We're still surprised people did this but... 50+ founders worth $10M to $4B reveal their personal finances. Here it is: https://joinhampton.com/mw-wr
Why do we do this? Because if you're an aspirational person or someone who runs a business and is making money, it's incredibly challenging to figure out what to do. Information is impossible to find — and that's what we put together: the net worth reveal and why we do this podcast, Moneywise.
He turned down $42M, lost a $70M deal to a war, and sold his company over WhatsApp instead.
Ryan Levesque is the author of the #1 national bestseller Ask and the founder of the Ask Method Company, a seven-time Inc. 5000 business that did over $100M in revenue. He grew up blue collar, quit AIG in China the morning the Wall Street Journal said the company was going bankrupt, and built his first business selling Scrabble tile jewelry tutorials on Etsy. Then he tried to sell his company twice. The first buyer flipped a $42.5M deal to $17M at the eleventh hour. The second, a $70M offer, evaporated the week Russia invaded Ukraine. Today he sits on $30–35M in liquid net worth and runs a 150-acre farm in Vermont with his wife and two boys, where 80% of what his family eats comes off their own land.
This is the longest Moneywise episode we've ever cut, and I barely interrupted. We go deep on the two failed exits, the life insurance rejection letter at age 30 that turned out to be organ failure, the photo of his sons that made him stop chasing the number, and what it actually costs to run a 150-acre farm (spoiler: free food runs about half a million a year). Ryan also breaks down the money curriculum he built for his kids, why $35M didn't feel like enough until he decided it was, and the honeybee epiphany that led to selling his company to his biggest competitor.
Also, this podcast is made by Hampton, which is a community for founders doing on average $20 million a year in revenue. We saw a lot of these money conversations happening privately behind closed doors and we thought, "What the heck, let's make it public." If you are a founder, apply here: http://joinhampton.com/mw
Timestamps:
0:00 — "Mr. Levesque, you should be in a coma right now." Cold open and episode roadmap
5:30 — The WSJ headline reads "AIG to file for bankruptcy." He resigns the same day with ~$100K in the bank
9:56 — Reverse-engineering an Etsy seller's income and building a Scrabble tile jewelry tutorial business: "emulate before you innovate"
12:32 — The crash of the Scrabble tile jewelry market. Lesson: pick evergreen markets
14:29 — Dead orchids in Shanghai become a $500K/year business. Then 23 businesses at once
17:19 — A nine-figure sale to NBC (Golf Pass) and a $168M sale to PayPal. His cut: "less than seven figures"
19:00 — Ask becomes the #1 bestselling book in America and births a $100M+ company
21:00 — The $42.5M deal gets flipped to $17M at the eleventh hour. "We basically gave them the middle finger"
25:13 — Interviewing 12 investment banks, going back to market, and landing a $70M offer
28:30 — Russia invades Ukraine. The deal, and the entire M&A market, evaporates
33:23 — The life insurance rejection letter. Kidney failure. Ten days in ICU. Undiagnosed type 1 diabetic
40:16 — "My kid can't grow up without a dad." Shutting down 23 businesses
41:42 — Two photos of his boys, seven years apart. "It was like a heartbeat"
43:00 — Texting his wife from a tent in Vermont. Full-price cash offer on the Austin house the same night
49:13 — Reading Peter Lynch at age 10 and turning $5K into $100K+ by 18
51:57 — What he looked for in land: top of watershed, no PFAS, good schools. 12 months of Airbnbs
56:41 — 48 beehives, 1,000 maple taps, 500 fruit trees, seven freezers. 100% of their own protein
58:40 — The farm numbers: just under $5M for the land, $2M mortgage at 6.5%, $220K/year before a single animal
1:03:59 — $260K in year one, $175K/year after. "Free food costs a lot of money"
1:06:28 — The kids' money curriculum: Rich Dad Poor Dad read-alouds, Greenlight accounts, a real estate syndication paying them $300–400/month
1:11:20 — His net worth when he decided it was enough: $30–35M liquid
1:12:47 — "I've never been less money motivated in my life." $1M webinars and the Mexican fisherman
1:15:08 — Goldenrod, purple aster, and the WhatsApp voice memo to Daniel Priestley. Company sold three months later
1:20:20 — Legacy, $120K/year in tuition, and how much to hand to your kids: "the brownies are not fully baked"
1:25:39 — Seven weeks in Europe, giving back, and why all altruism is selfish
1:31:36 — Daniel's takeaway: figure out what you're optimizing for and start living it now
Sponsors: Daily Body Coach - achieve your dream body with https://moneywise.dailybodycoach.com
Subscribe to Moneywise: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneywisepodcast
Follow Daniel on X: https://x.com/danielcberk
Listen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts: [search "Moneywise Hampton"]