He Sold For Over $40M. Here’s His Exact Cut.

0:00I actually walked away from a pretty lucrative job at Goldman Sachs. I would love for you to introduce yourself and really tell the story about Ampush.

0:08Jesse Pujji: We pulled together 33 grand each and some Amex cards and said we're going to bootstrap this thing. And in one month we did 2 million in revenue, 800 ,000 in gross profit, and like 600 ,000 in EBITDA. So within like two years when we cracked the Facebook channel, it was like minting money. Money and success were the number one priorities for me, and they were far less fulfilling than I expected them to be. All right, Jesse, thanks so much for joining us today on Money Wise. Quick thing before we start, my guest today made his money arbitraging ads. I click for a dollar, sell it for 50. Subscribing to this show is the same trade, except it costs you zero dollars and pays out an episode like this every week.

0:45He would tell you to take that deal, and so I'm asking you to take that deal as well. Please subscribe to Money Wise wherever you're listening. Okay, now today's guest, Jesse Poogee. At 25, he was at Goldman Sachs making half a million dollars a year, and he walked away. He started the company with his college roommates, 33 grand each, and some Amex cards. And he never raised a dime of outside money. In this episode, he tells me about the day the first life-changing wire hit his account, and why the next day was one of the most disappointing days of his life. He walks me through exactly where his money sits, down to the percentages.

1:17And he tells me the number he turned down at 27 that most people would have grabbed with both hands. There's also a game he makes his kids play at Starbucks. We'll get into that. I get to talk to founders just like Jesse inside of Hampton, a private network for high growth founders who are doing 25 million a year on average. If that's you, you need to check it out at joinhampton.com. Now let's get into the show. I'm Daniel Burke. Here is Jesse Pooji on Money Wise. How are you doing?

1:43Jesse Pujji: I'm doing great, Daniel. How are you? I'm doing well. Technical difficulties are always fun, but we got through it together. I would love for you to introduce yourself and really tell the story about Ampush. I'm most interested in the bootstrapped angle of Ampush. And from day one, I know you started with an Amex credit card and some co-founders. I mean, tell me the story about how all that came to be. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, quick story. You know, I was born and raised in St. Louis. I grew up in an immigrant household. And I think, you know, early on, that shapes your perspectives on money. I think, you know, you kind of saw, you know, my dad was a classic, like came here when he was 17 with a dollar in his pocket and grinded.

2:21Jesse Pujji: And he was a small business owner. And so I got to work inside those businesses early, but you're, you know, really early on understood entrepreneurship and business and probably shaped my perspective on bootstrapping, which is like a business is one where you, you know, your revenues are higher than your expenses and you generate a profit. But I was a kid who, you know, I had a snow shoveling business in middle school. I had a DJing business in high school. I had a t-shirt business in college. Um, and I spent a few years working consulting in a few years on Wall Street. I actually walked away from a pretty lucrative job at Goldman Sachs.

2:51Jesse Pujji: And I can talk about that decision a bit as it relates to money, but started Ampush with my college roommates. And, you know, we really wanted to bootstrap. I think we looked around like, what are industries and markets that you can like make a dollar you can kind of get in, realize digital marketing was kind of similar to Wall Street, there's number crunching and data. And, you know, learned about, okay, there's like performance marketing, where someone pays you a$50 CPA. And if you could buy an ad on Google for a dollar per click, and it had a 5 % conversion rate, that's$20 cost and a$50 revenue, like you can arbitrage ads.

3:21Jesse Pujji: And we're like, Hey, we know, we know that word arbitrage. Like, let's try it. Now, it was way harder than we thought it took us a year to even get to kind of make any money. But we the we pulled together 33 grand each and some Amex cards and said, we're going to bootstrap this thing. And, you know, our real break came in the first year when we actually started running ads on Facebook. And, you know, what was barely basically 0 % margin on Google ads, we started making like 70 % margins on Facebook ads. And, you know, our actually remember this very distinctly, our revenue and profits in June of 2010, pre pre trying Facebook were 100 ,000 in gross revenue, maybe like 40 ,000 in 30 or 40 ,000 in gross profit and basically break even maybe made five or$10 ,000.

4:07Jesse Pujji: the following August 14 months later we did in one month we did 2 million in revenue 800 ,000 in gross profit and like 600 ,000 in EBITDA so within like two years when we cracked the Facebook channel we were it was like minting money and that kind of got us off to this bootstrap direction do you think the ambush success is because you were one of the earliest to do the Facebook arbitrage yeah I mean I think you know I think we were super early to it but like we had to take the we had to try it. So yeah, sometimes I tell people, you got to do sandbox entrepreneurship, you like get in the sandbox, you play around and you find the thing.

