What It's Like to be Worth $50 Million in a 2400 Person Town

What happens when you build a $50M tech company from a town so small it doesn't even have paved roads? In this week's Moneywise episode, we dive into Travis's fascinating financial journey—a tech entrepreneur who chose to run his multi-million dollar business from a Canadian town of just 2,400 people where he's now the unofficial "mayor."

'Travis' (pseudonym btw) is a fifth-generation resident of this tiny community, and after a jaw-dropping $25M personal exit, he made the surprising choice to double down on small-town life rather than jet off to a coastal metropolis.

The result? A masterclass in wealth with purpose and proof that sometimes the path to both happiness and financial success runs straight through your hometown.

Like all Moneywise episodes, Travis 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: what it's like to be the wealthiest person in a tiny town, how to raise grounded children when everyone knows you're rich, and why operating a tech company from rural Canada has its unique advantages.

And by the way...this podcast, the concept of it came from Hampton, a community I founded where CEOs and business owners come together in small groups of 8 to help each other grow. Hampton members range from people with newish startups doing $3M in revenue all the way up to publicly traded companies with hundreds of millions in revenue and thousands of employees. Because of Hampton, I get to see these private conversations about business, money, success, and life. I figured some of these private conversations should be public, which is why I started this podcast. If you're a CEO, founder, or business owner, check this out. New Moneywise episodes come out weekly.

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Now, below are the notes and the full transcript.

The Numbers

• Net Worth: $50 million
• First Business Exit: $100 million valuation in 2021, with Travis personally receiving ~$25 million
• Net Worth Before Starting Business (2011): $800,000 US (~$1 million Canadian)
• Current Monthly Expenses: $20,000/month (~$240,000/year)
• Pre-Exit Monthly Expenses: ~$4,000-$4,500/month ($45,000-$50,000/year)
• Primary Home: 6,000 sq ft house built in 2015 for $800,000, currently expanding to 9,000 sq ft with basketball court and gym addition
• Second Home: Lake property in Montana worth $4 million Canadian that can sleep 45-50 people
• Annual Maintenance for Lake Property: $25,000/year
• Vehicles: Toyota Tundra, Jeep Grand Cherokee L, and an old F-150 "dump truck"
• Current Company Revenue: Just under $30 million/year
• Revenue Growth: Year 1: $150K → Year 2: $300-400K → Years 3-4: $2-3M → $5M → $11M → $16M
• Salary History: $0 for first 4 years, then $100K in year 5, increasing to $150K, now around $200K

Investment Portfolio Breakdown:

• 58% managed by portfolio manager:
  • 40% in alternative investments (REITs, commercial bonds, storage units)
  • 50% in index funds (mainly S&P)
  • 5% in cash
  • 5% in global equities (primarily ETFs)
• 17% in recreational property (lake house)
• 20% in commercial real estate portfolio
• 7.5% in private equity (wellness company in peptide space)

Small Town Success: Big Fish in a Small Pond

Travis runs his company from the same small Canadian town he grew up in. Rather than relocating after his multi-million dollar exit, he doubled down on his roots. His grandfather owned a factory in the same town, which inspired Travis's desire to create jobs and opportunity in his community.

"I remember as a kid going over to visit grandpa at his office, and he would walk through the factory and he would just be like, hi, like so happy. And he'd be like, all the workers would come up, hey, how you doing? He would tell me, oh, we have 120 people working here. He was so proud of employing these people."

Today, Travis's company employs dozens of local residents in a building that used to be the town's old folks home, which they renovated rather than letting it be demolished. The impact of his business is deeply personal: "I'm seeing people that we hired and trained who were just out of college now buying their first house, or their kids are playing sports with my kid and they're going on vacation. You see the job creation and what that does to their lives."

Managing Wealth in a Small Community

When you're one of the wealthiest people in a 2,400-person town, there's no hiding your financial status. Travis has had to navigate the complications of being known as "the rich guy" in a place where everyone knows your business.

"We had teachers approach my daughter when this first happened, being like, 'hey, I heard your dad sold for X amount,'" Travis shared. This prompted him to coach his children on how to respond to invasive questions about the family's wealth.

His teenage daughter occasionally faces comments from peers, like "oh, rich kid" when she wears new shoes. But as Travis notes, "She's confident. She's like, 'rich? You mean my dad's rich. I'm not.' She would throw it on them, and it died down after a while."

Despite occasional awkwardness, Travis believes raising his family in a small town keeps them grounded in ways that wouldn't be possible in a major city: "If I lived in New York and had this kind of money and they went to private school, they would be with a bunch of other kids whose parents are way more wealthy than I am."

Strategic Spending: Modest Locally, Generous Globally

Travis is thoughtful about how his spending might be perceived in his community. "My wife and I are like, look, we're going to spend our money outside of where we live more than we spend where we do live," he explained.

While he drives a Toyota Tundra rather than a luxury car that would stand out on the town's unpaved roads, Travis doesn't shy away from investing in meaningful assets. He's adding a basketball court and gym to his home so his kids and their friends have a place to play during harsh Canadian winters.

