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Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
I'm a millionaire dad who started investing for my 3 kids when they were born. Here's my advice for other parents.
Daniel Ramsey, founder of MyOutDesk, started saving and investing for his children when they were born. Ramsey emphasizes financial education, using Roth IRAs to teach compound interest. He advocates for involving children in investment decisions to ensure responsible wealth management. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Ramsey, the 47-year-old founder of MyOutDesk in Sacramento, California. It has been edited for length and clarity. I'm the CEO and founder of MyOutDesk, a virtual assistant company that has served more than 8,000 companies. I'm also the founder and CEO of the nonprofit MOD Movement, a nonprofit dedicated to equipping communities with the essentials in education, housing, and economic empowerment. Growing up in poverty fueled my career resilience as a serial entrepreneur. I founded MyOutDesk in 2008 after working in real estate and realizing that business owners were drowning in necessary administrative tasks. While initially a real-estate professional, contractor, developer, and mortgage broker, I sold and divested my other businesses to focus solely on MyOutDesk. My net worth is around $100 million, and I make more than $1 million a year in salary. I'm both saving money for my children, ages 4, 9, and 12, and teaching them how to invest properly. I share my entrepreneurial tenacity to help guide my children's futures I've learned the importance of time and compounding interest. If I could go back to my 18-year-old self, I would've put part of every check into a brokerage account, like an IRA. Had I done that, my net worth would likely be double what it is. All three of my children have brokerage accounts with Roth IRAs. They also have their own bank accounts and opportunities to earn money. They have their own savings accounts where they save their money: 1/3 for savings, 1/3 for spending, and 1/3 for a charitable cause. I believe the Roth IRA serves as an exercise to teach the kids to set aside money and see how fast it will grow with compound interest over time. We discuss as a family how this creates significant gains over time. They already make investment decisions to set them up for long-term success Each year since starting the accounts for them, I've contributed the maximum allowed for a Roth IRA, which is $7,000 for 2025. Since our kids were young, they have created ways to earn money. Our job as parents is to show them slowly how to manage money and investments. My eldest, for example, has invested in Disney since she was 5. She also owns shares of Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway. When she receives her paycheck, I sit with her to invest in her Roth IRA and discuss her next investment. By about the age of 13, we'll start allowing our children to take over some of their finances and make decisions with parental guidance. (We don't allow them to invest in companies we don't agree with as of now.) This will help give them the autonomy they crave and teach them to make financial decisions and mistakes on their own so they're prepared when they reach adulthood. Here's my best advice for parents setting up investment accounts for their kids Prioritize togetherness and education, both financial and emotional. While creating a financial umbrella can be helpful, it's far more beneficial to teach them strong core values, ensuring they know how to work hard and be good people. Social, intellectual, relational, and emotional capital are vital to raising independent and successful children who can properly manage their money. Financial education is also important. Wealth can be a weapon or a tool, and without the proper knowledge, it can be very destructive. When I set up investment accounts for my children, I spent time helping them understand what to do with their money and how to use this wealth to serve others, making sure they use money as a tool that meets their values. Make sure your kids know their investment options, too The most common mistake I see parents make is failing to educate their kids on the choices they're making and the accounts they're selecting. First, parents have to understand the account they are making. A Roth IRA, for example, is in the kid's full control when they turn 18. If they aren't educated on wealth management, they can easily blow through their investments. Conversely, a trust in which the parent has complete control can feel too restrictive for your child as they enter adulthood. Ultimately, it's important to include and inform your children from an early age to ensure a smooth transfer of wealth and that they honor this incredible gift. We started an annual daddy-daughter trip with our kids at six, customizing each trip to our child's interests My eldest is intellectual, but my middle child is more experiential, so I meet them where they are. This trip is a chance to connect and have these early — and regular — conversations about money that are age-appropriate. As they get older and become more self-actualized, I increase the level of conversation. My oldest invested in Disney when she was 5, and I took her to her first shareholders' meeting and introduced her to the stock market. Here, she was able to ask Bob Iger a question, which piqued her interest in investing. We do talk about investments that are in their Roth IRA as a family. We have an annual trip to Disneyland, where they can act, touch, and feel the company, and give us a chance to discuss the stocks and investments. 10 years ago, I knew nothing about generational wealth I was determined to raise my children to be responsible humans who were empowered to pursue what they loved while being contributing members of society. I also didn't want my wealth to hinder their future. Since then, I've read many books on wealth, such as "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "The Richest Man in Babylon," listened to every podcast I could find, such as "Acquired" and "All-In-Podcast," and met with peer groups of ultra-high-net-worth individuals through R360 Global. In the beginning, I was looking for a shortcut, but I kept coming back to education. While there are no shortcuts, one of the most important lessons I've learned is that a financial umbrella will only take your children so far. Embracing those core values, spending time with them, and teaching them what to do with their money when they have it is far better than simply creating an investment account. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