4:42Jesse Pujji: And so we found it that way. I think from there, you know, we increasingly took it more seriously. But around that time, when we were we were sort of grew the business a bunch, Facebook called us and was like, who the hell are you guys? You're one of our top 100 advertisers come meet us. And then we became one of their early most favorite nation partners. And then our, you know, we were able to go get clients. They were all startups at the time. It was like Uber, Dollar Shave Club, Peloton. And then from there, the business just ripped. It grew to about half a billion a year in ad spend, 250 employees.

5:09Jesse Pujji: You never raise any outside money. We did a couple M &A deals where we bought businesses. We were doing cash flow and distributions, which I could talk about. And then, you know, we sold a minority investment. We sold a minority interest in the business for the first kind of first liquidity event was 2015. And then we sold the whole business around 2022 to a private equity firm called New Mountain Capital. So all in all, it was like a 10 plus year journey. Um, but in, I went from 26 years old at 36, but you know, learned a ton about entrepreneurship, growth, marketing, all the things during that journey.

5:41Wow. Uh, and walk me through year to year, how that journey actually started to grow with the ambush up until the list too. Really there's a, there's a partial acquisition and there's a, a full acquisition. Tell me how that looked year to year.

5:54Jesse Pujji: Yeah. Yeah. Let me go. I mean, I know this is money wise. Let me go back one second. And I, I think it's an important thing. You know, I was working at Goldman Sachs in this like in this investing group and just thinking about money. And well, actually, I can go back even further than that. Like when you come out of I went to Penn, I went to Wharton. You know, it's like one of the most lucrative job paths like you get immediately get six figure jobs. Like I had a six figure job at Citadel out of college. And instead, I went and I worked at McKinsey. And, you know, it's kind of my first sign to myself that money wasn't the most important thing to me.

6:26Jesse Pujji: Like I wanted a little bit more of a wide perspective. I wanted an optionality versus kind of jumping right into the hedge fund world. And then I ended up working in an investing group inside of Goldman. And I think when I was 25, I made like half a million bucks that year. And despite that, and by the way, my boss was 29. She was making two or three million. And the head of our group was, he's probably 40 something and he was making 20 million bucks a year. So like you get on Wall Street and you see how much money people make and it's crazy and it's real. Right. But I sort of had this moment where, you know, I was a public markets investor.

7:01Jesse Pujji: You know, to be fair, I was in the middle of financial crisis. But I was like, man, this job is 40 percent reading, 40 percent Excel, 20 percent meetings. It didn't feel dynamic enough to me. It didn't feel I didn't feel happy. And I had this really specific moment where I was like, I would rather make half of my future expected earnings and do something that like I feel excited about, which was starting a business rather than like stick in this corporate job for the next X amount of years, even though it's incredibly lucrative. And so, you know, as far as money goes, that was sort of the first sign to me that it wasn't all just about money for me.

7:33Yeah. And so when you decided to sell, you sold about 20 % originally. What was the thinking behind the 20 % stake to Red Ventures, correct?

7:44Jesse Pujji: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, we originally wanted to sell the whole business. And, you know, if I could do it all over again, I probably would have sold the whole business. and not because, again, of a financial decision, but we were just tired, you know? And it was kind of a crazy thing. Like, we had figured out the Facebook channel by 2012. We were growing over 100 % a year. The first part of our business, we divested. So, you know, we had a lot of interesting little bites at the Apple. Like I mentioned earlier, we were doing profitability in our first year. So within two years of starting, we got an offer to buy the company for$25 million.

8:19Jesse Pujji: And we weren't planning on selling, but we were like a bunch of 27 year olds and we were like damn this is worth way more than we thought yeah and we actually went out and considered it and nobody was giving us any credit for this like facebook thing that we had figured out they were like yeah it's too small so we're like all right we don't want to sell the business but let's do a three million dollar dividend let basically a million each to each partner and that's how i bought my first house in san francisco which i still own wow so it was good to get like a little bite after having that run and deciding not to sell.

8:50Jesse Pujji: And then at that time, you may not remember this, but Marin Software, Rocket Fuel were billion dollar market cap publicly traded companies. And we were growing over 100 % a year running ads on Facebook as kind of a tech enabled service. And everyone was like, man, if you guys grow this thing, keep growing like that, like you're gonna sell for five times revenue. And so we did that. And we went hard. And it was bootstrap. We put all the money back in the business during that period. And we went from 3 million in net revenue to close to 30 million in net revenue over four years, three or four years.

9:22Jesse Pujji: And so then we were like, all right, we like ran really hard. And we're like, we got to sell this thing. And we were hoping for$150 million check. But during that time, Rocket Fuel and Marin had their market caps had gone down 99%. Like ad tech was in a total. And so we went out and we got 60, 70,$75 million offers. We got, we got one$90 million offer all stock, which I'm glad we didn't take from Marin. Marin ended up kind of going out of business. But we, you know, we had a few offers and, but we were like crestfallen. Like we were depressed because we, in our heads, we thought the number was way bigger.