His most significant splurge is a $4 million Canadian lake property in Montana that's designed to accommodate extended family and friends. "I never wanted wealth for things. I wanted wealth for memories," Travis said. "It's a way to share... my cousins, my friends—I want this place used. If we're not there, it's not going to be locked up. I want people to go down there, use it. It's a way for other people to be able to experience or get some joy out of the money we've been able to make."

The Case for Small Town Living

Travis makes a compelling case for high-net-worth individuals considering small town living over major metropolitan areas. Beyond the obvious financial advantages—where $800,000 buys a 6,000 square foot home instead of a modest condo—there are lifestyle benefits that money can't buy in bigger cities.

Safety is a significant factor. When asked if he worries about security given his wealth is well-known, Travis replied, "Oh, it's like the safest place on earth... If you came to our town, you'd be like, okay, I get it. We live in the same town of, like, The Sandlot. Like one of my favorite movies. It's like 1950s small town America."

Travis also points to tax advantages: "Because I live where I live and we live off of what we live off of, I'm paying less taxes. I'm not distributing out as much money from my investments that I need, and then paying a way higher personal tax bill every year because I can afford to live on less."

Perhaps most importantly, Travis reflects on what true wealth means to him: "Wealth to me is lifestyle. When I look at what makes me wealthy or not, the money is obviously important because it creates opportunity. It creates freedom for us to travel and do these things as a family. But I'd rather have my family and my lifestyle here being worth a 10th of it in a big city and not have any kids. I'd be miserable if I was my age with no kids and I had ten times the wealth on paper. I wouldn't consider myself wealthy. I would just consider myself rich."

Other Key Quotes

"My motivation wasn't money at the beginning. I had three kids. My son was in age for T-ball. I love baseball growing up, and I was traveling back and forth from Baltimore, Maryland to Canada one summer and I was gone. Back and forth so much that I didn't actually get to go to a single baseball game. I missed his complete first year of baseball, and that just crushed me."

"I was always stressed leading up to the exit of going from no money to a lot of money of being like, look, I have to really focus on making sure this doesn't change me, right? One of the things about a small town is you kind of want to stay quiet and under the radar."

"I probably need to go to therapy over, like not worrying about what people think. One of my buddies, who is very successful, told me once you know how the saying in Japan where they talk about like the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. And so there's a little bit of that in a small town."

"I think there's a trend. I think we're going to see more and more businesses move to the smaller, and it doesn't have to be a small town, but like a smaller city centre. Covid obviously changed the game with their, you know, when that happened, instead of hiring as many people as we could locally, we were hiring all over the country."

Full Transcript

[00:00:04] Travis: We had teachers approach my daughter, you know, when this first happened, being like, hey, I heard your dad sold for X amount.

[00:00:09] Sam Parr: No way. If you're a man between the ages of 30 and 45, today's episode is about a dream that all of you have definitely have had before. And if you're a woman, you maybe have had this. But I'm a man, so I can tell you that most every man I know has had this dream. You see, the episode is with my friend Travis, and Travis is worth around $50 million. And yet Travis lives in a town of around 2400 people. And I don't mean one of these small communities near a major city. I mean, out in the middle of nowhere, a tiny, dark, cold, rural area of Canada. It's his hometown.

[00:00:46] Travis: I'm a fifth generation nine three. My great great grandfather was one of the founders. My dad was a school teacher here for, you know, 30 years. So my kids are sixth generation.

[00:00:57] Sam Parr: So why is this interesting? Well, Travis can live anywhere with his net worth, however, he chooses to stay in his small town and the reason being is Travis and his business. They own the nicest office building in the center of the town. They host barbecues for the town's dozens of people within the town work at his company, and they almost, like, use his office like a community center, which kind of makes Travis almost like the unofficial mayor of his town. And in this episode, Travis makes an amazing case for why you should consider living in a small town like this. And I've got to be honest, he's kind of convincing.

[00:01:37] Sam Parr: So, what's going on? This is Sam Parr, and this podcast is called Money Wise. There's a thousand types of content out there that will teach you how to get rich. And frankly, a lot of it's junk. But there's not a lot of content out there that teaches you how to handle all the problems and and weird feelings that come with being wealthy and making a lot of money. And because I'm co-founder of a company called Hampton, which is a community for CEOs and business owners and thus kind of high net worth people. I'm able to see thousands of amazing but private conversations about money that, in my opinion, should be shared. And that, my friend, is what this podcast, money wise, is all about. With money wise. We talked to people who have made a ton of money, and we talk about how it changed their lives, which means they get brutally honest about their finances, meaning their monthly expenses, their net worth, their portfolios. And so they're going to be super transparent about all of their numbers, which I think is the only place on the internet that you can find this stuff. But they're also going to get real about their personal challenges that come with the successes that they've had and how they're managing and handling all of them. And by the way, if you're a CEO of a startup or founder of a startup, you guys have to check out my company. It's called join Hamptons.com. It's, in my opinion, the best place on the internet to connect with like minded peers. So people who run businesses that are doing potentially tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Check it out. JoinHampton.com. Not only does Travis live in Springfield, he also founded and runs his business out of it. Because of that, the fact that he's wealthy isn't exactly a well kept secret. However, he does say that people vastly underestimate his true worth.

[00:03:11] Travis: It was a publicly traded business that bought us. And so, you know, they send out press release, you know, gossip flies. I don't think people knew the exact numbers.

