror up to myself.
Those greedy CEOs, they are to blame for this, if they were just more generous, people would be more / less _____________.
Given how I run my company, I tend to attract a certain type of conversation with other leaders who reach out for coffee. They see that I work hard to be transparent about my journey, and I seem generous with my team and they are trying to replicate it in some way.
So a lot of CEO friends ask me how I’m so happy, motivated to keep working, when I don’t have to, enduring the day to day people-based headaches, pains, and to be honest, heartbreaks — all of which are on top of just trying to run the business.
First it is that in Jeff, Emily, Crystal, Larry, and Steve I have a brick house of a leadership team that have a combined 60 years-ish working with me.
Your generosity when it comes with strings attached, even if unsaid, will cause you heartbreak.
Overly Generous CEOs can set themselves up for depression, I’m seeing it with a few friends I’ve recently chatted with. They are giving more and more, taking more personal sacrifices, and finding out the hard way that sacrificing comforts at home, time with family, etc isn’t getting them a thank you when that generosity is expressed, much less long term loyalty, leading to some serious disappointment.
The year I had my highest profit distribution, was the same year I had my highest turnover.
Yeah, let that sink in for a minute. They year I set a record for highest % of profits and raw # of $ given to the team in profit share was was same year I set a record for people leaving Seer.
It’s interesting how we have this belief that a CEO who is transparent, generous, etc will have coworkers who reward that generosity with loyalty.
I didn’t go into my profit share expecting new found loyalty, I also didn’t expect to set turnover records (in the mid 20’s I think).
As I write this, I think when you are generous you really should be signaling at best to a small group of people, not expecting some “across the team” loyalty.
The Key: Securing your mask before helping others
As a CEO or an owner of a business, you need to first define what “enough” money for you and your family looks and feels like. Then you need to secure your “mask” and the “mask” of your family as soon as humanly possible. Run to that enough point.
This isn’t a cop-out for not being generous today.
I believe CEOs who wake up with a generous mindset are almost always too generous early on and sacrifice putting on the mask for them and their families. Once you give something to your team, you can’t take it back without pain. I’ve been there, the one day I didn’t feel like going into work was the result of me giving an employee who left a bonus 4 months after they left the company (when we were under 10 people).
For me, securing my mask wasn’t about some big, lofty, fancy life. It was about:
Paying off my house
Afford the best roofer (House had mad leaks for 5 years)
Buying a nice car with great tech
Taking vacations w/ my family (mostly as part of my business travel, and also use my status / points to fly my family for free)
Have a nanny who could travel with us (which allows my wife and I to both work)
Tuition for my kids so I can continue to live in the city and get them a great education
Fix stuff at my parents / in laws houses
To me (and only me) these weren’t crazy indulgent luxuries, they were about security, peace of mind, and some joy for me and my family.
I know CEOs that haven’t made money in six months and haven’t been able to give raises to their people in two years. When they finally have a good quarter or a good year, they’re much more likely to give those people raises than they are to take care of themselves. That is how many generous CEOs act, however it comes at a cost.
Expecting Loyalty + Not Securing Your Mask = Depression, Resentment, Frustration.
Here’s the kicker: when CEOs make day-to-day sacrifices for their team, they often develop expectations around their generosity.
You start believing the hype that if you aren’t like those CEOs who compensate themselves in ways like the above your employees would be more sticky that just is the wrong way to look at it.
I chatted with Khe Hy (worth a follow) who helped me see this through the lens of Buddhism — he told me that we don’t have the right to expectations on the fruits of our generosity. If you’re going to be generous with your team, just do it. But do it without expectation.
“You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself the cause of the results, and never be attached to not doing your duty.”
This quote highlights the idea that when you give or act with generosity, you should let go of any attachment to the outcome or the recipient’s actions.
In Buddhism, this concept is often referred to as “dana” (generosity) without attachment.
You give with expectations when you haven’t secured the mask…
However, that’s really hard to do when you haven’t secured the mask for you and your family.
I just wish THEY knew the sacrificing I am making
It’s not your employees job to know your personal sacrifices for them / their families well being. It is your job to make sure you have secured or are on a strong path to secure) the mask for you and your family, so you can be OVERLY generous later without expectations and resentment.
Your personal sacrifices for your team will cause you to resent them
Every single day, you’re reminded of those daily frustrations, every day I heard a dodge charger rip down I-95, I was reminded that I had “bad windows and that I was woken up because of them”. So when you don’t get those thank-yous for your generosity, the sting is so much deeper. You start thinking “wait, do I not have good windows, so I can give out bonuses, just for this lack of thank you’s for what I’m doing?”
What is “life changing” money?
Very quickly, I started realizing that there was no more joy to be unlocked. I tried to figure out how my life would change with more money, and didn't like what I came up with, so I didn’t do those things. That is when I knew I secured the mask for me and my family. I will say, I will spend insane amounts of money on vacation to have someone else care about me having a good time to the nth degree.
I’m always gonna be that guy who uses points to try to upgrade, but has no problem flying coach. You have to go through imagining your liquid net worth being at increasing levels until it gets to a level at which you kind of feel that the things you are doing are ridiculous. That’s when you know what your line is.
Generosity Without Strings
You set yourself up for disappointment and even resentment when you’ve given out bonuses or raises while you know you haven’t taken one in years. How many of us tell our teams “unplug on vacation”, but recognize that maybe if we do and that deal doesn’t get closed people might lose their jobs?
When my work life balance as a CEO could cause you to lose your job, would you still want me to “unplug”? That is what I thought.
