Cody Barbo’s Post

Happy 4th 🇺🇸

How I stay up to speed in the industry and continue growing: I’ve curated my social media and inbox to be my classroom every day. Here’s what I’m reading. Twitter: I follow almost every VC in the country, most FinTech CEOs, and most business leaders. Each of the 4,000 people I follow, I’ve done so for a very specific intent. I want to know what they’re doing and talking about. LinkedIn: I’m a little more open and loose here, more than happy to connect with SDSU Alumni and people I’ve met in real life. Like Twitter, it feels like less of a time suck than other social media platforms. It serves a purpose. And it’s actually professional (no sports or politics lol) Newsletters: I get three to five business-related newsletters in my inbox every day. I read Axios San Diego, Axios Dallas, Axios Media Deals, Axios Pro Rata, and a few others about the broader FinTech market. CNBC: Sometimes I have this running on TV when I work out in the mornings. I can multitask with it because I have general knowledge of what’s happening in the markets. WSJ: This is my old-school habit. I love the paper Wall Street Journal. It’s so refreshing to escape for 10 to 20 minutes and flip through it in the way that I might be scrolling on my phone. I don’t need to read every single article, but usually, a couple of nuggets will give me a bit of perspective on the world. All of this helps me shape my opinions about the markets, the industry we sit in, the greater access to capital, and what challenges I’m going to be facing from now through an IPO.

Exactly six years ago, we sold our first will. We used to hand package them, sign them, and ship them out. Since then, we’ve supported hundreds of thousands of estate plans. And we still deliver that personalization - just in a bigger facility. But we’re still not done. That’s what it means to build a business: we’re still hungry. We wake up every day wanting to achieve more. From a numbers and performance standpoint, we’re exactly where we planned to be - but there are still 150 million people without access to our product. That’s what I love most about growing a business from the ground up - there’s always more work to be done.

Sometimes, the most proactive move is doing nothing but deep thinking. That’s why Trust & Will gives our team a three-day holiday every quarter. My co-founder, Daniel Goldstein, and I still usually work during these breaks, but I find the time incredibly renewing. Here’s why: Taking meetings and Zoom calls off the calendar allows me to set aside time to think. By holding designated space for myself, I can really consider the business, digging deeper into the team, our culture, and our cap table. It takes a kind of dedication and discipline to maintain these free blocks of time - but they are crucial for processing what’s happened in the previous quarter and determining where the company is going in the next one. These free days help reset my mind and renew my energy to support the team.

For those on LinkedIn who don’t know me, nice to meet you! I’m Cody Barbo. Some fun facts about me: 👶🐶 I’m married and father to a four-year-old daughter. I’m also a dog dad. 🏄 I love working out. I grew up in Huntington Beach being active, and I still surf, skate, and snowboard. 🥘 I’m a huge foodie, and one of my favorite parts of work travel is checking out restaurant scenes across the country. 🎸 Hip hop, classic rock, and heavy metal are my go-to music genres. 🕺When I meet people in person, they’re usually surprised by my height. I’m 6’4” - but no, I’m not a basketball player. In my professional life, I’m a serial entrepreneur. I’m currently the CEO of Trust & Will, a company I founded to make estate planning services affordable and inclusive. I’m glad to connect, and grateful that I get to learn from other leaders’ expertise on LinkedIn every day.

Thrilled to announce that Trust & Will has been named a finalist for the WealthManagement.com 2024 Industry Wealthie Awards! This is a direct reflection of the thousands of advisors that partner with us to better serve their clients through estate planning. See you September 5, 2024 in NYC!

About to go live at 9am PT // 12pm ET with Trust & Will investor, Lisa Dolan, Managing Director at Link Ventures

I attribute a lot of my success to my parents, whose experiences showed me just how hard it can be to carve out financial security, even if you do everything right. Neither one of them was an entrepreneur, and they weren’t able to grease the wheels for me or my brother with industry specific connections. But I learned a lot from watching the impact their finances had on their lives. My father worked hard to retire, but after the ‘08 market crash, he had to go back to work. He worked for 7 more years before retiring again. It was a real lesson in how unexpected the market could be, and it taught me that I didn’t want to subject myself to the fluctuations of the market. I saw that the people who had the most freedom, flexibility, and security had built their own thing. That made me want to be my own boss and forge my own path - one where I held more control over my future. Now, I’m the founder of a successful startup, and my brother Ty Barbo runs his own commercial real estate business, Sierra Capital Club. There are so many elements that account for outcomes in entrepreneurship - timing, hard work, relationships - but I can’t discount the motivation my family’s experience lit in me.

You don’t need a college degree to be a success. People are slowly coming around to that idea, but I still think it’s important to highlight people who prove the point. One of my close friends from college, Luke Sophinos, dropped out of school to found CourseKey, an educational startup. He got a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship, and today, the business has raised tens of millions of dollars in funding and does nearly 8 figures in revenue every year. He’s one of the youngest, and most successful, founders I know. Who knows where he’d be if he’d followed conventional wisdom about college degrees? He’s the perfect example that following your passion project, even if it means breaking societal norms, can pay off in a big way.