What's in store for you:

1. Photo From My Life
2. Financial Thought: Returns after Markets in Turmoil
3. Life Thought: The Right Partnerships
4. Good Sh*t: Photo Panda

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Photo From My Life:

Financial Thought:

Ignore Financial Media: My friend, and fellow advisor, Chris Gure, shared this chart and I thought it was worth resharing. Despite being over 4 years old at this point, the overall message should resonate.

Life Thought:

The Right Partnerships: As you probably know by now, I spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of people I want to work with at VDB Wealth for the next 20 years. This past week was a good reminder of why this matters so much.

We had a client and their family come visit, and we spent real time together. Just hanging out, talking about life, business, and everything in between. It was a blast.

This is the environment I want to keep building. Real relationships with people I genuinely enjoy spending time with.

I recently read a piece by Bob Casey who is building a multi-family office in a similar way. We operate in different segments. He’s focused on $150m to $500m. I’m focused on $1m-$75m. But philosophically, we’re playing the exact same game.

His criteria for the “right client” hit home for me:

1. A multi decade time horizon
2. Belief in compounding without trying to outsmart markets
3. Preference for simplicity over complexity
4. Skepticism of conflicts and desire for alignment
5. Understanding that their business or career drives wealth, not “magic” investments
6. Desire to stay involved, not fully delegate everything if they enjoy it

I continue to believe who you work with matters more than almost anything else in this business.

It impacts the quality of decisions you make, the conversations you have every day, the long term outcomes you deliver, and how much you actually enjoy your life

Sure, I worry that this may alleniate potential clients. But, there are a lot of different providers out there for them to work with. And I need to remind myself of my goal.

I don't want to build the biggest firm. I want to build the best firm for the best families.

Good Sh*t:

PhotoPanda: This is a firsthand recommendation and one I’m oddly excited about. My mom recently sent me ~30 photos from my childhood.

I loved going through them. There’s something special about old family photos. But it also made me realize that these things are fragile. They fade. They get lost. So I wanted to get them on the cloud ASAP.

I found a service called Photo Panda that scans physical photos and sends you digital versions. Here’s the crazy part. They scanned all ~30 photos for free. Apparently they offer a trial up to around 50 photos. Nuts.

The quality was great. Super easy process. And now those memories live somewhere a lot more permanent than a random drawer. It also got me thinking about my mom’s full collection. We’re probably talking 10,000+ photos over the years. Weddings, birthdays, vacations, everything.

Photo Panda will scan, digitize, and even organize them by event, category, and date. It’s about $1k for that many photos which honestly feels pretty reasonable given the outcome.

Hey Mom - if you're reading this, you should do it! Having our entire family history backed up and searchable forever feels like a no brainer.

Disclaimer: VDB Wealth is a registered investment adviser. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

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