9:59Jesse Pujji: And so we ended up doing this deal with Red Ventures. And, you know, I think partially because we were like, you know what, we got to take some chips off the table. That's important. But it also gave us a chance to keep growing the business to kind of hit the magic. We'd made up a magic number in our head, which I don't recommend to anyone because it just hurts. But we made up, we got to have a nine-figure exit. And like, we weren't quite there. We're like, all right, but we'll sell 20%, then we'll keep growing it and then we'll get the nine-figure exit, which didn't end up happening. But that kind of gives you, you know, we were smart enough, I think, to take some chips off the table.

10:28Jesse Pujji: But I think if I could do it all over again, I would have just sold the whole business. Mostly because we were just tired. We wanted to be done with it. At what point did you start personally to feel like you have a life-changing amount of money access for you personally. Yeah. I mean, look, I think that first deal with Red Ventures was life-changing for us. You know, we, I got about 5 million bucks after tax and I'd already bought the house with the previous distribution I had. I was living in SF. I bought myself an M5. I always tell people the day we got it was one of the most exciting days of my life.

10:58Jesse Pujji: The next day was one of the most disappointing days of my life because I thought I would get wings or superhuman strength. Like I thought something was going to change about me and then nothing changed. Everything that was the same year my son was born, my first kid. So there was definitely like a feeling of like, okay, we're good, you know, this is going to be good because we still had the rest of the business too. And then the business was profitable. And so it was like a nice mixture, but it was also like disappointing because I thought it was going to be way more of a, I don't know, I thought I would feel different and I didn't.

11:31$5 million after tax in his account. And Jesse's review was that it was the best day of his life, followed by one of the most disappointing. He thought he'd wake up with wings. He woke up the same guy. Quick context on what happened here. That was a minority sale. Selling a piece of your company while you keep running it. The business stays yours, but the founders finally get the real cash off the table after years of putting every dollar back in. This is the type of stuff I hear inside of Hampton constantly. Not how do I get the number, but what do I actually do now that I have money that I haven't really had before?

12:02Almost nobody talks about the morning after. Jesse just did. Check out joinhampton.com if you want to be in rooms just like this one to talk about those questions.

12:12Jesse Pujji: Yeah. Walk me through when someone offers you$25 million. How did that feel? Personally, you've never seen that amount of money in your life at that point. Was that difficult to turn down? That one was not that difficult because I think we were only two years into the journey. You know, we were early to Facebook. It was an exciting moment of validation, I think, for leaving Wall Street and choosing to do entrepreneurship. So that was definitely the case. We didn't love the personalities at that time, like the people who were offering us that. So I think we were all just, we're still so new that we weren't thinking that much about it.

12:49Jesse Pujji: It was harder to not do a full deal in 2015 when we ended up doing the Red Ventures deal. We had some real full offers we could have taken and kind of been done with it. And then fast forward to 2023. That's when the full acquisition took place. It was really 22. There were some dynamics of the, yeah, I mean, I mean, a bunch changed between 15 and 22. I mean, by 2017, I was like burnt out. I was like, I'm not having fun. Why am I still running this business? I want out. And a bunch of mentors were like, you should go start working with a coach. So I hired this amazing coach, Dave Cashin, and it was very life changing for me.

13:26Jesse Pujji: It really like opened me up and shifted my perspective. So that was one thing. we had really changed the business model with Red Ventures. So we actually went from 60 clients to 20 clients, but profitability doubled. So we went deeper with fewer customers and it worked. It was, it was little, it was like redoing the business again, which was tiring, but it, but it worked from a profitability standpoint. We acquired a business. We actually started investing off the balance sheet. We went into like hold co mode. We're like, we're going to make this thing a hold co, it generates cash, whatever. And then, you know, right before COVID, my wife and I wanted to move back to St.

14:00Jesse Pujji: Louis. And as I kind of got more clarity on what I wanted to do is like, I didn't want to keep running that business. And so I actually, we promoted the head of our New York office, John, to be the CEO of the business, me and the co-founder, other co-founder stepped back. And then he kind of took the business forward. And, you know, there was a lot of volatility with COVID. There was like the COVID bump, and then there was a COVID down. And then he kind of did a great job of growing the business. And then eventually we, you know, then we sold it. But it was a cool experience selling it because we handed the keys and we didn't go with the deal.

14:29Jesse Pujji: We had no, I have a little bit of a non-compete, but we didn't have any real, like we didn't have to do anything. We literally got a huge check and walked away from the business. Yeah. And I've seen the public figures are all mid eight figures, but you've never, you've never said the number to my knowledge. Is there something stopping you from saying that number? The acquirer never wanted us to say it. Yeah. Can you give a range? It was like 40 to 60. 40 to 60th? Yeah, I was like... And then what was your personal stake in the company at that point? Probably a little bit more than a third. 35 plus percent.

