Sell the company and retire… and that’s exactly what I didn’t do

Sell the company and retire… and that’s exactly what I didn’t do.

Aside from the fact that a single liquidity event, especially today, doesn’t get you that far, I didn’t sell for the money.

When I exited my SaaS company I was already not depending on that business to live. Truth be told, not even on Syncronika, my main company, to cover my expenses, including the day-to-day ones.

What was mainly covering me were already my real-estate investments in Milan.

Companies as the engine of the portfolio

But to build that portfolio I used the companies themselves.

For more than ten years I reinvested a large share of what I earned and saved into real estate. I started when the market was still depressed after the subprime crisis and kept going as it rose, including through the pandemic dip.

I also used financial leverage. Not to fund my lifestyle: debt to buy assets that could produce more income.

As the portfolio grew, I reinvested a large share of that income to keep accumulating more properties.

Meanwhile something happened that few people consider. Thanks to the rise in property values, leverage on the portfolio went from about 70% to 30%.

So today I have much more wealth, much more equity and, proportionally, much less debt. And a stable “passive” income.

And that’s also why, at this point, I prefer to consolidate rather than keep adding risk, especially given how unattractive current prices look.

Are we sure the finish line is stopping?

Back to the exit: I often read about people whose goal is to build a company, sell it, and finally stop working.

Are we sure that’s the finish line?

Maybe for some it is. For me it wasn’t. It isn’t for many people who love building.

After selling I found a kind of emptiness. Not absolute, because I had sold only one of the two companies I owned. But the one that remained had stopped representing me at that moment.

Today I’ve fully taken the reins again. I’m building new products, new projects and new companies. And I’m probably more charged than before.

Because when you remove economic need from the equation, you don’t necessarily lose the desire to work.

In my case, almost the opposite happened.

When money stops being the main reason

When money stops being the main reason you work, you can focus much more on what you want to build, on your ambitions, and on who you want to become as a person.

Money will always have value. But past a certain threshold its marginal value shrinks.

And maybe real freedom isn’t stopping work.

It’s knowing you could, and choosing to continue because you still like creating.

---

P.S. I didn’t inherit anything. What I have today I built over the years with my work, my companies, reinvestment and debt leverage, taking on the related risks as well.