Transcript
Sponsor Representative (0:00)
The number one thing I hear from founders isn't AI, it's hiring A players are rare and expensive. That's why Smart founders and CEOs are using near to hire top tier offshore talent in Latin America. Over 700 companies like Function, Health, Expensify and Deal use NEAR to build their teams and save hundreds of thousands in overhead from senior engineers to heads of accounting to growth marketers. If it can be done remotely, near can find you the right person. You'll save up to 70% compared to US hires, but the real win is the quality. These aren't freelancers, they're loyal long term team members who actually care about your business. Near moves fast. You'll get resumes in three days and fill most roles in under three weeks. And you don't pay a dime until you make a hire. One of near's founders is a Hampton member and plenty of others already use them. So if you're ready to hire the best talent in Latin America, you go to hirewithnear.com moneywise. That's hirewith N-E-A-R.com moneywise to get 5% off your first hire so I've been
Jackie Lamport (1:05)
thinking a lot about the word success and not in my usual train of thought, which leads to the fact that the word succession, I don't know, it just should be pronounced secession. But the real reason that I've been thinking about it is because after interviewing over 150 exited founders on this podcast, I've noticed a pattern that's kind of strange and interesting. These are founders who have objectively made it. They have wired life changing amounts of money into their accounts, they have sold their businesses, they started new businesses. And yet over and over we hear the same thing.
Exited Founder Guest (1:30)
I got 40 million in the bank.
Jackie Lamport (1:32)
In addition to what I had.
Exited Founder Guest (1:33)
I still didn't feel like a very successful entrepreneur.
Sponsor Representative (1:35)
I don't have imposter syndrome. I am an imposter. The underlying tone was still a deep sense of anxiety and fear and I'm
Jackie Lamport (1:44)
not enough as a person.
Sponsor Representative (1:46)
I don't know why I continue to feel this way as everything objectively around me is getting better.
Jackie Lamport (1:50)
So there's a lot to unpack here because if you have hit every external marker of what success should be and you still don't feel it, then, well, what is success? So based on the conversations I've had with over 150 founders, the access that I have to the Hampton community, and all the responses that I've seen throughout doing this podcast for two years, I'm going to try and answer that question. My name is Jackie Lamport and this is Money Wise a podcast not about how to become a founder, but one that is for founders who are in it. On this podcast, we're radically transparent about the numbers, the emotions, the raw personal journey that every founder goes through, whether they expect to or not. And if you're interested in being a part of the community that this podcast is made for, then you should check it out@joinhampton.com if you are a founder doing at least 3 million in revenue already, check it out. Success is interesting because it's one of those things where it's kind of completely objective and subjective at the same time. In its simplest form, it, you know, might seem to be just meeting a set of requirements, or at least that's my understanding of it. But let's consult the Elders Webster's Dictionary defines success as a few things, actually a degree or measure of succeeding. That one isn't super helpful. A favorable or desired outcome. Also not super specific, but perhaps the third one is the most apt for this conversation, or at least this crowd, the attainment of wealth, favor or eminence. Regardless, we're in a similar situation. The definitive requirements for success can be endlessly debated, and really, they depend on perspective and context. Here's an example. If I decide that I want to read four books this month, and then I only read three, then it's pretty clear that I didn't succeed, right? Or so it seems. If the real point of the goal was to be more intentional about reading, or really, I love reading, so it would be to carve out more time to do something that I know that I love, then wouldn't that be successful, or a win at least? But then what if I didn't enjoy it? What if I was pushing my way through and then I also failed? That would be failure, right? But then I'd argue that, well, the goal was actually just to build discipline. So yes, I didn't get through all of it, but I was building on my personal discipline skills. The point here is that you may be able to define success based on the achievement of some preset targets. And that might actually be the simplest way, the most black and white way to describe it, but it doesn't really capture what it means to be successful, because black and white doesn't really exist, mostly. And for founders in particular, that ambiguity is exaggerated because, well, you have such great scoreboards. Look at revenue and what the exit size was, and what's your net worth? It becomes really easy to create A neat little checklist of what it means to be a successful founder. And on top of that, the archetype of a founder is somebody who's typically really goal oriented or numbers oriented. The story that we've seen again and again on the show is somebody starts a business, maybe that's methodical from the start. Maybe they just started something and eventually realized, hey, there's something to this. Well, then they start creating these very specific goals or milestones that they need to hit, like net worth or maybe just revenue of the business or an exit size. And then they start looking at other people and comparing what they've been doing. And then eventually it just becomes this thing where it's like a super specific, maybe even unattainable goal. But the moment that you define success as a specific outcome, like an exit or a number or even just a title, you are also creating something else. A post exit era. So then there's the before when you're chasing the goal, and the after when you've technically hit it. But this after period, well, that's when things start to get weird. Often, especially with money, goal posts start to move. I need $1 million in cash to feel successful turns into I need 10. I need to have a net worth of 10 turns into I need to have a net worth of 100 million. I need to exit one business to be considered a successful founder turns into, actually, I probably have multiple exits to be a successful founder. The goalpost moving is just one potential outcome. Another thing that we've seen a lot that happens is that people do hit their goal. And on paper, it really looks like they should be celebrating they are successful, but what they actually feel is nothing. Maybe a little bit of relief financially or the stress of the business has gone away, so they're feeling a bit better. But over time, they just have this inexplicable emptiness.