How to Build, Exit, and Stay Married

33:30If you're doing this because you want to be involved with mentoring and kind of the startup scene, that's viable. But again, temper your expectations for how much you're going to be involved or have a say, as we just discussed. And so I think for some people, it's enough to you know, get a quarterly update and, um, and write a check, right. I mean, it's, it's, they, they like it, they have an intrinsic, you know, I'm, I'm helping give back. Um, every once in a while I can, I can make an introduction or, or answer a question and for them, that's okay. And so I'd say if, if that's your expectation, you know, go ahead and do it.

34:20And I think the other thing is, it's one of those weird things where everyone will tell you, oh, you're just not doing it enough. You need to do it more. And I would say, you've got to invest in at least 10 or 20 startups. Well, to do that, you have to diligence 200 startups. It's a lot of work. I mean, doing, sitting through the pitches, reading the documents, looking at the legal agreements, It's a significant amount of work. And so I think a lot of folks, when they look at that, they say, you know what? I'd probably be better off getting involved with a group that does this so we share the diligence or investing in a fund and then I can jump in and out if I feel like I can lend value to one of the fund portfolio companies.

35:11I think we all tend to gravitate towards that as the better option. Yeah. I'm very happy that you mentioned that it's actually hard work and it takes a lot of time. That was my experience as well. And I did not expect that. And I think oftentimes people want to try angel investing, either because lots of others around them do that, or because they're searching for a balance between lifestyle and work. and they don't want to work too hard because they're still exhausted from the marathon of the first business, which is very understandable. And I'm curious how you created a lifestyle balance for yourself.

35:54Did you have a good balance while building a business? When my, I did not have a good balance for most of my software company career. And you know, it was, I was young. I mean, I started my company when I was 26. I needed less sleep than I do now as a 51 year old. But I would routinely work 20 hours a day. I would, you you know, seven days a week, work every weekend, work a lot of holidays. You know, just, just, you know, my eyes would just be like bugging out, looking at my screen, writing software or reviewing code or whatever it was. And so, you know, it, it caused a lot of, you know, physical stress and, and, and, and I didn't have a great balance.

36:51And, And Lyle and I had, we have three kids. We had our first child somewhat early in the business where we were bringing kids to the office. There's so many pictures of my son sitting at my desk with me as I'm working and my wife would bring him in just so that we'd have some together time because I was working so hard. So it's something that I caution, you know, when we get back to kind of mentoring other founders, I say, look, you know, I got away with it, but I have a lot of friends who really hurt themselves, you know, physically have lasting kind of stress problems, you know, mentally have hurt their marriage by working so hard.

37:37So it's something I caution folks on. And again, it's hard when you tell a young person, okay, I got here by working really, really hard. You know, you should work hard, but set some limits. And they're kind of like, well, you didn't. It's like, yeah, I kind of didn't. Yeah. But in your situation, Lila worked with you on the business, right? She did. And you and I talked about this before, how investors don't like those wife and husband businesses. I personally think wrongly, even though it's understandable. So would you mind sharing your experience running a business with your wife? How strategic are you guys about it?

38:22So we, you know, I've heard that too, where people say, look, if you invest in a business with a husband and wife founder, if there's a problem with a relationship, the business often gets torn apart, right? I mean, there's just no easy way to unwind that. I think that's the downside. The good side that we experienced is when it works, it's an amazing, it's like the best partnership ever made, right? I mean, people, you typically see a lot of founders have a co-founder or two co-founders, right? So it'll be either two or three people that start a company. and I understand why they do that because it's really scary to do something totally alone.

39:01You have no one really that's a peer in the business to talk to. You can't really talk to your employees, you know. So people naturally, I think, look for partners in a business. For me, you know, the best partner in the world was my wife. I mean, just someone who, you know, I have 100 % trust in. She has 100 % trust in me. We've had a very long relationship that has stood the test of time. Someone who I knew would always make the right decision for the business and she knew I would always do the right thing for the business. There was never that seed of doubt that I think partners have where someone says, well, I'm working harder.

39:43I want this more or I deserve more. For us, it was just the perfect partnership. And I love the fact that that we did it and it worked extremely well. I won't say that there wasn't moments of stress in our marriage because there certainly were where we're both getting terrible news about an employee resigning or a customer leaving us or some type of, usually on a vacation or on a week, you know, right? Like the worst possible time. And we're both like, ah, you know, usually like one partner is removed from it. Like we didn't have that, but the, the little downsides were far outweighed for me and Lila by the amazing upsides.

