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Thibaut
We would go from 1.5 million per year to 8 million in just 18 months. But it happened.
Daniel Burke
Thibault spent six years failing at startups. Then during COVID Lockdown, he started building software products by himself. One of them was Tweethunter. It took off fast and within a year and a half he and his co founder had scaled it. They eventually sold it to a company called Lemlist for a headline price of $10 million.
Thibaut
It was addition financially because we we ended up getting 8 million for an 8 million annual revenue product.
Daniel Burke
Thibaut's story is one of the more
Co-host
unusual ones we've had on the show
Daniel Burke
because the exit didn't really end the story, it just complicated it.
Thibaut
It puts you in this mindset where if you do not work enough, if you do not achieve your goals, you're going to lose something and you're going to be like a loser.
Daniel Burke
Now he's building a product portfolio that's generating more revenue than the exit itself.
Thibaut
Yeah, I basically do not want to fall into a frozen state where I would be afraid about shipping anything new.
Daniel Burke
We get into exactly what that looks like, what he does day to day, how he's spending his money, how he thinks about deploying the money. He's generating personal spending habits.
Co-host
A lot more liquid in fact, than what a lot of people would think is worth doing.
Daniel Burke
My money wise guest today is Thibaut. He's a French indie hacker and software entrepreneur and he's one of the more unique financial stories we've had on money wise. Thibaut spent six years failing at startups. Then during COVID Lockdown he started building software products by himself. One of them was Tweethunter, which was a tool for growing an audience on X. It took off fast and within a year and a half he and his co founder had scaled it alongside a
Co-host
second product called Taplio.
Daniel Burke
They eventually sold it to a company called Lemlist for a headline price of $10 million. $2 million was upfront and $8 million was tied to an earn out. He ended up collecting 8 million total and after taxes in France, he walked away with just under 3 million personally. So in part one we really talk about how the money got made and why. The deal was actually a bit more complicated with the earnout period and some of the different revenue milestones he was assigned Then what happened after was in a way a lot more interesting. TiVo kept building and today's portfolio of software products is doing over a million dollars a month in revenue. And we get into exactly what he's building, what he keeps, what he's acquiring, and how he thinks about deploying the money he's generating. His personal spend is around only $8,000 a month. Even though he generates a personal income of more than 10 times that. He keeps roughly 50% of his net worth in cash. And he has no financial advisor he fully trusts. Almost everything investable is in index funds. It's a very specific and very deliberate setup. And he explains exactly why. And then in part three of the conversation today, I keep coming back to, Thibaut has publicly said he never wants
Co-host
to sell a company again.
Daniel Burke
We get into why, and it's really not just about money, but also about
Co-host
all the stress that that sale came with.
Daniel Burke
It's about what selling did to him psychologically, what he calls the frozen state and how the pressure of the earnout changed the way he thinks about his own work. This is a super honest episode and the way that Thievault kind of divulges the way he thinks about money, sales and building companies is really, really impressive.
Co-host
I hope you enjoy again.
Daniel Burke
This is Thibaut and I'm Daniel Burke on Moneywise.
Co-host
Thibaut, thanks for joining us today on Moneywise. Appreciate you being here. You look great. Optimist. I love the shirt. That's for anyone listening. He is wearing a shirt that says optimist, which is great. Thanks for joining us today, Thibaut.
Thibaut
I guess that's the mindset. Thank you very much for having me.
Co-host
Of course.
Daniel Burke
I want to start with the history
Co-host
of who you are. Tell me kind of what brings you to the episode today. Tell me about yourself and tell me what you have kind of done in your life that's led to this moment.
Thibaut
Well, I think I did six years startuping. I think in a, in a very bad way. Like I did all the mistakes that you can possibly think of. During six years I worked on two failed products. Didn't really go well. I had like some very down moments. And then I, because of COVID and because of like personal issues, I got back to startuping. But then it kind of new way, more like the indie hacker way where you just hack stuff yourself and bre bre yourself. And it worked very well for me. Like in 2021 I got into this challenge where I was breeding one new product every week until something stick. And I think I, I fed that 10 products and the even one was Tweed Hunter, which was like super successful from the very start. That was the real beginning for me. Tweetinter led To Taplio. Both both Tool, Tweet, Nature and Tapio got acquired by a company called Lemlist, which is still super successful today. And I went through a hard transition period with them. We can talk more about that. It was really not a pleasant experience, but I was super happy to get back into building after that. And I'm now building this amazing and small portfolio of SaaS products. I love what I'm doing right now and happy to talk about that.
Co-host
The moneywise podcast lives inside Hampton, which
Daniel Burke
is a private community for founders and CEOs. The people you're going to hear on Moneywise are all typically Hampton members. These are conversations that were already happening
Co-host
inside that room, and I just get to bring them out into the open. Thibaut is exactly the kind of person that Hampton was originally built for.
Daniel Burke
He built something, he sold it, and then he went through the full emotional
Co-host
aftermath of that and then went back
Daniel Burke
and built something even bigger. If that sounds familiar to you, you're probably in the right place. If you're a founder doing at least
Co-host
3 million in revenue, check out hampton@joinhampton.com yeah, so let's talk about Tweet Hunter for a second. You sold to Taplio, and I've seen a bunch of stories about it. You're, you know, fairly vocal about it on Twitter. The headline shows, like a $10 million exit, but reading your own account, it looks like the actual deal was somewhere around 2 million upfront and then 8 million based on hitting milestones. Tell me more about that sale and the payment structure. And then, you know, how it felt when the wire actually hit your account. Like what? What does it feel like to get millions of dollars all at once when you sold Tweet Hunter to Taplio? Before Thibo answers that, I want to make sure we're clear about the actual deal structure because it's important to really get how this earnout looked like.
Daniel Burke
The headline number on Thibaut's acquisition was
Co-host
$10 million, but only $2 million came up front.