[00:03:20] Sam Parr: We're going to talk about all the cool things in this episode, including all the pros and cons of living in the middle of nowhere. And we're going to talk about what it's like to run a tech company this size out of such a small town. But first, you know the drill. Let's talk about Travis $50 million net worth and how it happened in spite of never leaving his really small town. It started with a company he founded with a group of buddies. The company largely operated out of America, which means because Travis was based in Canada, that meant a ton of traveling. Too much traveling.

[00:03:49] Travis: I had three kids. My son was in age for T-ball. I love baseball growing up, and I was traveling back and forth from Baltimore, Maryland to Canada one summer and I was gone. Back and forth so much that I didn't actually get to go to a single baseball game. I missed his complete first year of baseball, and that just crushed me. I was like, I am not going to be these one of these kind of dads.

[00:04:11] Sam Parr: And so he quit and he started looking for a new income source.

[00:04:14] Travis: I had a lot of energy, a lot of ambition. I wanted to find a type of business that I could kind of funnel that into and right out of the gate, you know, I was, oh, I'll be happy if I can make 200 grand a year, you know, that would be like I'd be living the life in my small town. I'd be happy. Obviously, things became a lot more successful in that, but my motivation wasn't money at the beginning.

[00:04:34] Sam Parr: This was in 2011, when Travis was 29 years old. At this point, he had saved up quite a bit of money.

[00:04:41] Travis: My net worth would have been right around 800,000 us. And when I say us, I'm from Canada, right? So everything's like USD Canadian. You know, it had been over a million Canadian, but 800,000 US is what my net worth was.

[00:04:55] Sam Parr: So with the safety net and a good amount of time on his hands, Travis started his new business. The Globix Corporation.

[00:05:01] Travis: There was a fellow entrepreneur in town, one of my friends. He owned a nuclear power plant.

[00:05:06] Travis: So we got together and kind of started the first online option. Launched that in 2012. So we've had it for quite a few years.

[00:05:16] Sam Parr: How big is it now?

[00:05:17] Travis: Just under 30 million in revenue this year.

[00:05:19] Sam Parr: What was your first like 4 or 5 years of revenue and profit?

[00:05:24] Travis: No profit. I mean, we didn't we didn't make a profit our first five years for sure. We, you know, our our first year was maybe 150,000, our second year.

[00:05:34] Sam Parr: Of revenue or profit.

[00:05:35] Travis: Gross revenue, 150. And then from there, you know, we probably did 3 to 400,000 of revenue. And then from there we went from, you know, to two, 3 million, up to 5 million to 11 million, 16 million. And then, you know, from there it was up a couple million a year after that.

[00:05:57] Sam Parr: That's crazy. So year one, you're at 150, you're four, you're around five, but then you're five. You're around 11 million. That's crazy good. What were you paying yourself as you went?

[00:06:08] Travis: We didn't pay ourselves for the first four years of the business. I believe on our fifth year, we we decided, you know what? We need to talk to our accountant and our lawyer and realize, you know, we're on to something as a financial institution that that could be worth something to sell. We need to normalize our costs. So we paid ourselves 100 grand that year. And then from there we went up to 150, slowly increased it to around 200,000 over the last few years.

[00:06:35] Sam Parr: During these first few years, Travis was living pretty cheap, investing everything he had back into the business. By the way, when we're talking about a town with 2400 people, cheap means something maybe a little bit different than New York, Chicago, San Francisco, that type of thing.

[00:06:49] Travis: 15 grand. There would be like 40 grand in a, you know, in an urban, bigger city.

[00:06:54] Sam Parr: So at age 30, 32, 33, what was your, uh, monthly expenses?

[00:06:59] Travis: Well, at that time, I mean, a few kids, I, we were probably only spending 45, 50 grand a year.

[00:07:05] Sam Parr: Roughly four grand a month is 50,000. So. And you and you felt you were living nice?

[00:07:10] Travis: Yeah. I don't think my kids felt like they went without anything. I felt like we, you know, we still went on a, you know, a couple trips a year, not crazy trips, but, you know, I felt like we did pretty good.

[00:07:20] Sam Parr: Fast forward to 2021 and that $50,000 a year is about to look like a drop in the bucket.

[00:07:26] Travis: Our first exit was $100 million valuation. We we sold the majority of our business to Springfield Elementary Casino.

[00:07:33] Travis: And then, um, have an ongoing relationship to grow the business and, and have another exit in the future. My partner and I, we each got close to $25 million, would have been the number that we got when we sold.

[00:07:47] Sam Parr: Each.

[00:07:48] Travis: Each.

[00:07:49] Sam Parr: And $25 million in any place, particularly if you're young, is plenty. That's a lot of money. $25 million in Saint Louis, where I'm from, you're like one of the richest people. And that's a million person town. You're probably one of the wealthier people, particularly if you're under 40. That's like you, a professional athlete now. 25 million. If you're you at a 2500 person town, you're like the richest person. Is that right?

[00:08:15] Travis: I mean, my business partner was has me there, but he's got ten years on me too. Right. I always bug him that I'm going to catch you because I got ten more years for compounding interest.

[00:08:24] Sam Parr: But you two are the guys.

[00:08:26] Travis: Yeah. Us two would be the largest wealth creation in our town.