15:03Okay, so let's say 50, a third of 50 would be... Was that just under like 18 million? Something like that, yeah. Give or take 17? My son plays his game with me. Yeah, I know. Where does that bring your total net worth then today?

15:17Jesse Pujji: I'd rather not share total. I mean, there's a lot of dividends we took out along the way, plus the original... So we had... But, but we're, you know, we're good. We're good on money. I'm fine with ranges. Can you give a range for the net worth as well? That's hard. I mean, now I've got, I've got a growth assistant, a bunch of other businesses. I don't know what it would be. I don't actually look at the number that closely. Yeah, that's fine. What does like, what does someone in your shoes do then still in an operator seat on the one hand, but also now in kind of high growth venture mode with some different investments through your, your own agencies?

15:53Jesse Pujji: Yeah. You know, I think one of the realizations I had when we did the Red Ventures deal and got the first sort of life changing number was, you know, from the time I was 15, I think until 31 or 30, like money and success were the number one priorities for me. And they were far less fulfilling than I expected them to be. And then once I knew that, then I was like, oh, well, so what matters to me? Like, and that was actually probably took me half a decade to really put my finger on what mattered to me. And so, you know, to paint the picture, we were, we'd moved back to St. Louis. It was the middle of COVID.

16:29Jesse Pujji: You know, I was probably 36, 37. The company had sold. I didn't have to go with it. So I'm like sitting in a room by myself. Now I have a ton of money that more than I'll ever need. And, you know, I don't have to work anymore. And I'm like, well, now what do I do with my life? And I was working with my coach and I was like, let's go. Like, I want to figure out, I didn't feel like retiring at all. And I also didn't want to like do something just for the sake of making more money. So I was like, I got to figure out what it is that really drives me and motivates me. And, and, you know, there's a lot like, I had been very fear motivated.

17:01Jesse Pujji: So I was like, I want to be motivated by creativity and the things that will energize me endlessly. So there's exercise around what's called zone of genius. And so the framework is like, you know, zone of incompetence, zone of competence, zone of excellence and zone of genius. And somewhat obvious zone of incompetence, like I'm a horrible cook. Like that's a really obvious one to stay away from. Zone of competence is like driving. I'm a reasonably good driver. I'd probably be a decent accountant. Zone of excellence is where most people get stuck. It's things you're really good at, but they don't bring you energy.

17:34Jesse Pujji: So they deplete your energy over time. So for me, that might be like analysis or selling or even being the CEO of a company like that. I'm actually pretty good at it, but like it depletes me over time. And zone of genius are the things that you're really good at and they energize you, which means like you can have an endless amount of energy. And so I kind of spent the better part of a year with my coach, like what's my why, what matters to me and like, and then what's going to keep me energized endlessly. And where I landed was like, I love helping other people learn and grow. Like I love learning and growing myself and I love like stretching people, especially entrepreneurs, because those are kind of my people.

18:10Jesse Pujji: And the things that are my zones of genius, like I love coaching and teaching. so anytime I'm like imparting knowledge or learning or it doesn't even have to be knowledge it could be an experiential learning like I love doing that I love relationship building like I just you know you and I know each other like one plus one gets up equal to three and it's like one of the coolest parts of life it's part of the journey and then from like a venture standpoint as I reflected you know by the time I was done with Ampush 10 years in like I was not having fun the only things that were fun for me were the net new things were the experimentation things like And I realized I love the, you know, negative one to one parts of the journey.

18:46Jesse Pujji: That's kind of like the spot an opportunity. Is it real? Ooh, like, let's, let's try it. Oh, my God, it worked. Like, let's get the domain name. Let's get the first, you know, set of employees or clients. Okay, now we've got a business. I love the creativity associated with that. And so that was kind of the clarity I got after after the exit. it. All right, Money Wise listeners, quick reality check. It's that time of year when you catch yourself thinking, why didn't I start earlier? We knew summer was coming. It always does. And if you keep doing what you usually do, you'll blink and it'll be New Year's again.

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20:33Jesse Pujji: Like, I don't want to just be an investor. I don't want to be a CEO now. And like, basically, that's when I started GatewayX, which is a venture studio. And if you think about the venture studio, you kind of get to do all those things. You get to coach and mentor some CEOs. You get to be involved in the creation process and you launch. And so in that, you know, in the last four years, we've launched six businesses. Two we've shut down, two are still kind of in the middle, and then two have really broken out. And those two this year will do$35 million revenue and$10 million EBITDA combined, growing at 50 % a year.

