Hello there, everyone. I'm Jordan Crook, I'm so amped to see all of your smiling faces. Just kidding, because we can't see you at all. This is a virtual event and how creepy would it be if we could. I'm amped also to be introducing our speaker here on stage three, I'm joined by Alexa von Tobel. She founded learn vest, sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars, and is now the Founder and Managing Partner at inspired capital investing in early stage companies. Alexa, how are you doing? Thank you for being with us today.
I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks so much, Jordan, always would do anything for you. so honored to be you.
That's so sweet. Back atcha. By the way, many people maybe don't know this, but you are a certified financial planner, as well as all of your other boastful accomplishments on your resume.
Yeah, it's super geeky. But as I was running learn bass, and we were you know, TurboTax meets financial planning for the masses, I sort of said to myself, I should actually become certified financial planner, if I'm going to build this business. And so, nights and weekends, studied and crammed for this pretty big financial planning test. So yeah, certified financial planner and have written some books on the topic also. Amazing. So I want to remind all of our audience members before Alexa jumps into her presentation, which is about finance for founders, that you can submit your questions, and we're going to get to as many of them as possible. In fact, most of the session is dedicated to that. So please do listen up. Send us your questions right in the chat you slido. And we are going to pass those along to Alexa and get to as many of them as possible. With that.
I'm going to shut up. And I'm going to let Alexa, take it over. She's going to talk to us about finance for founders. Take it away, Alexa.
Awesome. Thanks, Jordan. So guys, I'm going to keep this relatively straightforward. And what I want to walk through so just my quick background, I dropped out of business school, you know, 2008, heard of the worst recession of 81 years, at that time, and myself founder was standing up learn bass. And I remember thinking to myself, it's so important that you actually think about your finances while you're building business. Because if you're really stressed out about your wallet, or you're putting yourself in extreme duress, too much credit card debt, whatever it may be, you're never going to run your business as well. And so what I'm going to walk you through right now is it six steps, plus really a seventh of what a certified financial planner would do, no matter who you are, but it's even more important if you're a founder, to actually just have a good hand handle around your finances, so that your personal financial situation is not, you know, completely stressing you out as you're taking this big risk to go stand up a business. So step one is really straightforward. It's about getting financially organized. And I say get digitally organized. What does this mean? So really straightforward here. Number one, know all your numbers know your net worth, which means what are your assets? What's your debt? You know, what is your total financial picture look like? Get everything online. So it's 2021, the internet is very much here to stay. As you know, everything should be online, you should have all the mobile apps downloaded so that in minutes, you can actually see your full financial life. And then finally, keep it simple. So fewer accounts is better. I always tell people, if you have seven credit cards, plus three savings accounts and too old for one case, that's a lot, you're never going to be as good at managing your finances. So simplify your accounts fewer is better. Next slide. I want to talk about credit because it really matters. so incredibly, simply. And your credit is it's a score between 308 150. And anything above 760 is excellent. Anything above 700 is good. Ideally, you always stay above 760. Really quickly, the best way to get your credit score is go to creditkarma.com. It's a free site, I actually had Ken Lynn, the founder on my podcast, he just sold it for about $8 billion really, really amazing way to check your your credit score. And then three things goes into your credit score. So it's really straightforward. Never miss a bill. Never ever miss a bill. That's obvious. Don't miss the bills that are online. It's the ones that are your doctor's bills that get mailed to you. It's bills, like parking tickets, things like that, that people tend to forget to pay that can hurt your credit score. So step one, never miss a bill. Step two, don't carry debt. If you can, you would pay off your credit card bill in full every single month. The biggest way to improve your credit score is just to actually have no debt. So never missed a payment. Ideally get your credit card, get everything down to zero. And then the final thing is don't close your oldest card. So you may say well, how do I know if my oldest card is you can go to a free government website annual credit report.com and download your statement. It's free once a year and you can actually see all of the lines of credit that are open in your name. So in a perfect world, you would have you would actually know about all the lines of credit open your name, but everybody is that random credit card that they opened in college or that they didn't know existed? Go lock, and then you can only close one a year. So don't if you find six extra, don't close them all. But the most important things, you want to keep your oldest line of credit open. And ideally, it's active, because it just gives a longer line of time that they've known you. And so don't close your oldest line of credit. In short credit scores are something really important. It allows you to take out loans, it allows you to get mortgages, it's really important for your long term financial picture. Next slide.