[00:08:34] Sam Parr: $25 million was a life changing amount for Travis and his family. If he wanted to, he could live in the best cities in the world with endless amenities, world class education, amazing weather, all of that. But that's the thing he didn't want to. In fact, moving didn't even cross his mind.

[00:08:53] Travis: I like where I live, right? We, when we got married and started, decided to start a family. We specifically wanted to raise our kids here. And so this I think will always be our base.

[00:09:03] Sam Parr: And the next 20 minutes, you're going to find out how Travis nearly convinced me to pack up my house and move to a small town in the middle of nowhere. And look, I know that it's gonna sound like the grass is always greener. And there's a ton of downsides to this. And we're gonna talk about those, too. But we're gonna start with something Travis realized right away. Right after that first $25 million hit, his bank account, which is staying in a small town, was the best way to ground himself.

[00:09:30] Travis: I was always stressed leading up to the exit of going from no money to a lot of money of being like, look, I, I have to really focus on making sure this doesn't change me, right? Because, you know, you hear you're on, you know, you run podcasts. People always talk about how money is just an amplifier and it magnifies who you are. And one of the things about a small town is you kind of want to stay quiet and under the radar. You don't want to be super flashy. And and I like that. I didn't want to go out and buy a bunch of sports cars or, you know, spend my money on things. I, I wanted to take a few years, get it invested, see how the investments are doing. And then hopefully, as I see that wealth grow, I'll, I'll loosen up a little bit.

[00:10:10] Sam Parr: On the other end of that, even though Travis leans into other folks perceptions to keep him in check, he admits that maybe he puts a little bit too much stock in other people's opinions.

[00:10:20] Travis: I probably need to go to therapy over, like not worrying about what people think. One of my buddies, who is very successful, told me once you know how the saying in Japan where they talk about like the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. And so there's a little bit of that in a small town, my wife doesn't bother my wife at all. For me it does because I was born and raised here.

[00:10:44] Sam Parr: She doesn't mind sticking out, is what you're saying.

[00:10:47] Travis: She doesn't care what people think. She only cares about what you know. Her family. Her friends. You know, I'm still worried about what people think. It bugs me, but I'm getting better. I'm getting a little bit wiser and realizing that, uh, you know, it is what it is. I'm an honest person. I've tried to treat my employees well. And if we want to add a gym onto our house, we'll add a gym onto our house.

[00:11:08] Sam Parr: Oh, so you think about that stuff. You're like, I don't. Because you're like the work. Even if no one sees the home, like some worker is gonna tell some guy like, oh, I'm. I got a job at this guy's house.

[00:11:19] Travis: Well, the our primary residence here in our town, we're adding a huge basketball court. So now our house is like a 9000 square foot house, right? We do stick out, and people drive by and see that and text me, what are you building? Are you putting in a swimming pool? So and so told me you were doing this. And it's just like, no, no, no, I'm just, you know.

[00:11:40] Sam Parr: Big news travels fast in a small town. Travis didn't just move to a random place under the radar. He continued to upscale his life in the same small town he and his family on both sides are from, which means people know a lot and they're going to be very, very nosy. That's something that he and his family have had to learn to deal with.

[00:12:00] Travis: We had teachers approach my daughter, you know, when this first happened, being like, hey, I heard your dad sold for X amount.

[00:12:06] Sam Parr: No way.

[00:12:07] Travis: Yeah, like at the local convenience store. And my daughter, who's like, grade like ten is like. Well, I don't know, uh, maybe you should ask him, like, you know, I knew that was going to happen. I knew.

[00:12:17] Sam Parr: How inappropriate. That's insane to.

[00:12:19] Travis: Me. Completely inappropriate, but that it didn't surprise me. And so that's why we wanted to coach them, and we wanted to help them understand. And we also went over what this means to them.

[00:12:31] Sam Parr: Let me ask you about that. First of all, I didn't even think about that of you have to coach them what to say and what not to say. And you were like, I am wealthy, you're not, I am. And if someone wants to know, just say you don't know because you don't. That's like a crazy script.

[00:12:45] Travis: Yeah. And my, my daughter, you know, she would get it a little bit, you know, walking into class and she'd have a pair of new Jordans or something, right? And like, oh, rich kid, you know, like kids trying to, like, tease her or whatever. And she's like, you know, she's confident. She's like, rich. You mean my my dad's rich. I'm not like, she would like, you know, throw it on them. And it died down after a while. That first year there was a lot of comments, but it kind of died down.

[00:13:08] Sam Parr: Do people give your kids a hard time because they know who you are in your town?

[00:13:13] Travis: No, no they don't. I think the vast majority of people are very happy for our family. They know who we are. We're not flashy people. But there's the 5% right? There are those crabs that are that want to reach up and grab and pull you down. But as for my kids, they've got a good group of peers. Again, why? Why? I wanted to raise them here. I think if I, if I lived in New York and I had this kind of money and they went to private school, they would be with a bunch of other kids with whose parents are way more wealthy than I am. And so it's been good for them to, to realize that, you know, we are we are blessed and they don't have to stress out completely.

[00:13:50] Sam Parr: I'm looking at your town on Google Maps, on Street View. I've owned a ranch in a little small town like this. I was afraid of getting robbed.

