Cody Barbo, Founder & CEO of Trust & Will | CEOs You Should Know

Cody Barbo, Founder & CEO of Trust & Will | CEOs You Should Know

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, This is Steve Dollason and thank you guys
for tuning into this week's edition of CEOs. You should
know I am joined by Cody Barbo, the founder and
CEO of Trust and Will.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Cody, thanks for being with us to that.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
It's a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thank you for having me excited.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
To jump in to talk a little bit about the company,
but as well as your background.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
So why don't we.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Jump right into it. Can you share with us to
kick things off a little bit about your background and
what really got you transition to where you are today?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah? Yeah, So I like to say I'm a dad
and husband first, entrepreneur second, but I live in Dallas, Texas,
been here for a couple of years of the family.
But I grew up West Coast grow up in California.
I grew up surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, various Socoli vibes like
my high school friends are listening to this today. But
I've grown and matured into a polished CEO. So I've
been an entrepreneur for the last thirteen years, onto my

(00:46):
third company, second venture back business, and currently the founder
and CEO of Trust and Well. We're an online estate
planning platform. So think of us like TurboTax for state planning.
Make it easy and affordable for everyday Thames.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Awesome, what guy aids to trust?

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, like, what made you think of that idea and
really kick it off from the ground up.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yes, I didn't think I'd be doing a state planning.
I'm not an attorney by trade, although I know a lot.
We've hired a lot of course the work that we do,
But really the inception for this business came from myself
and my two co founders, Daniel and Brian. We css
the elder millennials roll like thirty five to forty now,
married with kids, mortgages, aging, loved ones like very You know,
I think mirrors a lot of our network.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
And I'm right in that demographic.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, the elder millennial trive is strong. So when you know,
I was late twenties, I guess when we started the company,
but I was getting married and my wife and I
had talked about money a little bit. It's kind of,
you know, not the fun topic, but like money, taxes, insurance, Hey,
we shoul get a life insurance policy in case something
happens to each other and the estate planner at least
the will came up in conversation because she had lost

(01:49):
her dad very early on we had started dating, and
he didn't have an estate plan. He was never married
to the stepmom, so he had a house that had
to go through probate, a car collection, a guitar collection,
and I just watched the pain that it caused the
step mom and the two siblings and never felt like
it was my place to say anything. But at least
in our own life, if we're starting this journey together,
I felt like, well, we should have a say and
who looks after us if we're incapasciated or do you

(02:11):
want to be varied or cremated it? Or when we
do have kids, who looks after the kids? And naturally
you go talk to attorneys. They're charging three to five
grand is kind of the going rate, or you go
look for maybe a mediocre subpart online experience because trust
moll did not exist at the time, and legal Zoom
really was the only option that was reputable. And I
was like, how is no one doing this better, faster, cheaper,

(02:33):
great customer experience kind of like tripotechs And having talked
to Daniel Brian enough times, this is like the summer
fall of twenty seventeen. Okay, there's something here and I'll
pause there, but that's really the inception on a personal
level as to why I got into this business.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I think one of the most inspiring things is when
you have a personal connection to the business and it
sounds like your wife's experience kind of led you to
where you end of today, and.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
That experience is painful, and people really don't think about it,
and so it's too late in a lot of situations.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
And it's like for any listener that's listening to this,
like you were not alone. Like I think I'm smart
and fairly educated and have adult conversations now with my
friends versus like what barber comes on the weekends, and like,
this conversation never came up even in my own family,
because when I talked to my wife about it, even
outside my co founders Daniel Bryan, I also talked to
my own parents about it. I was like, I'm the

(03:23):
oldest of the siblings. I was like, Hey, why do
you guys have an estate plane number one too? Where
is it you have one? Where is it? It's in
a box in the garage? Why haven't you brought it up?
You're not getting any younger, and what's my role or
what's my brother's role in this thing? And reading through
it is fairly complex, like it's legal Laice language and
it's well designed, but like there wasn't like a spark
notes or a cliff notes in the front that an

(03:44):
everyday person could understand what's going to happen in dad's estate.
So these are just like I looked at it through
this kind of multi generational lens and they said, I
think this is most people that are going to do this.
It's like they're starting to get married and have kids,
or they're at the tail end of their life, they're
actually retired, maybe they've lost their own parents, and they're
actually having this kind of second guess of like what
happens to my legacy and what I do about it?