When you walk out of that office door into your home and see the things you’re not doing for yourself or your family because of your generosity at the company, it can quickly turn into resentment. This can make you really not want to spend time at the company you built, with the people you deep down love and want great things for. But that is a YOU problem, no one said you had to be that generous, and now you can’t take it back so just be a bit smarter next time raises or bonus time comes.
So yes, we should always strive to be generous as CEOs. But we need to do it without attaching our self-worth or happiness to the reactions of others. Don’t give people power over your generosity by having expectations.
Remember, we don’t have the right to the fruits of our generosity. But we do have the power to create a culture of genuine care and generosity, both in our companies and in the world at large. So secure your mask, define your ‘enough,’ and then secure others masks, there’s real joy in knowing that your generosity will help others do good for their families and loved ones.
Last year was GREAT for me. Last year punched me in the face too.
Life is always great when I am in this position w/ my life and family
I’ve hit my point of enough My house is enough, my cars are enough, my kids private school is enough, my vacation fund is enough. I’ve seen enough of the world. My rainy day fund is enough, my take my parents on vacation fund is enough, my buy a small house for my in laws to move near their grandkids fund is enough. There is no more “Life changing money” for me. I’ve lived a life well within my means, so what do I do when I’m content?
I had the honor recently of speaking to a group of veteran entrepreneurs as part of the Veteran’s Shark Tank here in Philly. My dad is a vet and I work with veteran entrepreneurs to honor the role the military played in his life, and thus mine. If you wanna get involved with veteran entreprenurs Bunker Labs is a GREAT way to get started.
Problem: I get 0 joy from speaking to entrepreneurs on some inspirational business BS
But when it comes time to speak to immigrant, veteran, or formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs I’m in.
So what should I talk about … winning — that’s what we do right? Get an entrepreneur on the stage to talk about winning, and how these other entrepreneurs can do it too and be just like me.
I could show that Seer has grown by double digits every year for 18 years in a row. I could stop the story there…18 years in a row, razzle dazzle, you can do it too.
Proof point 2 — “how did this happen to lil ol me?”
Not bad for a teacher with humble upbringings, oh and I’m black, lets throw that in too cause you know it’s hard out here for a black entrepreneurs to grow a business, people love that part of the story. Throw that in and boom, inspiring keynote.
There is just one problem. That isn’t the whole story and it sure AF isn’t the most recent events. The real story is that I’m up on stage supposed to inspire them, when the reality is…
For the first time in 20 years, my business is down.
I reminded those veterans of a quote my dad would say — My dad was an aircraft mechanic on KC131 in flight refuel planes.
“Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining”
One thing I’ve always loved about the veterans I’ve met, is that broadly (I know I am generalizing here), they face facts and appreciate brutal honesty. For veteran entrepreneurs that is a strength. Most of us non-veteran entrepreneurs tell so many incomplete success stories to each other about our businesses, that why so many entrepreneurs never feel like they are doing good enough because everyone around them are telling incomplete stories.
This is how most of us portray our successes to the world, incompletely.
Instead I told them the whole story, yes all those things above are true, but I told them what I also true… year 20 I’m down.
This is the reality of entreprenurship, the past is over. That old glory is fine and all but it’s not indicative of how I feel about my job as a CEO today. I gotta get to work and I’m excited to get back at it.
So often the headline is only one part of the story, these are the realities for so many of us.
We grew 450% in 5 years, let me inspire you
but we aren’t profitable and will run out of money in 7 months
I exited at 7x EBITDA, I’m rich, let me inspire you
but I didn’t get 40% of my earn out
but my competitors sold for 2x that much
but I miss working with my team, I’ve lost my purpose
This is the reality behind so many of our stories, and veterans should lean on one another to be honest, face facts — it takes strength to show others your business is struggling, it takes strength to tell complete stories.
Entrepreneurship is lonely, especially when ya phony
Here’s the funny thing about being honest first. Others will let down their “crushing it” façade and tell you “me too” sometimes. Which in turn makes you say…oh dang…I’m not the only one.
I’ve always told myself if I struggled I would write about it, but when it came time to put pen to paper, it was hard if I’m being honest.
So I’ll give you the advice that I gave them, you gain strength when you accept without excuses your weaknesses and failures. If you can find other entrepreneurs who are wiling to do the same, the journey won’t be as lonely.
What also inspired me to write this is another founder who said in a post recently growth has been slow/flat for 2–3 years, he mentioned that on LinkedIn (Jason, it’s you, but I can’t find the post, you kind of mentioned it in passing)! How refreshing. Another friend hit me up to say say WTF happened in Q3/Q4 of 2022? The other friend who grew 20% but hasn’t made a profit in 2 years. In private we have these chats, and I can’t share their stories but I can share mine and ask you to share yours with someone too. This is how we get stronger and show the world what entrepreneurship really is about
Entrepreneurship is not this:
Entrepreneurship is my 2021 & 2022. When we blew up in 2021 and had record everything — that level of growth showed all the cracks that made that unsustainable in 2022. We had to pause biz, re-tool, re-hire, and rethink how we get back to growth.
Here’s a few things about Seer as I see it…
Growing this business has been easy. I wish I had some crazy sacrifices I’ve made story. I don’t. I never went in debt, we’ve been profitable almost every month for 20 years. I’ve found great leaders / execs — and I cared about them and their families enough that they decided to stay around with me. I then got out of their way and let them take this business to levels I couldn’t.
This story ain’t so inspirational, I got lucky, built something that outstripped my skills and let others run it. So why am I on stage talking about “my” success :)?
“NO such thing as a life that is better than yours, no such thing, no such thing.” — J. Cole.