So after you've gotten your numbers, you got an organized you know, your credit score, everything's online, you can see all your accounts, you have fewer accounts, you don't have six, you know, 401k is sitting around, you've rolled them into one, etc, then we always say get focused, get a budget. And again, in a perfect world, there's a thing called the 50 2030 rule. So let's just pretend that you make $10,000 a month just to keep the numbers simple 50% or less, that would mean $5,000 or less goes to your Central's that's a roof over your head, it's your utility bills, it's groceries, because that's all you need to eat, to stay alive and then have transportation to and from your job, which right now I don't think anyone's going anywhere. But in normal life would mean your car gasoline or your you know, your your subway pass. So 50% or less would be what is essential to live important here 30 to 35% of the total amount would be your your mortgage or your rent. So that's 30 to 35%. That is a really important number it is that it's probably as a financial planner, you know, I still run a venture fund, but called inspired capital. But I still, you know, help my friends with their finances. And that's one of the first things I look at is if you have too much that you're paying in rent or mortgage, you never can actually save. So your rent in that $10,000 scenario would be 3000 to 3500 per month, that is your max budget. So that goes to their 20%, that middle bucket is to save for the future, just every month of that $10,000 that would hit a bank account. 2000 just goes into savings, it goes either into your 401k it goes to your kids 529 plans, if you have them goes to your own emergency savings account, whatever it may be, and then 30% or less is all the fun stuff. It's the did you go out to dinner? Did you order and food are you going you know, to limb you know, go to a wedding, whatever it may be shopping for yourself. So this is a budget, everybody needs one. And you know, if you're a founder out there, not only do you need one for yourself, you need one for the company as well. And so get really, really darn good at running your finances and understand it because this basically is the backbone of a company and you need to have it for yourself to make sure that you're financially Stable. Next slide.
So after we've gotten you financially organized, we've made a very thoughtful budget that again, has those good parameters of what can I afford, and what is a safe, good healthy budget look like. Then we go to Step three, we actually really invented and branded this, when we were building learn best. And it did my book, financially fearless, which was a New York Times bestseller, basically, the monopoly stack. And this is so all day long, people are like I should invest more to do these things. And we actually pause and say there's three things that you should do before you think about anything else. And we call it the monopoly step. Because if you can't do these three things, you really shouldn't pass go to do anything else. Here are the three number one, you need an emergency savings account that represents what you need, based on who you are. So if you're young, you're a founder, ideally, you have about six months of true just money in a boring, you know, very liquid emergency savings account very much earning very little right, number two, you'd have no credit card debt. And then the third is you'd be on track for retirement, I want to go back to the emergency savings. And I'll walk through each of these. So emergency savings, if you're young, and you're a founder, ideally six months, as you get older, if you're making over $100,000, as your CEO of your company is actually really starting to take off, you want nine months, because if you lost your job or something catastrophic happened, it takes a longer time to find a job, especially if you're a founder and a CEO. So ideally, you have nine months and then I'm sitting here have kids and married we mortgage. Ideally, at that point, you have 12 months. So that's liquid emergency savings. And that's the right amount for who you are. Next bucket is no credit card debt. I say this with no judgment. credit card debt is this thing that stresses everybody out. It's this thing that makes everybody feel ashamed when you have it. The average American right now has about $9,000 of credit card debt. But in a perfect world, you get this to zero because God forbid an emergency happened to you that credit card debts kind of grow really fast. And that's one of the reasons why people go bankrupt. And then the final thing is being on track for retirement. And what that means is you're contributing to a 401k and