MONEY SYSTEM - after the exit from several $million Amazon Business

[Scott Fleming]

Hello Community,

I posted a thread before about the sale of my Amazon business for several $million:

Sold business for several $million - now a family business?

Over the past couple of months I have met numerous "Wealth Management" firms, but so far something in my gut is stopping me moving forward with any of them. For my risk profile, their typical returns offered is around 7.5% which may at first sound (slightly better than only just acceptable). But when you remove say 3% for inflation and 1.5%+ for their costs you are left with 3% real growth at best! Taxes will erode that further...

For the past 5yrs I have invested with Charles Schwab and my returns over the past 5yrs have been 11.8%/yr (until the market correction back end on 2018 which dropped that to 6.8%/yr). There is one big position that performed very well (EBIX) and had that not done so, the performance would be a lot weaker.

My plan was to park £2,000,000 with a Wealth Management company which would be my "FREEDOM" pot that offers security that I never have to work again. I actually did not predict how stressful getting money can be... There is so many options that come up - Real Estate (too tying for me); Value Investing yourself (much bigger time commitment by me); Offloading to a Wealth Management firm (pitiful returns); investing in start-ups with 'potential' high returns....also losses (too high risk given I need to protect my freedom pot now); then the numerous financial advisers all offering completely different advice. The world is your Oyster, but the choice is too vast!

I plan to read the "Money System" part of UNSCRIPTED again - maybe ETF's, Mutual Funds etc. could be a cheaper yet relatively safe way to move forward? USA market is well known to be significantly overvalued just now so investing in "general" tracker funds could be slightly risky short term?

I plan to do a Ayahuasca trip in Peru in May and am booked into a Vipassana 10-day meditation retreat in Sri Lanka in July. I am hoping I get some light on the way forward after these. As you will see from my first post, I have 3 young sons (16, 18, 20) all wanting to go down the Entrepreneur route and I want to start a new business (with a crazy exit valuation massively more than the one I just sold - which went for $3.5m). The next business obviously must fit the CENTS framework and add massive value, but this time rather than a sexy product that "I" like where I seen a market opportunity, I want it to be fully aligned to my true purpose (hence the Ayahuasca retreat).

Right now, my head is NOT clear on how to move forward so unlike me, I plan to sit tight for a few months until I feel more clear on how to invest my money. I live in the UK so the BREXIT uncertainly is not helping (considering a lot of my money will go in the UK stock market).

Anyone else sold their business and found the same gridlock I am facing? How did you get past it - crazy I ran a very successful business and now i find myself as the proverbial rabbit-in-the-headlights

MJ - any advice you can offer on this? Did you feel similar when you made your first exit?

Thanks for any input

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

On my first exit I promptly invested the money in the stock market and lost almost half of it.

Never again.

My thoughts on it are to be self-directed, self-invested, and in instruments that pay immediate returns/dividends/income/interest. The goal is to beat inflation while also getting a paycheck on top of it.

The Chapter in Unscripted outlines my philosophy in detail.

There's nothing wrong with having a lot of money in cash or money markets. 1.5% is better than losing 10% in the market.

Congrats on the exit!!!!

 

[ZF Lee]

My thoughts on it are to be self-directed, self-invested, and in instruments that pay immediate returns/dividends/income/interest. The goal is to beat inflation while also getting a paycheck on top of it.

Hahaha.

I'm studying my first intro to finance subjects in uni.

Now I understand what you meant when you said, 'the money system is a business of money'.

The PV and FV calculations just look really evil though.

Not the working or the math. The reality behind the numbers.
If one doesn't know what's what, they might have sunk their money even though the investment could have been profitable.