Fred's Net Worth Hit $6M After His $50M Exit. His Goal? Complete Freedom to Live Anywhere

We spoke to Fred in this week's episode of Moneywise. Fred is a UK entrepreneur who just sold his tech business for mid-eight figures after seven grueling years of building. He's now living in Australia with his family, having used his newfound wealth not for luxury purchases, but for the ultimate upgrade: complete geographic freedom.

Like all Moneywise episodes, Fred breaks down his net worth, income, portfolio, and monthly expenses and then I, your humble host, pick it all apart.

We also went deep on: the emotional toll of building a business for years with zero revenue, the terrifying stress of high-stakes acquisition meetings, the surprising relief (not joy) of finally getting the money, and how he's learning to rewire his brain after years of constant anxiety.

Below you'll find my summary of the episode along with the entire transcript.

And by the way...this podcast, the concept of it came from Hampton. Hampton is a private community that Sam co-founded for founders and entrepreneurs to network, share experiences, and learn from each other. They've got exclusive events, small curated groups, and honestly, it's been amazing. Hampton helps you level up both personally and professionally. So if you're a founder or an entrepreneur, I highly recommend you go and check out JoinHampton.com. I've personally met some really cool people through it, and maybe you're next, so see you in there. If you're a CEO, founder, or business owner, check this out. New Moneywise episodes come out weekly.

Listen to this episode on:

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Now, below are the notes and the full transcript.

The Numbers

• Business Sale Price: Mid-eight figures USD (approximately $50 million)
• Fred's Net Worth Before Exit: Less than $1 million
• Fred's Net Worth After Exit: Mid-end of single digit millions (approximately $5-9 million)
• Early Startup Salary: £25,000/year ($30,000 USD)
• Savings Before Starting Business: £100,000 ($125,000 USD)
• Revenue Timeline: Zero revenue for first 3 years, gradual growth in years 4-7
• Current Monthly Rent: $8,000 USD (Australia)
• Current Monthly Living Expenses: $10,000 USD total (up from $2-3,000 before)
• Previous UK Rent vs Salary: Rent cost more than his £25,000 annual salary
• Monthly Cash Burn During Startup: Earning £2,000/month, spending £3,000-4,000
• Investment Strategy: Currently in bonds earning 5% (missed 25% S&P 500 gains but prioritizing peace of mind)

Building Wealth with Purpose

Fred's journey wasn't typical Silicon Valley overnight success. For the first three years, his company had zero revenue while he was earning just £25,000 annually—less than their London rent. "I was earning two and spending close to four," Fred explains about those early cash-burning days. "If you've got say 100,000 of net worth and you're losing two a month, you know it doesn't feel like that money's going to last you forever."

The psychological toll was intense. As someone from an immigrant family with high achievement expectations, Fred struggled with the gap between external perception and internal reality. "You can kind of fake it. You meet up with your mates, how's it going? And you, you know, there's always a story you can spit. We just hired a new person. We've just opened a new office. We just raised some more money, but that was quite a long period for us of showing something different externally to what you're feeling inside."

The Terrifying Reality of High-Stakes Deals

The exit process brought a unique form of stress that Fred describes as "terrifying." The company sold for mid-eight figures, but the path there involved meetings where "there's literally millions of dollars on the line in the next hour."

"You'd be sitting in a meeting talking about the valuation. And you realize that if you play this meeting well, in the next hour or hour and a half goes really well, you make your points really clearly, your arguments are spot on, versus if you muffle your lines or you don't quite get your point across or you let them get the upper hand. There's millions of dollars of difference between those two outcomes."

Fred calls these "million dollar meetings" that happened twice a week during the six-month sale process, all while trying to keep the business running smoothly.

The Surprising Emotion of Success

When the money finally hit his bank account—still in the student account his mother opened when he was 16—Fred's reaction wasn't what he expected. "You expect to have this ecstasy and joy and pop champagne and run around hugging everyone. I just sat by myself for a while and just relief. Just thought, I don't have to send a hundred emails today and be stressed that I'm going to get a call out of the blue from someone, that something's gone wrong and I can just rest."

The aftermath brought its own challenges. "I was really sick after the deal had closed. You're in this heavy problem solving state for months, seven days a week, waking up in the middle of the night because there's an email that's come in and flinging spreadsheets around 24 hours a day, and it all just evaporates. And you can't just turn your brain off that quickly."

Life in Australia: Freedom Over Flash

Rather than buying Porsches or mansions, Fred and his wife made one major life change: they moved to Australia. "The weather and the lifestyle is good. We want to raise the kids somewhere where they can be outdoors a lot, find a love for exercise in a, you know, in just an easygoing way. Australia is great for that."

Their spending reflects this priority: $8,000 monthly rent in an expensive Australian city, quality groceries, gym memberships, and activities for the kids. "I really can't, even if I really scratch my head, I can't think of anything that you would put down as kind of lavish or luxurious. No fancy cars or luxurious second homes. We bought a camper van, which we wanted, but it's a second hand, you know, sort of five year old camper van."

The True Value of Entrepreneurial Success

Fred contrasts his path with friends who stayed in finance: "Many mates of mine are in that world. None of them are retiring in their mid 30s. It's such a treadmill that they'll still be doing it when they're 50 and amassing large amounts of money, but having no freedom and no free time."

The key difference isn't necessarily the total wealth accumulated, but how it was earned. "The way that money was earned, like basically all in one go at the end means that I'm probably going to have a lot more freedom over how I spend my time over the next ten years than if I'd earned that money in a different way."

Investment Philosophy: Peace of Mind Over Returns

Currently, Fred has most of his money in bonds earning 5%, despite the S&P 500 being up 25% during the same period. "When that money's been really hard earned, the thought of losing it is terrifying. Especially at the beginning when you're still getting used to it. So I think I would have been a nervous wreck if I'd have bought a load of stocks."

He plans to eventually move to a more diversified portfolio after buying a house and letting more time pass.

