Decide Early on If You Really Want to be Financially Independent with CEO of WeeCare Jessica Chang

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode.

Of Million Dollar Mastermind. We're here talking with Jessica Chang, and Jessica has done something unbelievable in the arena of child care and has created a network, the largest child care network in the United States. And they're really just getting started. From what I hear, she's got an app that connects parents with home daycare owners. She's helped make a mental breakthrough that's going through companies now that they need to. The employers of all sizes can need to get involved in cost effectively offering employees and team members support for their child care needs. And as a result, they're growing, growing incredibly fast and attracting a lot of attention. So, Jessica, thanks for taking time to. And how did you get your early experience? You said when you decided you saw this need started with a personal problem, you started, you know, basically you identified a niche. It was big, it was important. And you said I had a lot of skills. Even though I was not in the childcare business. I had experience putting companies together, projects together, making things happen, running companies, financials. Where did you get that experience? How did you get those tools?

Yeah, so I started off actually as an investment banker early on.

And how did you start as an investment banker? What does that mean?

So when I graduated college, where'd you go to college? I went to UC Berkeley.

UC Berkeley. And so are you talking to me from California now?

I am talking to you from California.

You've got to put that California filter on everything.

You know. But I actually grew up out of country, so I actually grew up as a expat in China. And, you know, one of the things is, like, I'm like, growing up in Beijing, it's really cold. And when I was applying for college, I remember my dad distinctively saying, like, look, you could either be on the east coast or on the west coast, but I can tell you the west coast is a lot warmer.

Yeah.

And that that was a big push for me. But I think the other thing that my dad had always said to me and why, like, I determined, I was so determined to kind of get into finance early on was financial independence. And my dad said, he was like, look, there's a lot of jobs out there, but finance actually gives you financial independence. And you do the number of years that you should do and you might like it, but if you don't, you have the ability to kind of choose where you want to go next. And I took that to heart and started off in investment banking because of what my dad said, though those were the longest days I've ever had and probably the hardest. It really put into me that, that mentality of working hard and you know, working hard and using that to really understand like what, what it means to be like to go after something that you really truly want and how much effort you, you're going to put towards it. And that was ingrained in me.

From the beginning. What kind of work that you were doing that was so challenging and so hard that you had to master as an investment banker?

I don't think that the work was that hard per se. It was just you were expected to learn very quickly and do a lot of projects at the same time. So a normal job might be like, hey look, you've got six months to get up to speed and you're going to work on one project at a time. In investment banking, they were like, look, you've got two weeks to learn it. If you don't learn it, then you're going to be spending time working on it until 2 to 3am every day. So the faster you learn, earlier you get to go home.

When you say learn something, what are you learning?

Yeah, at that time or a company or what you're learning? Both. You're learning industry. I was in tech M and A, so tech mergers and acquisitions. You're learning industry. You're also learning way to analyze companies. You're learning companies by themselves. So any like mergers that were happening, you were getting fully integrated in what the company was doing, how they made money, how they actually reported their financials, what types of things were useless for the company where they're not making money. How do you like what synergies did they have with another company that they needed to merge or be acquired by? So and that was happening all the time. And it wasn't one project that you were doing, it's like 20 at the same time. So you need to context which very quickly as well.

And what does that mean? Context?

Very well, context switch. It just meant that like hey look, you might be working on an acquisition of a media site by another media company and then the next project which you have to kind of context which meaning like really think about it differently is, hey, you're working on a, a matchmaking company and they're thinking about going IPO So it's like very different, very different skill sets, very different research that needs to be done. How you're approaching it, the way you analyze it, has to be completely different. So that was also something investment banking really did teach me. Well, is like that context switching is very important as you become a CEO later on in life. Right. It's like you have to think about, hey, one minute you might be talking to your employees about, hey, what kind of employer benefits that they want to actually have, or talking to your customer to the next, making big decisions for how the company is going to grow three or five years down the line.

Now, you were learning this, getting the projects, were you learning about. So you would help sell the company, or you'd help upgrade the company or take the company public or help them raise another round of funding, or what were your projects? You said you somehow be working on 20 different things at once.

Yeah. So it could be something like a merger or like that company wants to acquire a company in the media space. So give me 10 different companies that fit into my criteria of acquisition to, hey, this company wants to go public, so they want to raise a public round through an ipo. Or this company is looking to raise debt capital. And so you have to figure out what type of debt they should raise and what's it going to cost them to raise that capital. So I would say within the context of advisory work, that's essentially what you.

Were doing and hard to focus on that if you're worried about childcare. I guess.

Yes. At that time I didn't have children. It was very early on. But I can, as an employee that had childcare issues myself, you know that the last thing you want to think about or worry about is where my children are going to be. Right. That is a fundamental issue before you can think about anything else. So, for example, like, let's say you are that hourly employee and you're working at a McDonald's, right? You might have a second or third shift, but your employer needs you to be there every single day. The last thing that you're going to be thinking about is, well, how am I going to do this job if I don't have anyone looking after my kids? Or even so, like, if I don't have anyone looking at my kids, how do I even progress in my career? Right? Like, I know McDonald's probably offers like continuous education for their employees, but you can't even do that continuous education if you don't have time because you're taking care of your kids.