Daniel Burke
The other eight was an earnout, meaning it was contingent on hitting very specific
Co-host
and what we'll see, stressful revenue milestones after the sale. You keep building the product and you hit targets and you get paid, but if you miss them, you actually end up leaving a lot of money on the table.
Daniel Burke
Tibo ended up collecting 8 million total, but as you're about to hear, the
Co-host
path to that number was a lot more complicated than the headlines suggest.
Thibaut
So it was a super risky acquisition, I guess for Lablist, we were pretty Much. A little bit more than a year old product. We had actually two products and the platform dependency was incredible. Like it was. I don't know if you remember, but that was pretty much the time where Elon Musk bought Twitter. And so nobody around there was aware about what we're going to do. And our second product, Tapio, was not really LinkedIn compliant. So what happened there is Guillaume, this guy from Lemnis, by the way, the crazy story that this guy was in middle school with me. So we just, we knew each other, but totally lost track about each other after that.
Co-host
Serendipitous.
Thibaut
So we talked and that was Guillaume who mentioned this idea that the only way for us to sell for a 10 times multiplier, like 10 times on annual revenue was with this very risky deal with small upfront money and big upside based on the earnouts. And that was exactly the deal that you mentioned, like 2 million upfront and 8 million in additional earnouts based on strict and very, very high revenue. My thoughts.
Co-host
Did you end up getting the full 8 million with that earnout?
Thibaut
Not the full one. So the we, we total, we got 8 million. So we got the two at the the two upfront and then six additional based on the earnouts.
Co-host
Okay.
Thibaut
To get that we, we went from 1.5 in 1.5 million in annual revenue to 8 million in annual revenue. And we, we had to go into 10 to get the full package.
Co-host
And what was the actual split with that between you and your co founder? How much did you personally receive and what were the mechanics of the deal with the upfront, the earn out and the actual taxes you had to pay? Pre and post tax earnout. I know in France the taxes are a bit different. Walk me through what that actual earnout looks like.
Thibaut
It was a basic 5050 with my co founder with one slight, slight thing which actually was quite big. But like very early on with Tweet Enter. And by the way, it was a strategy that was so successful that we replicated that on Tapio very early. We decided to partner with a very famous Twitter influencer and we, we kind of gave him 25% of equity, which was not actually equity, like it was more like a distribution rights, distribution share, up to 25% of the product, but also and a percentage that would apply on the exit of the product.
Co-host
So the 25% was paid out in the revenue, the recurring revenue, or was it all the third? It was the profit.
Daniel Burke
So it was a 25% profit share?
Thibaut
Yeah, it was 25% profit share. And a 25% of the initial upfront amounts of the tweetener cell of that
Co-host
2 million that you received.
Thibaut
Yeah.
Co-host
Okay.
Thibaut
Of which, a little bit more complicated than that, but it was the part of the 2 million that was attributed to tweetener because we were selling two products like Tweet and Tapioc.
Co-host
Okay, understood. Would you do that again? That sounds crazy to me that you gave away a quarter of your company effectively at the very beginning. I mean, did you.
Thibaut
So I guess she's insane.
Co-host
Yeah, it's. Did you. There's two ways I think of this. Did you. One, just not think you would sell for millions of dollars? I think that's one reason I would give away a quarter of the company. Or two, was that the only way to increase your viral coefficients that early on, did you think There was really no other way to. To get the word out about this product idea.
Thibaut
So there are many deals that we. We made, like, including the acquisition deal. And I think the deal that I regret the least is this one. Because even if it sounds crazy, I hardly imagine us putting off the tweet into product and make it. Make it, like, so trendy as it was in 2021 without this guy.
Co-host
Yeah.
Thibaut
And so what happened in our mind at that time is that we were basically like, nobody. Right now it feels very differently because, like, I have this track record, I have my smaller audience on X, and so I have a voice, and I'm comfortable talking about a new product and get feedback and get like, this first initial push that make it work. But at that time, it felt like we needed that. And so this guy was promoting through Twitter courses, this exact methodology that we were pushing with tweethunter. It was such a perfect alignment in how we worked. And by working with him, just by launching on Twitter, we went from 3k in monthly revenue to 18k in 3 weeks. Oh, wow.
Co-host
And you attribute most of that to his posting?
Thibaut
Yeah.
Co-host
Okay. Marketing.
Thibaut
Not just posting, but, like, having him organizing the launch, thinking of the launch mechanism, and executing the launch and doing, like, hiring affiliate people and just building this launch and distribution system. It worked very well. And it didn't stop there. Like, he was running campaigns after campaigns. It works so well that despite the product being successful and despite seeing all the money coming from us to this guy, we. We look to replicate this Strategy on our LinkedIn products. And we did that. We did that.
Co-host
Okay, that's. That's crazy. I mean, I want to circle back to something you said. This is the acquisition you regret the least. But I actually first I want to ask you about more of the history of kind of what led you to tweet Hunter. I've. In my research, I, you know, came across that you were a CTO at a number of companies and then Covid happened, of course. And so when was the moment that you decided I need to actually build something for myself and walk me through that journey.
Thibaut
So it was, it's, it's kind of a crazy story, but it's crazy how life works sometimes because. So I, I was the CTO at this big scale up company because, because like I was, I was sick of startuping. Like I had some, those schedules that I talked about and so I wanted to just getting a stable revenue because my first kid was coming and crazy thing, when my first kid came, she got sick, like super sick at two month old, she almost died. We spent a month in the hospital and it just, it was like we were in shock I guess. And so both my wife and I quit our job to just like start traveling the world. Like the idea was just take a year off to travel. But that was early 2020. And so Covid, Covid happened.
Co-host
Bad timing.