One of the most profound statements in my 23 year professional career came from a client who sold to Alibaba — in a pretty big deal, all over crunchbase etc etc. Millions — he was the founder / CEO so I was at the highest levels of the biz.
Me: “Congrats man, what a ride!” Him: “Wil, sometimes it is better to own a lot of something small then to own a little of something big, I gotta run.”
That hit me, hard. This man just sold for “likely low 9 figures” and had a significant ownership stake — this was the FIRST thing he thought to say to me days after? Damn.
I shared that with Alex Hillman recently to which he replied, “there’s a lot of people out there Rich and Sad.”
Got me thinking even harder. There’s a lot of Rich & Sad out there behind the facade. Alex went on to say, “Anytime someone sells their business, my first question is “are you OK, not congratulations.”
Happy on social, sad in real life
I was listening to a podcast about “van life” today and how much it sucked for someone who tried it, wait what, it sucked? But the awesome photos, the dropping the 9–5, the waking up every day to do what you want, how could that not be dope? Look. At. This. Life.
My morning, was boooooring.
The author talked about how it looks on vanlife tiktok and she described how that was what she expected, but the reality was a lot of skuzzy bathrooms, flat tires, really bad sleep, feeling like she couldn’t breathe in humid days(bad AC), rainy days, lack of showering, etc, etc.
This broadly gets me thinking of one J. Cole song I love, called Love Yourz — watch the lyrics video, but this line gets repeated a lot.
Start vs Finish (Getting married vs staying married)
Something else constantly on my mind is the start vs the finish.
When is the last time you were at a huge celebration of family members, likely a wedding right? 2 people committing to a life together starting today, lets send them off and throw a huge party, right?
Did you throw a big party on their 5th year of STAYING together, shocking how much effort and money we spend to send people off day 1, but on day 3,000 of being together, you send some happy anniversary cards. I wanna live in a world where we praise staying together cause staying together is hard.
Start vs Finish (Business edition)
I have a few companies whom I track, they are often written up in the press for raising money or moving into their new offices for expansion. The CEO’s typically are quoted with what they expect to happen over a few years.
Once a year I get the emails come back into my inbox, just to see where are they now, and how many of their interview stats played out?
There’s a lot of people out there saying “we’re going to triple in 3 years” who grow 50% in 3 years — which to me is still worth celebrating, but it does make me reflect how we entrepreneurs say a lot of stuff that never happens (Hey Elon, still waiting for my car to drive itself).
Are we putting out the highlights like “we’re going to grow revenue by 500% in 5 years” but no one holds us accountable to “did you actually do that?”. Where are the year 1, 2, 3 check in stories that start off like “Last year you said you were going to double headcount in 5 years, are you on pace?”
Contentment — Try it on for size
The world is telling us to do something different, start something new, get bigger, buy stuff, sell stuff — try to keep doing the same thing in those moments and try to find a new joy in the same old.
Every day I wake up, lace my shoes up, and I am reminded that there’s no such thing as a life that is better than mine, so I don’t seek one, I’ve felt this way pretty much every day for the last 20 years — and I’ve only had 1 day in 20 years I didn’t want to come to work, but that story is for another time.
What sparked this post is the pure amount of calls I am getting for people interested in acquiring Seer. While I want to understand the value of my asset in the marketplace, I’m not in a rush to sell. I’ve been through this process once before.
It was the kick in the ass I needed to realize how big Seer has gotten and how it’s time to start implementing my new playbook.
The New Playbook
Who wrote the business playbook anyway?
The one that says winner takes all.
The one that encourages entrepreneurs to set up and sell, then do it all over again?
The one that rewards execs with out of touch salaries, saying they “deserve it”
Let’s rip this shit up.
This isn’t an epiphany for me. I’ve been writing my own playbook based on my values, since day 1.
What I Needed My Playbook to Enable
Taking care of my Day 1’s
I get chills thinking about the impact on my Day 1’s.
If I’m BIGGIE, I’m always trying to put on “Junior Mafia” — my love of rap has a consistent theme…when one guy makes it out, he brings up those who were with him, his “Day 1’s.”
I got a lot of Day 1's.
The idea is that your Day 1’s push to get you straight. Everyone focuses on making “Big Poppa” successful on the assumption that he won’t forget his Day 1’s. The ones who had a lot of other options along the way but they kept on believing.
I guess you could say Sky’s The Limit for my Day 1’s, because I’m capping my upside, then the minute I hit my enough number, I’m eliminating my upside (read on about that later).
Defining Day 1’s
Show don’t tell. As I built my list of Day 1’s, I noticed a trend. None asked to be Day 1’s. Most didn’t ever press for bigger bonuses, raises, etc which made me want to give more than they would have ever asked for. More of the ups and downs of this program in Part III.
Phantom equity (video explaining it) holders are my Day 1’s (which I hope to add more and more folks to over time).
Day 1’s are about tenacity, not tenure. Day 1’s IMPACT profits. They go above and beyond “doing the job.” Day 1’s IMPACT CULTURE.
Tenacity vs Tenure One member of our office cleaning crew has done a lot of small things to have my back. When my dog stopped coming into the office because she couldn’t walk anymore, Ana brought me doggie aspirin and other medicines to ease her pain (and mine, watching my dog break down was painful). When my dog passed she removed the bed, so I wouldn’t have to (it’s painful getting rid of your doggies last memories).
This is having my back and creating culture in a real way that someone who cleans our offices just might end up in our phantom equity someday, even though she’s been employed full time for less than 1 year.
The role of tenure is just consistency, were you able to do those things year in and year out over multiple years?