40:30Like who else can you trust that will? Yeah. So, okay. Trust is one thing. Um, did you have complimentary skills? Yeah, we did. I mean, so the, I was really good technically and, um, I, I was really good at working with our customer base. I was not great at organizing, managing, um, you know, hiring, firing. There were a lot of things that, um, held us back when Lila was working at Anderson and I I was kind of the only, you know, day-to-day employee or manager, if you will. So, you know, I mentioned, you know, we didn't grow for the first few years, mainly because I was a control freak. You know, I had employees that were afraid to do their own thing.

41:23They would always say, you know, is this okay? And I'd say, no, it's not. Let me rewrite it. And so when we reached a point where it was like, okay, this is a viable company, Lila, come over and assume the role of kind of the CEO, the person that is doing the running of this company, the hiring of the management team, all those things that were kind of internal to the company. And I just said, okay, I'm not writing code anymore. I need to be spending my time with our customers downtown in DC and Maryland, wherever they are. I need to be kind of outside. So we had kind of an inside-outside division of labor, if you will.

42:07Clear division of labor then. Clear division of labor. I mean, don't get me wrong, like every key hire we were both talking about, but she would usually be the one that would interview them kind of extensively. And I would be the one that would, you know, if there was like a technical, you know, like I might technically interview them. But we would always, you know, for big decisions, obviously, it was a mutual decision. But clear divisions of labor where there were things where she would just say, like, don't, you know, you don't have, you don't have to mess with this. Like, I have this. Don't screw it up, you know?

42:44Yeah. So you said trust. We talked about complementary skills. How about conflict resolution? How did you resolve conflicts or disagreements about the business? Because I'm sure there were some. You know, the thing is, we had so few disagreements that I know it sounds kind of hard to believe, but there were really never any big disagreements. I mean, if, you know, there were some things that we did that were maybe controversial or risky, like, you know, I might have mentioned that, you know, putting a ton of money in a single competition with a large company, Lockheed Martin. You know, that was one where it was my decision to do it.

43:43And Milo was just like, look, if you feel this strongly about it, do it, you know. we just didn't really you know or if she said look I really really feel strongly about this CFO candidate I know you were kind of lukewarm I want to bring this person on I would just say let's do it you know it was just the the the times that I can't even really think of a time where we felt that differently about a topic that we had to have like a you know rock paper scissors or anything like it just it just didn't really happen like that yeah that's fascinating I talked to another very successful exited founder recently and I asked him how he protected his romantic relationships from his entrepreneurial grind and he said well I merged them he's another example of someone who you know built a business together with his wife very successfully and in fact they created several businesses together which leads me to the question for you if you had this successful experience doing it together why didn't you do it again together well it's just I think the once we sold uh the business you know we were uh 39 years old um our kids were uh you know kind of preteens and um Lila said look I've accomplished everything I want to accomplish in the business world I really really want to focus on the kids and I'm not uh in any hurry to step back into owning a business and so you know at that point and and she's kept to that today I I mean, she does a lot of things, you know, that are philanthropic and, you know, is involved in, for example, you know, boards at our college, Virginia Tech extensively.

45:47She does a lot of work on things, but it is no longer she for in terms of business ownership. She was kind of like, I'm good. And I was like, I still want to do some some things. And so we kind of made those decisions after that. I totally get it. So your kids are now 18, 17, and 14, right? You also have three kids like me. Right. So have you ever intentionally wanted them to be entrepreneurs as well? I'm very cautious about telling them or even giving them the feeling that I have an expectation that they do one thing or another in their life. Because I've seen that happen in my family with my grandfather and owning construction businesses and the expectation someone else is going to do this.

46:44puts a lot of pressure on a kid. And I think kids need to have the freedom to figure out what they want to do in life to be happy. And so I have always, my philosophy is expose the kids to everything, bring them to the office, bring them to business meetings, bring them on entrepreneurial retreats. We're going to go on one this weekend. Expose them to all this stuff. But never, and always tell them, you are free to pursue whatever you want. If you want to try something, you know, in terms of entrepreneurship or founding a business, we'll be supportive of that. But if you want to be a, you know, farmer or rodeo rider, you know, like just we'll support it.

47:39Yeah. Yeah. So how did your family go about raising kids with wealth? That's obviously a very hot issue in the post-exit community and a challenging one. It is. I mean, I was very, very nervous when we sold the company about how that would affect our kids because both Lila and I grew up without money and without, you know, with a very strong kind of grit and, you know, it's something that we wanted our kids to have as well. And so we thought a lot about, you know, the, how we communicated that with our kids and how we structured it from a, you know, will and trust perspective. And what we hit upon was we will take some money from the sale of the company, put it into an LLC that they are three-way owners of, and they can use that business to, once they're adults, borrow from to start a business or buy property, but they need to work together on it.