an IRA, and that is big numbers. You can contribute about 18,000 $19,000 to a 401k. You can contribute about $6,000 to an IRA and then combine that's about $25,000 each year you can put into your retire Most people can't do that. And if you're married, that's two people. That's about $50,000. And the benefit of that is it's long term growth. It's tax, you know, it's got tax benefits when you do it. So please, please, please, if you do anything from today, make sure you contribute more to retirement, it's one of the most important things you can do, especially as a young person, and especially as a founder. Next slide. And after we do those things, then we do the fun stuff. That's when we start to think about your future. So, you know, back in the day, when we were kind of back to the financial planning for people, we'd say, now you dream, what do you want? Do you want to buy a home? Are you renovating your kitchen? You want to go on a huge trip? are you saving for a child? Are you you want to put all your kids in college? Let's make very discreet goals. Make them extremely specific. So if you want to buy a home, it's like, all right. In one year, you want to buy a million dollar home and you need a $200,000 downpayment. Great. How much do you have today? You have 100,000 today? Okay, so we need $100,000 of savings over the next year? How do we actually get there, very clear plans for goals. And then you actually, you know, one of the tips that I love to do is actually have account and rename them. So you know, home fund, kids college, and it just it makes them really discreet, it makes it something that you really want to actually think about growing. So building for the future. The fun part is where you dream is where you tell a planner, what you want to go and accomplish and make district goals and then start saving for it. Next slide. Step five, is the most boring step in financial planning. And it's insurance. And one thing I'll just say, you know, I joked when I wrote my book, financially fearless, and I do this money talk for all of our founders and inspire capital. And something I love to do finance for founders. But one thing that's really important is right now you're building business, that's a lot of risk. It is so important. If If you ask me what is ideally step one in financial planning, it's insurance, actually, which is it's the most boring word in the English language, but everybody needs it. So here are the types of insurance you need based on who you are. But number one at all time, if you own a home, you have to have a mortgage or you have to have homeowners insurance, if you're renting, you should absolutely spend the $5 a month and get renter's insurance because God forbid everything in your home burns down tomorrow, you need to replace it all clothes, laptops a bed to sleep on, you'd have to pay for that out of your own pocket. And most people can't afford that $50,000 whatever the amount is. So homeowners or renters at all time health insurance at all time. One thing I'll say for founders, you're sitting there probably many of you are currently maybe not paying for health insurance. It is the number one reason why people go bankrupt is they have something catastrophic happened, and you go to the hospital, you want them to take proper care of you, you have to have health insurance, so it's worth paying for it. Then the next thing that you want to think about is once you're married, you want life insurance, God forbid something happens to your spouse, again, as morbid and depressing and is unfun this topic is what I tell people is do one of two things, either pour yourself a glass of wine, set aside an hour and just literally go online and get all the things you need done, be really straightforward about it. Or just set, you know, a Saturday afternoon in the morning, get a cup of coffee and rip the band aid off. But you want to make sure you have all of these types of insurance, so auto, etc. If you're a founder, and your company's getting more and more important, you want to make sure you think about umbrella insurance. It's just extra protection. Because you know, if you're out there, you know, building something really big. You want to make sure you have extra protection across your family. So again, very boring topic. But the one thing my mentor once said to me, she said, What if you want me to promise you'll never go bankrupt? And I was like, Yes, I would love to never go bankrupt, what do I need to do. And she just said at the right times, at all times, make sure the appropriate insurance because that's what protects you from something really catastrophic happening. And again, putting you at extreme risk next time.