Thibaut
Yeah, exactly. Like worst timing ever. We got in, it was March 2020, no job, a kid, like a five month old kid at home. Not possible to go out in Paris. Like small apartments, completely locked. That was the worst, worst time, worst setup I guess. And so I got back to coding like at home alone. And it worked.
Co-host
That's great.
Daniel Burke
I'd love to walk through all the numbers specifically.
Co-host
So you sold for 2 million upfront with an 8 million potential earnout and ultimately got 6 of that. You shared it across your co founder, someone you gave 25% to upfront. So where does that bring your current net worth to today?
Thibaut
So from that acquisition I got about 4 million which after tax in France is a little bit less than 3 million. And that would be like a large portion of my net worth. What's a bit crazy right now is my most successful product is actually not Twitter and Tapio. My most successful products are Revit, AI and Outrank. So which are like my current focus. And they're working so well that my, my portfolio of product just hits a million per month.
Co-host
And is that revenue or profit?
Thibaut
It's, it's revenue. It's a million per month in revenue and profits is, is very comfortable because like the margin on the product is pretty high. And so it's very hard to say because I do not count the active companies I as my Net worth because like I don't have real numbers for them, but it's going to be between 5 and 10 million, I guess.
Co-host
Okay, and so it sounds like, would you say 3 to 5 of that is liquid or is this mostly in investments? And I would love to understand what those investments look like. How do you think about investing that money?
Thibaut
Pretty much all of that is liquid, I guess.
Co-host
Yeah. So five to ten, liquid net worth. And what does liquid mean in this sense? Is it all in a cash account or do you have it, you know, in savings, investments? What does that, what does that mean, liquid?
Thibaut
So, okay, so I have my, I'm actually building my dream chalet in the, in the French Alps right now. And so my, my, I'm just moving some of my money from my assets and portfolio to this dream chalet. That is going to be very costly. But if you exclude that, I guess I have about 50% of my money as cash just sitting there doing nothing at a boring 2%. 2%?
Co-host
Really?
Thibaut
Yeah. I'm very scared I guess about what's happening right now. The stock market is super inflated right now, but still the 50% remaining of my net worth is in the stock market, which is basically for me mostly S&P 500 and a little bit more exposure to the big AI companies like Google, Tesla and the others.
Co-host
Sure. Okay, 50% of liquid and a 2% cash account. A lot of people would say even with some of the uncertainty that that's crazy. Walk me through why you're doing that even as opposed to like a CD or something closer to 4 or 5%.
Thibaut
So I'm saying 2% because this is exactly what I get in, in, in Euro, like in low risk account in Europe. But you're right, like half of that is actually USD for me and it's more than, it's more like 4% in USD bound safe, safe accounts in the US fair enough. But so to, to come back to like having only 50% of my net worth as stocks, it's actually quite a bad decision because if you look at it's been two years that it's pretty much like this for me and it's been two years that I was expecting some kind of dips in the stock market, but it's not happening. And so it's going to be that story where you wait for the deep and when you are just sick of waiting, you're going to put all your money there and then the deep happens.
Co-host
I always tell people the dip's going to happen the second I buy the stock. So just follow my stock advice because the moment I buy everything's going to the, to the bottom. So you, you, you said a million across your portfolio. So that includes Reba AI Outrank. Right. You have Super X. Is that one of your companies in your portfolio?
Daniel Burke
Feather.
Co-host
So I know Post sinker. So across all those, you're doing a million a month right now in revenue.
Thibaut
Yep.
Co-host
What do you take?
Thibaut
Because one is. So I have actually an interesting take because I'm talking a lot like I'm thinking a lot about how to go further. It's 1 million per month. And the crazy thing is when you try to replicate the successful strategy, you think about the origin of each of the project. Yeah. And so I have, I have Revit at the very top. Like it's, it's doing something like 600k per month. And I have Feather at the very bottom. And both of those products, I have acquired them. All the others have built or partnered on them. So it's, it's crazy to me that my most successful product right now and my least successful products come pretty much from the same story. I, I saw something crazy on, on X, I reach out to the founder and, and I acquired them. Wow. Insane.
Co-host
Yeah, that is insane. And I'm curious what at the heart of you building now a million a month? I mean I think there's two sides of the coin. Some people receive a life changing exit of you know, five to $10 million. Of course the earn out and all the different nuances there. But I mean that's a life changing amount of money for a lot of people. And so to then go build a portfolio where you're still generating a million dollars a month, I think some people will look at that. Well, why was it not enough money that you sold for? Or do you just prefer to have that stable income still even post exit life?
Thibaut
So I'm thinking a lot about this question that like I don't have a real answer for the why. I more like have an answer about why would I do if I just not do that? You know. So I have, I have kids and I, I don't really feel like absent father. I'm, I'm here like I'm taking care of the kids every morning. I'm taking care of the kids after school. I'm, I'm lucky enough that I can just stop working at 5 or 6ish and have fun with them. I have hobbies. Like I'm, I'm just learning about how to fly a plane which for is insane. I'm always got almost about to get my. My flying license.
Co-host
That's awesome. Very cool.
Thibaut
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. It's. It's so fun, but. So I would really be like, if I don't have this, if I don't have work, if I don't have this space where I'm decent, good at, like, what would I do and how. Like, I have no answer to that. So I think the best answer is just that I have no idea what to do and. Except that.
Co-host
Yeah, that makes sense what Thibaut just said, that he keeps building because he genuinely doesn't know what else he'd do. That's something I hear over and over again from founders who come on this
Daniel Burke
show, and it's something that opens up
Co-host
constantly inside of the Hampton community.
Daniel Burke
There's this assumption that once you hit a certain number, everything clicks and you
Co-host
have to figure out what you actually want.
Daniel Burke
But most of the people I've talked
Co-host
to say the opposite.