(04:05):
And there's just no affordable, well trusted options online going
back to twenty seventeen, and that's that's what got of started.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, until trust and Will came around. So you guys
are really kind of like the Challenger brand in the industry, right, Yeah,
something new and different and disruptive force. How do you
really motivate the team for that change, right, How do
you motivate being kind of like a first of the
market with this exact type of services. How have you
motivated the colleagues that you have your fellow co founders

(04:34):
to be able to keep going.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
I think you know on a very emotional and personal level,
most of our team is here because they've experienced the
negatives of a state planning. They lost a grandparents, watched
the riff amongst their parents and their siblings, or they've
lost a parent themselves and they're kind of going through
probate or in a state settlement with their siblings. Or
they've had a positive change in their life. They got married,
they bought a house, they've had their first child. Most

(04:56):
of our team is very tied and dedicated to our
mission to help every family leave a legacy because we're
able to deliver the same quality of services that an
attorney does for most families at a much lower cost
and a really high touch experience. You can go from
start to finish in thirty to forty five minutes all
on your own. We've got great kind of tutorials and
educational content, but if you want to talk to a
human being, we have a team of human beings behind

(05:17):
the scenes. Ashley and Mary Jason all help in our
families and even for those families that do want that
expert level experience that we have an attorney support option.
We have a network of attorneys that we work with
that really are just there to answer any specific questions
or scenario planning. Some people do have really strong wishes
to not let people get access to their state when
they pass they have kind of a fallout, or they

(05:40):
don't want their kids, Like we both have kids. We
don't want our kids to get everything at eighteen years old.
So you could put in age or life milestone based conditions.
And I love that it's up to you, the family
that major after paget is kind of going through this
process and setting up for your family to control it all.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Over the years, you guys had built a lot of
strategic partnerships. I saw a USAA AARP how those partnerships
and those different collaborations really impacted the business.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, so most of our business is still direct to consumers. Actually,
most people hear about us through TV. We're in national
television campaigns or they're searching for something to state planning related.
We've got seventy thousand keywords that will show up and
rank for so probably going back like four or five years,
that's when our first couple of partnerships and distribution partners
started to turn on, and now it makes up a
third of the business. So we work with over two

(06:26):
hundred institutions, large banks, credit unions, fintech companies, credit card providers,
even distributing through FINA improvisers, and what they're doing is
again educating their members on the importance of state planning.
Most of our partners have some sort of exclusive deal
where it's either a discount or it's complementary estate plan
because you're a customer of that business. And these are
household names to your point, it's Ubs, American Express, Northwestern Mutual,

(06:50):
fifth Third Bank so far, Navy, Federal, USAA, and I
can go on and on, and every single one of
these organizations reaches just a much broader audience than we
could as a younger companies. So we're really grateful that
partnerships and these companies have chosen trust themle as their
trusted partner, and that we've really proved oubt that it's
a great channel for us. Like actually see our business
over the next two to three years, becoming more b

(07:11):
to be focused than our direct's efforts and moving the
needle for us.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, and I can imagine obviously trust is a big
part of it, Right, you want to trust to your
estate planning with I would imagine that word of mouths.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Also probably very helpful.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Like if I decided to use trust the will, I
probably tell one of my friends that maybe we didn't have.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
A state plan and I'm sure that helps, Like the
business keep going.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, it's we Without getting too detail on the data,
we every quarter one of our partner agencies gives us
like a share of voice brand awareness update and like
we went from like literally being a nobody when we
started a Trevie to now we've had over a million
registered accounts in all fifty states, pretty substantial, and we're
still small, Like I still think we're small, even though

(07:52):
we've grown the brand to where it is today and
we're getting close to like truly being the market leader
for a brand perspective. And that's kind of the intention
behind the name Trust and Will is like it's in
our name, what we do is in our name, so
people kind of remember us. Always try to wear the
logo or the branding what I'm out about and we haven't.
We don't post enough about it. We have a wrapped