Other Key Quotes

"The most important thing in life, really, is to have the freedom and flexibility to spend your time in the way that you'd like."

"None of the details of the acquisition were public, so no one really knows, right? So maybe there's an internal pressure to prove that it was actually quite a good outcome by buying a Porsche or something."

"I had to learn to chill. But financially we were pretty relaxed and we didn't spend the money."

"There's such a thrill from turning an idea into something real. You know, just seeing a landing page come to life. You're buying the domain. That stuff's still thrilling."

"We're quite happy taking something that might be a little bit unsexy or uncool."

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Full Transcript

[00:00:03] Fred: You expect to have this ecstasy and joy and pop champagne and run around hugging everyone? I just sat by myself for a while and just. Just relief.

[00:00:13] Harry Morton: Numbers are intoxicating. We're wired to get hooked on them because, let's face it, they're easy to process and they feel real. And when it comes to money, the bigger the number, the more the impossible starts to feel possible. It brings out the kid in us. But instead of dreaming about being, I don't know, a Power Ranger. It's buying a lakeside cabin, jet skis, endless summers, or whatever your grown up dream might be. And on this show, we love diving into those numbers. They're flashy, they're fun and easy to obsess over. But for entrepreneurs, people like us, whether we realize it or not, those numbers take us for a ride emotionally. They say something about us, which in itself can mess with your brain.

[00:00:47] Fred: None of the details of the acquisition were public, so no one really knows, right? So maybe there's an internal pressure to prove that it was actually quite a good outcome.

[00:00:57] Harry Morton: Sure.

[00:00:57] Fred: By buying a Porsche or something.

[00:00:59] Harry Morton: The journey to financial success isn't just spreadsheets. It's sacrifice anxiety, rewiring your brain to get there and then rewiring it all over again once you do. That's what this episode is about. We spoke to Fred, who just a few years ago sold his business for roughly $50 million. Fred is an incredibly introspective guy and our conversation was raw and deeply insightful. I really enjoyed meeting him. He reveals the emotional highs and lows of riding the founding, building and exiting wave, along with how he found balance when the numbers finally stopped moving. I'm Harry Morton and this is Moneywise, the podcast that goes beyond how to make money to explore what happens when you've made it. We dig into the numbers, the decisions, the lessons learned from entrepreneurs and CEOs who've built wealth and how it's changed and shaped their lives, for better or for worse. If you're wondering why you're hearing my voice and not Sam's this week, it's because he's asked me to do a few more of these episodes. It's an awesome opportunity, and it's literally only happening because I'm connected with Sam through a private community called Hampton, who makes this podcast. Hampton is a company that Sam co-founded. It's a private community for founders and entrepreneurs to network, share experiences, and learn from each other. It's amazing. They've got exclusive events to small, curated groups.

[00:02:08] Harry Morton: Hampton helps you level up both personally and professionally. So if you're a founder or an entrepreneur, I highly recommend you go and check out Join Hampton. I've personally met some really cool people through it, and maybe you're next, so see you in there. Join Hampton calm. I met with Fred in Australia, which is where he lives today. He's not from there, nor is his wife. But after the exit, when the dust settled, the first thing they did was plan their move out of Britain, which is where they are from. We'll get into this a bit more in a bit, but that's really the main way. He's used his money to upgrade his life. For him, it wasn't about buying a bigger house or cool toys or flying around the world often at least. Instead, he and his wife took the opportunity not to lean into what could make them happy, but where uprooting your life and moving anywhere you want in the world without having to think about your finances or thinking about what job you're going to have when you land is a huge privilege. The exit made that possible for Fred. We'll talk more about how the move has impacted his and his family's life, and what their life in Australia looks like. But we need to start in Britain.

[00:03:11] Fred: Yeah, I grew up in the UK. Dad was a professional, started off as an engineer, became a CFO type. Yeah, we were comfortable. We worked hard. He's an immigrant. He's from the Middle East, so always had that kind of work hard mindset. And then I was always quite, um, a kind of Type-A, high achieving person. So I was always really focused on school and doing well at school and getting into the right uni and all that sort of stuff.

[00:03:35] Harry Morton: Yeah, people say that quite often about immigrant families or first generation. Like, is that a thing?

[00:03:40] Fred: I think it is. Yeah. I think there's a I've seen the I can't remember the numbers, but the data in the US is like a disproportionate amount of startups come from immigrant like second generation or first generation immigrant kids. And it's second hand. Right. So just from talking to your family members who are like, grew up poor and had nothing, you have this sense of almost like an obligation to make the most of what you've had. You know, I went to a nice, you know, private school, you know, and grew up in a safe place with lots of opportunity. And, you know, you think, well, if I'm quite smart and I can work hard and I don't bother when all these opportunities have been hard earned, that would be a bit of a shame. Yeah. So I think that's where it comes from.

[00:04:18] Harry Morton: Yeah. Cool. But you went to private school, so you had immigrants, but you had money.

[00:04:22] Fred: Yeah, yeah, we did well, my dad did well. And you know, so financially we were doing we were fine.

[00:04:27] Harry Morton: Because of that early start in life, full of opportunity. Fred felt obligated to continue on that safe and secure path. Which is interesting. I'll get back to him in a second, but I think it's worth noting that sometimes it can almost be harder when your starting point is that middle class security. If you start with wealth, you've got the advantage of having the ability to take risks without fearing catastrophic failure. If a venture flops, your safety net is still intact your home, your lifestyle, your access to opportunity. It's all still there. On the other end of the spectrum, when you start with nothing, failure might feel less terrifying because really, you've got nothing to lose anyway. If you fail, you're not worse off than where you started and nothing to lose. Everything to gain mindset can drive people to achieve incredible things. But starting in that weird middle ground can be really tough when you have just enough to protect the risk can feel really paralyzing. The stakes are just high enough that you really have to light your own fire. And at first Fred didn't do that.