[00:13:57] Travis: Oh, it's like the safest place on earth. This place?

[00:14:00] Sam Parr: Yeah, I feel you. And I know statistically it's unlikely, but I'm just saying, like, when people know that Matt's the guy know where he lives, I know that. Oh, he's probably not home right now because I see his car's not there, and I. Because I know his routine a little bit. Because I see him at the store every day. He's probably at the store. Do you know what I mean? Like.

[00:14:18] Travis: Yeah.

[00:14:18] Sam Parr: Are you fearful of that?

[00:14:20] Travis: So not to make myself look, like, paranoid, right before we did our, um, acquisition, I actually went and wrote my restricted firearms license so I could get a handgun because it's, like, impossible to get a handgun in Canada, right? So we haven't had any problems. Obviously. I think most people know, like people with wealth don't have millions of dollars of cash laying around.

[00:14:42] Sam Parr: You might have a couple rollies in your closet.

[00:14:44] Travis: We got a security system set up, but I don't worry about that. Where I live at all. I know that sounds like naive, but Sam, literally, if you came to our town, you'd be like, okay, I get it. Like, we live in the same town of, like, The Sandlot. Like one of my favorite movies. Like, it's like 1950s small town America.

[00:15:07] Sam Parr: So how much money can you really spend with a $50 million net worth on a family of six in a town akin to a 1950s small town America? It's time, my friend, to get to my favorite part. The numbers. What is your burn now?

[00:15:24] Travis: Probably around 240. You know, 20 grand a month.

[00:15:29] Sam Parr: What type of cars do you have?

[00:15:30] Travis: I drive a Toyota Tundra. I gotta have a truck. Right. It's a city truck. I'm not. I'm not a farmer or anything, but I drive a tundra. My wife drives a Grand Cherokee. A nice one, like a L, it's got the three extra seats. And then I got an old an old beater F-150. That's my dump truck. That's what I take to the dump when I do my yard work and stuff. So those are my vehicles.

[00:15:53] Sam Parr: We're not going to see you driving around in a fat Benz or anything. I mean that you'd stick out a little bit. I don't even know if. Could someone change? Like, could you even get a tire guy out there?

[00:16:03] Travis: You'd have to get a towed up to, you know, two hours away and you got potholes. You know, we still got roads that aren't even paved in the town. So there's potholes and stuff. I, I put money into a boat, a nice surf boat for my kids to, you know, for us to enjoy down at the lake. So again, I think my Toyota Tundra is freaking awesome. Like, I wouldn't want to drive anything else than that.

[00:16:24] Sam Parr: Oh, and the house he mentioned a few minutes ago. He's been living there for nearly a decade, and he actually moved there six years before his first $25 million exit.

[00:16:33] Travis: In my town in 2015. I built a house including the basement, right, that's finished 6000 square foot house I maybe put in including the lot. 800,000.

[00:16:43] Sam Parr: So instead of spending money just buying or building a bigger house, he just pours money into renovations, making it something that he likes a lot more.

[00:16:50] Travis: So yeah, my house is is one of the bigger houses. It's newer house in town. I am adding, um, you know, one of the things that we did decide to splurge on is we're adding an addition on a basketball court and a gym onto the side of our house. So, you know, winters up here pretty nasty. So somewhere the kids can go and their friends. So that was a splurge. Adding a gym in a in a weight room onto our house. That's probably our biggest purchase that we've made locally.

[00:17:17] Sam Parr: Locally is a key word. Not being super flashy in his town doesn't mean he doesn't like to enjoy his money.

[00:17:24] Travis: My wife and I are like, look, we're going to spend our money outside of where we live more than we spend where we do live, right? So traveling is a big thing. We always try to find, you know, experiences. We can take our kids. We're going to Nashville in October to a couple concerts. We go to Hawaii at least once a year. We go on 4 or 5 trips a year.

[00:17:45] Sam Parr: He also put money into a lake house.

[00:17:47] Travis: Yeah. Personal property. It's a lake. Lake property down in Montana. We live 30 minutes from the Montana border, so we bought three and a half acres on a lake there. We're building kind of our, you know, dream lake compound place for family, friends. As the kids get older, you know, no matter where my kids end up moving or, you know, going to school and living, I wanted a place where they're going to want to come back. And that's our lake property. So we made a large investment in that up front, uh, knowing that that's a long term investment for us.

[00:18:20] Sam Parr: How much is that property worth?

[00:18:21] Travis: About 4 million. Canadian.

[00:18:23] Sam Parr: It must be a lot of acres, I guess. Uh, and a beautiful home, because $4 million in most regions is is awesome. And maybe your region, it's like extra, extra awesome.

[00:18:33] Travis: It's awesome. We we love it. It's getting close to being done, but I should be able to sleep easily 45, 50 people at this property.

[00:18:42] Sam Parr: Does that change your happiness?

[00:18:44] Travis: Yes. You could tell I smile when I say that or.

[00:18:46] Sam Parr: That's why I'm asking.

[00:18:47] Travis: Yeah, 100%. I mean, I never wanted wealth for things. I wanted wealth for memories for.

[00:18:56] Sam Parr: And that creates them.