I'm a millionaire dad who started investing for my 3 kids when they were born. Here's my advice for other parents.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Ramsey, the 47-year-old founder of MyOutDesk in Sacramento, California. It has been edited for length and clarity. I'm the CEO and founder of MyOutDesk, a virtual assistant company that has served more than 8,000 companies. I'm also the founder and CEO of the nonprofit MOD Movement, a nonprofit dedicated to equipping communities with the essentials in education, housing, and economic empowerment. Growing up in poverty fueled my career resilience as a serial entrepreneur. I founded MyOutDesk in 2008 after working in real estate and realizing that business owners were drowning in necessary administrative tasks. While initially a real-estate professional, contractor, developer, and mortgage broker, I sold and divested my other businesses to focus solely on MyOutDesk. My net worth is around $100 million, and I make more than $1 million a year in salary. I'm both saving money for my children, ages 4, 9, and 12, and teaching them how to invest properly. I share my entrepreneurial tenacity to help guide my children's futures I've learned the importance of time and compounding interest. If I could go back to my 18-year-old self, I would've put part of every check into a brokerage account, like an IRA. Had I done that, my net worth would likely be double what it is. All three of my children have brokerage accounts with Roth IRAs. They also have their own bank accounts and opportunities to earn money. They have their own savings accounts where they save their money: 1/3 for savings, 1/3 for spending, and 1/3 for a charitable cause. I believe the Roth IRA serves as an exercise to teach the kids to set aside money and see how fast it will grow with compound interest over time. We discuss as a family how this creates significant gains over time. They already make investment decisions to set them up for long-term success Each year since starting the accounts for them, I've contributed the maximum allowed for a Roth IRA, which is $7,000 for 2025. Since our kids were young, they have created ways to earn money. Our job as parents is to show them slowly how to manage money and investments. My eldest, for example, has invested in Disney since she was 5. She also owns shares of Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway. When she receives her paycheck, I sit with her to invest in her Roth IRA and discuss her next investment. By about the age of 13, we'll start allowing our children to take over some of their finances and make decisions with parental guidance. (We don't allow them to invest in companies we don't agree with as of now.) This will help give them the autonomy they crave and teach them to make financial decisions and mistakes on their own so they're prepared when they reach adulthood. Here's my best advice for parents setting up investment accounts for their kids Prioritize togetherness and education, both financial and emotional. While creating a financial umbrella can be helpful, it's far more beneficial to teach them strong core values, ensuring they know how to work hard and be good people. Social, intellectual, relational, and emotional capital are vital to raising independent and successful children who can properly manage their money. Financial education is also important. Wealth can be a weapon or a tool, and without the proper knowledge, it can be very destructive. When I set up investment accounts for my children, I spent time helping them understand what to do with their money and how to use this wealth to serve others, making sure they use money as a tool that meets their values. Make sure your kids know their investment options, too The most common mistake I see parents make is failing to educate their kids on the choices they're making and the accounts they're selecting. First, parents have to understand the account they are making. A Roth IRA, for example, is in the kid's full control when they turn 18. If they aren't educated on wealth management, they can easily blow through their investments. Conversely, a trust in which the parent has complete control can feel too restrictive for your child as they enter adulthood. Ultimately, it's important to include and inform your children from an early age to ensure a smooth transfer of wealth and that they honor this incredible gift. We started an annual daddy-daughter trip with our kids at six, customizing each trip to our child's interests My eldest is intellectual, but my middle child is more experiential, so I meet them where they are. This trip is a chance to connect and have these early — and regular — conversations about money that are age-appropriate. As they get older and become more self-actualized, I increase the level of conversation. My oldest invested in Disney when she was 5, and I took her to her first shareholders' meeting and introduced her to the stock market. Here, she was able to ask Bob Iger a question, which piqued her interest in investing. We do talk about investments that are in their Roth IRA as a family. We have an annual trip to Disneyland, where they can act, touch, and feel the company, and give us a chance to discuss the stocks and investments. 