[00:05:21] Fred: So I was quite kind of type A focused mindset. So must get good grades, must get into the top uni and then must do, I guess, the most prestigious thing or the thing that society tells you that smart people ought to do. So go to the city, do something in finance to honestly didn't put more than five minutes worth of thought into. It's just like a very short list of like what I should do. So I kind of just followed the crowd really, and threw my heart into that and did what I had to do and worked hard and all that sort of stuff, but realized after maybe 4 or 5 years it was pretty unfulfilling. Like a lot of people realize. I think I was just lucky in hindsight to realize pretty early before you're on that treadmill of success and, you know, the financial reward starts to kick in and you buy a house and.

[00:06:11] Harry Morton: And then you're.

[00:06:11] Fred: In. Yeah. And like, cutting the cord then is like a really big difficult thing to do. So I was only sort of 5 or 6 years into my career when I decided, you know, there's this whole world of entrepreneurship out there. There's all these super cool people that are starting businesses and going out on their own and not following someone else's path, and I wasn't really surrounded by that as a kid at all. No one in our family was an entrepreneur, so I didn't know anyone that owned their own business.

[00:06:37] Harry Morton: So where do you think that itch came from then?

[00:06:39] Fred: I think it was from just starting to see more of the world. You leave home and you see maybe what some of your ex colleagues have gotten up to. You know, I was doing some consulting and starting to work with founder owned companies. I think, wow, this guy's cool. Like, how's he's pretty young. He's same age as me. And he's paying this consulting firm quite a lot of money to come. And do you know this work for him? Well, how's how's he made that happen? It's like, well, you just have an idea, and you build it up, and you raise some money and you go, you know, one step after the other kind of thing. So that kind of got the itch going and then obviously needed an idea. I was lucky that a friend of mine had a good idea in a space that could benefit from technology. And so that was the genesis of it.

[00:07:21] Harry Morton: But Fred didn't immediately go all in.

[00:07:23] Fred: So it was a very long period of time where nothing was happening. We were both still working in our day jobs, and then eventually it just kind of came together and crystallized. We did an incubator type program. Cool. Which was amazing. Just got us together, you know, 12 weeks and you do as much as you can in that period. Kind of like a, I just say a budget version of Y Combinator, but a UK budget version of Y Combinator. Basically, you know, you do the 12 weeks and as a cohort and then you raise money at the end. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Which was good. And that got us up and running.

[00:07:55] Harry Morton: You said four years of hard time. What were those sort of pivotal moments? Were you like, okay, like this is working. We're on to something.

[00:08:01] Fred: Yeah. We basically had three different business models that we tried, and each one showed sort of early promise and the metrics would be good. And then we'd realize that it wasn't, you know, it wasn't sustainable strategy for different reasons. And so we kind of had multiple waves of ups and downs where you think it's going great. And then the data starts to tell you that it's not. And I think, you know, if we were more experienced, we'd have made the call sooner to pivot and try something else. But, you know, we were first timers and you make a bunch of promises to your team and to the investors that, you know, this is the path and it's quite painful to change. So yeah, two years of plan A, two years of plan B, and then plan C turned out to be the right one. And in hindsight, plan A and plan B were like dead as dodos. But that wasn't obvious to us at the time. And that's just hindsight. I think more than anything. So we had a really difficult four year.

[00:08:57] Harry Morton: And what was that revenue timeline?

[00:08:59] Fred: So we were at zero for the first three years, okay. And probably got overly attached to basically false metrics like, oh, look how many users we're attracting. And you know, we're doing these pilots and that pilots and all this sort of stuff. But yeah, I mean, a seasoned entrepreneur or investor would go, yeah, just forget all that. What's the revenue? It's zero. Right? Well, it's evidently not working if the revenue's still zero after that period of time. And that's where you start to doubt yourself. And like emotionally that period is really difficult. And, you know, as a, as a young person that has had a successful career, short but successful career before that and is quite attached to being seen as successful and being seen as smart amongst your peer group like it can be quite challenging to not be being successful internally. Like you feel like a loser basically, but also maintaining the perception of winning even though you're not. And you get kind of you can kind of fake it. You meet up with your mates, how's it going? And you, you know, there's always a story you can spit. I was just hired a new person. We've just opened a new office. Sure, we just raised some more money, but that was quite a long period for us of showing something different externally to what you're feeling inside. When you knew that it wasn't going as you wanted it to.

[00:10:15] Harry Morton: Is that quite a strong driver for you then, or was it, I should say, in retrospect, the sort of the status thing? Because I can relate, by the way. I'm like, I didn't know it about myself when I started, but I can definitely. As the years progress, I'm becoming more and more aware of how actually there's. And I really struggle with it because I don't know to what extent it's like helpful and healthy and not because, like actually it's also driving some success, which is quite good. So it's a real sort of like conflict I find. But like I said, I wasn't aware of it at the start. Is that. Yeah. Do you think it's a strong driver for you, or was it maybe there were other drivers that were more important?

[00:10:49] Fred: Yeah, I think in hindsight it was, but I didn't know at the time. And I think it's probably something that you only notice that it was there when it's faded a little bit. Yeah. I think it's quite common. You're a young guy, you know, working in the city, and it's kind of quite an alpha type environment. And, um, even if that's a bit hidden, you know, everyone's basically trying to show off about how successful they're being in their career or how much money they're earning, you know, what kind of trajectory they're on. And, you know, you've got you've got lawyers and private equity guys and bankers and it's all that kind of world. And I think when you're 24 or 25, it takes someone who's very emotionally mature to step away from that game and say, I'm above all this, you I'll let you guys play it out, but I'm cool. I'm content. I was just in that in that world and playing that game and doing okay at that game. And then you step into the startup world and it's really different at first. It's kind of cool to be a founder and.