21:05Jesse Pujji: And so, and, you know, I'm not the CEO of either of those, but we've been able to kind of get those off the ground. And now we're, you know, we're trying to figure out how to take it to the next level with what's going on with AI and some other things. So, but I would say the thing that drives me, my energy is no longer, I need to be a success and make money, which is really what drove me for a really long time. It's, it's like, man, this is fun. Like I'm enjoying this. And like, even if it doesn't make any money, I'll have a lot of fun doing it. When you finally did arrive to the point where you could kind of look in hindsight and retroactively decide like, what do I want?

21:34What gives me energy? Is the money that you got from those early ventures, something that actually brought happiness or was it like a little bit disappointing?

21:43Jesse Pujji: You know, it's, it's such a good question. And to be clear, like, I would not say I'm like post money scarcity, like more, I would say like, you know, out of eight days from age 15 to 31 or nine days out of 10, I was like, ah, I got, you know, and now it's probably the opposite. Like one day out of 10, I'm still like, oh man, I should be making more or so if I'm being honest, it's not like it just disappears completely, but it's, it's far less of a thing. You know, it's, it's, it's a question I don't know the answer to. I've done a ton of like spiritual work, meditation around letting go of scarcity and that.

22:16Jesse Pujji: But also like to your point, I have money. So it's like, it's a, sometimes I'm like, am I really like, you know, my coach one time was like, what if you lost all of it? Would you still be okay? And I was like, oh no, that, that sounds scary to me. So, you know, I, I think it would be disingenuous for me to say that not like that it hasn't had a big impact on my sense of security and stability. and it's allowed me to go pursue the passion type stuff that I'm doing. Yeah. What is a, what's like one fun example of something you've bought that you wouldn't have been able to buy before the acquisition?

22:49Jesse Pujji: I mean, I think the thing is, I think the top thing we've done is we bought like a condo in Deer Valley. And I think I could have, but I wouldn't have bought it prior to the full acquisition. And mostly because like, and you know, my wife generally doesn't care much about money, but she's like, man, we're going to make so many fun memories with the kids there. and we really have. I mean, now we're out there several weeks a year and the kids, it's like, you know, and it really, I didn't understand why people buy vacation homes and now I understand it because it becomes a really special place for the family.

23:20It's yours. Yeah. Is that where the money sits now? Is it kind of spread across real estate and other different cash public equities?

23:29Jesse Pujji: Yeah, my general allocation, there's, so if I think of my total net worth, like there's a bunch of illiquid stocks in these companies I've started that I own, obviously, right? I don't even count it. Like I tell my financial advisors first, like put it on my balance sheet. I'm like, nah, nah, dude, I don't like that's zero until until there's something that comes from it. And they're like, that's too conservative, Jesse. But I'm like, I just because you put the numbers look silly when they're illiquid, you know, or I was an early investor in figure robot. And like, again, if you look at that on the balance sheet, it looks absurd, right?

24:00Jesse Pujji: And it's like, well, let's let's worry about it. So there's a bunch of that kind of stuff. But in terms of my like liquid assets, I do roughly, let's call it 50 plus percent in the public markets of which more than half, more than half is index. I'd say 70 % index. And I do some stock picking most I'm decent at it stuff that I'm like, like, especially when there was this COVID pullback, like meta went down to 80 or 90 bucks a share. And I loaded up on a bunch of it. And now it's like, it's like 600 bucks a share. Same top of five was down at 30 or 40 bucks. So things where I'm like, I kind of understand this.

24:33Jesse Pujji: And then I do probably about 20 % in private equity, including, I mean, a couple of PE funds. So New Mountain who bought Ampush, I put some money back into their funds and it's done really well. Silver Lake. So I'm an LP in a few big, well-known private equity funds. And then. So when you say LP, is that through a direct access or is it a special purpose vehicle or how does that? Through my financial advisors. So I work with this firm called Matter Family Office, who I highly recommend. I'm happy to talk about them and how they've been helpful. But they and then the last 20 percent is real estate stuff.

25:05Those are personal homes?

25:07Jesse Pujji: No, that includes like we still have our place in SF. We have this place in Deer Valley, but then also real estate funds and other random. them. It's mostly funds or it's like individual project based stuff that I've invested in. Yeah. And what's your personal spending look like? You can share monthly or annually. I mean, however you kind of track that. It ebbs and flows a lot. And I've like experimented with a lot of it. That's why half a million bucks a year as like normal course stuff. And then if you do something special, like I had a big 40th birthday party or we like redid our basement and the number goes up a little bit.