48:58And we're kind of legally advisors to the LLC until they're at an older age. And they've not been told, they don't know what our net worth is. And they're not really even that interested in knowing which I like. Sometimes they're quite worried, you know, like when my wife bought a newer car, they're kind of like, do we have the money to do that? Or are we going to, you know, like, so they're, you know, in a way they're kind of it's charming and that they're they're not um walking around thinking they're like wealthy kids and i always try to say for one we we we constantly have them um uh you know listen to their their grandparents or us about you know kind of growing up without money and then i always remind them you know like okay your mom just bought a new car that's not your car it's our car and we worked really really really hard for that car you know um if they're uh you know have a free day i'll bring them to the warehouse and i'll put them to work and you know they work hard and uh and it's something that my father did with me i mean you'd bring me out of the construction sites and i'd pick up trash i'd crawl through um uh culverts under streets to figure out where you know dirt was coming out and they'd have a rope attached to me.

50:26I would do all the dirty work that kids of business owners do. I do that with my kids as well. Your parents did that to you, with you. My dad definitely did that with me. Adam, do you believe in passive investing? Do you think it's possible to invest passively and not spend too much time managing money post exit? I think if you... So what happened to me is what happens to a lot of folks. They get approached by the big banks, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and they say, we can manage everything for you and we're going to put your money in these exotic kind of funds or structured notes or proprietary products.

51:22and you're as you know the the founder of a company you have some financial expertise but this stuff that they're showing you is like different and weird and it's hard to understand one of the things i think that happens is some founders go like one of two ways either they say i'm going to manage everything or i'm just going to let you manage it and when you say i'm just going to let you manage it to a financial advisor or one of these banks. They tend to put you into a lot of things that are sticky and fee-centric and you're going to do okay. You're going to pay them a lot of fees and you can kind of ignore it.

52:08Other folks say, I'm going to learn everything. I'm going to only invest in stuff I understand. If they were to invest their money in you know, S &P 500 index funds and, you know, NASDAQQQ and, you know, MSCI All World and just hang out, like they're going to do great, right? I mean, they're just going to, that is truly passive investing. If they're thinking that they can, you know, okay, I'm going to buy a bunch of real estate and that's passive. It isn't, right? I mean, you're dealing with the broken hot water heater, the tenant that's a deadbeat, the, you know, a lot of these investments that are kind of sold as passive are, are like, there's kind of no free lunch and you're going to, you know, you're going to put some work in and, and there's effort in almost everything.

52:57I mean, I think if you're, if you're truly wanting the life of the, you know, I'm going to travel the world and drink wine and surf and not worry about it. Like, eh, you can put in a couple of index funds and pretty much that's the only passive way that I'm aware of. And even then you're going to have to stomach some pretty scary drawdowns sometimes, a 30, 40 % drawdown. You're going to have to, you know, take that and live with it. So Adam, if you were to crystallize a few rules for yourself, how you balance your life and how you would like others to do it, what they can learn from you, what those points would be, those rules?

53:46Well, I tell people all the time, I think there's a big focus on wealth. People say, I want to be wealthy. I want to have millions of dollars. And I always say, what is it though that you would do if you had that money? And they say, well, I would spend more time coaching my kids' teams, or I would buy a farm, or I would do, you know. And I think a lot of those things are, we tend to, you would then say, well, okay, to do those things, how much money would you actually need? And it's usually a lot less than the millions and millions of dollars that people think they need. And what I say is, okay, you really didn't want$50 million,$100 million, what you really wanted was freedom, right?

54:32You really wanted freedom of time, freedom of place. And so I really tend to focus personally on freedom. I avoid being on a bunch of you know, um, boards or companies that demand that I be, um, attending things on a certain schedule. Uh, I like to work on my farm when the weather's nice. And when it's rainy, I like to work on something cool and technical and, you know, I may or may not be available for a zoom call on any given day. And I might be traveling with my wife to, uh, you know, another country. She loves traveling and photography. And, and so I, I, I really, if I were to give people advice, I would say, you know, don't focus on, on wealth, uh, focus on freedom and focus on, uh, living where you want to live, being with the people you want to be with and doing the things you really want to do.