[00:11:46] Harry Morton: Well, that's what I was going to say that as well. Right? Like there's also this like this strange perceived step up in status in a certain way for being the one that's like, yeah, people always use the word like, oh, that's so brave. And it's like, is it? It doesn't feel it to me. But anyway, so there's that, you know, so maybe financially you're not like going on that big expensive holiday or buying that next car, but you're kind of doing this, this thing that other people don't all do.

[00:12:07] Fred: At the beginning. It feels it's cool and it feels brave. Yeah. And it's all good news at the beginning, right? Sure. Because all it's all optimism.

[00:12:14] Harry Morton: Four years of no revenue.

[00:12:15] Fred: Yeah. Yeah. It's all optimism for the future. And like we're going to do this and we're going to do that. And we've just raised this money and we've got this investor and that investor. Yeah. And then yeah you have we had a period that was much longer than we hoped before we started making money. And then you're right. In that period your income is lower than your friends and you're missing out on parties or vacations that you don't go on because you just don't have the money to do it. And you feel like you're kind of having to pretend that everything's going great when actually it's not. And then, you know, at home as well, you know, you feel like maybe you're not providing for your family in the way that you should be. You're using your friends or people that you know, as, as examples or counterfactuals of where you could be going financially. And you're not. It's this odd position because your equity position can be really high on paper at the beginning. Yeah. But everyone knows that it's actually worthless until the business starts generating some revenues and eventually you get an exit of some kind. So, yeah, you feel like you're selfish, you're putting your career ahead of, you know, looking after your family because you're going off doing this silly idea when you could just be back in your old job, earning good money, saving money every month, all that stuff.

[00:13:29] Harry Morton: Let's talk about that lack of cash. Fred was taking some big risks during this period.

[00:13:33] Fred: So the first two years were pretty difficult financially, so my salary was £25,000 a year.

[00:13:40] Harry Morton: That's around 30,000 USD, by the way.

[00:13:43] Fred: We were renting a house in London. I remember the the cost of the rent was more than my salary and we just had a baby, our first baby. So my wife was looking after the baby and not working. Yeah.

[00:13:54] Harry Morton: Had you built up a decent cushion before leaving your finance gig?

[00:13:56] Fred: Yeah. Yeah, I think from memory, we had about £100,000 or so. Okay. That was stashed away. We didn't own a house. That was kind of like the deposit for a house money. Sure. And we were. We were happy to put that towards sustaining us. Yeah, but, you know, taking home about £2,000 a month, but spending 3 or 4 just on living was pretty difficult. So you see that number? That number dropping. My wife went back to work. It was difficult. She went back to work sooner than she would have liked to, a job that she didn't really want to do because she just had to take what she could ASAP and what would pay her the best. And then things got progressively better over time. So my salary increased from 25,000 to 40 5000 to 65,000 over the first four years, and we got more comfortable. She went back to work, you know, from a few days a week to more closer to full time. And then so the net worth sort of stabilized at that point and it stopped dropping, which was a relief.

[00:14:49] Harry Morton: It was dropping before.

[00:14:50] Fred: It was dropping. Well, yeah, because we were you know, I was earning two and spending close to four. Okay. So that's quite a lot. You know, if you've got say 100,000 of net worth and you're losing two a month. Yeah. You know it's not it doesn't feel like that money's going to last you forever. No, no let's put it mildly. Yeah. So that first two years was financially was really difficult. Yeah. And then things got better and stabilized. And then, you know, in the last few years, you know, we were saving money each month, but not not an amount that was going to certainly going to be life changing. Like it felt like it was all or nothing around selling this business.

[00:15:21] Harry Morton: And did you feel confident throughout that whole process, like was there any doubt.

[00:15:25] Fred: There's a lot of doubt? Yeah. You have to project this external image of confidence to investors and to your team. You're trying to hire people, and obviously they're not going to join you unless you're super confident about the future. Even to your partner to some extent, because they've backed you in a in a different way. So it's quite an internal struggle. And that's where having a co-founder is really valuable, because they're probably the only person that you can be fully honest with about, because they know the situation as well. They know all the data, they have the same data you have, and maybe you still have to look like you're still committed to the business. Maybe if that's a concern, you can't share that with them, but you could definitely be more transparent with them. So yeah, there's a lot of doubt. And you hold it in. Yeah. Which is not healthy. Yeah. This was a while ago before getting a therapist was as common as it is now. Yeah, yeah. Like, having someone to talk to about that stuff I think is really valuable.

[00:16:19] Harry Morton: How did your relationship with your wife hold up during this period?

[00:16:22] Fred: Yeah, it held up. We're still married.

[00:16:23] Fred: Yeah. Yeah. That was a polite way of asking. Yeah, sorry, I didn't. I didn't quite mean it as aggressively as that. I just, you know, I assume it was.

[00:16:30] Harry Morton: An added stress to already raising young kids.

[00:16:32] Fred: And yeah.

[00:16:33] Fred: It's a difficult period anyway because you're raising kids and you know, there's always you know, she had work pressure from her side. Yeah. The biggest challenge really for us was that I'd told her, and I think I was being genuine and honest when I said this, but I told her 2 or 3 years will build the business, it'll be really profitable and we'll sell it, and then we can go and do something else. And this is just a short chapter. Yeah. And basically every year I would have to kind of apply for an extension.

[00:16:59] Fred: Sure.

[00:17:00] Fred: For another six months or another year. Yeah. She kind of got fatigued with that. Right. Because it looks it looks like it's never ending in that initial period where we didn't really have any meaningful success to speak of. There's not a lot of evidence other than just her trust in me. Yeah. Not a lot of evidence for her to hang her hat on, to say this is the right thing for us to be doing. So towards the end of that initial period where we were struggling, she was pretty keen, I think, for me to try and do something else that was going to put the family in a better position financially. And I had to ask her to trust me because I, you know, I thought we could make something of it.

[00:17:35] Harry Morton: Yeah. Cool. So you did still have that confidence, that belief in the product. Deep down.