[00:18:57] Travis: Yeah. And it's a way to share, you know, my cousins, my friends, my, you know, I want this place used. If we're not there, it's not going to be locked up and like, no, you can't go like I want people to go down there, use it. It's a way for other people to be able to experience or get some joy out of the money. We've been able to make, right and share that. So that was kind of our dream.

[00:19:18] Sam Parr: When you're budgeting to do a $4 million, um, second home, do you bake in how much cost it's going to be to maintain throughout the years or you don't care?

[00:19:27] Travis: Yeah. I mean, in Montana, property taxes are very reasonable. So I've looked at it, but it's going to be 25 grand a year All in.

[00:19:36] Sam Parr: No big deal.

[00:19:37] Travis: Utilities and taxes. Yeah. So that wasn't a big concern of ours. No homeowner's association down on the lake in Montana.

[00:19:45] Sam Parr: Finally, on the money front, let's talk about his investments. And by the way, for his wealth management, he actually kept it very local.

[00:19:52] Travis: Focusing on fees was my was my main target. I was able to talk with my business partner. We went in as a group. We did use somebody kind of local.

[00:20:00] Sam Parr: Did you set it up like a shared family office?

[00:20:02] Travis: No. So they treat us as a family office when it comes to their fees. But all of our investments are separate.

[00:20:07] Sam Parr: Got it. And so does that person work just for you too?

[00:20:10] Travis: No, no. Got it. They probably have 500 million that they manage. We're their biggest clients for sure, but. So we went to them. Right now I have about 58% of my net wealth. Of my proceeds from my sale is in a portfolio manager with those guys. They have 40% in alternative investments. So REITs, commercial bonds, not government bonds like commercial bonds, investments in like storage units, these type of things that that you can't buy through the market through the publicly traded market. 50% I mean, just index funds, mainly in the S&P. I have a little bit of Canadian index funds that I've purchased as well. I got about 5% in cash and then I'm 5% global equities exposure primarily through ETFs. So that's kind of my portfolio of my 58% that I gave those guys. I've spent 17% I we invested in rec property.

[00:21:11] Sam Parr: So that gets us to 75%. So where's the other 25?

[00:21:15] Travis: I met a guy golfing early on in my career and he really just impressed me. Is like this guy, if I could ever do business with this guy, I'm all in, right? And so he called me up like four months later and just said, hey, do you want to buy 20% of my business? He had another partner, so I ended up buying 20% of a commercial real estate portfolio. I have 7.5% in kind of my own private equity deal that I did down in the States where I invested. Made one investment with a lifelong friend who's just a killer. He's done, you know, 2.5 billion of sales in his career. He's starting a wellness company in the peptide space. Hasn't launched that yet, but he's a horse that I'm like, if he ever is gonna. He called me up one day and said, hey, I'm going to do this.

[00:22:09] Sam Parr: Now I want to say something very clear. I'm not saying I would do this, but I do think what I'm about to say is gonna be tempting for a lot of people. I looked it up, and Travis's town's operating budget for 2024 was just under $6 million. With $50 million in net worth. Travis could have a lot of influence in his town. And we're talking politically. Of course, he could influence a lot of politicians, I would imagine. Now I'm talking perfectly legal stuff. But look, if your town is that small and you have that much money, like this is something that is at least fun to think about. But of course, when you live in a town like this, if you want to do things the right way and you want to be harmonious and respectful of the town and the people inside of it, that means resisting the urge to have things your way all the time.

[00:22:53] Travis: I think if somebody came into a small town, any small town, and tried to throw their weight around with money, I think that would poison the apple more than it would help I. There are things that I'm interested in in the town and I can provide support, but it's all volunteer. You know, our politicians all take a lot of time, and I've never wanted to run for politics in my town because I know that they get a lot of complaints about a lot of things that would drive me crazy and really don't make a difference. That's something I would never attempt.

[00:23:25] Sam Parr: But that's not to say he doesn't have significant impact on his community.

[00:23:29] Travis: The biggest pro for me is I think when you're in a big market and you, you create jobs, you see them at the office or you see them at a company event and that's it. You don't really see the effect, the positive effect that you can have when you do create jobs. And so we live in a community where, you know, I'm seeing people that we hired and trained who were just out of college now buying their first house, or their kids are playing sports with my kid and they're going on vacation. You see the job creation and what that does to their lives. Not that I'm, you know, they earned it. They worked hard. They deserve every penny they got.

[00:24:04] Sam Parr: But but you played some, whether small or big, some part in that.

[00:24:08] Travis: I think the part that I am most proud about is I get to play the part in where they're working, right, that they're actually in my small town, you know, they're wanting to raise their kids here, and the only way they could do that was through our company, right? They could go to a bigger city and make more money or as much money. But in order to live here, you know, we have been able to bring a lot of people back to our community who wanted to move back but didn't have the opportunity. We had a company barbecue once and had some bouncy houses, and this was like pre-COVID. And it was like overwhelming, like I had to kind of step back and tell my wife, you know, there's like 150 people and all these kids. And I just felt like all this weight, like, I better not screw up, like the decisions I make matter. And it just really, really stressed me out there for a few minutes. Just seeing the impact that we've been able to have on our small town, we actually converted the old, old folks home in our town, which the government, our provincial government was building a new old folks home. And so they're going to tear this one down. And we took it over and renovated it. So I'm literally like working in these offices or like people will come be like, oh, my grandma used to this was her room or this, you know. So yeah, we, we own we own our building here in town.