55:36And maybe not wait until you're, you know, uh, 70 years old and you've reached this kind of artificial number to make those decisions, right? I mean, you know, the other core tenant for my advice is focus very, very heavily on your health and enjoy your health while you have it. And don't get caught in this trap that I've seen so many other successful entrepreneurs fall into, which is work and achieve success, but it's never enough and never enjoy it and then die. It is a, it is shocking how often that happens to people. It's happened to a good friend of mine recently. And, you know, so I would say, uh, yeah, I think, I think that covers it.

56:27Focus on where you want to live, who you want to be with and what you want to do. And don't, um, don't lose sight of what you're really working towards. Do you think it's possible to have a balance where you work hard on something that really excites you, the mission-driven work, and at the same time have enough peace and freedom of time and time with the family? Is it possible? I've seen people do it that were more effective than I was. And one of the things that, you know, I've seen other folks do is they'll say, they create such very clear lines of what they will and won't do. And when there's always this natural thing that happens in a company where people will keep asking, you know, for more and more like problem solving.

57:29Hey, boss, what should we do here? and the most effective people I've seen are kind of like, what do you think we should do? And they'll say, I think we should do this. And they said, well, okay, then, then why don't you try that? You know, and they'll, they'll remove themselves from those positions where they're always kind of getting pulled in, pulled in. I was not good at that. Um, at first, I'm much better at it now with, with later companies. Um, I think if you were to talk to my folks at Total Shield, They would say, Adam's pretty good at delegating and doesn't really fall into that pattern that much.

58:09It took me a long time to learn though. So I do think it can be done. I think it takes a real mindset and a diligence to protect that way of being. or you get busy, the company grows, you fall into old habits, and it's easy to do. That makes a lot of sense. Are there any other lessons that you feel we haven't shared that you would love to share with somebody who recently exited?

58:48Well, I mean, for someone who's recently exited, you really need to protect your mental health and you need to be prepared for a bunch of side effects that you're not presently aware of if this is your first exit. And I share a lot of the things we've talked about, about just total freedom of time when your friends are working most days, the lost feeling you have where you're used to having 50 meetings in a day and now it's quiet, the guilt you'll feel if you just sit there at 2 p.m. and open up a book and start reading because you're kind of like, should I be doing this now or should I be working on something?

59:40right? All these weird feelings that come up. And, you know, I think it's important to just be aware that it's going to happen. It happens to everybody. You'll feel depressed. You'll feel isolated. You will feel regret probably about exiting like I did. And you have to either be prepared for, you know, um, kind of setting a new schedule and a new direction and new kind of goals and, um, things that excite you at the same time of waiting, doing what I did and what we've talked about, which is making a quick decision to get into another business just because you don't know what to do. You know, that it's kind of like something you want to be busy.

1:00:28Yeah. You want to do something, you want to be busy. It's like a fine line between like jumping into something and doing nothing and feeling like you're lost. It's, it's a weird balancing act that I think I would tell people just be prepared for. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. So Adam, you are very consistent and disciplined in making very high quality, deep and thoughtful social posts. I love reading them. I love what you read. Oh, thank you. Why are you doing it? What does it give you? I really feel an obligation to help the next generation, period. I mean, I feel like anyone who's achieved some success is obligated to try to share some of that formula with younger people.

1:01:23And I always say that the world belongs to the young, not the old. and I've noticed a pattern with some folks who are older and have kind of made it to be in a way kind of selfish and I want to avoid that by trying to give of my time to whoever needs it. So I do a lot of those posts just to kind of generate. It'll be something that's on my mind, I'll record a quick video or I'll write a post just to try to share my experience or thinking on something. But it also generates discussion and people offline will contact me and say, I'm going through this exact same thing. I am a founder of this kind of company.

1:02:10Can I talk to you on the phone? And I always say yes. I mean, so when I walk every day, I try to get 15 ,000 steps in. I do get 15 ,000 steps in a day. I will always say, yeah, I'm going to be walking from two into three, like, give me a call. Here's my cell phone. So that's it. I mean, it's just, it's like, like how, what, what do you do to try to give back and kind of help the younger folks that are potentially in the same position? So it's a form of contribution for you. I think it's much more effective than other things that I've tried in the philanthropic space, You can write a check, which we do.

1:02:51You can be on a board of a philanthropy, but I feel like I'm gifted at business and entrepreneurship. And I think sharing that with folks who can found a business in their community, help their family, help their community is a more enduring impact on the world than writing a check. Yeah. Have you read this book, From Strength to Strength? I have not, but it's been recommended to me by a few friends now, so I need to. I think you would enjoy it. It's interesting that lots of entrepreneurs find it depressing. I actually find it empowering. I don't understand why they find it depressing. But the key idea, and what you just said reminded me of it, is that after we achieve success, And if we reach a certain age, for entrepreneurs, I believe it's 38, chances are that we will not be able to put as much intensity and physical effort and energy into the business.