[00:17:39] Harry Morton: Think your business and yourself, you know.

[00:17:40] Fred: Yeah, the confidence is there. I think deep down. And it wavers from time to time. When you have a bad week or, you know, some bad news. I mean, I remember one moment in particular, we had this big contract that we had been speaking to the company for like six months about. We were really confident and they said, look, we want to go ahead with you guys. We just need to do a little bit of a kind of beauty parade before we sign the contract. And then they actually gave it to the other party. We were all banking on that. We thought it was done basically, and that was going to make the company's year and put us on the next path to being able to grow the team. And yeah, that was when you have moments like that and there were lots of small moments. That's a bigger one. Yeah. It knocks your confidence. Yeah I bet.

[00:18:25] Harry Morton: We often talk about pivotal moments in life as if they're isolated to the moment they occur. You're broke. So you feel stressed about money. You make money so you feel excited to spend it. But to truly grasp the emotional impact of these major life events, like an exit, you have to realize that everything is interconnected. The years of anxiety, stress, and self-doubt don't just vanish when your net worth suddenly gains a few extra zeros. That energy, that tension, doesn't get wiped away. It stays with you, often lingering in ways you don't expect. We've talked a lot about the sacrifices involved in building a business, and those sacrifices aren't just tangible like time or relationships. They take a toll on your mental health, creating long lasting effects that can really shape your life. The other thing is that those big moments while on a timeline, they seem like singular big things. In reality, they're messy, drawn out, and emotionally turbulent. That's what the exit experience was like for Fred. At first, leading up to it, there was a feeling of redemption.

[00:19:25] Fred: It's an exhilarating feeling, actually. And you feel like a lot of vindication and validation for all the work that you've put in to build the product and build the team and stuff. I remember my one of my recollections was just thinking, ah, this is what it feels like when customers really want your product. You know, you have 1 or 2 calls and they'll just sign the terms that you send them. Not, you know, before we were, you know, months and months of back and forth and people would go quiet and you don't hear from them ever again. And this was like, you know, like Marc Andreessen, the investor, says the market pulls the product towards like it wants the market wants what you have. Yeah. You know, we'd made a few changes to the product and a few changes to the the customer set that we were selling to. And this group of customers really wanted what we had. And the change was dramatic. And we went from really busy trying a bunch of things that weren't working to just being really busy trying to keep the product up and trying to keep the customers happy. Yeah. And then all this optimism floods back, and you're just so excited about what the future's going to bring. Trying to keep up with the demands of all these new customers that you have.

[00:20:32] Harry Morton: And then the buyer came.

[00:20:33] Fred: And we felt like we'd had it really good for three years. The market was really strong. There was a buyer who was a really clear and obvious buyer for us. Someone that we had, you know, put on our little list of people that we thought we might speak to one day. And they were keen. So the stars aligned with the performance of the business and the right kind of buyers being around. So we made the decision that that we should sell.

[00:20:59] Harry Morton: What was the most stressful part for you?

[00:21:01] Fred: Yeah, the whole process is really stressful and it comes in phases, right? So you've got the early phase of the deal where it's all potential and possible, and the risk there is, you get too excited and, you know, you see for the first time you see a number or a range, even if it's quite early in the process and you work out. I remember I had a little spreadsheet and I'd work out what my share would be. And you know how much tax I might pay. And you, for the first time in our case, in seven years, you have a number attached to all the hard work that you've put in. And then it's really dangerous to get attached to that. And you start spending it in your mind and think, what could I do? What could I buy? And you tell your partner and all that stuff. And, you know, M&A deals are so fragile. There's a million reasons why they fall over, especially at that early stage. So that's a difficult period emotionally because I think especially if you get too attached and then the thing falls down. And then and then as the deal progresses, it's just so much work. Yeah. There's so much that you have to do on top of your day job. And kind of the number one rule is don't let the business falter during the deal every month. You know, they'll ask you, what were your numbers this month? And if you can't get your forecasts right 1 or 2 months out, they won't put much value on your five year forecasts or whatever. So there's this huge busyness, like probably the I remember it's probably the hardest I've ever worked.

[00:22:20] Fred: I'm basically doing two jobs at the same time. And then you've got this big weight of expectation, you know, as the CEO of a business that's being sold. Everyone's looking to you to get the best outcome for them, and you're expected to bear that weight of expectation from everyone. And it's just so high stakes. You know, you'd be sitting in a meeting. The most obvious one would be, you know, meeting. Talk about the valuation. And you realise that if you play this meeting well, in the next hour or hour and a half goes really well, you make your points really clearly. You know, your arguments are spot on. Um, versus if you muffle your lines or you don't quite get your point across or you let them get the upper hand. There's millions of dollars of difference between those two outcomes. And the business hasn't changed. And all those sleepless nights over the last seven years haven't changed. But there's literally millions of dollars on the line in the next hour. And that's such a unique and bizarre situation to be in. And that happens. It's not just one meeting and it happens again. And that price gets tested multiple times throughout the deal, or an issue comes up in due diligence. That's a bit yucky. And again, if you don't get your points right and you don't come across in the right way, they might walk away entirely and the whole thing just evaporates. And that's a uniquely stressful thing. Twice a week, let's say there's a there's a meeting, there's $1 million meeting.

[00:23:44] Harry Morton: Sure.

[00:23:45] Fred: You can see how that's done. You know, that's unusual. And even if you work, you know, obviously people that do that for a living and they've got a fee on the line, you know. But this is different. It's it's a life changing amount of money for you and your family. But it's also can be life changing for people on your team, your co-founder, obviously your investors as well.

[00:24:05] Harry Morton: Was there ever a point where you felt overwhelmed by it?

[00:24:08] Fred: Yeah. It was. I'd say the best way to describe it was probably just terrifying, right? Just the feeling that you're going to stuff something up.

[00:24:14] Harry Morton: Yeah.