[00:25:21] Sam Parr: I mean, that's just so cool to be in a place where you're two minutes from your house, you own the building. It's probably has like almost a miniature campus type of vibe. Like, everyone knows what you guys are. You guys are about you could have your children hanging out in the area. I mean, that's a great feeling. And you have in order to pull that off in different parts of the country, prices are different. So if you're like in the outskirts of LA or something, it's like, dude, it's like, this is like a $15 million building, like it's prohibitively expensive. And I've got to pay each person like $250,000. It's just impossible to pull this off. Like I want to pull it off. And so it makes a lot of sense to be in a smaller town where you're like, this is amazing. I could pull all of this off. I bet 70 grand where you live is a very awesome, awesome wage. And you're like, I can make way enough revenue per employee to account for that.

[00:26:13] Travis: Yeah, the cost of living is lower. I don't think if I had, you know, an office building in New York that I was renting, I'd be able to have my kids be the janitors or my son mow the lawn to give him some work experience. Right. So those type of things, you know, my, my kids have and my business partners. Kids have access to the building. They'll come over here late at night with their friends, play pool, drink, you know, pop from the pop machine and just hang out in their dad's office. Right. That's kind of cool.

[00:26:39] Sam Parr: So that's awesome. That's more than cool. That's. To me, that's like the meaning of life.

[00:26:43] Travis: Yeah. So, Sam, I, I grew up, my dad was a teacher, and so I wasn't really exposed. I was always taught, like, get a job with benefits, get a job with benefits. Five kids. I grew up, my dad was a teacher, taught sixth grade for like 30 years. My grandpa, however, he was a business owner. He owned a factory here in town. I remember as a kid going over to visit grandpa at his office, and he would walk through the factory and he would just be like, hi, like so happy. And he'd be like, all the workers would come up, hey, how you doing? He would tell me, oh, we have 120 people working here. He he was so proud of of employing these people. Right. That business, you know, over time kind of petered out and went out of business. And so when we were starting our business, I'm like, I want my kids to be able to come over to where I work. I want my kids to like, walk through and like talk to my employees. I, I wanted that same experience of of my grandpa. And so unfortunately, he passed away kind of right before we took off. I love would love for him to see what we did. He would have been proud of the money. He would have been happy about the success, but he mostly would have been like so pumped that I have an office in McGrath that I employ all these people and kind of the next generation doing it.

[00:27:59] Sam Parr: Dude, I think you're you're convincing me that I need to go to a smaller town because, like, it is just must bring so much joy and like, building a business that does like 10 million, let's say, in revenue is not, like, terribly challenging. You give someone, you give someone five years or ten years, like it's a fairly straightforward it's not guaranteed, but like it's in 10 million, you're way above that. But let's just say 10 million. That's that's doable. 10 million can afford, depending on where you live, like 30 people, 30 employees at a really good wage. And you're like the mayor of the town and you're like, look like I am partially responsible for these 30 people's, like, employment that I know they can buy homes. I know they can get whatever they want at the grocery store. I know they can go out to dinner, and I know they can take vacations around here and do cool stuff. And that joy I think is so great. Versus $10 million in San Francisco where it's like, dude, the average home here is 1.5. Like, my employees are complaining to me that, like, they can't buy a house and there's nothing I can do. My business model does not support the margins. Don't support this. I can't pay one person 600 grand.

[00:29:10] Travis: And it's because I live where I live and we live off of what we live off of. I'm paying less taxes, Sam. I'm not distributing out as much money from my investments that I need, and then paying a way higher personal tax bill every year because I can afford to live on less.

[00:29:26] Sam Parr: Travis has seen a ton of benefits from keeping his business in town, and he's certain others will follow suit.

[00:29:31] Travis: I think there's a trend. I think we're going to see more and more businesses move to the smaller, and it doesn't have to be a small town, but like a smaller city centre, you know, Covid obviously changed the game with their, you know, when that happened, instead of hiring as many people as we could locally, we were hiring all over the country. Remote work has helped. I think your core people though your especially in a startup, you need to be face to face. And I think the smaller.

[00:29:56] Sam Parr: Yeah like a like a Louisville or something. Exactly. 100% whoever a Baltimore or something. Saint Louis where I'm from like something of that caliber where it's like there's some amenities and also you can get a great house for 350 grand or 400 grand.

[00:30:11] Travis: Yeah. For sure.

[00:30:18] Sam Parr: All right. So I'm from Missouri and where I'm from, a lot of people, they don't really tend to get out. They just stay where they are in Missouri, and that's totally fine as long as it's what makes them happy. Power to them. But because I left, and because I've had a few successes that have been fairly public, at least within my little area when I go home, I have to admit I sometimes feel like a big shot, and I know this is just me talking with a huge ego. But when you do come from a small place and you accomplish some things on a national scale, it feels kind of impactful. It feels like if I moved back to my town, I could kind of be a big deal. But on the other end of that spectrum, when you live in a big place like New York or San Francisco, where I have along with Austin, even if you've done some amazing things, you feel really small, like you need to be doing more or have more. And the people who have the biggest difference in places like New York or LA, at least in terms of giving away money and having impact, they're billionaires or they're worth tens of billions. And so it makes it feel like even if you've accomplished something amazing, like $50 million at the age of like 45, sometimes you feel small in these cities, and these kinds of places can make us feel like we constantly need to level up. It can make $50 million feel like nothing. And I think that's insane. I put myself through it, but I still think it's insane. And so by Travis staying where he is, he gets to live large, provide for his family and his community, and have an impact in ways that he probably could not in a bigger city.