1:03:57But also our brain changes and it goes from one type of intelligence into a different type of intelligence. And later on, there's actually a chance to be even more successful in a very broad way in the sense of impact and contribution. You can give it even more to the world later in life, but only if you jump what he calls a second wave, when you are not afraid to acquire the new skills and start doing things like teaching, like sharing your ideas your insights why you became successful so it actually is similar to what you seem to have found in your life and i wonder if you are intentionally also thinking about it as your next path if you plan to turn it into a book or build a personal brand about around it or it's more just spontaneous kind of hobby like activity for you yeah I don't think um I am writing uh what's turned out to be kind of a large um book on things that I want my kids to know and so I started writing it directly to my three kids and then some relatives said well would you share it with our kids?

1:05:24And then I've mentioned it to a couple of friends and they're like, oh, I'd like to read it. And so I started to think maybe I should edit this and not be so direct in terms of the language to my kids. But I did feel like it's hard to tell your kids everything you want them to know. But if you write them a letter, they can read it kind of on their own time. And so I've done that. I've written letters to my kids. And then I was like, you know what I want to I want to leave them with a little bit more and so I've just started writing and writing it's not something I intend to publish but who knows uh in terms of not um well I like I said I mean it just I mean maybe maybe I should but it was it's it's weird to to to to have so much written down and then say oh maybe people outside of my family will read this And I'm kind of like, did I write this with the right voice?

1:06:20Is it the right, you know what I mean? So. Okay. Maybe. But don't you think you'll get a much more sense of contribution if you share it with the world, the way you share your wonderful videos? Well, it is widely applicable. I mean, I think I'm fairly direct and opinionated with my kids and maybe too direct in terms of a wider audience. But you might be right. I mean, it definitely could turn out that way. And so I've started to write, you know, kind of new content in this in a way that's a little more kind of general voice instead of directly addressed to my kids. and we'll see. I mean, maybe I'll take it and preview it when I feel like it's 80 % and see if it's something that other folks find valuable.

1:07:17You know, some books are written to kids. I mean, not all kids, but the author's kids. And that makes a fascinating format to read. Maybe you're right. I'm not sure you have to change it. It makes it very personal. it's almost like it's it's very personal right i mean i talk about you know kind of how lyle and i met i mean i just i go into a lot of detail about you know things like marriage because i think you know as i often tell people that's the most important decision you'll make you know it's um it's so important and so yeah maybe you're right um in terms of other things like uh personal brand.

1:08:02I'm really just having fun. I'm not probably organized enough to go beyond kind of what I'm doing now. Yeah. I found that for some post-exit founders, the idea of building a personal brand creates a structure around sharing their insights. And actually, it is helpful. Some people do a great job. I mean, I'm really impressed with how some folks kind of put content together and they really share a lot of very, very valuable wisdom. Yeah, exactly. I always encourage Exited Founders to do that. As you said, we have an obligation to share how we got where we are and we have to do it honestly. And you mentioned marriage just now.

1:08:53And I thought if you feel that you have this duty to share how you became successful it should apply to marriage as well and it's definitely the fact that you are sharing deeply the secrets of a successful marriage it's very very valuable and it may be more valuable than any business advice you ever give i'm just trying to encourage you to to actually publish your book for other people i'm i'm listening to you and i'm thinking is it just humility that is stopping you and maybe you feel you shouldn't be doing it because you put yourself too much out there. But there is a reason I'm interviewing you.

1:09:39You are fascinating. Yeah, maybe when I reach a little bit further, I'll send you a draft and you can tell me if this is something that looks like it's publishable. I'd love that. I'll give you an honest feedback, I promise. Great. Adam, thank you so much for all this wisdom. This has been absolutely amazing. I want to ask you just one last question before I let you go. It's the question I ask everyone at the end of the interview. How do you want to be remembered? I would like to be remembered as a good person. And that's what I tell my kids, you know, that my job is, is to try to raise them as good people who are happy.

1:10:21And for me, that's enough in this world is to be remembered as a good person. And that's it. It doesn't have to be, it's not for me any grander than that. but it's such a beautiful answer very spiritual answer really it doesn't need to be complicated Adam thank you so much I totally enjoyed this and I think there's so much wisdom and value that you're offering others by sharing your story and your thoughts thank you so much thank you so much for having me and thank you for doing what you do on this podcast I think it's super valuable for our community thank you so much