25:40Jesse Pujji: But then, you know, there's nothing that we want for that much. I'd say beyond beyond that. We have a nice house. We live in St. Louis. It's kind of hard to spend money beyond a certain level. Like I was asking my financial advisors once I was like, I was like, so how do people spend more money than this? Yeah. You know, like private is the answer. The answer was like, you know, flying private. And if you, you know, you actually for your net worth and income, Jesse, you're conservative on the number of homes you have. Like they told me that most people that have whatever like they're they're uh they're only like six homes and they end up having huge carrying costs and all this stuff and i was like yeah that doesn't that sounds like work to me i'm not interested in that to me that's like it's not as illiquid as private equity but man with selling a house uh i don't know that always sounds like a lot of work dude like the last thing i want is more work.

26:31Jesse Pujji: And so I don't know, we we've like it really is hard to spend more. I think I think staff is the other one. So private private drafts, lots of homes and staff. We don't have any of those things. We charter every now and again. But just like for a fun occasion or something like that, we'll do it as a splurge. But there's nothing beyond that that I think you can actually spend that much money on. Yeah, I've heard a number of times that, you know, anyone under the hundreds of millions of net worth who flies private, it's the fastest way to lose all your money. It's just extremely expensive, but that makes sense.

27:08So we're looking at like, I don't know, what is that? 40, 45 ,000 a month, give or take. And that's probably across mortgage or do you own your houses outright or?

27:17Jesse Pujji: No, we have a mortgage. Yeah. I mean, mortgage, travel, school kids are in public school so that's not a big one cars finance like you know finance financial advisors and accountant like just some of that what else food shop we're not big shopper i mean you know it all adds up amazon bill whatever but like our primary residence is probably all in i mean we have a pretty good interest rate but it's probably 10 or 10 12 grand a month not including if we're going to add a pool or whatever to it. Right, right. I like that a lot. And you have kids, right? You're a dad. Yeah, 11, 9, and 2. How does some of this story, you said, how old are they?

28:00Jesse Pujji: 11, 9, and 2. 11, 9, and 2. How does being an entrepreneur and really having basically a family office, investing in different companies, starting in different companies, how does that affect your life as a dad? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the reasons I probably am doing this the way I'm doing it now is because I want the flexibility to be spending more time. And I'm not sure if you could be the startup founder CEO and still have the time for your family. And so I'm pretty regimented about my schedule, like two nights a week, Tuesday, Thursdays, like I don't see my kids before bedtime usually because I'm going to either work late or take a dinner.

28:33Jesse Pujji: And then Monday, Wednesday, Friday, like I do bedtime. That's been the case since my son was more 11 years ago. Friday nights and Saturdays, I'm usually all family mode. And then Sunday afternoons, I'll work a little bit and maybe work out and get some just some personal time. So I have a pretty like the only way I've been able to do it is have like a pretty regimented schedule. And then I think we travel. I don't know. We travel probably six weeks a year, maybe more than that. So that's the other place I probably indulge more than I would otherwise of just like we'll go on vacations and that'll be all like I don't I'm known to turn off like I delete my Slack and email like I like give the team my hotel phone number.

29:08Jesse Pujji: I'm like, this is where I'll be if you need me, call me and they never call. So that's the other place where I we probably like as a family, we bond and hang out a lot. How do you think about some of this building? And even when you think of legacy, leaving some to your family or not leaving any to your family? What is that? Yeah, that's a good question, man. I listened to this podcast a little bit on it because it's helpful to get the perspective from like Dr. Becky and that other person. You know, I'll tell you a few different, I'll jump around to a few different things that I think have been helpful for us.

29:40Jesse Pujji: You know, one is like, it is, I think one of the hardest things for me is like we my kids didn't see me grind and I still work 50 50 60 hours a week so I still work reasonably you know not it's I'm not working 20 hours a week so they see me working and you know I'm not always home or whatever but they didn't really see me grind and so they've gotten all the fruits of the grind without actually observing the grind I'm like that has some danger just in their heads of shaping how things might play out and then what they might be. And then so that's just always on my mind. Like I kind of wish they had seen the grind.

30:13Jesse Pujji: I think my thing for for like getting the kids, first of all, to understand money, like we do the allowance thing of their their age every week. They have like we do it on green green light. Now the green light app has been amazing. I think Dr. Becky said it is like we make they have to make trade offs like they don't just have an unlimited spigot of money where they're going, oh, if I buy this and I can't buy this and like they're young and they're old enough and young enough to kind of start that thought process and understand how it matters. We do the one third goes into spending, one third into savings, one third into giving.

30:42Jesse Pujji: So like, we'd like to create more of a, you know, philanthropic orientation. As an immigrant son, you know, the focus was making money. There wasn't actually any of this philanthropy or giving. It was like, dude, we're trying to survive here. And so like, that's been in my ethos. So now I'm like, okay, that's not their ethos. Like we got to give them a different ethos. And so I think just making that money savvy has been like, teach them about investing. We'll talk like, I literally, this is kind of nerdy, but like every time we interact with a business and I'm with one of my kids, I'll be like, let's put the P &L together of this.

