Jesse Hires Mark, and the Inevitability of Change
Beginning Balance
Jesse shares his experience working on the YNAB books for the first time in many years, while YNAB's head accountant is out of maternity leave. Working through monthly and quarterly close got him thinking about how software automation could free up the accounting departments time wrangling spreadsheets to do more impactful work for the business. To that end, he engaged Mark to consult on how YNAB can improve their accounting processes. Mark and Jesse continue with a discussion about the inevitability of change, and how employees and companies can position themselves to handle the...
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Jesse Introduces Spendfulness
Beginning Balance
Recently YNAB announced a major shake up in the way it talks about money. Jesse explains how the realization that each of YNAB's Four Rules was really just a variation of Rule One ("give every dollar a job") led to a deeper conversation about YNAB's core identity. Every year when the executive team met to reasses the company's purpose and direction, the team would change the stated purpose of the company. It became clear that YNAB wasn't a budgeting app, and it wasn't a set of rules for managing money -- there was some self-actualization happening in users that wasn't being captured by the way...
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Distractions, Anxious Activity, and Finding Focus
Beginning Balance
Mark and Jesse discuss the pervasive distractions that cell phones and computers cause, and how to fight back against them. Jesse champions the app blocker, which locks your phone or other device from distracting websites like social media, YouTube, blogs, etc. Since implementing Freedom, he boasts a phone usage time of only 20min per day (!), working toward his stated goal of "making the phone in my pocket feel weird." Mark questions his propensity to continually start new ventures as part of an anxious reaction to having free time. He realizes that creating leverage in your business...
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Bitcoin, Depreciation, and the Most Important Price in the World
Beginning Balance
Mark and Jesse kick off the New Year with a deep discussion on inflation and how it creates confusion about the most important price of all -- the price of money. Mark Butler The Money School: Jesse Mecham YNAB
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Why You Should be Collaborating
Beginning Balance
Following up on Mark's admission that he dreads collaboration, whether it's with peers or employees, Jesse discusses one way the leadership team at YNAB has fostered collaboration. They call it the strategic council, and it's a two(ish) day meeting with all the functions at YNAB presenting the challenges and opportunities for growth in each function. The meeting is tightly structured, with desginated time slots for each team to present and field questions. This is critical to keep things moving and keep the focus on getting started with solving problems. It's not a time to fully solve...
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Diet Coke, Listeners Chime In, and UBI
Beginning Balance
In today's episode Mark explains what makes the perfect diet coke, and Jesse opens his inbox and reads some comments and questions from Beginning Balance listeners, including tips for improving business leadership skills, how to keep track of all your ideas, and why studies can be highly misleading. Mark and Jesse also address a question about UBI, or universal basic income, and bring up Mark's old standby phrase: "incentives are undefeated." Mark Butler The Money School: Jesse Mecham YNAB
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Doing Scary Stuff for Personal Growth
Beginning Balance
Jesse kicks off the episode talking about one of his new endeavours, Ultraspeaking, an effort to double down on one of his biggest strengths: public speaking. This leads to a conversation about embracing your strengths, the things that feed your working genius (see episode #102), rather than trying to build up your weaknesses. Mark shares his comfort speaking in front of audiences, and his fear... of not feeling fear anymore. In many cases, fear is an indicator that you're about to do something that will help you grow. The scary stuff, in other words, is probably the stuff you should be doing...
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Slippery Slopes: Economics, College Degrees, and Questionable Credentials
Beginning Balance
Mark and Jesse are back after a short break with a discussion about slippery slopes... real and imagined. Jesse delivers an epic rant on the uselessness of economists, while Mark talks about his hesistance applying for graduate school in order to obtain the Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist credential. Mark presents his dillema: he wants the credential to "reduce friction" for clients when other service providers refer him (say, a divorce attorney that refers Mark to a couple for marraige counseling before going down the path of divorce). Calling yourself a family and marriage...
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From Barista to Billionaire (Mo' Money, Same Problems)
Beginning Balance
Mark and Jesse discuss their most recent read, by Andrew Wilkinson, a one-time barista and co-founder of Tiny, a holding company that buys and holds businesses for the long-term (like Berkshire Hathaway). At the age of 36, Wilkinson found himself owner of a company worth over a billion dollars, and in a new stratosphere of wealth he had never experienced before. What he found, though, was that the same problems which pervade life in the lower economic classes are still there in the upper crust. The presentation of the problems are different, sure (the middle class aren't generally obssessed...
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Gardening, Compost, and Business Complexity
Beginning Balance
Good gardens require good soil, and good soil takes compost and plenty of time. Jesse shares his experiences composting soil for his garden, and how it applies to business. Like compost, good business ideas take time to execute. They can be executed more quickly, but that often involves more complexity. Mark and Jesse then pivot to discuss complexity in business plans, and when it's worth pursuing complex solutions to problems. Jesse's rule of thumb: if the business strategy is simple, but the implementation is complex, it's probably worth doing. Many things that appear simple on the...
info_outlineMark and Jesse ponder the question -- what do you do when growth slows and the business plateaus? Mark recalls a story about a successful businessperson who failed at several ventures before striking gold, and notes that the "gold" business was never hard. It grew a lot early on, and continued to grow steadily from there. He juxtaposes this result with some of his clients who spend hundreds or even thousands of hours working on a business, yet never really take off. There were signs of sucess early on in the good business, and likewise there were not signs of success in the failed ventures. Looking for signs of success is a good indicator of whether a business has legs or not. If you don't see any, it's a good indicator that your time is spent elsewhere!
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb
Mark Butler, Virtual CFO
The Money School: https://moneyschool.works
YNAB