(08:13):
cyber truck that drives up and down south the California
at all the pro sports events and it gets a
ton of great sightings. We've got some pro sports teams
and athletes that we do now to be great advocates
for our business.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Makes total sense.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, speaking of the workplace, right, you guys also were
recently awarded Best Workplace Award through INC. What are some
of the factors that you know? You talked a lot
about your team, and I could tell how prideful you
are of the different members of your team. How have
you created a positive, really great working environment for them.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
I've had the pleasure of being in leadership positions going
all the way back to college, and it was almost
like trained by default, like over index on culture and
then let the strategy and goals and key objectives kind
of follow that secutor there's a famous quote culture strategy
for Breakfast and in the early days of the business,
this is pre pandemic, right, the first two three years
we were a very small team, like originally it was

(09:02):
five people and then we were seven people. We're up
to sixteen people in one office before the pandemic hid,
and we were very intentional about every single day. We
have our daily stand up and we'd say what we're
working on that day, but also something that we're grateful for.
So this gratitude practice has been in our culture from
the start. In fact, actually open up our board meetings
with it and it might take fifteen twenty minutes, but

(09:24):
it's like life's too short. Especially in our business, we
see and think about death quite often, so gratitude is
a key kind of component of that. But the other
one too, is like even though we were digital, we're
tech enabled, you could go through the whole process without
talking to anybody, Like there's still people behind the scenes
that are building this that really care about it. And
one of our we call it our beliefs and actions
at the company, but it's stand in our member's shoes.

(09:46):
I'm very humbled by how far we've come in the
last seven years. And almost every day I kid you not, like,
do you have an a state plan yourself? Steve?

Speaker 1 (09:53):
I do, and I got it right when my web
was pregnant. So it kind of got on to that
consumer journey you talked about.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
So almost every day, someone from our network, whether it's
a stranger literally on social media, or a friend from
college or high school, or we did a business deal,
they used a product and they tell me, and I'm seeking,
you know, constructive critical feedback. They generally have positive things
to say, and that's mirrored in our pilot reviews. So
it feels really good. So from the very start, like

(10:19):
we just got like care of customer. It's what we
call them members. We're like, what's what's a fancier word
than customer, It's called members, to really make them feel
like they have this lifelong relationship with us. And I
feel like that has shaped a lot of our culture
over the last seven years, where we over indexed on
benefits and even during the pandemic, like once or twice
year we did company wide meetups fly Everybody's because we've
got eighty five folks remote in twenty plus states now

(10:43):
and no those are multiple six figure expenditures to bring
everybody together, but to have it together in person, it
really makes it special. And I just it's something that
I was very prideful of. Last year, we got to
do our first family weekend where I actually said we're
not doing work. Bring your parents, bring your siblings, bring
your spouses and partners, bringing the kids. And we did
a full weekend in San Diego filled with activities.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Hopefully gives people peace of mind that it's a good
place to work beyond just feeling proud of the work
they're doing for the customers.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
So I think it's a great combination.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
It sounds like a great place to work, great culture,
but also you guys are doing good every single day
and that must be a nice way to wake up
and go to work.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, well, in a.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
High growth business too, Like we've been doubling the business
every year. We have ambitions to go from where we
are today kind of a growth stage private company to
a public company over the next three plus years. So
if we're going to do that, we need super talented
people that they have to work hard. I mean, it's
still workplace, and like we're a near profitable business. We're
two years in a row in the Ink five thousand
list as well, one of the fastest growing companies in
the country. So we have high achievers that want to

(11:43):
advance in their career, make a lot of money. But
they're also here for the mission, and they're here for
the people they work with. And like, it was really
sweet last night one of even some of our former colleagues,
you know, we call them alumni now, they did like
a trivia night at a local bar in San Diego,
and I like it brought U smile on my face
to see that on our slack.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
That's awesome. Yeah, that's great here.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well, in additional culture, I know inclusion is one of
the core values of trust as well. And I know
that you guys have been interesting issues like racial wealth
gap and limited legal access. What steps are you taking
to make sure that estate planning is inclusive for all?