31:11Jesse Pujji: Like we just ate at Starbucks. Like how many cups do you think, like it's like a consulting business case. I'm like, how many cups of coffee do you think they sell a day? And then if they give you a weird answer, which they're pretty smart, but if they're like, I think they sell 100 a day, I'll be like, oh really? How many do you think they sell in an hour? Like how many people were just in there? And then they're like, oh no, okay, okay. Yeah, they probably sell a thousand a day, right? And I'm like, okay, how much do they charge for that? Like I was doing this to my daughter the other day. Okay, six, seven bucks.

31:36Jesse Pujji: okay do you think they it's a high margin product or like they know what that means they're like I think it's high margin it's coffee and then how many workers and how much they pay in real like and they like they start to develop this perspective on business um that I think is valuable and then the last thing I'll say is like I don't think you can actually teach anybody the value of money as a parent I don't think I knew I grew up middle class but I don't think I knew the value of money I'll tell you you and I learned the value of money I was 16 years old I got my first job at JCPenney in the men's sportswear section.

32:07Jesse Pujji: And I worked eight hours during a Saturday blowout sale. And I, my feet were hurting. I had a headache. I was standing on my feet all day. And then I got my check and it was like$63 after tax. Nice. And that's when I was like, oh my God, dad, thanks for buying me a plane ticket for$200 to go to camp. Oh shoot, dad, thanks for dinner the other day. Like, and I just don't, I don't think no matter what you do to your kids and unless like our big thing is they are definitely going to get hourly jobs when they're 16. Also, nothing made me want to be an entrepreneur more than that. My I started my first business in college after I worked at the gym swiping.

32:45Jesse Pujji: I thought it would be a great it was in the basement and there were you take someone's card and swipe it to give them a towel. And I'm like, oh, who's going to come to the basement to get a towel? I would do my homework all day. It was my work study job in college. Turns out lots of people come to the basement to get a towel. So all I did with swipe for time. I was like, dude, this is horrible. Like it was$12 an hour. And so I think, I think the best way you can do my, this is my opinion is like teaching kids is actually making them work and then understanding how work translates into money. And then from there, they'll go forward.

33:15Jesse Pujji: And then, so that's, that's that. And then on the giving side, man, you know, again, it's a conversation I'm on the finance, my financial advisor and it's, it's the most, well, you probably have heard this, but the financial advisors go, there's four things you can do with your money in the long run. You can spend it. You can give it to the government. You can give it to charity or you can give it to your kids or family. And when I first tell people that framework, they go, what do you mean? I can invest it. I go, yeah, but in the long run, it's got to go into one of those four buckets. It just, there's only four places it can go.

33:47Jesse Pujji: So nobody really wants to give money to the government. You know, I mean, I pay my taxes and stuff, but like, that's not my goal. Right. Charities. I've struggle with charity to be honest i mean i i made a rule that if anybody asked me i'll just give them a few thousand dollars because i'm like i've been given a lot and i want to give but sure you either really have to dig in and understand what they're doing and most charities unfortunately are like government i mean they're just one step above government this is the unfortunate reality you're right yeah and maybe at some point we're gonna start incubating charities out of the the gateway x platform because we think we can but anyway and then you give it to your kids but like up until recently, I've been like, man, I don't know if I want to do that.

34:26Jesse Pujji: Like, it doesn't seem like a, you know, a way to set them up for success. And then every time we leave these meetings with my wife, I'm like, let's just go spend some more money because none of the other options are very good. But for the kids, you know, I think I love the book Die With Zero. Have you read that book? It's a good one. Yeah, that's a great book. So I think I think there's some way to support them while we're still alive to have them if they're aligned to kind of like the, you know, the goals of growing themselves, being better persons, adding value into the world, support them in the ways they need to be supported.

34:57Jesse Pujji: I don't, I've still, I'm still on the fence of whether or not to leave any money or create some kind of a family office thing. Yeah. And I mean, you know, unless happen chance you die before you're old or you have a long time before that really matters, right? It's, uh, in theory, Your kids are young and I think there could be a number of different unique ways even that exist that we are not even aware of right now in 34 years or now. I'm becoming more oriented towards like rather than playing defense around it, maybe play offense around it. Like my kids are bright. They're good people. Like what would if they could actually soar as high as they could, what could I do to enable that?

35:36Jesse Pujji: I was I'm on the board of a family owned grocery store here in town called Schnucks. It's multi-billion dollar revenue business owned by the family still. and they're almost, I think they're on the fourth generation, third and fourth generation. So they like really stood the test of time. And one of the brothers, I was talking to him about these kinds of questions and he was like, you know, money doesn't ruin kids, lack of values does. And so they've done a really nice job of like, they pass down values around service, hard work, other things. And so that's something that's really on my mind, especially now my kids are getting to that age where it's like, let's talk more about what we stand for, what are values.