[00:24:15] Fred: And that fear just sitting on top of you. Like, if I make a mistake, all of this work is going to kind of go up in flames and it's all going to burn to the ground.

[00:24:24] Harry Morton: It feels like that overachiever in you was scared, you know?

[00:24:27] Fred: Yeah, I think there's a there's an emotional side of it of maybe getting a bit caught up in your head. There's also a practical reality side of it. Like, I could actually fuck this up and then it will all be for nothing. Yeah. So that's actually really scary. Yeah. It's almost a rational thing to be that scared. And then you have all the stuff in your head going on at the same time as well. Yeah. Whilst trying to juggle running the business at the same time. So yeah, it's it's a really emotionally difficult period going through that sale. And we were we were pretty lucky. Like the deal obviously went through and happened without any major hiccups. It was quite a long six months. The buyer was very analytical and wanted to know pretty much everything about the business. There was a lot of that, but they didn't screw us around. Um, you know, a lot of deals fall over and come back to life, and you have this kind of soap opera that goes on for a few years. We we managed to avoid all of that. So generally speaking, it was pretty smooth sailing. Cool. Yeah. Still difficult.

[00:25:24] Harry Morton: How much did it sell for? What did you what did that outcome look like?

[00:25:27] Fred: We sold the company for eight figures. Yeah. So mid eight figures in US dollars.

[00:25:34] Harry Morton: So what did your net worth become at that point?

[00:25:37] Fred: So my net worth went from less than $1 million to still single digit millions. But the sort of mid mid end of single digit million.

[00:25:46] Harry Morton: Amazing. And tell me about that experience.

[00:25:49] Fred: Yeah. Mind blowing. Surreal. I remember just kept checking the app on my phone. That my banking app on my phone. And it's funny, it's still the account that my mum opened for me when I was 16. So it's actually a student account.

[00:26:03] Harry Morton: That's awesome.

[00:26:04] Fred: I remember went into the bank like a few weeks later and they said, yeah, we don't usually see this much money in a student account. So that's just kind of surreal, obviously. And you go through this whole process when the deal when you're doing the deal and there's lawyers and paperwork and you're doing all this stuff and you're still worried up until the very, very end. You're still worried that you hear about five minutes to midnight, the buyer pulls out or whatever. And it's only really when you see the number in your bank account on your phone that it feels like it's actually real. And I remember just feeling, more than anything, just feeling relief. You expect to have this ecstasy and joy and pop champagne and run around hugging everyone. I just sat by myself for a while and just just relief. Just thought, I don't have to send a hundred emails today and be stressed that I'm going to get a call out of the blue from someone, that something's gone wrong and I can just rest. Yeah, it wasn't elation like you'd expect it to be relief. I remember we, as happens, quite a lot. I think the the closing call where all the documents get signed and swapped was late at night. We were We're actually staying at a friend's house. So I did that. And then the following morning, you know, you're making toast for the kids, and they're arguing because they don't want to put their shoes on. And you realize, yeah, nothing's nothing's changed.

[00:27:22] Speaker4: Exactly.

[00:27:23] Harry Morton: Yeah. Amazing. In a little bit, we'll talk more about how his life changed financially and what his spending looks like today. That will also bring us back to Australia. But before all of that, the mental dust has to settle. The first stage of that is the immediate shift your brain needs to make.

[00:27:45] Fred: I was really sick after the deal had closed. Yeah, I mean, you don't know at the time because you're too busy, but it's really not good for your health to be in a in a period of that fight or flight state for months at a time. So, yeah, there was there was a comedown. The emotional comedown was interesting. So I had a really, really anxious, overactive mind for months afterwards. And you're in this, like, heavy problem solving state for months, seven days a week, waking up in the middle of the night because there's an email that's come in and flinging spreadsheets around 24 hours a day, and working with the lawyers and working with the tax advisers and doing all this stuff, and it all just evaporates. And I didn't receive an email for you can't just turn your brain off that quickly. Right. So I found that it was almost difficult to have nothing to worry about. And your brain just makes up problems to worry about. So I'd be stressed about. Oh, we went on we went on a little holiday and stressed about the rental car. And where are we going to pick it up from? And what if the place is closed and, you know, we've done like 100 times before? Yeah. And your brain just gets into this pattern. And I had to kind of really work hard on just letting all of that sort of pent up energy and anxiety fade away a little bit. It took you. It took a few months.

[00:28:57] Harry Morton: Yeah. What do you think helped there? Did you do you meditate? Do you exercise. Like what do you do to sort of manage that?

[00:29:04] Fred: Yeah. My thing has always been running.

[00:29:05] Harry Morton: Yeah.

[00:29:05] Fred: Cool. Like, I'm not an elite runner by any stretch, but I really enjoy it. And, um, it's kind of this meditative state, I think. You know, I don't listen to music or podcasts or anything. I just go out by myself. And, um, especially if there's somewhere beautiful to run, you know, you just kind of looking at the trees or the or whatever. And, um, I just obviously had a bit more time after the deal to be able to do that a bit more. And I really hadn't hardly done any exercise for six months, really. And, um, yeah, I really got back into that. And that helped. I think, to be honest, it's just the passing of time more than anything. You just have to wait it out. Sure, yeah. Slowly got back to feeling a bit more sane. My coping mechanism with that change, which was obviously not very healthy, was to channel all of that busyness and worry about what next into this really frantic pursuit of new ideas. Right. So I had this period of maybe three months where I just had a million ideas for new businesses, starting a fund, angel investing, buying other businesses and taking them over, getting into private equity like two new ideas a day and just frantically sending emails to people and calling people up and pitching my co-founder on. And he just kept saying, just, it's been six weeks. Just wait. So there's this kind of unusual situation where professionally, I was quite frantic and looking for the next thing and not not wanting to just chill for a little while.

