Andy NearyI help insurance professionals turn brand awareness into business growth.

Everyone wants the result. Almost no one is willing to put in the blood sweat and tears to get it.

2 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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1:04

In this interview segment, Andy Neary prompts the guest to recount the gritty details of launching his first agency in 2004. The guest reveals that, while working a comfortable corporate job at a TPA, he decided to quit, cash out a modest 401(k), sell his house, and move his family three hours away to be near his wife's parents. He rented a modest space from a mentor, slept under his desk from Sunday night to Friday evening, and endured a three‑hour commute back home each weekend to spend time with his wife and three children. The narrative underscores the extreme personal and financial sacrifices required to bootstrap a business, highlighting themes of risk, family support, and the often‑unseen hardships behind entrepreneurial success.

Chapters

But very few times do we show the, here's what I had to do to make it. And I think your story of starting and bootstrapping that first agency is awesome. I mean, would you mind sharing it? 'Cause I want, I want people to hear what you had to do to make this thing a go.
Yeah, I told you I'm an open book. I have actually never said it publicly, but, uh, I've said it in, in some circles, but, uh, it was 2004. We had, my wife and I had our third child and, uh, I decided I was going to start my own agency. So I quit my nice cushy corporate job at the TPA with a guaranteed salary and vacation and bonuses and cashed in my 401, which wasn't very big, sold the house, rented a space from my mentor who was one of those sales guys that got walked out that day, and rented a space in his— the back of his shop, his general agency, moved my wife and 3 kids 3 hours away near her parents so that we had someplace to stay. And then I slept under my desk. Sunday night through Friday evening, and then I drive back 3 hours to spend time with the family every weekend.