After you've done step one through five, we then go to Step six. Next slide. This is where you invest. So if you still have extra money, after you've done all of those steps, then we talked about what do you do with it? And the way that we think about it is when do you need the money. So let's just pretend that after all of those steps, paying the premiums on insurance, doing all the things you need to to make sure you're contributing to retirement because that's really the first place you should be investing, then we open it up to just normal investing, and let's pretend you have $100,000 left, we then ask, do you need this in the next five years? And if the answer is no, then we say great. So it's called the rule of five if you need it in five years, you shouldn't dramatically have stock market exposure because God forbid, you know, March of last year happened and the money goes away. Or you know, drops 50% you want to be in a position where the money that you need, has longer timelines. And so again, that's the rule of five. And then I always love low cost things ETFs index funds, they're straightforward You can go by basket of the s&p and set it and forget it. And because you don't need it in five years, it doesn't matter if the market trades off today, or if it has a really bad two, three months. Again, you know, put the blinders on, set it up properly and move on. And the last thing that I absolutely love for everybody is find an expert. I'm sitting here Certified Financial Planner, I have a certified financial planner that I work with. And ideally, you're talking to that person at least once every quarter for an hour. It's just good financial hygiene, and and then they can sit down with you and actually come up with really thoughtful asset allocation and what are you trying to accomplish with your money? When do you think you need it, and what's the appropriate risk to take based on what your goals are. So again, the backbone of every good wallet is a really thoughtful financial plan that runs everything in order and takes risk when you can. And when you can't afford to take the risk you don't and that way you can guarantee you have the money and it's basically a big mathematical equation. Next slide. Really quickly, the purpose of this final slide I call it Step seven, is financial hygiene and your money, especially as a founder, you know, you're you have a lot of potentially hopefully, paper equity as your business gets more valuable. You need to stay up with it, you need to be current with it. And just like anything else, brushing your teeth twice a day, taking your vitamins, financial hygiene is really important. And I'm I always joke, I'm pretty lazy about my wallet, and that I set everything on auto reminders, I've got Google alerts to remind me when to do things when to check my credit score, when to check my annual credit report, when to have a money summit, I like to do it twice a year. But again, your your wallet takes just checking in on and once you create really thoughtful scaffolding. Jordan, this is my favorite thing about being a nerd about financial planning and investing in general, which is why I love venture. It's so easy to monitor and manage because everything is so tidy. And then you know, as money comes in, you can make decisions about when you need it Next, etc, etc. And it actually becomes really fun to manage it once you get really well organized. So again, it's a hygiene, it's not a you think about it once a year, and then you never think about it again. And you get to a place where you feel really organized. And I do believe a financial expert and working with somebody makes your life better. So with that, I would love to open it up to questions. One final thing, I'll just say, like, why am I sitting here doing this? I, you know, I now run inspired capital $200 million venture fund, I really care about America's wallet. And I really care, especially when you're a founder, you're taking so much risk. It's so stressful. And again, I built a business that I sold, you know, a few years ago. But keeping your finances really nice and thoughtfully tidy while you're running a business. It just takes one major stress off the plate, and you're already stressed enough. And so again, I love to do this just to pay it forward. And I'm happy to answer any questions that people may have.
Thank you so much, Alexa, that was a that was fantastic. So I'm just going to start from the top with the first question that came in this is from an anonymous audience member. They asked Is it true that keeping a bit of unpaid credit card bill like $100 can actually help your credit score increase? Because it shows that they can still make money off of you?
No, not at all. So not in any No, no great question. One of the reasons why I put that credit card that credit score slide in there is because there's so many myths out there of just complete nonsense around credit scores in general. And so here's exactly what you need to know about your credit score to keep it above that. 716 again, creditkarma.com free site I literally just had the founder Ken Lin, who I love and adore on my podcast. You at all times want to pay your bill it off every single month. In fact, if you really can you want to make if you are carrying debt, you want to pay it twice a month because the compound daily, so you want to carry no balance. All it is is you spending money. And keep in mind right now, Gordon that the best savings account in the country is barely even 1% credit card debt, the average right now is negative 17%. So you're earning barely 1% on savings, you're paying 17% interest on your credit card debt. It's very expensive is my point. So you want to pay it off in full all the time.
Wow, wait, so I'm gonna follow up on some of the credit stuff. So what about paying your credit card more than the monthly balance but somewhere in between the the monthly balance and the current balance? Does that make a difference?