Daniel Burke
The money clarifies some things, but completely scrambles others. Hampton's full of founders who are somewhere
Co-host
in the middle, not really done building,
Daniel Burke
not sure what's next, trying to figure out around other people who actually get it. Go to joinhampton.com if that's you.
Co-host
Yeah, it does. I think I'm in a similar stage of life. I have two kids at home. I still work, as this podcast is proof of. And, you know, I. I often wonder, man, if I just. If I had $100 million, I could just stop. But the question then becomes, well, what would I do? I mean, I mean, what really would I do?
Daniel Burke
Maybe three to six to 12 months.
Co-host
I would have fun and vacation and travel the world. But eventually, you know, I'm still young. I have a lot of life left in me. I feel like there's things to be built. So I wrestle with the same question that you're wrestling with what we do.
Thibaut
And I think it's more the case for you. It's kind of an excuse to meet incredibly successful and interesting people. Like, you get to talk to the best people in your space. And so it's such like a. Interesting, deep conversation that make you think about their future. And that's totally what I am into.
Co-host
Yeah, me too. I want to ask you about something you've posted before. You've talked a lot about the tweet, Hunter Taplio payout and earnout and the actual exit. And you've said recently that getting a ton of money up front feels kind of unhealthy is the word you Use compared to earning it steadily. But now that you're making over a million dollars a month, I mean that's not really slow, that is steady of course, but that's a lot of money every month.
Daniel Burke
And I'm curious if at some point
Co-host
someone offered you 30 or $50 million for this portfolio, are you going to sell that or are you going to hold the line with this philosophy you have about really never selling another company? I know you've mentioned you don't want to sell it again, you've had some issues publicly about your past sales. So walk me through, like is that, is that a hard line or is enough money going to convince you to sell anyways?
Thibaut
It's a very good question. It's hard, hard to answer every time I get asked this question. I remember this conversation that I had with Peter Lewes like one of the top voice on X and it was when we were about to sell. I was living in Thailand at the time. We met a few times with Peter Lewes and we were having this conversation on Telegram and he was really telling me that there was just. It's really like the most unhealthy thing that can happen to an individual because people, and we kind of see this with AI right now. People need time to adapt to new standards and when you sell your company you get a huge bunch of money at once and you have no idea what you. With this. You didn't properly get the time to accommodate to that. And so you take bad decision as an individual. You do not identify as the same person as before and you get, get very fast, go crazy. And the thing that happened to me is when I, so after this earnout period like when I was back, back at building everyone around you identify you as a successful person and so you get completely freeze when it, when it comes to shipping new products. It's, it's like you do not want to change the current perception of people that are seeing you as a successful person. And I, I talked about that with many other founders that, that sold their company. It's very hard for them to ship the next product after selling something because you do not want to change. Then that's that perception of, of people having value. And so this is why that I think I would not set.
Co-host
Again, very interesting. So it's, it's, it's a perception issue then. It's. I don't want the perception of the success and the exit that I had to be changed by a potentially unsuccessful exit. Is that, is that what you're saying?
Thibaut
Yeah, I basically do not want to fall into like a frozen state where I would be afraid about shipping anything new.
Co-host
This frozen state that Thibaut just described is something that most founders who come in this show share some version of in their exit or in their building stage. The exit doesn't really make you more confident about the next thing. Not always. It actually makes some people more scared about losing what they have because now you have a reputation to protect and you have actual, real, meaningful money. You're known as the person who sold for X amount of money.
Daniel Burke
And shipping something new means. Means risking being seen as someone whose
Co-host
best days are behind them. What's interesting about Thibaut is that he has continued to find ways around this, you know, fear of reputation failure, because
Daniel Burke
he just continues to launch big things
Co-host
publicly using the audience that he's built for himself. He continues to build small things, products you've probably never heard of until one
Daniel Burke
of them becomes larger than anything he's done before. And then he uses his audience to
Co-host
really lean into that viral coefficients. And so instead of leaning on one specific exit and just calling it a day, Thibaut's continued to build a portfolio of products that actually generate meaningful monthly recurring revenue for himself, where he takes a large chunk of profit home from that portfolio on top of the exit money he's built for himself. So he's both an exited founder and a founder now of many indie products where he's continuing to create revenue that's. That's meaningful. It's kind of doing both things that a lot of people choose between. Tebow's doing them both. It's cool.
Thibaut
Yeah, I. I like. Yeah, I think it's. It's very hard to fight like this, this mental state.
Co-host
Yeah. That brings me to my next question about something you said with that earnout. The. You said very high revenue milestones were required in order to get that full $8 million earnout. It sounds to me that sounds incredibly stressful. So how stressed were you actually? Yeah, I mean, were there months where you thought you weren't going to hit it and we're going to lose millions of dollars or. Walk me through that earnout period. It sounds like a painful experience as you talk about it.
Thibaut
Yeah, yeah, you completely nailed it. It's exactly this. And this is, by the way, like, totally not the fault of the buyer. It was something that we heavily pushed to. But the thing is, when your product is growing, are very happy about all the milestones. With this acquisition, it was completely reversed. We, we went from positive moments when Every milestone is reached to the potential loss of a huge bunch of money if we don't reach the milestones. And it has been proven many, many times that the, the negative sentiment, the position of loss is a much stronger sentiment than the potential win when you, when you get something new. And so it, it puts you in this, this mindset where if you do not work enough, if you do not achieve your goals, you're gonna lose something and you're gonna be like a loser. It was, it was a very hard 18 month. We were very autonomous, as we ask, during this, this period that we were completely handling the growth of the product, even if it was like, not ours. So, yeah, that was, that was super hard. Like, it's really something. It was, it's really a period of time that I didn't enjoy that much.
Co-host
Yeah, Yeah, I imagine. I mean, that sounds stressful. Do you regret the sale if you were to do it all over again?