Impact Profit Saying “I take care of my clients” is a lot like the Chris Rock Skit when people say “I take care of my kids,” and he’s like “You’re supposed to, you low expectation having MF’er.”
You get paid and bonused to do your job. Phantom creates a second track for those who choose to take a path where they do the extras outside of the job description even when time is tight, someday when / if this business is sold they get a piece of that long term upside. People can choose which path they take.
My Hope for My Day 1’s
Now I hope to live long enough to see my Day 1’s kids go to college, get married, have their own kids. Maybe sit at a graduation or two. Maybe sit at a wedding or two. Sit in the back and know that their parents paid for that shit in cash in part because I hit my enough point, which expedited them to get closer to their enough point.
I know someday I’ll go to a house warming of someone that dropped 60% of the down payment in cash. Someone who will never ever again have to take a job for money to pay the mortgage, unless they start going crazy and going past their enough point.
That is what I want to happen.
Could I have used that money for a down payment on a second home or something else, which is flashy, gets likes and makes people think I’m successful, Yeah. But that isn’t fucking success, success is pulling up your team with an aggressive profit share for all, and a super aggressive share. None of that shit would add up to the joy I’d get from that wedding, house warming, or graduation.
I get fucking chills just thinking about this. It makes me wanna GRIND, not for me, but for them — my Day 1’s. I want to be a part of making as many of those stories that I can, for as many impact players at Seer as possible. That will keep me working my 50–55 hours weeks, no days off for me.
I’ll dilute myself to zero (well almost zero) to get the chance to take care of the people who took care of me at this level.
Not having to think twice about doing the right thing
Why is it so hard to do the right thing in business? Profit over people is often the culprit.
Could you imagine how you would run a company if you owned 100% of it and didn’t want the profits or upside if it sold?
For one — you’d not put up with bullshit.
Your whole mental state is like, I’m giving out all the upside of this business, so I’m not here for money. Meaning I’m playing with the house’s money at this point, let’s go try to do some GREAT things for our people and our business 🙂.
But even better, you get to invest in things that can help your team, not just money…instantly.
Like what if I hired a bunch of full time people to cover PTO asks so people could take more advantage of our PTO without having to always find help? I could.
I think of the innovations in our culture but also the investments I can make in R&D and innovation for our clients — Sky’s The Limit.
Implementing the Playbook
The first calls you make are to a wealth management team
When I told my wealth team that I wanted to cap my net worth, they were like…here we go.
I’m a difficult client:
I am afraid of having too much
I get most of my joy from enabling others to feel less financial stress
I don’t want to leave money to my kids
Meaning the typical playbook wasn’t going to work:
Preserve my wealth
Maximize my wealth
Build my wealth for future generations
None of that applied to me and the typical playbook had to be thrown out on day 1. We were going to play by our own rules up in here.
Instead of “take care of Wil and the family”, the approach to managing my wealth is take care of Wil and get him to “enough” fast. Once we do that, help him take care of 50–100 of his Day 1’s.
It’s crazy to LOVE your job so much, that you are willing to come and work every day, when there is no upside for you personally. That is how good my Day 1’s are and how much I want to help put them on their own paths to enough.
I have now diluted myself significantly
As you may know, phantom equity is only for a change in control. But as my wealth management team and I read from our new playbook — I will now use it as a mechanism to deploy more profits back to the team and community, ONLY. None for me.
So, what are we going to do with our profits?
1 — Protect the house I always want to have 2.5 months of payroll in the bank. Enough profits tucked away enough to make sure we are safe.
That is where the first [10–30%] of Seer’s profits will go, back to the company — this first year we’re at about 15%. We will evaluate annually based on needs for R&D, Innovation, Risk, etc.
2 — Treat phantom equity holders like equity holders After we take care of the business, my Day 1’s will take their percent ownership and get a distribution every 6 months of the profits after the company is taken care of.
2a — Aggressive dilution Now that I am at my enough point, I have diluted myself down significantly. The cool part is I have another 15-20% seeking a home, people who build us up to share with. 20% of a company worth ~50 Million is legit $$ to want to give back to the team.
3 — Non-phantom equity holders (The day 2’s, so to speak) After the phantom people are paid out, we’ll still have CHUNKY bonuses left for the non-phantom equity holders.
4 — I eat last Only after everyone else is paid out, do I get whatever “scraps” are left.
If you are thinking, I thought you said you have enough Wil. You would be right….
5 — Everything over my enough, must go to help others
Once my enough number is hit (which it is super close), everything that comes to me will be restricted in a vehicle (Likely a combination of Trusts and other financial vehicles) that must go into improving the world somehow via charitable donations.
If I still have too much, then I’m pouring it back into R&D, making our company better, growing it’s value, of which I will see none of, weird huh?
This is how I’ll never be taking the advantage of the upside of Seer again…since I’m close enough to that number I’m executing on this approach now.
My Next Step
I’ll keep sharing my story along the way, so check back if you want to see how this new playbook plays out. Part III is already in the works, and its the downsides of doing something like this, I fully expect blowback, stay tuned.
What am I going to do when I love my job, own the business 100%, yet I don’t want to take advantage of any of the upside of owning this business anymore?
I’ve hit my point of enough
My house is enough, my cars are enough, my kids private school is enough, my vacation fund is enough. I’ve seen enough of the world. My rainy day fund is enough, my take my parents on vacation fund is enough, my buy a small house for my in laws to move near their grandkids fund is enough. There is no more “Life changing money” for me. I’ve lived a life well within my means, so what do I do when I’m content?