10 years ago, I knew nothing about generational wealth I was determined to raise my children to be responsible humans who were empowered to pursue what they loved while being contributing members of society. I also didn't want my wealth to hinder their future. Since then, I've read many books on wealth, such as " Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "The Richest Man in Babylon," listened to every podcast I could find, such as "Acquired" and "All-In-Podcast," and met with peer groups of ultra-high-net-worth individuals through R360 Global. In the beginning, I was looking for a shortcut, but I kept coming back to education. While there are no shortcuts, one of the most important lessons I've learned is that a financial umbrella will only take your children so far. Embracing those core values, spending time with them, and teaching them what to do with their money when they have it is far better than simply creating an investment account.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
People Powered By AI: The Future Of Your Workforce
Daniel is an entrepreneur, founder & CEO of MyOutDesk devoted to providing growing companies with proven, reliable virtual assistants. It's official: AI has gone mainstream. And the numbers prove it: 71% of organizations regularly use gen AI (up from just 33% in 2023), making the adoption of this technology among the fastest in the history of mankind. As someone in the business of people, I often get asked where a company like mine, one that provides growing companies with virtual assistants, belongs in an era dominated by AI. The answer is, AI enhances what we do, but it doesn't replace the value of real human relationships. If you see AI as a tool rather than a threat, it can unlock countless opportunities to bring more humanity to your workforce—one that increasingly operates through digital screens. Bridging The AI Adoption Gap Like most tech revolutions before it, the use of AI started as a grassroots effort—and has been adopted by more employees than many leaders realize. It's a bottom-up pattern of adoption that has CEOs around the world increasing investments in AI, but there's a delta in what they're contributing and what they're getting credit for. Turns out, 40% of employees think their IT department is behind AI implementation. While being a glory hog is unbecoming, business leaders need to communicate their AI plans, processes and goals to increase trust—in their leadership and plans—and ensure adoption at scale within their organization. When AI use becomes more consistent at every level from the top-down, the impact and ROI inevitably become more measurable as a result. Together, leaders and employees can better justify the investments CEOs are already making—this time with the aim of reducing disconnected technology and achieving clearer, more measurable outcomes. Setting Up Systems For Human Success No matter what you call them—friction points, inefficiencies, redundancies—the beauty of AI is its power to remove them from business (and life) in a way and at a scale never seen by humanity before. When we embrace AI's ability to streamline processes, we empower real people to embrace more thoughtful and strategic tasks that not only contribute to company growth and development but their own as well. Before any employee or employer starts running toward that kind of impactful ROI, it's important to build a foundation that allows the entire organization to first crawl, then walk. It's simple: Get everyone working inside an AI platform. Doesn't matter the system(s); what does matter is that employees are implementing substantial use into their daily work tasks. Doing so not only increases familiarity and proficiency, but has also been reported to improve productivity, quality of work and customer engagement. Whether it's industry knowledge, company data or company processes, it's critical to teach the robots to "think" about internal business information like one of your own. Using an AI platform that is enhanced with your company data will replace AI hallucinations with informed and actionable insights that help instead of hindering the work of employees. Instead of relying on SaaS providers built on old software models with closed tech, make your own. Pull all the company data you can from customer relationship management (CRM) systems, marketing platforms, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, financial platforms and human resource information systems (HRIS) to create a repository of data that an enterprise AI model can layer on top of. This establishes a single source of truth for the tech (and for your employees) to ensure everyone and everything is working with the same information, unique to the company and its current state of business, which 72% of CEOs believe is key to unlocking the value of gen AI. The mistake many non-technical CEOs make is building a new tool or technology on top of their AI data warehouse to explore new ideas that aren't proven or planned for. Instead, they should be starting small—looking for opportunities to recoup their investment made in the first three steps. Look for a use case where AI can improve the client or employee experience, the product or the service. This is where implementing AI agents on your data warehouse can address targeted challenges and produce a clear return on investment (ROI). Growing Talent Through The Use Of Tech The rise of gen AI is not replacing human talent—it's elevating it. When thoughtfully integrated, AI becomes a partner in onboarding, training and upskilling employees so they can confidently take on bigger, more complex challenges while the tech manages the routine ones. We know 87% of business leaders anticipate that at least a quarter of their workforce will require reskilling as a direct result of AI and automation. So why not let AI help in that process? Onboarding, for instance, no longer needs to be a bottleneck. The challenge of training remote workers or virtual assistants has largely been addressed through tools like ChatGPT, which can generate customized onboarding programs in minutes. These AI tools effectively act as in-house trainers, HR support, data analysts, coaches and even thought partners, freeing up human capacity for the high-value, strategic work like creative problem-solving and leadership. Because I run a virtual assistant company, it's a common misconception that I want humans to do every task. The important distinction here is that I want humans doing the critical tasks. It's not about choosing humans over AI or AI over humans; it's about creating an environment where they coexist and collaborate in a way that creates efficiencies for your company while opening the door to more opportunities for your employees. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Forbes
