#79 with Alexa von Tobel - From Dropping Out of Business School to a $375M Exit

Alexa, thanks for joining us uh on the podcast today. So we have special guest. Uh I'll let you do your intro because I really am terrible at introductions. But for those who don't know, what was Learnvest? Uh give us kinda like your your maybe two or three minute uh background so that people know who you are. Sure, I think so. Um I'll start from the beginning. I grew up in Florida, uh, and when I

Always been an entrepreneur, love entrepreneurs, love building companies. Um, went to Harvard undergrad and uh studied happiness, uh, which I I always mention because I actually think somehow it's been very helpful to to life. Um, ended up I uh going back to business school there, dropped out, bottom of the worst recession and originally eighty one years. Now I feel like this may be a uh our own COVID moment is is becoming obviously something that's worrisome. Um but I built a financial planning software company called Learn Vest with a really simple mission which was uh so Learn Vest became TurboTax for financial planning. So literally every American family for an affordable price, get get access to a financial plan and an advisor. Um and on our fifth birthday, uh on March twenty fifth of twenty fifteen, um sold the business to Northwestern Mutual for about three hundred and seventy five million dollars. Um, and then uh spent the next few years uh as part of that business uh at North Russian Mutual and through it all of that, wrote some books, uh best selling book uh uh called Financially Fearless and then Financially Forward. about the future of your wallet and I'm just a diehard entrepreneur. I love entrepreneurs and I love to build businesses and so now I'm the managing partner I run.

a two hundred million dollar venture fund called Inspired Capital, uh, which is headquartered in New York City and we pay it for it and we invest in seed and series A entrepreneurs of tomorrow building big ideas. Uh so it's really fun to get to have done both and um now I'm on the investing side. And that's me and I'm married. I live in New York City. I have three beautiful little babies, uh a five year old, a two year old, and a one year old, which means I'm completely crazy. Um, but that's who I am. Wow. Impressive. You're not in New York City right now. I see are you? I see greenery. No, I'm not. I'm which um no, so uh have been in Florida, um uh I'm actually sitting in my like high school bedroom, um which is which is uh bringing it all back full circle.

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