I look out at the world and don’t see a need for more…for me.
I want a different kind of “more”
My company could do more, I want to grow more, we could do more for our team, more for our clients, more for our industry and more for our community. So I’m hungry for MORE but not for me and its time to eat.
Reflection. What too much money sounds like
Let’s start a year ago…We’re in a pandemic, and I’m looking for options to get the kids somewhere warmer. I looked at the cost of buying out all of first class for a flight to San Diego. Get my family and nanny somewhere warm for the winter where my kids can be outside still. Cost would have been about $12K.
Now I didn’t think about that for long but the fact that I even priced it out as a possibility (with the fact that I have access to a 3br apartment — for the company — in downtown San Diego) says something.
Did I drop $12K on those flights? Heck no…I chose not to for a variety of reasons but the fact that it was an option when I’m also writing posts about the virtues of being raised by blue collar parents, says something. The time has come.
That was a gross way to spend money & I want no parts of that life
So what’s a guy to do?, I don’t indulge, I don’t splurge, but I have this “asset” my company, Seer Interactive. It takes me months to choose to buy a new unlocked phone for $1,000 bux. I’m always going to be uncomfortable with my privilege.
So how do I rectify my values and my privilege?
Financial Humility
The house I bought when Seer hit $1 Million in sales (13 years ago) is the same house I live in now as Seer expects to be at $35 Million by end of year.
35X increase in revenue, same house. (although I am finally in the process of building a new house)
I also bought a car that year, a nice BMW 2 seater (the only time I ever bought a new car in my life).
35X increase in revenue, same car. Paid off the car and the house years ago, resulting in banking things which set me up for this moment. A moment to write a new playbook for how we build businesses.
Defining “Enough”
Take a second to consider and write down your enough number
No really, write it down.
What is the number at which you would say,” “I have enough money.” Put it away somewhere. Even better, tattoo it on your body.
I learned this lesson from our nanny. She tattooed the word “enough” on her forearm at the age of 24. It’s her only tattoo. I’ll be getting one too. Thus began my fascination with the concept of enough. My 24 year old nanny had a reminder on her arm, that whatever she had that day was enough.
The 4 books that highlighted the “too much” problem.
Bad Blood by John Carreyrou I was driving cross country and I got caught in a storm, a bad winter storm, at times I feared for my life a little bit. It took me 14 hours to drive in one day, yet I didn’t want the day to end…I was listening to Bad Blood on audiobook.
I was captivated by the inability to say “enough” by Elizabeth Holmes.
Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman Recently on my morning runs, I found myself adding 2 miles everyday to keep listening to Billion Dollar Loser about Adam Neumann of WeWork fame.
I was addicted to stories about a spa and an ice bath in his private work bathroom.
I realized that I was addicted to hearing them because they were reminders of what happens when you haven’t done the work to build a point of point of enough money, enough power, enough recognition from peers, etc. You just keep going and one day your new normal is 2 houses in the Hamptons and 2 private jets.
American Kingpin by Nick Bilton This book was a reminder that the more power you get, the more money you get, the more you can twist good beliefs into bad behaviors. I’ll talk more on this later, but look at philanthropy — how many people justify all their excessive $$ for philanthropy, but then write off board visits on a private jet???
This book shows how you can become an out-of-touch ass over time, through self justification. It showed me how a person can start off with strongly held beliefs / virtues that, for the most part, are GOOD. But how over time you can take those good beliefs to a BAD extreme, a real bad extreme, self justifying all your shitty behaviors the whole way.
I’ve never looked so hard at myself after reading a book. I had to ask where I am I bullshitting myself into telling myself something is OK, that 5- years- ago- me would have said “that guy is an ass?”
But Wil, you could do _____ if you had more money
Today I’m afraid of how easy it is to self justify getting more and doing more. No one ever said you could do more for your team, it was always something that came back to me, but they are the people who have had my back for years? Build a playground w/ my name on it, nope. Invest in someone else’s business, nope. Invest in the people who got me to my enough point…YAS QUEEN.
So I decided: Yup, I am almost at my enough point. It’s aligned with something I wrote 2 years ago:
Phase 4 — Aggressively Start to Share the Wealth. In this phase, I’m basically saying: look, I want to grow this business, but I am going to take less and less of the profit. I want to continue to grow our company’s nest egg so we can lose our largest client and be OK. I want to keep some for innovation, but after that let’s create mechanisms to deploy it.
I’m now at Phase 4, going into Phase 5 — which I never expected.
Phase 5 — Work to build the value of something you don’t have upside value in.
Think about that. Working 8–10 hours a day, everyday and some weekends for what if not money?
Love of the game. I love what I do, the people I get to do it for (my clients), the challenges I get, and the people I get to win with. My team.
I live in FEAR of what happens if you don’t ever say…OK I now have enough!
This is what happens when, you don’t ever say I have enough.
I recently looked at a CEO who got a $50 Million Dollar Bonus, while laying people off. Somehow he has to go home feeling ok with himself, or he wouldn’t take the bonus. How could he?
Self justification — we self justify our obsessive, over-indulgent behaviors to avoid the reality of our excess. the we surround ourselves with other self indulgent a-holes, so we don’t stand out as greedy.
I look at these people and think I want to be NOTHING like them. So I look at what they all have in common… they never knew when they had enough, and they self justified the FUCK outta their decisions while they just keep getting more. I bet you if you asked that CEO if he deserved $50 Million in 1 year, he’d find a way to say “absolutely.” I bet you would roll your eyes.
My journey to enough, why I turned down an 8 figure offer for my company, and whats next for Seer.