Thibaut
Yeah, I do. I, I, I do regret it. Like, it's so. It was really not obvious at the beginning, just, just to give you a perspective, but like, six months after the sale, Elon Musk with his new policy on X, like, he, he just cut off our access. And so a tweet center, which was doing like 200k per month at that time, it could have just collapsed at that time. We, we found a loophole and we found a way to just work through that. And so it, it got okay. But if that was still our product, it would have been like an, an incredibly more stressful time.
Co-host
Tweet Hunter was doing around $200,000 a month in revenue. When Thibaut sold it, it ran entirely on Twitter's API. And six months after the sale, Elon
Daniel Burke
Musk bought Twitter and changed the API
Co-host
policies in a way that could have
Daniel Burke
actually shut down the entire product entirely. Tebow says they found a workaround, but if they hadn't, the earnout he'd spent
Co-host
18 months grinding towards might have gone to zero.
Daniel Burke
He sold the product right before it
Co-host
got hit by something completely out of his control. And whether you call that luck or good timing, it really frames this entire sale as a potential downside, when in
Daniel Burke
reality, if he had more control over
Co-host
that situation at that time and he could see Tweet Hunter all the way through to the ultimate $8 million annual recurring revenue that happened at the end
Daniel Burke
of his earnout period.
Co-host
I mean, the financials change quite substantially. And so the conversation around the sale and whether or not Thibaut regrets selling is really framed through the lens of what ifs and hindsight being 20 20, it's a hard question to ask. You never really know what you would do differently because you can't go back and do it again. But learning from people like Thibaut and the experience they had in these situations is very helpful if you're in a similar situation yourself.
Thibaut
Insane. So it was very hard to say that time. But, yes, I think it was a bad decision. It was bad decision financially because after the announcement, we ended up paying, we earned, we ended up getting 8 million for an 8 million annual revenue product. And at the same time, I went through a very unpleasant time during the acquisition. So it was not a good decision, given how it turned out. And at the same time, it put me in a mental state that I didn't really enjoy. But once again, it's really not the fault of the buyer. It was like the Lemlist team has been very accommodating with us in giving us the independence and the freedom that we wanted. And so it's really about more the accommodation acquisition process.
Daniel Burke
One of the most common conversations inside
Co-host
Hampton is the one that Thibaut just described. Not how do I build a company, because that's everywhere, but it's, someone wants to buy a company and I have no idea if I should take the deal.
Daniel Burke
The math is never straightforward. The earnout structures are complicated, and the emotional aftermath, which is the part Thibaut just walked us through, that's something almost
Co-host
no one talks about publicly. That's exactly what Hampton is built for.
Daniel Burke
Founders who are far enough along with
Co-host
these questions that they're real and they're
Daniel Burke
talking honestly with other people who've actually been through it. If that's your world, go to joinhampton.com to see more.
Co-host
So the end of that earnout period, tweet, Hunter and Taplio together were doing 8 million in annual revenue.
Thibaut
Yep.
Co-host
So if you had just kept onto it, I guess the thought is, well, I could have generated the same amount I did in the sale and sold for maybe 5 to 10x. That is the thought.
Thibaut
True. True. It was. It was very hard to say that we would go from 1.5 million per year to 8 million in just 18 months. But it happened.
Co-host
Yeah. I mean, you never could have. I mean, no one has the crystal ball there, but Obviously hindsight is 20 20. That's. Yeah, that's a. That's a hard. That's a hard thought of what ifs, you know, and you can always think about what ifs. I want to ask you something that I think about for myself, if you Never got the 8 million and tweet Hunter and Taplio just kept running and now you're making the million dollars a month plus what Tweed Hunter and Taplio are doing, do you think you'd be happier today?
Thibaut
I have no idea. Like, this is. This is a tough question. I don't know. Honestly, it's. It's so hard to. To see what would have happened. I guess I would have still built the portfolio products. I think so, but it's so hard to see.
Co-host
Yeah, I think about this all the time with my own stuff. Like, is the number from the sale what I want or do I actually just want more income than I'll ever need forever? And I don't know. I don't actually know the answer for myself. And so I'm curious, talking to someone like you who has the sale and the recurring revenue now with what you're building, you've experienced, in a sense.
Thibaut
Yeah. What I love with this experience is that with Tweet Hunter, I was the developer and I partnered up with an influencer. And so the influencer was bringing the distribution and I was the developer building the product. And after the end of the earnout, like when I got to building again, I completely reversed this schema. I'm now basically the influencer and the distribution guy working with developers and have like one, one maker co founder for every single one of my. Of my product. And I like that. I guess doing this transition from a building guy to distribution guy would have been more difficult if I would still be working on Twitteng and Tapio.
Co-host
Yeah.
Daniel Burke
Yeah.
Co-host
And I think part of the success from Tweet Hunter and Taplio, I imagine led to what you're experiencing now on Twitter with the. The group that you're in with builders. Like you mentioned levels. And then obviously you have what is like 150 or so th000followers. 150,000 followers on X. That is, I don't know elsewhere how much that adds up to, but obviously you, like you mentioned you are the influencer now. So the turn tables as it were. It's. It's an ex, you know, an experience I think wouldn't have really played out the same if you hadn't sold Twee Hunter possibly twice.
Thibaut
Yeah, true.
Co-host
I want to ask you more about your travels during COVID How does wealth now change what you would have done then? And let's assume Covid didn't happen because it sounds like you traveled the world right when it was the worst and most impossible time to travel. But you know, you have a wife, you have kids and you have money. Do you do that again if given the opportunity and start traveling the world and how long, where do you go?