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Yeah, So from the start of the company, this is
something that is We designed the documents, so we hired
an attorney straight out of the gates. Scar were three
Bunters who are not a state attorney. So one of
our first employees in a state attorney. We've hired multiple
in the seven year journey, but we'd had multiple attorneys
outside of just the guy on our team who did it,
review these documents to make sure they're inclusive of same

(12:38):
sex couples, of good qu et cetera. And it was
important to us from the start, and we were just
in California and Texas. That was it, just those two states.
So then we expand all fifty states. How do you
create an encompassing the state planning structure for people different
lifestyles and family dynamics, especially with blended families being so
common in this country. So as I start with this
example in my response to your question, one of the
things that became a little more top of mind for

(12:59):
us was B corp. How do we go over and
above and have extra layers of accountability from an external organization?
So b Labs is an organization that helps companies become
certified B corps and eventually transition to a public benefit corporation.
A year and a half ago, I think by time
is right, we became a B corp. We've been working
on it for several years and it indexes all of
these components into a point structure that is very very

(13:22):
hard to get to even the bare minimum to become
a B corp, and we I think exceeded by fifteen
to twenty points on the B CORP scoring scale. So
what we outside of the documents themselves, We've had probably
a dozen nonprofit organizations that we've worked with where we're
bringing folks in as guest speakers to our team. And
this is across departments. This is product and engineering, this
is our sales teams, our support team being exposed to

(13:44):
people of different backgrounds and economic statuses, because we want
them to think that this isn't a product for really
rich people, like they're going to go to the attorney,
They'll be just fine. What we were most concerned with
when we started the company is sixty percent of the
population doesn't have this, and enjoying that population is the
communities of color that have no financial education in this country.
So we've got a bunch of organizations like the Center

(14:05):
for Airs, Property, Financial, Joy School and others that we've
contributed quite a bit of money to, which is not
you know, maybe our board and investors don't care that
much about it, but we as a team do.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
And because we're like, look, if we want to reach
the broadest swath of customers possible, this is where we
have to make investments in order to get those audiences
to our website, to use our product and to think
through their lens, their lifestyle, their family. I live in
a mixed neighborhood here in Dallas, and it just gives
me great perspective as a CEO at this stage of
the business to not forget about that, and that comes

(14:37):
up often at this point. Now, like we've matured as
a business, we have an executive team, so I'm thinking
through like inclusion from a board level. We have two
females on our board, which is unusual for a growth
stage private startup. Looking through our executive team, we have
women on our executive team including C suite, and then
I think we're about forty percent women or women identifying
across the company. And one thing that's I think been

(14:58):
a positive for us is geographically, because we're a remote
first company. Geographically, it's given us diversity of thought, which
sometimes you get kind of siloed in the like either
the you know, kind of California Silicon Valley thinking or
maybe it's New York level thinking. Not in a bad way,
but when you have folks across twenty states, you just
get a depth of perspective that you don't always get
if you're just in one of the two key tech markets.

(15:20):
I've enjoyed that about growing the team as well.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
No one hundred percent, especially for a startup, and especially
since obviously state planning could impact everyone, right, so it's
not just for one different demographics. I think inclusion is
a great mindset to have that's very happy.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
I give a very specific example. We just hired a
see it though and he is a white guy, which like, okay,
it's like most I was like, even like the recruitment process,
like we need females in our CFO pipeline to have
diversity of candidates, which we had many, but the guy
that ended up hiring in his past three companies have
all been decort so I was like, this guy is.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
Going to hopefully he starts in a week, hopefully he
listens to this, but he're like, he'll give me budget
to focus on inclusion and our de corp efforts converting
to a public benefit corporation, Like you don't always get
that from a CFO.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
And that was one of the things that stood out
to me about this gentleman and really really grateful to
have him during that team. And he wanted to work
for us because they're the de corpse.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
It was win win win win.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Sounds congrafts of the higher sounds like he'll be a
great addition to the team. I know obviously going through
it myself, I know probably one of the things that
people always worry about when it comes to state planning
is their security and safety of the plan. Right, how
would you guys really taking that on like the print,
some consumer data and what makes it unique with your
trust them?