Background that might add context if you don’t know much about my company:
I Bootstrapped it(no investors, didn’t even run up my credit cards), I am the 100% owner (no partners), we have ZERO DEBT, Every year we’ve been profitable.
I turned down calls from tire kickers all the time (saw you in the inc 5000, wanna sell?), but this one time a good friend asked me if Seer would be interested in an acquisition by his company, that I respected a TON. So I took the call, what a ride it was…
That led to me getting a generous offer for my company, that would have left me after all fees, lawyers, taxes, bonuses, etc with 8 figures in the bank and the ability to earn a considerable amount more in the 2 year earn out. Yeah that wouldn’t be a bad “exit” for a dude when went to school to be a teacher and whose dad brought home government cheese, but I still said no…here’s what I learned in the process…broken down into 3 sections, this is a long one.
1 — How I accidentally set myself up in the strongest negotiating position ever. And my blueprint for how you might want to consider putting yourself in that position too.
2 — How I learned what my true values are, how they were tested, w/ some thinking points for you to find your own “enough”.
3 — Once you turn down an offer, now WTF does that mean for you, your team, your company?
Get your super powers ready, how I accidentally put myself in a majorly strong negotiating position.
Coming from NOTHING is a super power
Feeling others pain, helps build up your protection against thinking you have real stress / problems. Most entrepreneurs have the ability to get a good job after their business failure, that was comforting enough for me.
My dad brought home a brown long rectangular cardboard box of free cheese from the government, I hated when he brought that home. I knew what it meant, he left our middle class town to go back to the hood, where he’d pick up “Guv’ment” Cheese. Knowing people who live that way and being close to them impacts you in ways you can’t imagine.
I am hyper-appreciative of everything I have
As such I don’t feel the need to have more than I already have, so I kicked up our charitable giving.
When you see our commitment to charity — I don’t just write checks to charities, I try to spend time with people in addition to writing checks, it helps me to feel others struggle, which helps me be reminded that I have no real struggles (also helps me be a better marketer), whereas hanging with entrepreneurs all the time will lead to you comparing your “struggles” relative to the other rich / privileged people you hang out with.
I guess you can say I’ve always wanted to stay grounded, even as my company “took off”.
The toughest question
What’s your exit number…what a crippling question. At what $$ would I sell the company?
So I started by asking myself how would my life change if I had …
500,000 in the bank What about 1 Million What about 5 Million What about 10 Million What about 25 Million What about 50 Million
Seriously, now go back, between 500,000 and 1 million — can you visualize the difference in your life?
Move on to the next one 1–5 million — how’s your life different when you jump from one to the other? Then next and next. You’ll start making up outlandish shit just because.
Then keep doing it, I bet you have a harder and harder time finding things you would do, if you have a chance to sell your company. Hold on to that. WRITE THAT SHIT DOWN!! That is the first step in avoiding the “more for the sake of more” trap.
I tossed and turned trying to figure out, what would I do differently?
Every business advisor said to me, what is your number, the lawyers, the brokers, the financial advisors … whats your number? GRRRRRRRR!
I finally settled on a minimum, 8 figures after taxes, pre earn out which was in part packaged with some of the best advice I ever got from one of my advisors:
Pick a number, and then when that number comes, like a buffalo you find early on a hunt…shoot it. DO NOT allow yourself to hesitate on the trigger thinking, “It’s early there will be more buffalo coming, bigger ones”, only to find that you spend all day realizing that the one you could have gotten you didn’t get because you wanted more.
When you get an offer for your business that is STRONG, financially you are supposed to pull the trigger and shoot it, don’t wait for that next buffalo. That kept ringing in my head.
I eventually FORCED myself to figure this out…
When life changing money, isn’t.
When your dad grows up broke, w/ a drug addicted dad, drunk mother, welfare, etc… you feel like a privileged asshole saying no to a big payoff.
Common statements I heard like…when that wire hits your account, and you see 8 figures, your life is changed forever. Really?
What would I do differently? So I forced myself to do the above, it took me weeks to come up with these two options:
#1 — Buy a house on the beach in Rio De Janiero! My son’s name is Rio. That is how happy I am when I am in the city.
Rio, on the beach in…Rio
But then I thought I have a kid (now 2 kids), he’s 2 the other is 2 weeks….eventually they are going to be in school, and then what am I gonna do? Take them out of class every month so daddy can fly to Rio with the family and stay at our beach house in Leblon?
Ok with that out, my next one was…
#2 — Fly private once in a while, that was DISGUSTING to think about. I fly a lot, and I enjoy it. I also deeply enjoy being with my family, and very few people, so private would be dope. Flying with my family is a little stressful, not much, but 1 nanny, 1 wife, 2 kids, occasionally a grandma and myself for hundreds of hours a year is a LOT. Wouldn’t it be easier to sit on a 6–8 person plane, avoid all the shit? Could I blow through real money that way too, yup. So I would only do it on occasion, 2–3 times a year when the whole family is flying somewhere long (west coast or Europe).
As an AVgeek, I’ll someday try it though. Without my kids 🙂
Also I suck at getting exposure to something once, and not wanting it forever, do you?
Ever have a great Ribeye steak? Hard to go back to the stuff mom cooked as a kid. Ever have a hotel treat you like royalty, hard to go back to the holiday inn express. Ever have a car with all gadgets, only to get a rental w/ no back up camera, or supercharged v8?
I can only imagine that flying private is the same way, and that is scary.
I live in fear of getting used to more and more shit that separates me from most people’s reality, you should too, that is how you start going from “if I could only have a million, to nah I need a billion)
People who fly private say d-bag shit like this
DEBT is the mother of all stress.