Thibaut
Well, I just did that and, and I loved it. Like I, I got invited in this hacker residency in Da Nang, Vietnam and I'm just getting back, getting back in France right now. Like I'm back, I'm back since like four, for two weeks. It has been such an amazing experience. So we spent six weeks in Vietnam with my, the two kids gathered in a big villa with 15 other entrepreneurs just talking about our product. And it made me realize how lonely we are in France. Of course we have friends and family around. But it's so hard for me, lost in the countryside in my small village to meet like minded people, like people working on AI product like me. It's insanely hard. And so it made me realize how important it is to have this deep conversation about the future, like about what each other is doing right now. It was such an amazing thing. And so I'm not thinking that I will try to do such a thing like at least once a year, even if it's very hard with kids. Obviously it's such a pain to take a plane, but I will try to do it anyway.
Co-host
Do you fly first class when you travel with your family or just coach?
Thibaut
So we just started. There was this guy telling me that you have to delay flying business as much as possible because once you try, you will never go back. It's gonna get very expensive.
Co-host
Yeah, I flew first class home from New York City the other week and I usually don't fly first class. I'll usually do business or even business, but coach plus. And it, it's nice. It's, it's a, it's a big upgrade. I have two kids as well and when we travel, we're flying, you know, in two weeks, the four of us. I will not be flying first class. And the conversation my wife and I have all the time is, you know, we want our kids to experience the blessings that we have in our lives. But also like there's a, there's a, almost a safety barrier you have to create for them to experience. Like, yeah, limitations, you know, they don't,
Daniel Burke
you can't just give them everything all
Co-host
the time because then they, they just grow up expecting everything all the time. So we wrestle with that in our own lives.
Daniel Burke
Did a lot of people bring their
Co-host
families to this hacker house as well? Or was it mostly just single founders and you were your only. So tell me, what was that like?
Thibaut
I definitely identify as a young person, but I kind of. I was like the oldest guy running around.
Co-host
You were the boomer in the room. I, I know how that feels.
Daniel Burke
Yeah.
Thibaut
They called me Grandpa Thibaut. I didn't like it.
Co-host
Oh, that is really funny. Does your wife know all about the finances behind the acquisition and the revenue you generate now and even like your life online? She pretty tuned into all that?
Thibaut
Yeah, definitely. Like, she's, she's a very intelligent food marketer and so she, she even helped with some of my products. Like, such a smart person.
Co-host
Yeah. That's awesome. I always, I hear two sides of the coin sometimes even in my own life. I'll, you know, leave my office and tell my wife about a conversation I had on X. And it just, she's like, you live in a very different world than me. I mean, meme culture and some of the silly conversations I have with founders and, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting. The, the divide. So with the finances and the budget keeping and stuff, are you personally over your wealth or do you have a financial planner or do you and your wife kind of co, you know, collaborate on that? Who actually manages your wealth?
Thibaut
So I do, but it's, it's more like I have. So I have met a few people and even, even people that have been recommended to me and so, but it's, I find it very hard to trust those persons. So you talk a lot, they advise a lot. And when it comes the time to like wire the money to those people because they have been recommended, this amazing investment that is going to be great over the next five years. I'm always very skeptical of, of what's going to happen. And so I find it much, much easier, safe and I think relevant and yeah, I think more relevance to just put everything on S&P 500. And so it makes me able to just move assets very easily. Yeah, no issue with that.
Co-host
Yeah, I, I invest quite similarly. I, I put the most cash in S&P 500. I have a few other ones, like what you mentioned with like Nvidia and some different AI stocks, but big S&P 500. Maxi here, tell me what number needs to be in your cash account before you feel safe and don't have to keep building. I mean, I know you love building, but do you have to build right now? Is that a financial decision or is it just something you love doing without the financial decision?
Thibaut
So I know that this is a very different culture in the US But I would be very stressed about spending more money than I have. And so this mountain chalet that I'm bridging right now, I try to tell myself that I can spend this money if I am earning as much money as I'm spending a month over month. And so the chalet is being built over a year and so I'm trying to get the renovation money over the same year. And so I'm going to try never spend more than I'm earning month over month. So I'm not. I know that you're going to tell me that I'm not using the right levers that could just increase my exposure, but I'm just not borrowing any money. I found it like I optimize my life and my product for flexibility and freedom. And what's going to generate the least number of new mental load is having a very lean and clean financial state. And so having no loan, having the money on like boring and safe investment is, is what gonna generate the least mental load. I guess.
Co-host
So walk me through with the chalet, but also everything else. What is your personal spending month to month when you say you spend less than you earn that million dollars in revenue, of course is not what you're earning. What are you earning personally per month from your different assets?
Thibaut
It's hard to. So we're getting very personal here. But I can say that my personal profit share of my company is more than 100k per month, which is way bigger than what I'm spending month over month on the chalet renovation. I think this chalet is overall going to cost us about 2 million split like half in the renovation and half in like the actual buying of the, of the property to renovate.
Co-host
Okay. And then through actual personal expenses, through home and life, what are you typically spending and on what month to month?
Thibaut
So I think, I think compared to the average US person, it's going to sound very cheap. But like I think we do not spend more than 6k or 7k per month. Maybe 8k per month. Yeah, we have, so we have a big house in Brittany in France. It's not a very expensive place. We do not have much services. Like we do a lot of our stuff on our own except cleaning the house, but we don't really have high costs. There is not even a very expensive private school around there. So it's not even like we can buy.
Co-host
Okay.
Thibaut
Like get our school in, get our kids in a very high expensive high end private school. And so yeah, things are, that is
Co-host
Much lower than I expected. Yeah, that is incredibly lean. Yeah. So 8K. Break that down for me. You're. You're spending on your house, I assume. And what is the.
Thibaut
Yeah, we are renting the house right now. It costs 2k per month.
Co-host
2k a month.
Thibaut
I guess the food is going to be 2k too. We buy very high quality food products and so yeah, going to be 2K and then I'm going to buy like all the tech gadget that I can find that might be like a new 500 per month.
Co-host
Just fun tech collector.