In a perfect world, what you want to do is pay it off in full and what I mean by that so you get your credit card statement and you've spent $1,000 you pay a full $1,000 that's what you want to do. There may be a minimum where they're requiring you to pay a minimum of 300 you want to pay the full 1000 you want to pay every dollar that All right. And
yeah, so I think my question is like, let's say the the credit card statement goes from the first of the month to the 30th. Right. But the due date on July is August 16. So by August 16, we have more than just the amount that's due for July, we have what I've spent for that 16 days. Yep. If I don't pay somewhere in between those two numbers is not that make a difference in any way does not make a
difference what you're doing. No, you don't need to pre pay the next month bill is my point,
it doesn't make any difference doing
it doesn't make any difference, what you don't want to do is month to month carry balances where you have things that you bought in the past that you have not fully paid off, you want to pay off your bill in full every single month to the full amount. So that you are not carrying you don't want to be paying interest is the headline. And in a perfect world. Again, I say this with no judgment because credit card debts very toxic emotionally, it is one of those is one of the psychological reasons why a lot of people don't make a lot of progress on their wallet as they just are feeling really buried in credit card debt. So I say this with a lot of empathy, you want to pay it off in full every month, because it is a drug you get hooked on an addict, inexpensive drug for your wallet and hurt your credit score, it makes it so that you can actually do the 20% for the future and all of those other things. So in a perfect world, you have two credit cards, maybe three and you pay them all off in full every month.
Do you um, does it do are you generating interest between the 30th and the 17th. Let's say if that's when your due date is like, Alright, as long as you pay it by the due date in full for that month's balance, you're good to go.
Correct. And technically, there's some grace periods too. So if you like, waited a few extra days, you're not paying interest. But the goal is you want your money working for you not on behalf of the credit card company. Right. So all of those extra dollars, you know, being able to buy the equity in your company that you just found it that's more valuable thing to do for you. And again, like I'm here to support you, the founders to make sure that you keep more of your own money and grow it.
So before we go to the next question, I just wanted to ask Jason, who I think is in the chat. Could you put the the websites that Alexa mentioned into the chat for our founders, so I think one is Credit Karma? And then what was the other one where you can check?
annual credit? report.com
annual credit report.com?
Yep. And you're legally allowed to check it once a year, at any time through the year and it shows you everything that is attached to your social security number. Awesome.
Okay. Next question from our audience is from Diana Liddell. She says, What if you're already on track for retirement and older? 50? Plus, do you still max it out?
Yes. Absolutely. And so here's So first of all, Diana, specifically Roth, if you have a Roth IRA, it is one of the best vehicles. So if you're let's say you already have enough money for retirement, actually, keeping in a Roth IRA is one of the best vehicles to leave for your family members as an inheritance vehicle. So you always want to max out as much as you can, and particularly in Ross, so great question, Jordan.
Yeah, and then another one that kind of fits into that, which I actually had myself, why contribute to an IRA and a 401k. At the same time?
Well, so here's just the big headline, okay, so and if we sit down, and Jordan, I'm just gonna pretend I'm financial planning for you
will love that. So
my grandfather, his life expectancy, based on all of the data and science that existed at the time was supposed to be about 78. Luckily, he lived in his 80s. So that was wonderful. Our life expectancy, Jordan, and remember, I sold my business to Northwestern Mutual, which is a wonderful company. And when I was there, the life expectancy tables actually went out to 120, which is wild. But think about it. Just think about the last five years with DNA and science and everything we now know about our genes. And we're every year and this is almost a rental every year you live, you stand to live another year, which means every single year that goes forward, as science is exponentially getting better. You may live even longer. Here's the headline right now we're supposed to retire at I'm gonna round up 70. It's 6869. It changes a little bit every year as we live longer. You're supposed to retire at 70. But let's say you're gonna live to 105 to 35 years, you only work let's say from 25 to 70. That's 45 years. So in 45 years of working, you're supposed to be able to afford twice that for living. Think about it just big numbers. So the retirement numbers that we all need are terrifying. It's millions and millions and millions of dollars. And so if you don't start in your 20s and do the full max out which by the way the government incentivizes. You get tax deductions for doing so. First of all, that's just free money. If you don't do it, you're literally paying more taxes. So you want to do it. But that's why it's because and I keep joking. Do you remember when we were all little those commercials that were like, the more you know, and it was like the, you know, the public? Yeah, public service announcement. I keep joking. I don't know why there aren't commercials for the last decade being like, the more you know, you are the only human that will pay for your own retirement, you will get a little bit of security. But the numbers of what we need, as we get older are staggering. And, you know, maybe you still want to work after 70. But what if you're physically not able to what do you have dementia? What if something's happened, and you can't work? You don't want your children after pay for you? And so that's why it's so important.