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Well, yeah, so security has been top of mind from
the start, especially when we were literally a nobody, like,
or how do we get people to trust us? We're
the small brands, so I mean, like no joke. The
first year the business was basically Daniel, Brian and I
reached out to all of our friends from college who
were like hit in early thirties starting their families, were like, hey,
please try our product, and like, there's only five of
us in the single office at a co working space. We're

(16:52):
all QA testing and doing customer support. So like any
bug or hip hot hiccup was going like directly through
the founders, through our attorney that we had on staff,
or the one engineer that we had, and once we
started to have the partner level conversations, that's when we
knew the sock to security so SOTALC one Type two
security compliance. We had to go through this whole motion.

(17:13):
We've got a super robust security committee on our team.
Now we have a lot of data. It's not we
don't collect PI like we don't need social security or
your credit card logins or checking accounts, YadA YadA. But
we've over indexed launch on security, privacy, trust and safety.
So actually go to trust dot trust the mole dot
com if you care too. We have all of our
compliance and security protocols pretty robust for a company at

(17:36):
our size and stage, and that's why we have over
two hundred institutional partners as big as American Express ubs.
These are the world's largest financial institutions that are We're
going through their compliance and they're still giving us thumbs out.
There's great.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, I mean it gives the consumer a peace of
minds and also it kind of goes back to a
sample right, the trust factor and making sure that the
consumer could trust you guys with their information.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Exactly we have. I think the trust dot trust all
dot com is more for partners for consumers. If you
go to trust will dot com, I think h'its slash
privacy or slash security. You'll see kind of our more
consumer friendly language around our privacy and security protocols perfect.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
We had a lot of success in the time that
you guys have launched, but I'm sure along the way
there might have been some challenges. What were some challenges
that you guys faced over the last seven years and
how did you guys overcome those?

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, in the early days, you know, the first two years,
like we hit a million dollar run rate basically, you know,
a year and a half into the business, but like
you don't know if you're going to make any money,
Like the first year we've made no money, so we
like we're just riding on a little bit of investor
money that we've raised and we're a small team. And
then we hit a million dollar run rate. Investors took
us more seriously, raise a bit more capital, including our

(18:45):
first strategic on the cap table was Fifth Third Bank.
They were ten largest in the countries. That was a
good validation for us, and that was one of our
first marque partners that've launched. Fifth third Bank, you know,
drove a considerable amount of revenue for us at the
time and trusted us, and they had millions of customers,
and I think that was when we started to know
that we had something here. We're like Okay, we can
still do our d TOC business, but we can start

(19:05):
to diversify our revenue mix with these partnerships and banks
and credit unions, et cetera. And we started to over
index some hires and my personal time in this direction
and it led to the creation of our advisor channel.
So we have a product that we built for financial
advisors that I think we have about fourteen fifteen thousand
that you use this tool today that helped their clients

(19:25):
create a steam plans and it gives the advisor visibility.
So you know, it's like when we think something's working,
Like in the early days we had backwards unit economics,
we didn't have a million dollar run rate. We just
didn't know if we'd made it, and then the business
started a double each year, we go from a million
to two five, two five to six, six to eleven,
and we've gone and skilled far beyond that. Today I'm trying.
I'm probably not supposed to share revenue, but we've you

(19:46):
can do the map if you look at our INK
five thousand ranking this year. But the point being is
like we're at a near profitable, you know, business at
a meaningful eight figure run rate. So today I'm just
worried about the business failing. Now I'm thinking of like, well,
can we ipo in three plus years or is this
an acquisition of a large institution coming in. So the
challenges I think have been in the early days, this

(20:08):
isn't going to work at all. And then kind of
like years four and five were like, can we break
past this ten million dollars runway, which is so hard
to do for any business, And we break through that,
we see a little bit more line as sight on
a path profitability, even though we knew that if we
raised more capital, which we did, that it would be
funded out another year or two. And then this last
year was probably the most interesting. It was actually like

(20:28):
leveling up the executive team. We had a bunch of leaders,
probably almost all my age and level of experience, like
ten to fifteen years into our career. Super amazing people.
But this is the furthest we've all made it. Now
we're at the point where like we can't have like
ten people who are driving the whole business like and
the unknown unknowns. We're like many people who have experienced
that have done this two or three times four. So