[00:30:29] Fred: I had to learn to chill. But financially we were pretty relaxed and we didn't spend the money. One thing that I thought about a lot is that maybe that voice in your head tells you that maybe it was a bit of a fluke. You got lucky, which obviously there is a huge amount of luck involved, and that maybe to calm that feeling, you have to do it again, maybe bigger and better. And you see a lot of that with entrepreneurs and they're really successful. You've had a bunch on the show and they just want to do another one. Yeah. And uh, you think, well, that's. Don't you want to just chill out for a little while? That's quite intense to get straight back into it. And I definitely felt that feeling at the time of like, I have to prove more to myself, I think, than to anyone else to prove that I'm, you know, I'm worthy of of having this success and that I can, you know, if I can do it again, then I'll and I think I probably will do another business in the future. But with my co-founder and I, you know, we'll probably do something together again. Definitely. We'd both like to do that, but we're just going to wait like we're in this transition period, you know, which is important. And then we'll see what the future holds. But but definitely don't want to rush into something.

[00:31:39] Harry Morton: So here we get to what Fred actually does with his money. As we mentioned at the start, the first big thing he did was relocate. The adage you can't run from your problems may come to mind. When I first talked about his move, but this wasn't a sudden decision. When they were younger, Fred and his wife had already lived there briefly, and it was a goal of theirs to find a way back.

[00:31:59] Fred: It's an expensive city to live in, 11, so we're lucky to live here. Basically, the weather and the lifestyle is good. And one of the, you know, you asked what sort of things are you focused on? You know, with a change in circumstance, it's focusing on healthy outdoor lifestyle. We want to raise the kids somewhere where they can be outdoors a lot, find a love for exercise in a, you know, in just an easygoing way. Australia is great for that. Obviously the weather's good here and we've lived here before. We've got friends here. So yeah, it just felt like a good fit.

[00:32:31] Harry Morton: Amazing. Yeah, I love it.

[00:32:32] Fred: Yeah. So it's, you know, it's nice. It's a nice place to be. Yeah. But it's really different here. You know, they go to the beach before school.

[00:32:40] Harry Morton: Yeah.

[00:32:41] Fred: Right. And you know, we're all active, ride our bikes all around all the time. And yeah, just those little things. Yeah. But it does feel selfish. Yeah. Because you know, you know, my mum texted me the other day, she was in tears because she saw something that reminded them of the kids. And we're not going to be together at Christmas. And. Yeah. And they know that we're kind of doing the right thing for the kids. And yeah, but it's just. Yeah. Sad.

[00:33:04] Harry Morton: Yeah.

[00:33:05] Fred: So that's the big trade off. Yeah. And you can go back and forth. Yeah. But it's not really the same.

[00:33:10] Harry Morton: What is your monthly spending look like now.

[00:33:12] Fred: So it's definitely increased. So we've moved to a much higher cost of living area. So we spend about 8,000 USD a month on rent. And then before we were spending a few, 2 or $3000 a month on just living expenses, that's gone up quite a bit to more like ten. Yeah. So 4 or 5 times what it was before. But we're comfortable that that's you know, we're still earning salaries from working. So we're not kind of chipping away too much at the, at the nest egg that we've built up. And that allows us to travel quite a bit more. And we do lots of short trips, mostly around Australia because it's nice to be back here. We try and sort of consciously spend more on stuff that's going to be good for our health and fitness. So you get to buy nice groceries and fresh, good quality food. And you know, we've got nice gym memberships and the kids get to do all the different classes and stuff that they want to do after school. So stuff that's, I think, hopefully quite sustainable and stuff that makes you feel good when you spend it. I really can't, even if I really scratch my head, I can't think of anything that you would put down as kind of lavish or luxurious.

[00:34:20] Harry Morton: There's no fancy cars or luxurious second homes.

[00:34:23] Fred: No, no, we bought a camper van, which we wanted, but it's a second hand, you know, sort of five year old camper van, and that's great. Allows us to go and do cool trips, but half the time we go away. We'll go camping. I just wear plain t shirts most of the time. So there's no, no lavish clothes. And then we go and eat out in nice places. But half the time we got the kids with us anyway, so there's not really much point going somewhere too fancy. So yeah, it's all quite simple and straightforward and maybe a bit boring. We're also quite keen to still fit in with our existing friend group, like We've got some amazing friends and you know, we're in an expensive city. They all do pretty well financially, but we're we're keen to stay in that friendship group. Sure. Rather than, you know, you hear people and they you know, they do well and then they get new friends. Sure. Who maybe don't have the same values that they did before. But, you know, you want to hang out on a on a super yacht. You've got to find friends that have super yachts, too. And we were kind of conscious to do the opposite of that and just still do the same things as we did before. So we're trying to keep it simple.

[00:35:31] Harry Morton: So let's address a few things. One, Fred doesn't have a net worth as big as some of our billionaire guests, like Steve Horton or Anchor Nagpal. He's a better example of the everyday millionaire. The camp that most of us successful entrepreneurs do or will fall into. So his spending isn't as jaw dropping as a $1 million a year private jet budget. But that's in part because his level of contentment and satisfaction in life is already met. Fred wants a quiet life with his family and regular friends, spending lots of time outdoors. His spending and earning both reflect that, and if we're being really honest, that's probably what a lot of us want too. The problem is that most of us don't know how to a recognize when we've reached enough, or b separate our drive for success from the need for external validation. To that you might say, well, why start a business at all? Why not just stick to a regular job with regular income? But when it comes down to it, no matter what you want financially, the benefit of successful entrepreneurship so often comes down to the same thing freedom.

[00:36:33] Fred: I think if the sort of alternative reality for me would have been staying in finance. Yeah, probably being a partner in some kind of prestigious sounding firm. And to be honest, those guys are really well paid, and maybe my net worth would be pretty similar down that path to what it is now. But the big difference, I think, is that, you know, many mates of mine are in that world. None of them are retiring in their mid 30s.

[00:36:58] Harry Morton: Sure.