Living on credit sucks, fuck balance transfer bonuses. Fuck a mortgage, I don’t have one, I’d rather live in a house I could pay off in 10 years (or completely in cash) than one I have to work 30 to pay off. I’m a financial advisers nightmare, I’ll pay off low interest debt when its not “smart”, why? Because not one financial adviser has yet been able to put a price/value on 2 things — 1, my lack of stress and 2 my multitude of options / flexibility.
The most powerful place to be in a company sale is having NO DEBT and a mentality that you have “enough” and don’t need more. I hate the word literally but in the discussions you can LITERALLY be like can be like pay me X and do these things or I’m not interested cause, I’m Good, I’ll wait.
Living below your means and running a profitable business with a strong future puts you in a powerful, powerful position.
Before Seer, while in college, I ran up my credit cards so high, that I remember putting stuff back at the acme supermarket and re-swiping my card, only to get rejected, return some stuff and come back, swipe, rejected. Whew I got hot dogs tonight.
The sad part is that happened to me, while on full ride at a great University, I wasn’t a poor kid, I was a kid who bought doc martins, went on spring breaks, and bought 80 dollar Abercrombie shorts, dumb ass.
I felt that sting of choosing to be broke. Not because I couldn’t make ends meet b/c I made bad decisions with my finances. I felt the sting of the internal “I deserve a vacation” convos that led to me being broke and stressed for NO reason. I promised myself I’d never go back to that again, ever.
I remember that day my credit card balance went to zero, I felt the freedom and I never went back again. Get something to zero, feel that feeling…then commit to doing that for more and more bills. Find something you can pay off fast, even if the % isn’t the highest, you create no debt momentum and it keeps you addicted to the right thing, NO DEBT.
When I started Seer I had already learned my lesson. So when it came time to buy a house, I decided to buy a triplex and live in the worst apartment in it, it was crappy, but worked. I slept on my college futon (given to me as a hand me down from my brother in law) for 10 years after college before I bought a mattress. When I started doing “well enough” I bought another triplex and moved across the street. Renters paid my bills, meaning I could make less and still live quite well. Eventually at 30 (I started Seer at 26), I decided to move into the city into a single family house.
Today I’d probably buy a tiny house while starting my business 🙂
Loving your job is a superpower…
Ok, so I sell the company, work my 2 years and then what? I wanna keep working because I’m still mega excited about our company and industry. But I could do my “next thing” I don’t have a “next thing”, I love my work, 15 years in and I’m still waking up excited for the day ahead, building a company to exit means you are focused on the exit, which is fine, I’m obsessed with the work.
Also lets be fucking honest, most of us got lucky on our first thing and somehow think we’re smart and can do it again, so we do a second thing, chasing that dopamine blast again, real talk, it never comes for most.
Every minute you are calculating “the number”, taking meetings with VC’s or Private Equity, etc is time you are not investing in calling customers. Be careful that you don’t run around investing too much time with every tire kicker out there (I get 5 cold emails a month to talk about acquisition, I only took 1).
Build a business, NOT an exit strategy, is another great reminder that leads to minimizing stress, you don’t have some “borrow all this money” then in 5 years I can turn it into X. It creates discipline that is like, how do I make money today or else, say no.
Me, feeling super-powerful
Do the work, chop the fucking wood, carry the fucking water, love the journey. If you can find a way after being “successful” to still want to chop wood and carry water, you have a superpower!! (and when combined with our old friend, “I got no debt”, you have mega super powers), and a lot of power at the negotiation table.
There’s power in not being beat up
I feel like an acquirer can smell a mile away an owner who is at the end of their rope and stressed out, you wanna get a big offer? Look those people across the table and smile big, between having NO debt and loving your job you are basically saying, if this offer isn’t awesome, I have zero reason to even stop this. I still love the work. If you are complaining about the people in your company, how long the days are, etc even for a second, you might see .5–1.5x knocked off of that opening offer. They know you are spent.
Want a great offer? Find a way to love chopping the wood & love carrying the water in spite of the day to day.
What about risk?
If the whole company went to shit a year from today I’d have ZERO regrets. Do I see threats, you better believe I do. But I don’t live in fear of those threats. I could work somewhere and our company’s reputation ensures that my team is in a better position to get a job if this all fails as well. We’ll all be fine.
But the kicker is that I feel like Seer is just getting started.
What do I really value? Seeing a check, moves everything from what I’d do someday, to “oh shit” this is real.
What is your Enough?
On a trip about a year ago I noticed my nanny had a tattoo that says “enough” on her arm. When I asked her about it, she told me, its her reminder that she has “enough” in life. That was so simple, yet spoke so much, at 24 she got a tattoo that reminds her of something most people spend their whole lives never learning. From the moment I saw that tattoo, I started asking myself that same question.
Worlds best nanny!
At what point do we stop getting more just for the scoreboard of life not because getting more makes us any happier. More is so often the awards, the first class selfie on instagram, the Tesla in your garage, the organic everything in your fruit bowl to show success.
Then I reflected…what’s enough for me? Do I already have enough? That answer was YES, before this buy out offer came it was yes.
Go. FIND. YOUR. ENOUGH.
Or risk falling into the trap of more, for some scoreboard that will never truly make you happy. To get to your enough when considering a sale, you need to figure out what your number is (there’s a chance you might already be at that number if your company is consistently profitable).
Dreaming small is a superpower
I bought my first single family house for 480k, I bought it the year Seer’s revenue was $1.05 Million, this year we’re on pace to eclipse 17 Million, 2018 20 Million, me…same house, same car. My largest expenses never went up.