Well, the other Thing is, it, you know, there's a lot of luxury associated with a lifestyle of working in the financial industry and all these big companies and big dollars and big projects and mergers and fancy office buildings and expensive lunches and travel and hotel. And now you're. And then you. It's a big step to get so passionate about your idea for child care that you find yourself a little while down the road scrubbing toilets. Hey, listen, there's a lot of information.

Online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business that's accrued over $5 billion in assets under management and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellawinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up.

Well, it took a. There was definitely a number of years in between that because I went from finance to operations. Being an operator at a company, then stepping into becoming like a tech entrepreneur. Right.

Like, what's that mean? You're an operator of a company, they bring you in like, you know this. She knows more about it than we do. We're going to bring her in as a cult consultant. Just let her run this, this division or this section or something like that. Is. Is that, is that what that was?

Yeah. So I think the, it ends up usually becoming like the way that you get there is, hey, you worked in finance and you've ended up building a rapport with a company and you've advised them on larger strategic things that they should do. And then they're like, well, why don't you come work for us and why don't you help us, like, do that, do the execution on all those advice that you've given us. And that's actually when you find out it's a lot harder, like to give advice than to actually tell. Take that advice and execute it.

And hence, Jessica, who I choose to get on this podcast, people who have made that jump and realize that, you know, and so what, like, what things? Like when you went in and now you're running a project. What's your recollection of that? That were like eye opening experiences for you?

I think the hardest one that I had to do was, and this was after investment banking, I went and jumped over on the private equity side. So the difference on that is you're given advice to. You're taking advice, and you're the one that holds the money, right? And you're making those decisions. So one of the things was, I remember this distinctively. We were buying a asset management firm, and this was like a year or two after, like, the Great Recession. And I remember going in like, hey, look, this is a. Like, this is why we should buy. Here are the synergies that's going to create for our own fund. And we've got to cut out a bunch of, like, sectors in this company. Not sectors, a bunch of divisions in this company because they're not making any money anymore. Like, the Great Recession just completely killed the, those, those divisions, right? And then they're like, yep, we should do this now, by the way, you're going to integrate the company and now it's your job to go fire half of those employees. I had, like, literally got a panic attack week one of four weeks that I had to spend at the company firing people. Like, literally. I sat in, I fired like every single day. My job was to fire 20 people. And it was horrendous. I never felt like the worst person in the world. Like, people are yelling at you. People are really making you feel like you're the worst person that they've ever met. And I think that's when, like, I really kind of understood from that point, like, it's easier to make suggestions, but it's way harder to actually have to execute on those suggestions.

By the way, did that company, after you went through that downsize, let's call it politely downsizing and everything, did the company do well?

Yes, it did. Yes, it did.

I mean, sometimes you have to prune, you know what I'm saying? And that's why those of you all listening to this thing, you gotta look out for yourself. Because industry changes, the economy changes, things are being invented all the time. Politicians will screw things up. Sometimes CEOs will screw things up. You gotta look out for yourself, and you've got to have your options and not just be a Pollyanna as you go through the day thinking, this job is always going to be here for me. I'll get a decent pay raise and my pension will be definitely there for me. You got to look down the road and look out for yourself. And those of you who are thinking about starting your own business, or maybe you're in that now and going through nightmares trying to make it work, need to remind yourself that it is worth it because you're taking control of your life and the fight you're fighting is for your financial freedom and where you don't have to be in a position that you could be a victim of some kind of Teutonic plates shifting in the economy. And all of a sudden not only are you out, I remember I got a loan up in North Carolina on house. We decided we're going to make a big addition onto our house. I go down to the private equity thing of the bank and all. They love anything Larry wanted. Unbelievable. You know, and you know, you're our preferred customer. Whatever, whatever. Well, they said go ahead and get, let's just do this. Get your first strike at it. I didn't know what it was going to cost. They said, we'll give you $250,000 for the first part of the construction addition and then go through that and then you'll know what it's going to take to finish it. Come on back down and we'll give you the rest of it. Well, by the time Jessica we went down to get the rest of it, everybody in that department had been fired. The whole exclusive elite client division gone. And I called him up And I said, 200 grand in deposits going through your account. This was like, I don't know, late 80s. I said 200 grand in deposits going through your bank losing. That doesn't matter, I don't matter to you? And they say, no, not really.

In.

Their grand scheme of things. So you know, don't take things for granted, look out for yourself. And so as you moved on from that, then you moved on from operations into what did you say, startups.

So I think what was really interesting for me is I had so much experience with larger companies and really being like a real operator. Like okay, it's not like, like truly, it's like, hey, this is how you make the day to day operations work and how like point A gets to point Z. I kind of looked and said like, hey, tech companies can really learn from that experience, right? Like how do you actually monetize instead of just growing, growing, growing and not figuring out how to make money. And I really started to like that too. Because if you could think about these things when you're just starting out as a company, you might not have to backpedal like four or five years down the road, right? Like if you, if you thought about how to become a profitable company from day one, you can actually try to get to that profitability versus oh, I've grown so big now my business model actually doesn't work.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you, you know, all of this turned into priceless and actually necessary experience for what you did. And I want to get into how you exploded this, this thing. And it seems like from when did you put the app out, Jessica?

So we spent most of 2017 building it. So the first person that actually started using it was in 2018. It was like, I remember this, like January 1st of 2018.

Yeah. Well, I want to hear, I want to be able to ask you a little bit more about that next time.

We talk if you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world. I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com forward/webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Widell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go.