Thibaut
Yeah. And I don't know about the rest.
Co-host
Okay. Yeah, just miscellaneous residual spending.
Thibaut
Yeah, I guess it's really like not the case when we travel. So of course since we, we just, we're just coming back from Vietnam, we spent way more just by flying business there. But yeah, I think we have a very lean way of life.
Co-host
And all of that additional income that you're not spending, is that all going into the S&P 500 and the cash account or what do you do with that residual? I mean that's. The delta is 90k a month from what you're earning. What do you do with all that money?
Thibaut
So right now it's staying on the company bank accounts and it's split into of course S and P500. And what I'm trying to do is buying more, buying more companies. Like I, I want to, I want to find ways to like buy products, buy companies and buy new description channels. And so it's not something that I like. I, it's not like I have a playbook that I could just outline, but I want to take 20 or 30 or 40% of product that I could just at the same time like advise, but also make the founder able to just live through that money. Because like the product itself doesn't need money, but often the founder needs money, just quit his current job and work full time on the product. And so I want to finance that and have a. Find a way to make this sustainable.
Co-host
Yeah, that's very cool. So do you know how many total companies you want in your portfolio? You have five now. How many more are you looking to acquire or are you just taking them one at a time?
Thibaut
So I have five right now. I have two stealth company that I haven't announced yet. I think at that stage I can take like two or three more. But then I would need to find a new way. Like it would need to find a new structure where each product is not as much as reliant on me because like my time is super limited. I need to hire more or find new AI to just do the job for me. I don't know. But I need to update the structure if I want to scale more and that's going to be one of the challenge of 2026.
Co-host
Yeah, and I saw you. Go ahead.
Thibaut
Yeah. It's also that my products are all my products. They are trying to serve the same people and they are trying to solve pretty much the same issue. I'm basically building product to help founders solve distribution, but there are no bridges between the products. And so I would love to build an agent based products which would be the bridge between all my project because it would like it would under the hood, use outrank, revit, like post synchro to do the social posting, et cetera.
Co-host
Yeah, that's a good idea. I saw you tweet yesterday along the lines of effectively seeking investors into your portfolio. Tell me your thinking behind that.
Thibaut
So everything that I do right now is focused on building more distribution and it's kind of a way to do that. Okay. I don't feel like I need the money behind selling shares of my company, but I would love to build a huge group of people that is highly incentivized to my success. That's like it's, it's just, it's such an incredible distribution and fair advantage. You know, we did that with Twicenter by the way. Like we, we created this group of 17, we call that creative investors. 17 people who got 0.1% of our profits every year. It was like just very influencer, like very high influencers on X at the time. And it worked pretty well. Like for every single one of our launches with Twitter, we got this core group of 17 year friends that could just retweet and comment and just share everything that we do.
Co-host
And so that's the thinking moving forward is to do creative investments, not necessarily like cash investments.
Thibaut
Yeah, exactly. It's very hard to do. Like the legal structure behind it is incredibly hard to find. But especially since this is my holding company and so I guess I would need to create another holding because I don't want to expose my personal investment from the holding to those people. So it's very hard to do. But it's something that I am exploring right now. I would love to lead this new kind of investment possibilities.
Co-host
Yeah, okay. I like that thinking. I want to ask you one last question. I'm a new dad. Well, my oldest is four now, so I don't know if I qualify as a new dad anymore. But I think about this constantly. I have a four year old and I have a two year old. I grew up, you know, middle class. I didn't have millions of dollars. I wasn't totally poor, but I wasn't, I wouldn't have considered myself, you know, ultra wealthy. And I personally don't really know how to raise kids to have the same drive that I have right now. I'm learning in real time. And you said you want your net worth to come from ongoing business rather than a big exit. But now you also have kids. So what's your plan for, for them? Are you going to kind of bring them along for, you know, everything that you're doing and understanding kind of what you've done to get to this point? Do they get trusts? Do you want them to work? Do they see any of your money? I mean, walk me through your plan for your kids.
Thibaut
That's such a good question. And I was talking with all the friends the other day about how I would be completely lost right now if I had a, a 15 year old at home. It's like the, the job market right now. You have like, you have no idea what to advise. It's, it's insane. Like I, so I, I don't have a clear answer to this. The only thing that I know, and I think the one thing that I try to teach to my kids is that the only thing that matters is, is movements basically like movement in a way that no matter what you choose, you need to just do things. That's it. You need to work or to have strong hobbies. You need to spend time doing things, breathing things or crafting things or doing sports. But what I would not stand is having my kids just doing video games at home all day or scrolling TikTok all days. Even video games could be a thing. But I would just want my kids to be passionate about things and I would push them to just go further in the, in those patients.
Co-host
Yeah, I think it's such a hard balance. I've, you know, I've heard responses really all across the board on this of there's going to be a trust that they'll get when they're 18 or 25 or 35 or even, you know, earn out distributions like for, you know, for decades. I've heard, oh no, my, my kids aren't going to work a second of their life if they don't want to. And I've heard people say I'm not giving them anything. They won't see a cent of my earnings, which Personally, I think is a little bit out there. I mean, I would love to set up my kids for life if I can. But it's an interesting battle we face as dads. Like what, what do we make sure they have to do versus what do we alleviate deviate from that load of theirs?
Thibaut
I think it's very important that they feel safe. So if you look at many of the very successful tech entrepreneurs in the us they had like a very safe childhood. Like they had that unconditional love. And I feel like that's super important. If you want your kids to take risk, you need, they need to feel safe and to feel this unconditional love. This is what I'm trying to just make them feel every day. And at the same time, I just try to push them in doing more things like crafting more stuff. And I guess for the rest, I'm going to just figure it out on the go.