(20:48):
we leveled up some folks brought in a couple vps,
a couple c suite and rounding off this executive hiring
kind of tour with a CFO who's going to start
next next week. And I don't think i've heard the noise
on that that's my best for the team in the back.
That's my It's called a vest of board. It's like
an ould timey train.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
I was wondering what it was. It looked like real
fortune back there.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, I'll be my ban hoole height on the next
the next episode. But it's it's really cool when you're
not recording podcasts. I'll leave it. I'll go back. So
the big upgrade or the challenge we're working through this
last whole months is leveling up an executive team. So
VP's sea level hires, and I think it actually levels
up Daniel and I as as CEO and COO that
we're you know, mid mid to late thirties and this

(21:33):
is the furthest we've made it. But we've got a
team that is ten fifteen years our senior around us
now that is working just as hard as very incentivized
both compensation like cash compensation and equity to make this
business work all the way through an IPO, and our
board believes in us. Now we've got more interest from
investors than we've ever had before. So the question we
ask ourselves now the challenge really is can we become
the largest estate planning company in the country over the

(21:55):
next twelve to eighteen months because we know the revenue
target we need to get after that to be true.
And can we be the first public trust in the
state company in the country. That's like kind of next
shen modern, not like the old guard, because you like
the old school trust companies like Stage Interest, et cetera.
They're great, But that's that's the challenges that we've worked through. Remote.
Being remote is super challenge. You have to be so
intentional too about everything you do and say, and sometimes

(22:19):
it feels a little too formal when you're like, let's
book a call Steve to like give you feedback versus
like walk going on a walk around the corner. It's
just it's more intentional, but I think it always comes
from a good place. And yeah, trying to meet with
the team in person more often, in our investors more often,
which helps now that we're fully past the pandemic, get
to see people in person as really nice.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
So that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
Well, it sounds like there's a lot of exciting things
in the future for you guys. That's that's great, So
congrats on the current success, but also looking forward to
seeing what you guys would do in the very near
future too.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
So let's talk about you as an individual for a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
I know that you are on various boards, you do
a lot of volunteer work.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
How do you balance it all? How do you balance
being the CEO and.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Still being able to give back obviously as a dad
as well and a husband in addition to all those
different roles.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
I think being being a dad more so than even
just being a husband, Like it humbles you in a
lot of ways. You're not as school as you think
you are, not as fancy as you think you are.
You know, like you're his dad. So like I've literally
been in a board call virtual in my home office
at the time three year old now four year old
comes in middle of the board meting just says Dad,
I pooped, Like nothing more humble them in that. But

(23:30):
I love being a dad and even with the demands
of a high growth business, like I think most of
the team, we're pretty encouraging this with our colleagues. It's
like be family first, Like if your kids sick, just
go be mom or dad. Like if you have a
health scare, mom and dad is a health scare, like
go be there for them, like they may not be
here too long. And we've always been generous in that regard.
We have a semi mandatory friends and Family day every month.

(23:52):
Take one day off for a month, just don't work.
Some employees take full advantage of it, others don't, which
is fine. And then we take off three I forgive
me four times per year, three days leading into a
typically holiday weekends to get like basically like a month
off from work. Thanksgiving week, we do a spring break,
we do summer break, and then naturally winter break. But

(24:13):
I think it's like in this high demand world, like
you need to hit that reset button, and like if
people can feel a little bit of a refresh coming
back from a three to five day weekend, hopefully they
feel more motivated to grind, work hard, be a productive
employee here. And I feel that way too, Like even
like I came off leave two weeks ago, it was
gone for six weeks, Like when I had my daughter,
it took four weeks, but I'm still checking in with

(24:34):
Daniel every day because pretty much I was like self
conscious because I came back in six weeks and I
like kind of didn't know what was going on. I
had to like play catch up for like a week
or so, reading through a ton of Google docs, doing
meetings with the team, meeting with Daniel, my co founder,
and like everything was working. I was like, wow, I'm
not neat. I felt like not needed, which is a
horrible feeling, and I was like, am I replaceable? But

(24:55):
it was maybe proud. I was like, we hired the
right people. So I love that we can provide an
environment for our team to take time off whether they
have a life event good or bad, and be productive
and have growth opportunities here. So yeah, I love being
dad and husband Personally. Working Out, I think is probably
my like sanity check. Like I try to work out
almost every day. I've got a full setup in the garage.

