We were lucky to catch up with Zach Whelchel recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Zach, so happy to have you on the platform with us today and excited to chat about your lessons and insights. Our ability to make good decisions can massively impact our lives, careers and relationships and so it would be very helpful to hear about how you built your decision-making skills.
I’m really bad at making decisions. The more important the decision the more I tend to lock up. My default mindset is to want to optimize things. Maybe it was too many boardgames as a child growing up. Maybe it was too much Sid Meier’s Civilization. I always want to make the most of the options before me.
What I’ve learned to do over time… especially when creating software, is not to hold decisions too closely. I follow a “intuition and data loop” model now. Make changes quickly and let the data tell you the right answer. Don’t have any data? Then follow your intuition. But be sure to put the tools in place to capture data.
Oftentimes you can make a wrong choice and correct it faster than waiting too long to make the perfect choice.
When data is king egos melt away. I’ve watched too many teams where someone thinks they are right “just because.” Or those teams that spend months delivering a solution no one actually needs.
When we frame decisions in terms of intuition and data it helps put things in perspective. I love hearing a teammate say “we don’t have data but here’s my intuition…” Or even better… “my intuition was this but then we’ve been capturing the data and I was totally off, but now we know the right way.”
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
About 4 years ago my wife and I started budgeting. I had just left my job and we had a baby on the way. Money was tight and we felt out of control. We needed a plan for our money and found one in a zero-based budgeting app.
Having a plan felt amazing. We got on the same page about our priorities. We argued less about who spent where or on what. We came to a shared understanding of what we valued. And we had to share this new found love of budgeting with others.
We started teaching classes at our church. We taught friends and family members. What we found was budgeting… is hard. It’s a skill. And like any skill it takes time, effort, and some guidance. Most people didn’t stick with it. But the few friends that did? It was life changing for them as well!
I’m a software developer by trade. I’ve also started a couple tech companies throughout the years. My mind always goes to fixing problems with code. We knew the budgeting was life changing and helpful. But we also had learned that people need a coach to help them succeed.
And that how we decided to take the leap and found a new company. One that wasn’t just another budgeting app. But a platform that connected tools and people. We called it MyBudgetCoach.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Most of my career has been as an entrepreneur. I’ve started companies in the tech space. B2B and B2C. I’ve had some success… and a LOT of failure. Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. And sometimes I wish it wasn’t for me! It can be an emotional roller coaster for sure. But there is something inside of me that is too restless when I’m not creating. I love dreaming of something that feels like it needs to exist… and then going out into the world and making it happen. Zero to one.
As far as guidance I’d recommend for building your own company?
1 – Fall in love with a problem and a population you want to serve.
2 – Build a community around that problem and listen to what people need.
3 – If you are going to fail in an area fail quickly and pivot your ideas.
The truth is most new ideas fail. There’s a reason most bad concepts don’t exist already… it’s because they aren’t needed! And that’s ok. I still think it’s a worthy endeavor to try them. Most scientists don’t make groundbreaking discoveries across the course of their careers. But it’s still worth trying.
And all you need is to find one idea that works…
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Our mission at MyBudgetCoach is to help the world fall in love with budgeting. We want to be the platform that brings together users and coaches. We are always looking to partner with coaches and anyone in the financial industry who wants to help their community succeed. If you are an advisor, coach, or community leader please reach out!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mybudgetcoach.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MyBudgetCoachHQ
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyBudgetCoachHQ
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zach-whelchel-50858744/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfHKgbwwNBSiwWOpk3NEOg
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