36:10Jesse Pujji: And if we do that right, then the money shouldn't, one way or another shouldn't affect them too much. That's very cool. I want to bring the plane in for a landing and ask what you, Jesse, want to be remembered for after all is said and done. Some of the companies you've built, the acquisitions, being a dad, a husband, what do you want to be remembered for? That's a great question. I'm somewhat new in my relationship to service. But I think I ultimately believe that like serving others is the only way to like serve the universe and serve God and serve because everybody, you know, that's. And so I think being someone who served others and helped others be the best versions of themselves and that could be my wife, that could be my kids.

36:51Jesse Pujji: Like, so my funeral is like, man, this guy, like my game is better because of him or I am a better person or I have learned something because he existed. I think that's probably the best gift I can give to anybody I know and what I'd want to be remembered for. Yeah. Jesse, what are you up to now? Yeah. So, you know, as I mentioned, we've been incubating companies the last several years. And I had this, you know, as it relates to money, a powerful session with my coach where he said, you know, are you a 10 out of 10 in your life, Jesse? And I'm like, I'm an 8 out of 10. I'm loving it. He's like, well, what would be a 10 out of 10?

37:23Jesse Pujji: And, you know, then he was like, well, if you were a billionaire, if you had all the money, none of it mattered. How would you just how would you spend your time? Not what would you buy? But how would you actually spend your time? And I think that's one area of money we could talk about more is actually. a lot of times my financial advisors are like, well, how do you want to spend your time? Like get a better office, do things that are just going to make you happy. And so my answer to the question was like, I'd love to have more density of entrepreneurs around me, like scores of entrepreneurs physically around me, working on the latest companies and basically doing what I've been doing at more scale and more volume and density.

37:54Jesse Pujji: And so, you know, I can't share too much just now, but that's what we're doing. So now we're looking to attract lots of entrepreneurs, funding them. You know, we almost want to create like a, one of the big things that I think is missing in the world is, is funding for founders who want to seed strap. So if you think about the narrative today, there's two narratives and Hampton knows a lot about this. It's like, oh, I can either raise venture money and I have to raise round after round after round. And I don't know, 1 % become unicorns and, you know, really well, but the rest of them are like, I got too much money on my cap table.

38:28Jesse Pujji: I'm stuck. I'm a zombie. Or you can have this lifestyle business, which is totally used as a pejorative and someone like puts their nose down at you and goes, oh, lifestyle business. But again, Hampton more than anyone is like, there's so many founders who are building ambitious, big companies, but they're doing it profitably and they don't want to get into the venture game. And that's what I've done my whole career. And so what we want to do is we actually kind of want to institutionalize that. So we want to put one to$2 million in the company. That's the only round of capital you ever take. And we help you get profitable.

39:02Jesse Pujji: So almost like my dream is that I'm the Paul Graham and Gateway X is the Y Combinator of seed strapping. And we like to say we're going to build camels, not unicorns. So camels can work in any weather. They're maybe not as pretty, but they're much more common. And so I think with AI, by the way, that white space in between venture funded and lifestyle is going to become much, much bigger. So we think there's going to be a lot more companies who go, yeah, I need a million or two to kind of get going. I want a few people around the table, but then get profitable that first year and then grow profitably and kind of control your own destiny.

39:37Jesse Pujji: So that's now how we're spending our time. And it came from an exercise around assuming I had an unlimited amount of money because it gave me clarity as to how I wanted to spend my time and maybe how I wanted to change what I've been up to, which I've been loving what I've been up to, but, but I was like, I can make it even better this way. Very cool. That's awesome. Well, Jesse, this has been a great episode. I really appreciate you coming on Money Wise, sharing some of your thoughts. I love your values. I think working in service of other people, I mean, there's, there's really nothing more serendipitous, I think.

40:05And, you know, just giving generosity, what goes around comes around. I think you're making the world a better place. I appreciate that about you.

40:11Jesse Pujji: Appreciate it, man. Here's Jesse's whole situation. He counts every illiquid asset at zero. His advisors think he's crazy. 70 % of his public portfolio is indexed and he spends about 500k a year. His kids are in public school and all three of them are getting hourly jobs at 16, non-negotiable. From 15 to 31, he says money was the only thing nine times out of 10. Now it's one out of 10. It took getting the money to find that out. People in Hampton always talk about what to do with kids and how much money to leave them if you leave them any at all. Hampton has conversations just like the one we just had on Money Wise, but all the time.

40:47Hampton's a private network for founders and CEOs doing on average$25 million in revenue. If you're doing$3 million or more or have exited for$10 million or more, you need to go check it out at joinhampton.com. And that's Money Wise. I'm Daniel Burke. See you next week.