(25:16):
I like to lift heavyweights, vacasions to the gym. I'm
like trying to be like, you know, some big macho man,
but like it just like more for the mental benefit
than the physical gains. As my happy place every day.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Perfect well, for those that are listening in that maybe
are inspiring entrepreneurs or they want to create a startup.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
What advice would you give them?

Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah, this is all I've known like thirteen years, and
you know, for what it's worked like. It's not glamorous,
it's it's hard, it's lonely. You don't really make money
until the end, and that's if you're successful. So you know,
most people that you know want to be an entrepreneur.
I'm like, go save up a nest egg for like
six to twelve months. It covers your full expenses personally,

(25:58):
or if you have a family of wife and kids,
mortgage like six to twelve months and take the leap
of faith because the ultimate test is just going all
in on it immediately quick because you have that financial
cushion of six to twelve months, go all in because
if you can't move the needle in six to twelve months,
it's just not meant to be. And that's okay. Maybe
it's not that business, Maybe it's the next business. Because
my first business, I spent two years of my life,
forty thousand ish of my savings to try and make

(26:20):
it work with the co founder and it didn't work,
and we gave up, and it felt really shitty to
give up on something that we cared so much about.
And I've just seen inklings of that business. You know,
I'm thirteen years later and I'm like, I still like, oh,
that would work now today, or I know how to
do I would know how to do that business better
today than I did then. But I was young. I
was the early twenties. Yeah, it's like a business. This
is you know, over a decade ago. We raised a

(26:42):
couple of million bucks, so we had a little bit
of a checkbox, like okay, I got salary, a little
bit of financial cushion. We had a team twenty five people,
pretty good scene team size for a small startup. And
it was in the hospitality space. It just got to
meet with like the coolest people chefs, bartenders, you know,
hospitality managers, people that like like that fun. And I
didn't get to see that journey through It was like

(27:03):
almost four years of my life. I didn't get to
see that business through an exit. And you know, I
had a choice to make. This is like a June
of twenty seventeen, I was like, do I go get
a job somewhere or do I be crazy and true
to myself and just go do it again. So it's
like six weeks of a gap of no longer with
the previous startup to starting Trust to Mill with Daniel

(27:23):
and Brian and I just I don't know that it's
all I know at this point. So my encouragement is like,
you have to just do it, and you have to
kick fear in the face. If you're you have all
to voice in the back of your head controlling your destiny,
you're not going to be successful. And you got to
be a little crazy. So you know, I encourage the
crazies to like go pursue your startup idea because if
you get the right people excited about it, whether it's team, investors,

(27:45):
but most importantly customers, you know you have something cooking there.
And that's where I can I can look back seven
years now and trust a Mill, but thirteen years in total,
feel very proud of the long journey that it's been,
knowing that there's no end. There's no end to business.
The business if successful, should outlive you and hope you're
proud of it into the afterlife.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Well, I'm sure you learned from the first two experiences
too as you went into the third right.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yeah, I don't miss those days for what it's for.
I don't miss Thus I was broke.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
But paid off. It paid off.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, it paid off.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being
with us today.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
For those listeners that are tuning in and now all
of a sudden are thinking of steat planning, how can
they find out more about trust and Will?

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, trustinwill dot com ring us off the tongue there.
We make it easy and affordable. If you chat with
our team, let them know you listen to Cody on
the pod, and we'd love to take great care of you.
Or if you have a parent or a family member
that's in need of it, or a friend you're just
out a baby, we'd love to take care of you.
We're easy for all. Think turnottach for state planning.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Perfect.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Well, Cody, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for sharing your story. Thanks, thank you for
telling us more about trust and Will and all the
great services that you guys offered.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
We really appreciate you joining us pleasure. Thank you awesome.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Thank you guys for tuning in. Tune in next week
for next week's edition of CEOs.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
You Should Know