Thanks for sharing - an impressive growth story for sure. What changed so dramatically between 2020 and 2021 when your wealth tripled in one year?
Such an investment flywheel requires to make the right investments at the right time. And that in turn requires a lot of financial literacy.
What helped me, was to start reading businesses as systems and to look at financial health, growth, management quality and valuation together. Eventually, the picture became very clear.
Much of my net worth has been built through entrepreneurship. The jump in 2021 was from the value of my business. Although I started the business in 2019, I held no value for it in my net worth until I sold a 60% majority stake and had guaranteed liquidity.
That's impressive. What kind of business is it? And what portion of your wealth is generated by business activity and what portion by portfolio returns?
I completed my full exit from the acquiring company as of 12-31-25. I built a tech-enabled consultancy (aka Value Added Reseller) that specialized in deploying Corporate Performance Management software for middle-market companies ($50M to $500M in revenue). In particular, our software partner was Vena Solutions.
It's hard to say for sure, but this is how I'd approach getting to a ballpark number. My lifetime earnings have been around $16.7M, and $6.5M of that has come from liquidity from monetizing the equity, and another $4M from salary, bonus, and profit distributions.
So, that makes up about 63% of total income. I also still have $3.8M of value in a note that was created on my exit. Since starting the business, my tax life has been far more efficient, and I've averaged a 20% effective tax rate, so let's say that 80% of the $10.5M was net worth created from the business (or $8.4M), and then add the current $3.8M - that gets me to $12.2M.
That would imply that ~86% of my net worth has been created through my business. But this includes my salary and bonus that I'd argue I would have earned regardless of the business, as I did walk away from a C-Suite job that was very lucrative to start this business. If you back that out, then we are at more like $9M, which would imply ~63% of net worth was generated through the business.
So, that is a long-winded way to say that I'd estimate that the business, depending on what approach you take, is responsible for between 63-86% of my current $14.2M net worth.
Thanks for sharing - an impressive growth story for sure. What changed so dramatically between 2020 and 2021 when your wealth tripled in one year?
Such an investment flywheel requires to make the right investments at the right time. And that in turn requires a lot of financial literacy.
What helped me, was to start reading businesses as systems and to look at financial health, growth, management quality and valuation together. Eventually, the picture became very clear.
Hey Nick - thanks for the comment.
Much of my net worth has been built through entrepreneurship. The jump in 2021 was from the value of my business. Although I started the business in 2019, I held no value for it in my net worth until I sold a 60% majority stake and had guaranteed liquidity.
That's impressive. What kind of business is it? And what portion of your wealth is generated by business activity and what portion by portfolio returns?
I completed my full exit from the acquiring company as of 12-31-25. I built a tech-enabled consultancy (aka Value Added Reseller) that specialized in deploying Corporate Performance Management software for middle-market companies ($50M to $500M in revenue). In particular, our software partner was Vena Solutions.
It's hard to say for sure, but this is how I'd approach getting to a ballpark number. My lifetime earnings have been around $16.7M, and $6.5M of that has come from liquidity from monetizing the equity, and another $4M from salary, bonus, and profit distributions.
So, that makes up about 63% of total income. I also still have $3.8M of value in a note that was created on my exit. Since starting the business, my tax life has been far more efficient, and I've averaged a 20% effective tax rate, so let's say that 80% of the $10.5M was net worth created from the business (or $8.4M), and then add the current $3.8M - that gets me to $12.2M.
That would imply that ~86% of my net worth has been created through my business. But this includes my salary and bonus that I'd argue I would have earned regardless of the business, as I did walk away from a C-Suite job that was very lucrative to start this business. If you back that out, then we are at more like $9M, which would imply ~63% of net worth was generated through the business.
So, that is a long-winded way to say that I'd estimate that the business, depending on what approach you take, is responsible for between 63-86% of my current $14.2M net worth.
Thank you very much for the explanation! That’s a huge achievement, congrats and best of luck for you future goals!