Yeah, this probably says a lot from that person, but I don't want to be here till I'm 120. I mean, good for everyone that does, I'm really happy for you. Okay, another question from an anonymous audience member is getting life insurance important if your partner is wealthy?
Um, well, so a few things. One thing that people forget, is your often we think of our home as being our biggest asset. It's not even close. Your biggest asset is your on earned income stream. You're so you know, I'm sitting here in my 30s. And I love working Yeah, again, I run a venture fund. And if my partner were sitting next to me, if you ask what's our biggest asset for both of us our careers, it's our next 30 years of earning power that for sure is more valuable than my my home, hopefully, by 5x or more. So one, it's about it's, it's, you're about basically what you're doing is you're taking your biggest asset, and you're insuring it, because God forbid, something happens, that that money that you're going to have being left your children are taking care of your spouse is really important. The other thing is, there's a whole lot of tax benefits to insurance, you get to leave it to kids tax free a bunch of other reasons why it's valuable. So again, sit down with a certified financial planner to for that specific person who asked that question, to figure out what exact amount you should get. But for the most part, life insurance is a good idea, because it's your biggest asset actually, is your career.
So essentially, like no matter how wealthy your partner may be, it's money left on the table compared to the cost of life insurance. So why would you leave it on the table?
That's exactly Jordan. Beautifully said. You're like basically a financial planner.
It's almost like I'm a writer or something. Um, okay. Next question. How do you find a CFP? Just google it or find one through the network? Question, Mark?
Yeah, it's a great question. So first of all, a bunch of ways you can do it. One, there's this thing called Garret financial planning. So you can go online, and they literally have financial planners in your zip code. We live in zoom world. So I'm kind of like, it doesn't even matter where this person sits anymore. But ideally, it's somebody that you can meet with face to face, whether that means over zoom or in person, because you really want. Money is emotional. And so it's somebody you really want to vibe with. Because often it's not just the math, it's the emotional decisions, who do I prioritize? helping my parents financially helping my brother financially? Or, you know, my children? Like, those are the sorts of questions that people think about planning or I'm married? Do I need a prenup? How do I think it's important emotional decisions. And so you want somebody who's like, basically think of them as a brilliant money therapist, whose job is really to help you make good decisions. And so that's the first thing go to get financial planning. The other thing is, most big financial institutions have experts, I always say make sure that you ask for a certified financial planner, because it's basically the doctor of money. It's the highest degree in financial planning. And there's fiduciary standards. So the other thing, Gordon is you basically have a legal obligation when you're a certified financial planner, to the Board of financial planning to do what's right for the customer, or you lose your life. And so again, it's, I like it, because it not only it's an act human, so they are the most informed, you have to keep 30 hours of education per year to maintain it. So they're up to date. And then finally, you actually have in the same way that your doctors take an oath, you take an oath that you will always put your customer and the fiduciary standards of the person first. So that's why I really like the CFP.