[00:36:58] Fred: It's such a treadmill that they'll still be doing it when they're 50 and amassing large amounts of money, but having no freedom and no free time. And when you get them one on one or after they've had a few drinks or whatever, most of them will tell you that they don't really enjoy what they do. Right. And, you know, it's all glamour. It's New York for a closing dinner, and it's flying around the world and doing all this stuff. But actually all they really want to do is just be at home with the kids, go to bed early, watch telly with their wife, you know, like all that stuff. You know, that's something that I feel really grateful for is the path that I went down. Not only was it super fun and a great experience to have, but just the way that that money was earned. Like basically all in one go at the end means that I'm probably going to have a lot more freedom over how I spend my time. Yeah. Over the next ten years than if I'd earned that money in a in a different way. Yeah. And actually, we really think about my wife and I really think about that a lot now, which is the most important thing in life, really, is to have the freedom and flexibility to spend your time in the way that you'd like.

[00:38:04] Fred: Yeah. And that might be working really hard, but it also might be not working hard, or it might be traveling and splitting your time across different places or whatever it is for you personally. And so anything that's going to restrict that freedom and that optionality to spend your time how you'd like, I think is really dangerous. Yeah. And that's something that we think about when we think about spending money. So if you're going to increase your have that lifestyle creep and increase your burn to a point that when you do the numbers, you're actually going to have to go back to work within a couple of years, maybe to a job that I don't like, maybe I'm going to have to live in a place that I don't want to live in, so that I can have all of this stuff and this lavish lifestyle that just seems crazy to us. Yeah. So we'd rather keep it simple and have more freedom and flexibility.

[00:38:49] Harry Morton: And part of making your money last a lifetime is how you invest it. So let's learn how Fred's doing that.

[00:38:54] Fred: I actually followed Sam's advice nice. Which I'm sure he'd like to hear, which was just to leave it alone for a year. Cool. So I bought a load of bonds and left the money there for a year, which was actually quite a painful thing to do because the S&P 500 is up about 25% and I'm getting like 5% on bonds. So thanks, Sam. That's maybe not the best advice, but you know what? What's the best part about that decision is that you don't have to check the price every five minutes. Yeah. And you know, like I said, when when that money's been really hard earned, the thought of losing it is terrifying. Especially at the beginning when you're still getting used to it. So I think I would have been a nervous wreck if I'd have bought a load of stocks. So that that money's still in bonds. We'll buy a house when the time's right and put a bunch into that, and then move to a more diversified portfolio of stocks and other assets, I think.

[00:39:47] Harry Morton: And when it comes to earning more through new ventures, that's something Fred is likely to do. But this time he'd make some changes.

[00:39:53] Fred: There's such a thrill from turning an idea into something real. You know, just seeing a landing page come to life. You're buying the domain. That stuff's still thrilling. I think no matter if you're in your first or your or your 10th business, it's still. It's still thrilling getting the feedback from a customer that says they love what you've built.

[00:40:11] Harry Morton: Right.

[00:40:12] Fred: That first sale that you signed, all that stuff is still. And there's definitely a buzz, a buzz to that and just an enjoyment. So hopefully we'll be more intrinsically motivated to chase. Chase the joy of doing it rather than a particular financial outcome. Yeah, we raise money for our first business and we were lucky to have really good investors, but it comes with a lot of baggage. I think it forces you down a path of trying to build up a business to be sold, and trying to do that as quickly as possible so they can get the best rate of return on their money. And I think for us, the next time around, we try not to raise any money. Do it on our own terms. Maybe build a business that doesn't get to the scale that an investor would like, but for us, gives us everything we want. I mean, really now it's it's mostly about cash flow rather than trying to get a big exit. So if we could build a business that gave us the cash flow to be able to do whatever we wanted month to month in a pretty low stress, in a low stress way where we could still do all the stuff that we wanted to do in our lives, that would be an amazing outcome.

[00:41:16] Fred: That's probably the outcome that we're striving for. That doesn't really fit well with an investor, like they don't want you to be building a kind of medium sized. Yeah, yeah. Comfortable running a medium sized company that maybe you'd never sell. So yeah, we like the idea of finding finding smaller, more niche opportunities. Actually, the places where investors won't go because the markets are small and a bit unloved. And, you know, if you were trying to raise money in those spaces, Places you would struggle to answer the question of like, how does this become $1 billion company? How big's the market here? Well, the market's small. Actually, there's probably not $1 billion company in this market. And that means there's not a lot of competition. The smart people are all looking in other places to build their to build their first businesses. And we're quite happy taking something that might be a little bit unsexy or uncool. But yeah, no rush.

[00:42:06] Speaker5: For the gold. I've been running for it. Like I woke up and wondered. To Brock.

[00:42:13] Harry Morton: Fred's story is a reminder that entrepreneurship is about so much more than just the numbers. Yes, the financial outcome can be life changing, but the emotional journey is just as impactful, filled with the highs, the lows, and the lessons that shape who you are. Instead of using money to force your current life to fit an ideal, think about how it can reshape your lifestyle entirely. For Fred, that meant moving to a place that better aligned with his family's values and way of life. It wasn't about lavish spending. It was about using his newfound freedom to create the life that he truly wanted. And that is the lesson we've learned over and over again from guests on this show. Financial success is a tool, not an end goal, right? The real wealth lies in the freedom to choose how you live and work and spend your time. All right, so if you're an entrepreneur, a founder, a CEO listening to this, and you're craving a community of like minded people who really get what this journey is all about, I can't recommend Hampton enough. JoinHampton.com. It's not just about networking, it's about building connections that help you level up both professionally and personally, I love it. Go and check it out. Join Hamptons.com. And of course, if you want help creating content just like this for your business, Lower Street has your back. We're at Lower Street. Whether it's a podcast, a video series, something for social making, really high quality content is really hard and we're really good at it. Learn more about us at Lower Street Co. I'm Harry Morton, this is Moneywise. See you next time.