03-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
CLASS: Culture, Leads, Accountability, System And Support
Daniel is an entrepreneur, founder & CEO of MyOutDesk devoted to providing growing companies with proven, reliable virtual assistants. As a colleague and I racked up the miles on a sunbaked stretch of highway outside of Roswell, New Mexico, we weren't thinking so much about alien conspiracies and secret government bases. Instead, we found ourselves dissecting what really propels a sales organization from 'good' to 'category-defining.' This wasn't just road-trip chatter; we've both spent years in the trenches, building teams, closing deals and learning (sometimes the hard way) what works and what doesn't. Somewhere between pit stops, we realized we'd arrived at a shared framework, one that we've both tested, broken and rebuilt across thousands of real estate transactions and multiple business lines. We call it CLASS: culture, leads, accountability, systems and support. Nail all five, and growth feels inevitable; miss even one, and friction shows up fast. Culture: The Nonnegotiable Culture isn't pizza lunches or happy-hour selfies. It's clarity of vision and the willingness to protect that vision at all costs. If even one top performer tramples your core values, the entire group sees the compromise and standards can slide. Keep culture tight by: 1. Posting the annual team vision where everyone can see it, then revisiting it quarterly. 2. Pairing every KPI review with a personal "why" check-in. Numbers matter, but so do the lives those numbers fund. When vision is explicit, peer-to-peer accountability kicks in. I no longer need to police behavior; the team handles drift long before it lands on my desk. Leads: Fuel With A Dashboard, Not a Fire Hose Handing someone 1,000 internet leads without a success rate is cruelty masquerading as generosity. My organization publishes our conversion math up front: a 3% appointment rate on cold leads and a 30% face-to-face close rate once the meeting happens. Every "no" is worth roughly $20 in future commission, so rejection becomes a deposit, not a deduction. I've found that this simple reframe keeps morale high and pipeline math honest. Accountability: Mirror First, Metrics Second Our one-on-ones open with cameras off for five minutes of real life: family, health, mindset. Only then do we flip the camera on and pull the numbers: calls, connections, contracts, even date nights. If a goal lives on their sheet, it's fair game. Accountability without empathy feels like punishment; empathy without numbers feels like a hug that never pays the mortgage. It's best to choose both. Systems: 95% Automated, 5% High-Impact Human A referral event for 6,000 past clients takes our marketing machine months to orchestrate, yet the agent's total 'life' is a handful of personal calls and face-to-face handshakes the day of the party. The 5% human effort delivers 95% of the client loyalty. If a task can be templated, delegated or triggered by software, it comes off the salesperson's plate. The result: they negotiate, prospect, follow up and sharpen skills. Nothing else. Support: Trust That Frees Talent The hardest leap for top producers is surrendering control to a support team they can't yet 'see.' We solve that with explicit SLAs, weekly department huddles and KPI scoreboards that make all the behind-the-scenes progress fully transparent. When agents realize 95% of the transaction is handled better (and faster) by specialists, they lean in rather than hold on. Scaling Signals: When To Rebuild Your CLASS Growth isn't a straight line; it's a staircase. Every time we jumped from 50 to 100 transactions, then 100 to 500, something in the CLASS broke: Lead flow overwhelmed systems or culture lagged behind a rush of new hires. The pain is the indicator: Either hire for where you're going or revamp the pillar that's buckling under pressure. Here is a quick diagnostic you can use: 1. Culture: Do standards slip for rainmakers? 2. Leads: Are reps drowning or starving? No one should be both. 3. Accountability: Are one-on-ones coaching sessions or coffee chats? 4. Systems: Is admin time creeping above 5% of a rep's week? 5. Support: Do producers still type their own contracts? You're late. Stewardship Over Ownership Early on, I set myself a personal "allowance" and treated surplus revenue as the company's, not mine. That discipline allowed us to hire ahead of need, weather market downturns and keep our promises to the people rowing the boat—even when transaction counts dipped 40% to 50%. Teams sense fiscal stewardship; it breeds loyalty that bonus checks alone can't buy. The Leader's Mandate • Cast a horizon worth chasing. Paint the future so vividly that your best people can't imagine building it anywhere else. • Equip talent to outperform the plan. Embed clear KPIs, repeatable playbooks and ongoing coaching so every producer knows exactly how to win; then watches the scoreboard to prove it. • Scale yourself first. Keep learning, delegating and reinventing fast enough that no one on the team "graduates" beyond your leadership capacity. Your growth ceiling sets theirs. CLASS isn't theory. It's the operating system I trust with my livelihood, reputation and, most importantly, the families my businesses serve. Master the five pillars, and growth stops feeling like a gamble; it feels inevitable. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Forbes
