Running a Family Office Under $100M
A complete operating system for founders with $5M–$100M in liquid assets. Practical frameworks for structure, treasury, portfolio, protection, and governance—without the institutional overhead.
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The Founder's Playbook to Build & Protect Wealth — from Operator to Investor
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Solo Family Office: Running $5M–$100M Without the Institution
One person can run a successful business, and founders stopped arguing about that a while ago. This piece takes the same idea to money: what a solo family office is, where it sits beside single and multi, and what running one looks like at $5M–$100M.
You're Already Running a Solo Family Office
Most founders with $5M–$100M already run their money themselves, with professionals on call and no staff on payroll. That arrangement has never had a name. This week it gets one, and a standard to run to.
Is Your Money Treated as Retail or Professional?
Somewhere in your wealth manager's paperwork you're either retail or professional. One word decides what you're offered, what you pay, and what protection you keep. How the line works, what the institutional side opens up, and when it starts to make sense.
Emerging Wealthy: The Founder Bracket Nobody Talks About
Roughly seven million people hold between $5m and $100m, and the wealth industry has never named them. Why the bracket exists, why it keeps growing, and how founders inside it run their money.
Minimum Viable Family Office: Five Jobs Every Setup Needs
Founders copy other people's wealth setups and find they don't fit. A minimum viable family office is five jobs in the right order, and the first is a page of writing that half of them never produce.
Your Safe Money Is Probably the Same Bet as Your Business
Founders count the pension and the index fund as the diversified side of the balance sheet. With the top 10 stocks at 44% of the S&P 500 and the seven biggest, all tech, at about a third, that money is often the same bet as the business.
What AI Actually Changes About Running a Family Office
The story going around is that AI finally lets a founder run their own money and skip the wealth manager. It has it backwards. AI is worst at the actual investment decisions, and best at making the people who make them cheaper to hire.
Barbell Wealth - Why the Safe Middle Is the Most Dangerous Position
Most post-exit founders park their wealth in "balanced" portfolios that feel safe but hide fragility. The barbell approach — combining radical safety with calculated asymmetry — is a better model for wealth that needs to survive decades.
Should You Build a Family Office Under $100m?
A full in-house family office runs $700k to $1m a year, which makes little sense below $100m. The cheaper route is to buy the same work from a multi-family office or an outsourced CIO, for a fraction of the cost.
Taking Money Off the Table Doesn't Mean You've Stopped Believing
Taking money off the table doesn’t mean you’ve stopped believing in your investment. It’s a strategic move that reflects confidence while also securing some gains.
Angel Investing for Founders
Every founder gets pitched by other founders. Most become angel investors by accident, not design — and most break even at best.
Restraint Is the Skill You Were Never Trained For
The founder who sold the company can't sit still. Still checking the portfolio, still eyeing the next deal. The job changed the day the company sold, but the instincts didn't, and that gap is where a lot of newly liquid founders lose money.