[00:31:55] Travis: You know, if we're looking at wealth where it's just a balance sheet, you know, straight numbers, then yeah, like I'll never be as wealthy as a lot of people in a big city centre. But wealth to me is lifestyle. When I look at what makes me wealthy or not, the money is obviously important because it creates opportunity. It creates freedom for us to like, travel and do these things as a family. But I'd rather have my family and my lifestyle here being worth a 10th of it in a big city and not have any kids. I'd be miserable if I was my age with no kids and I had ten times the wealth on paper. I wouldn't consider myself wealthy. I would just consider myself rich.

[00:32:34] Sam Parr: Of course, living that remotely in the middle of nowhere hours from a big city, it definitely has its downsides.

[00:32:40] Travis: I got to drive two hours to the nearest large international airport, which, you know, sucks. You do a trip and then you got to drive two hours. But it's a small sacrifice for being able to put roots here and and live where I want to live.

[00:32:53] Sam Parr: And another concern I had about raising my kids in such an isolated area, having grown up in not a big city, I understand that culture, exposure and opportunity to world class amenities is largely off the table. When you live in a place like Travis where he lives, and a lot of times I think I want my kids to have exposure to those things. And so I pressed Travis on this, and he had a really good and simple answer.

[00:33:17] Travis: That's why we travel. That's why we take our kids on trips. They've been able to go to a lot of cool countries, see a lot of different cultures.

[00:33:24] Sam Parr: So instead of living close to those things, he gets to use his money to provide those experiences to his kids, while at the same time keeping them in a more realistic and down to earth environment. Now, I think there's a thousand ways to get this done. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking this Travis, he's a redneck, he's a dummy. He needs to be in the city so he can experience this and that and yada, yada, yada. Take it easy. There's a lot of great ways to do it. Travis's way is one way, and it seems to be working for him, but I still think you could do it in a city. I still think you could be happy anywhere. It's just interesting to hear his opinion.

[00:34:01] Sam Parr: I said at the beginning of this episode, this is everyone's dream. And the reason I said that is this is something I think about a ton. And when I tweeted this out, I basically said, I just got off the podcast with the guy who made around $50 million in a 2500 person town. He owns the biggest office in the town, and he's sort of a big shot. He gets to provide for his community, he gets to provide for his family. And it went viral. I think hundreds of thousands of people saw it and it got lots of comments. And the most common thought was, this is my dream. And for years I personally have had this dream. And so it's funny that so many other young men have also dreamed of this, because it feels good to be a big shot. It feels good to take care of your community. It feels good to kind of feel like a patriarch. That is a great feeling. And when you're living in a big city like New York or San Francisco or whatever, it seems like impossible to get there. Because in order to do that, you have to make billions and billions of dollars and a lot of people listening. They're going to think, well, $50 million is still a lot of money. I'm never going to be able to do that.

[00:35:01] Sam Parr: I can tell you, we've had this podcast and I've had lots of other podcasts. I've talked to dozens and dozens and hundreds of people who have done that and making five, ten, $20 million. It's not out of this world if you're willing to work for 10 or 20 years making a billion, it definitely seems really hard. And so I think that this dream, even though for a lot of people making $50 million, seems insane. If you're listening to money wise, you're definitely ambitious, and I think there's a chance you could pull it off if you give it enough time. So that makes this dream seem a lot more attainable. And it's really, really fun. And it's really exciting to hear Travis talk about this. And so I want to hear what you think. Is there any part of you, after hearing Travis speak that wants to just pack it all up and go to a small town? Or if you already live in a small town, what do you think? Is this something that is actually true for you? Do you want to pack it up and move to a big city instead? I want to know your thoughts. So tweet at me. I'm at the Sam Parr again. That's the Sam Parr on Twitter. Let me know your thoughts. And so that's today's episode.

[00:36:01] Sam Parr: Before we go, I want to say a quick thing. Most of the guests that we have for money wise, not all, but most, they come from Hampton. Hampton is my community. It's a community of founders, CEOs, Entrepreneurs. Most of the folks are doing something like tens of millions in revenue, but we have people ranging from like 3 or 4 million all the way up to hundreds of millions. And we have conversations like this podcast are having, like we have these conversations all the time. We also do a monthly core meeting. So you and eight people are in a core group that meets once a month, and they all have similar sizes and types of businesses as you. And we have hundreds of in-person events throughout the year. And so if you're listening to Moneywise, that means you like these transparent types of conversations. That's exactly what Hampton is. So check it out, join Hampton. And of course I have to give a shout out to Lower Street. Lower Street. They are the folks that have paid to create this podcast. They make it so easy. So if you want a podcast like this, which by the way, it's been quite profitable, if I'm being honest for Hampton, if you want a podcast like this, check them out. They're gonna make making a podcast like this incredibly easy.