27-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Win Or Learn: The Entrepreneur's Mindset
Daniel is an entrepreneur, founder & CEO of MyOutDesk devoted to providing growing companies with proven, reliable virtual assistants. The common framing around failure in entrepreneurship—of things being win or lose—doesn't work for me. You're either winning or you're learning, and learning is iterative and 'the entrepreneur's mindset.' I've been establishing, growing and selling businesses for almost 20 years, and that's the mindset I decide to approach every entrepreneurial endeavor with. I know 18% of small businesses fail within their first year (and 50% within the first five), but I also know there are a lot of people like me out there who also decide every day to pursue a passion or idea that's as likely to fail as it is to succeed. That decision is the first of a million-plus decisions entrepreneurs have to make. And there are just as many different routes that could get them where they want to go. As someone who's faced the inevitable decision paralysis countless times and worked with thousands of entrepreneurs who've experienced the same, I've learned a few tricks for turning decision paralysis into progress—because action, even if in the wrong direction, is better than stagnancy. Is taking the initial leap the hardest part … or everything that comes after it? Well, that's for each founder to decide. What isn't up for debate is that the decisions made during the ideation and planning phases of the entrepreneur have the power to significantly impact future business success. Product-market fit is paramount. Find a clear path to customer demand, and offer customers a value proposition that no other company can. While your business idea must be unique, the elevator pitch for it can be formulaic: I provide this (product/service) for people (describe the person/customer/business) that want (outcome). In its simplest form, business is humans helping other humans; if you're good, then the business will grow. To be good, you must commit to a pursuit of mastery. A dedication to your business's growth and development is a dedication to your own personal growth and development as well. Ongoing education and improvement in marketing, operations and delivery are critical, but sales mastery is nonnegotiable as founders are constantly selling their vision to customers, investors and employees. Consider whether a blended workforce is the right choice for you. It can be a good idea to hire internal staff for the most technical and high-value tasks, and hire outsourced staff for the process-based tasks. (Disclosure: My company helps with outsourcing, as do others.) But for many entrepreneurs, the first 'hire' should be a technology system like a CRM or ERP platform that supports those team members and you in every business decision from customer acquisition to product or service distribution. This kind of blended model that employs physical, virtual and digital team members takes advantage of the strength of AI in its current era and gives humans the ability to leverage that technology to help better the business. Some of the most common entrepreneurial decisions are the most difficult to make because there's no right or wrong answer or one answer that fits every entrepreneur. The good news is, in my experience, it's less about what you decide and more about how. Separate CEO from self. It's your business, but the business is not you. It should be treated as its own entity, and decision-making should be based on what's best for the company, not the individual(s) running it, because those are not always one and the same. Founder compensation is a good example. While taking a salary is typically preferred from a personal perspective, it may not be best for a new business that still has entry-level revenue and weak financial stability. As the business grows and scales, so can the market value (and salary) of the CEO. Focus on the long term. I've learned that effective leaders prioritize the long-term health and mission of the business above personal gain or convenience. They lead 'from the front,' never asking employees to do something they wouldn't be willing to do themselves. This approach can foster trust, build credibility and effectively motivate teams to stay the course in the short term for better results in the long run—results that everyone on the team will professionally and personally benefit from. Do the due diligence to turn curiosity into context. Ask questions. Understand the 'what' and the 'why' of every situation, be it managing employee performance or evaluating pitches promising grandiose visions. As a founder, you'll inevitably possess a broader context than individual contributors and must tailor your communications and operations decisions to reflect that big-picture view. Be okay with saying no—strategically. It's a necessary skill for leaders to protect their business, their time, the team doing the work and the customers they serve. Establishing guardrails early on and sticking to a disciplined evaluation process when determining things like whether or not to hire friends and family or take on investors can prevent biased decision-making based on familiarity or immediate appeal instead of true business and customer needs. Often, situations are less about the decision and more about how you approach making it—less about a founder's checklist and more about a founder's willingness to take risks. While market opportunity and product-market fit are paramount, successful entrepreneurship often stems from an innate drive and passion for pursuing a vision. It takes courage, commitment and an inner self-assuredness to turn a gut feeling into a foundation for a profitable venture, not another failure statistic. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