Co-host
Yeah, I love that. I think that's, you know, the heart of figuring it out on the go is my MO for being a dad. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to raise a 5 year old, but my kid is 4 right now and so I'll figure it out when he turns five. You know what I'm saying? So this has been a really good episode. Thibaut, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. You have a really interesting perspective on investing and on even distributing wealth and even currently earning. I mean, I just, I love the approach you have to building now post Exit Life. It's very clear. Cool. And I appreciate you sharing that with us here today on Moneywise.
Thibaut
Thank you very much for having me. It was such a pleasure. Of course.
Co-host
Talk soon. Take care.
Daniel Burke
Hey, guys. I'm Daniel Burke, the host of Money Wise. We want to be a top 10 podcast, and the only way that happens is if we're making the right content for you. The problem is I know nothing about who's listening. You could be a billionaire. You could be my mom. In fact, my mom's probably listening. So. Hey, mom. We did make a very super short survey to solve this problem. It literally takes 30 seconds. So please, if you have a Second, go to joinhampton.com Moneywise Feedback. That's joinhampton.com Moneywise feedback this is super, super helpful for us to make sure we're making the right content for the right listeners. And I super appreciate you taking 30 seconds to go answer joinhampton.com moneywise feedback okay, show starts now.
Episode: He Sold For $8M and Regrets It. Now He’s Making More.
Podcast: Moneywise
Host: Daniel Burke (with Co-host)
Guest: Thibaut (French indie hacker & software entrepreneur)
Date: June 2, 2026
This episode features Thibaut, a French indie hacker who shares his journey from six years of startup failures to a multimillion-dollar exit with two SaaS products (TweetHunter and Taplio) and the unexpected aftermath of that life-changing event. The conversation dives deeply into the specific mechanics of his earnout deal, his post-exit financial and psychological state, and the philosophy behind why Thibaut now prefers building a diversified portfolio of high-growth SaaS products over selling again. He is candid about his spending habits, portfolio strategies, and the nuances of wealth and identity post-exit—especially when the money doesn’t bring the clarity or satisfaction often promised. The episode is loaded with tactical financial transparency and rare insights into post-exit life from a founder who openly admits his regrets, new successes, and the complications massive liquidity brought to his motivations.
Quote:
“I did six years startuping in a very bad way. I did all the mistakes you can possibly think of.”
—Thibaut (03:42)
Quotes:
“The deal that I regret the least is [giving away 25%]... I hardly imagine us pulling off the TweetHunter product and making it so trendy as it was in 2021 without this guy.”
—Thibaut (11:05)
“To get that, we went from $1.5M in annual revenue to $8M... had to go into $10M to get the full package.”
—Thibaut (08:36)
Quotes:
“My most successful product is actually not TweetHunter or Taplio... My portfolio just hits a million per month.”
—Thibaut (15:09)
“50% of my net worth is cash just sitting there doing nothing at a boring 2%.”
—Thibaut (16:49)
Quotes:
“Getting a ton of money up front feels kind of unhealthy compared to earning it steadily.”
—Thibaut (24:40)
“It puts you in this mindset where if you do not work enough...you’re going to lose something and be like a loser. It was a very hard 18 months.”
—Thibaut (29:32)
“After the earnout...everyone around you identifies you as a successful person. You get completely frozen when it comes to shipping new products.”
—Thibaut (27:03)
Quotes:
“My personal profit share of my company is more than $100k per month, which is way bigger than what I’m spending.”
—Thibaut (44:36)
“I’m not borrowing any money. I optimize my life and my products for flexibility and freedom. What’s going to generate the least mental load is having a very lean and clean financial state.”
—Thibaut (42:51)
Quotes:
“I have no idea what to do except that. If I don’t have this, what would I do?”
—Thibaut (22:12)
Quotes:
“I don’t feel like I need the money...but I would love to build a huge group of people that is highly incentivized to my success. That’s an incredible distribution advantage.”
—Thibaut (50:14)
Quotes:
“The only thing that matters is movement...no matter what you choose, you just need to do things.”
—Thibaut (53:15)
“If you want your kids to take risks, they need to feel safe and have unconditional love.”
—Thibaut (54:53)
On giving an influencer 25% early on:
“Even if it sounds crazy, I hardly imagine us pulling off TweetHunter as we did without this guy… We went from 3k in monthly revenue to 18k in 3 weeks.”
—Thibaut (11:05–12:18)
On the aftermath of a big win:
“You get a huge bunch of money at once and you have no idea what to do with this. You didn’t properly get the time to accommodate to that. So you take bad decisions as an individual. You do not identify as the same person as before…”
—Thibaut (25:07)
On burn rates vs. income:
“We do not spend more than 6k or 7k per month. Maybe 8k per month. Even though I generate a personal income of more than 10 times that.”
—Thibaut (45:22)
On regrets and timing:
“If that was still our product [when Twitter’s API changed], it would have been an incredibly more stressful time… in hindsight, it was a bad decision financially, and it put me in a mental state I didn’t really enjoy.”
—Thibaut (30:55; 32:39)
| Topic | Thibaut's Approach / Viewpoint | |-------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------| | Exit Structure | $2M upfront, $6M in earnouts, 50/50 split + 25% to key influencer | | Net Worth | ~$3M after-tax from sale, now $5–10M liquid, $1M+/month revenue | | Spending | $8K/month; low personal burn, big on lifestyle design | | Investment Strategy | 50% cash, 50% in S&P500/tech stocks; no leverage, no advisor | | Post-Exit Regret | Yes—both for mental state and missing potential upside | | Life After Exit | Keeps building out of passion and absence of any better purpose | | Family & Wealth | Wants kids to feel safe, values passion/action, not sure on inheritance structure |
For founders, operators, and aspiring high-net-worth individuals, this episode offers one of the most honest assessments of life after a transformative exit—covering both the visible numbers and the invisible struggles that money alone doesn’t solve.