I’m not Garyvee, whom I admire many things about. I don’t want buy the Jets, and I can’t find a way to rally my company around me getting richer… Hey can you all work your asses off so I can “fly private” was hard for me to get to grips with.
All I’ve wanted it to live comfortably, I’ve not really “leveled up” my lifestyle as my annual income went up and up and up. That is insanely powerful.
I don’t need external validation of my success, which insulates me from the trappings of “more /get bigger”.
I had that already. So what was the upside?
An offer immediately made me question what mattered and now money wasn’t it, The company laid out a great offer, had amazing technology and an amazing team. I could be challenged in new ways, and their size would have enabled me to bring my vision to more CMOs across the globe. Which I would love to do. So why not sell?
Be inspired by NO ONE, avoid the inspiration trap.
Too many “inspiring” entrepreneurs you look up to are fucking broke.
I can not tell you how many exits I’ve seen where someone just got debt covered, but they don’t say that. They say they got acquired for millions what you don’t know is that for 6 of 10 years they never paid themselves a dime, they have 500k in debt.
You keep taking it in someone’s inspiration, then someday when that person fails, they stop posting as much, you don’t even notice.
Also why are you following Gary Vaynerchuck and Richard Branson, you ain’t gonna be them, EVER! Stop following Jason Fried, you have like a .01% chance of turning your skills into building a product that millions of people have used. Find some “smaller time” people who have made exits that might actually be more like you, get inspiration from them… One of my biggest forms of inspiration, Brad Aronson, you never heard of him right, check out his site, you’ll see why he’s an inspiration. He built a company in my industry sold it and stayed grounded. That practical advice is so much better than inspiration.
More than Money
“Wil, you sound like a guy who is never ever going to sell” — many people have told me that, I disagree.
I love the challenge, a new team with new goals and a new way to push me and my team to be better for our clients. I loved the technology / scale / smarts that this new team (at the company who expressed interest) could bring to Seer, and help us to be a better company.
I love seeing my team members get more challenges, more than just the challenges I can bring @ Seer. I love to learn, and so do most people at Seer — as such seeing how someone else runs their business, could help us run ours better for ourselves and our clients.
The day after you turn down that big money, you gotta ask yourself, was I serious?
Who would be the right match?
I realized that for someone to get “my baby” they’re gonna have to bring more than money and technology, they gotta bring heart. A strong desire to fight for whats right, simple things I’m looking at like equal maternity and paternity, active work on fighting the wage gap, active work on diversity initiatives, I googled and googled and googled the acquiring company’s CEO, their head of HR, and other executives and couldn't find them taking a stand somewhere to use their company as a force on topics like these.
I think someone like Virgin, HubSpot, Salesforce (this too), or Costco (here’s why) is the type of company ethos I seek. Why? They do stuff like those examples on top of being a great company that returns shareholder value.
None of these companies are perfect and neither are we, but at least they have leaders who strive to and seem to take real action to make this world a bit better.
One thing I learned in this process, is Seer is big, and requires a company big enough to acquire us, so I have to rectify that reality with the fact that the types of companies who would buy us aren’t going to be small.
What if we never find the company with the right leadership, team, technology, community impact? Then we don’t sell and I just ramp up profit distribution throughout the team.
Tell your team
So I gathered the team and told them all. You could feel the big exhale in the room. People were thrilled. Yet I wanted my team to now imagine the exit not as a risk or threat but as something that empowers them to have more financial freedom.
Bringing people with me
Well this company has always been about more than making “me” good, but making as many people as we can better off, in 2018 I’ll begin the process of diluting my 100% ownership stake and will develop a new way to share in the profits of the company with the team who’s been loyal and pushing.
This is my next phase, while an exit would have created amazing long term wealth for me, that is the problem. It creates long term wealth for me… I have hit a point of diminishing marginal value of money (feels so weird to say). Money is only as good as the flexibility and options it provides and I have “enough” flexibility and options, and adding more to my life would have made me uncomfortable.
So now, my journey is how can I bring others @ Seer along with me. I’m looking for the people at Seer who say we’re going to take this company from 17 Million to 30 Million in 5 years, watch us, and let those folks take a real chunk in the company that will have real value, the people who go above and beyond and show long term interest in seeing Seer succeed.
If we can get Seer’s valuation to 40 Million…
1 percent of the company is 400k A quarter of 1 percent is 100k
Imagine if I dilute myself down to 55%, that means there’s 45% for me to distribute, at .25% increments that is 180 100k disbursements. Man, a lot of people could feel more financially secure, if we could get a few people a meaningful chunk of the business.
I want my team to now be thinking, how can we grow this company to get there! We’ll be sharing more of our plan in the future, but I plan on also finding some way to distribute part of the profits along the way.
The next 8–10 years of this Seer ride, should be a LOT of fun, but one where I’m not “the guy”. If I had sold the business it would be easy for me to see opportunities in a couple years to be a t-ball coach, relax a bit more in a few years, etc. So I’ve challenged Crystal to build the organization where I’m never any one person’s escalation point for anyone in the company. I need to have the flexibility to teach a class at a university if I want 1 day a week, or take a class 1 day a week (I need to learn to swim, code, and speak Portuguese), or go visit a client to show them something new I’m working on, just because it would be fun.
Ahhh, so that is it. All the things I learned about myself in this process. It took me 3 months of aggregating notes, writing and re-writing, it required a LOT of introspection. A lot of questioning, and some really deep digging. Glad to finally ship it. Watch the space, there’s more to come.
