# LearnVest Founder Alexa von Tobel > [!tip] My Takeaway Worry the problems that most others do, and solve this > problem that most others can’t. ## Podcast - Resouces - [LearnVest: Alexa von Tobel](https://www.npr.org/2018/02/06/571106675/learnvest-alexa-von-tobel) from How I Built This - [Six Minutes with Inspired Capital Founder Alexa Von Tobel](https://finovate.com/six-minutes-with-inspired-capital-founder-alexa-von-tobel/) from Finovate - Alexa's mom manages budget, dad manages investments. When her dad passed away, her mom "didn't have a clear handle on where everything was and what the picture looked like". - As a trader in Morgan Stanley, Alexa asked: - "Do I put money in my 401k or my IRA? If I feel this way, and I don't even have a family, a mortgage, kids, I feel pretty lost with my financial planning. How do other people feel?" - "I asked everyone who would talk to me, how do you feel about your wallet? Is it stressing you out?" - The 2008 financial crisis - "Actually kicked my courage into even higher gear because this is literally a time when anyone in my family, anyone I knew was like, should I be selling all of my retirement into cash? People were putting money under their mattresses. Everyone was terrified." - "This is a time when America needs more financial planning than ever." - Alexa then took a leave of absence from Business School. - Alexa's risk taking motivation: Ninety-year-olds never regret for what they did, but always regret the rest they didn't take. - Business model and uniqueness - Online talk line, open 24/7. - Customers can spend $5k to get a financial plan, generated by software. "GPS for your money." - Software developed by engineers and certified financial planners. - An innovative way to build financial plan by "kicking your butt." - _Competitors_ vs _Achievers_ - Achievers wake up with their own to-do list of things that they want to do by the end of the day and focus on getting those things done, within your own swim lane. - Competitors actually are looking to the people in the other swim lanes and want to beat them. - Sold to Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance for $250M. - "When my dad passed away, it was a Northwestern Mutual life insurance policy that stabilized my family." - "If I can put it in the hands of their 8,000 financial planners to provide more of what I felt at 14, I can really get behind that." > [!quote] When a really big, stressful, stupid thing is happening, I'm like, > are we alive? Are we breathing? Okay, next. > > When you shift into the perspective that, there's still oxygen in your veins, > you're still breathing. the people you love are still alive, nothing's that > big of a deal. I think you do your best work.