So quick follow up. If you if you said that they help you make decisions, but I've talked to some I don't know if they're actually cfps or if they're just like, whatever else might be at fidelity or wherever else, but like, they don't help you make that they're like, Oh, yeah, here's information, but I can't help you make a decision. Do you know what I'm talking about where they're like, Oh, I can't actually tell you. If you should or shouldn't do this, I can only tell you what it is. Yeah, but then
you don't have the right person. So like the the right person sits down armed with the information. And further, they're not going to tell you like do you prioritize your child or your parent, what they are going to tell you is how the math works, where it's like, actually, you know, this is going to be mathematically more beneficial to the total package. They really are they are to give you the math and the financial decisions. But they're not going to tell you, you know, how do you split your will exactly right, they're not going to do those things. They're going to tell you the guidance. But they're really also there for when things get really emotional. So something dramatic happens to your family, or the markets trade off. 30% or you have a big windfall and make money. We also during those moments, say don't make a decision, you shouldn't make a big financial decision the day after you make a lot of money, you should actually sit around for a year. Think process. We never want you to make big financial decisions when you maybe are in like a an emotional state. Yeah, they're really there to be a good buffer and the best ones have great judgment.
Awesome. I know we're getting close to time Alexa, but we actually have a gap in the content on this stage. Do you have time for it looks like we have three more questions. Are you in a rush? Are you down to chill for a second?
Okay.
Another question. How
does student loan debt play into all of this, especially compared to credit card debt?
Great question. So just to like, give you a quick on how interest rates work quiz. So credit cards, negative 17% student debt, and again, I'm gonna round and you can state loans, government loans, federal loans, but let's just call it about 8%. So student debt is less expensive than credit card debt. And it's because not all debt is created equal. There's good debt and bad debt. And good debt is things like your mortgage, which is right now about 3%. Negative 3%. You're so good debt is basically your mortgage. And it's student debt. bad debt is car loans and credit card debt. And it's because there's no real asset underneath that. Everything you spend on a credit card is not an asset, it's food, it's your clothes, they've no value. It's a car, the day you buy it, it goes down in value. So those are that's, that's what we call bad debt. And good debt is your mortgage and your student loan. So people always ask I pay off my student loans first, and we're like, well, your student debt one doesn't hurt you as negatively with your credit score. And number two, it actually is okay to just pay the minimum. You can pay more if you have it. But often there's another place that those dollars should go first, like your 401k like an emergency savings account. So that's how I would answer that one. Gordon.
Got it up, Francis Lambert asked, Is it a good idea to hold founder stock in an S corp? For example, the S corp is the stockholder and the stock vest to the escort.
That one is a little complicated. And so what I would say for that question is a few things. One, I would make sure anything that has to do with your equity, especially depending on how much it's worth, it's worth zero, it's worth zero. But if it's worth millions and 10s of millions of dollars, talk to two people, you want to talk to a really, really good estate planner who's extremely good at USBs. That's qualified small business. That is the government designation that allows you to not pay taxes on a business under $50 million. And the second thing is an estate planner. So again, I wouldn't totally understand why you would put it in an S Corp. And so I would say for that specific question you really want to talk to two experts is estate planning and tax planning.
Got a question? Yeah. Last question. Rino teasdale says is there software you would recommend to plan the runway of SAS and do some financial projections? It's not necessarily in our finance for founders topic. But yeah, yeah. Well, so
what's amazing to me, actually, you know, learned that got acquired by Northwestern Mutual a few years ago for the pretty nice almost $400 million exit about 375. We built software for everyday people and for financial planning. That's what made us so unique. Actually, Northwestern Mutual now uses that software for their clients. So at one place I would just say where I know they have very, very, they just wonderful financial planning software. Unfortunately, learnpress was a really unique asset. There wasn't a lot of software out there to run your your wallet. And actually, you know, sitting carrot inspired capital, I'm an active venture investor, we invest in seed and series A around the country. I'm always if somebody out there wants to go build financial planning software for the future, please come talk to me it is a topic I'm super passionate about having already built it once lots of patents, you know, we're very, very, I'm looking for Jordan, the future self driving wallet because it will exist and again, software should run your wallet, and I can't wait for that day to happen. So the answer is, it doesn't exist right now and I really want it to so if anybody ever wants to build Come talk to me.
Awesome. Okay, well, that's gonna wrap our session today. Alexa, thank you so, so much. I know that our founders learned a lot. Thank you to the audience, and we'll see you at an session later. Thank you again. Jordan, you're the best. I
really appreciate it. This is a ton of fun. I hope this was helpful and valuable for everybody. Definitely.