What's in store for you:

1. Photo From My Life
2. Life Thought: First Impressions
3. Financial Thought: What If You Just Bought a Treasury Ladder?
4. Good Sh*t: The Death of Product Photography?

Photo From My Life:

Life Thought:

First Impressions: We all know first impressions matter. It’s drilled into us from childhood — dress well, make eye contact, give a firm handshake. But lately, I’ve been thinking more about first impressions in business, especially with new customers.

I recently purchased a software platform for one of our businesses. Not a small expense — $25k a year. And yet, the onboarding experience has been…fine. Not bad. Just fine. A few emails. A kickoff call. A slide deck. Nothing that made me think, “Wow, this company really cares about us.”

The crazy part? That fine experience made me question the entire purchase. When you spend that much money, you want to feel like you're in great hands. That first moment — the first email, first meeting, first interaction — sets the tone for everything that follows.

It got me thinking: why don’t more companies obsess over the first impression? How can I obsess more about first impressions as I launch VDB Wealth?

A great first impression doesn’t just help retention. It builds trust. It makes referrals more likely. It turns a customer into a partner.

One idea my partner, Andrew, shared with me: sending a Starbucks gift card to every new client before their kickoff call. Just a little note that says, “Coffee’s on us — excited to work together.” I like it. It’s small, but meaningful.

I’d love to hear your ideas!

What’s the best first impression you’ve ever received from a company? Or, what’s something small that made you feel like a business truly cared?

Reply to this email — I’m all ears.

Financial Thought:

What If You Just Bought a Treasury Ladder?:

Retirement planning gets a lot of airtime—usually filled with complex advice, expensive products, and the assumption that we all want to beat the market. But here’s a question more people should ask:

What if you didn’t need to?

Now, here's where I add a BIG CAVEAT. This is not investment advice and this is not a strategy I'd recommend to 99% of the population I speak to. However, I'm sharing it because it's an interesting thought exercise and it may fit certain retirees.

Let’s say you’re entering retirement with a modest sized nest egg. You’re done earning. You’ve got no plans to buy a vineyard or invest in some nephew's startup. Your real need? A dependable monthly cash flow that lets you sleep at night.

Enter the humble but mighty Treasury ladder.

Right now, you can lock in 4–5% returns across 1-to-20 year Treasury bonds. And if your retirement horizon is, say, 25 years or less, you could ladder those bonds out over your expected retirement timeline, giving you steady principal payouts each year and locking in income with minimal risk.

Here’s how it would work:

• You buy a series of Treasury bonds that mature each year for the next 25 years.
• Each year, the bond that matures returns your principal and interest—your “income” for that year.
• No worrying about stock market dips, interest rate hikes, or the talking heads on CNBC.

And here's the kicker: if your spending needs are well-understood (and fixed), this might actually be one of the most efficient way to fund your retirement. If you live in a high-tax state, treasuries are a great way to avoid state income tax.

Let’s do some napkin math:

• $1 million invested in a Treasury ladder earning an average of 4.5% yields roughly $45,000 per year.
• Add in Social Security and you’re probably sitting at $75k+ retirement income—with zero exposure to market volatility.

Is this right for everyone? No! If you want to leave a big inheritance, have a large portfolio, or enjoy taking investment risk, you might choose a different path. But for those who say, “I just want to make sure my money lasts,” this is worth considering.

Low risk. Predictable cash.

I’m not saying this strategy is sexy. But neither is running out of money.

Good Sh*t:

The Death of Product Photography?: I’ve been playing with the new image creation tools from ChatGPT and…wow. We’re no longer generating AI images — we’re generating products that look like they were shot in a SoHo studio, under perfect lighting, with a $5,000 camera rig. It raises a few big questions:

Do we even need models anymore?

The new image tools can generate real-looking people in branded gear, holding fake-but-perfect products, under whatever lighting setup or background you want. One prompt and boom — you’ve got a Patagonia-style ad featuring a non-existent model wearing a non-existent fleece that still somehow makes me want to buy it.

Product-on-white photography agencies? This might be the beginning of the end.

There are entire businesses — big ones — built around shooting eCommerce products on white backgrounds. It's been a goldmine for years. But let’s be honest… if you’re launching a DTC brand in 2025, are you really going to spend $5k for a photoshoot when you can prompt an image in 10 seconds that’s 95% as good? I wouldn’t bet on this sector.

Speed to launch is about to get wild.

Mockups, ad creatives, pitch decks, even fake products for testing — all can be done in hours, not weeks. Maybe, just maybe, this leads to a world where entrepreneurs test fast and build real products again. Not just Shopify stores selling the same dropshipped nonsense. Real things, solving real problems, with real craftsmanship. One can dream, right?

If you don't believe me, I wanted to test it out. Here are two prompts:

1. Make a mad man style ad image for a wealth management firm that has a small client base and provides high touch service rather than serving too many clients. The firm is called VDB Wealth. Use quirky and funny imagery. I want the main text to say "How many clients does your advisor work with?" Have the image be a man in a suit dealing with multiple ringing phones.
2. I want to create an image of a surfer on a beach wearing a t-shirt with the VDB wealth logo on the shirt? I want the image to be of a male who is a mixture of surfer and old-money.

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