$10M and Total Freedom, I Left the Family Empire to Build My Own

Moneywise

Hampton

Business, Entrepreneurship, Investing

4.8 • 674 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

127 founders (net worth: ~$1M–$100M+) opened up their personal books. Want to see how your finances stack up? https://www.joinhampton.com/wealth-report

Shane Cultra walked away from his family's five-generation nursery business—triggered, in part, by watching Succession. Along the way, he built up a $10M net worth, stacked Bitcoin, turned a blog into a domain empire, and made peace with a father who didn’t speak to him for a year after he left.

Here’s what we talk about:

How Shane went from pit trader to plant farmer
The domain side hustle that cashflows $300K+ a year
Breaking down his $10M net worth: Bitcoin, land, stocks, and side gigs
Why his dad thought success would make him lazy
The real cost of working with family—and why he’d still do it all over again
How Succession mirrored his life and led him to finally walk away
The awkward equity breakdown: 33%, but no control
Selling a blog for $75K and going all-in on digital real estate
Why he’d rather make $18K for himself than $100K working for someone else
Letting his daughter fail—and why that’s the lesson his dad never learned
His exact monthly spending: $5,600/month, no mortgage, travel-heavy lifestyle
From Porsches to a two-door Bronco: redefining what rich looks like
$4M in stock holdings (including a $10K Apple investment for his daughter that grew to $400K)
Why he's not pushing the family business to the next generation—and what legacy really means

Cool Links:

If you’re a founder or CEO with $3M+ in revenue or funding, or you’ve sold a company for $10M+, check out Hampton: https://www.joinhampton.com/
If you want a cool podcast like this one, check out Lower Street https://www.lowerstreet.co/
Check out Shane's blog! https://www.botany.com

Chapters:
A Family Legacy in Crisis (00:00)
Shane's Financial Journey (00:31)
The Nursery Business Dynamics (04:51)
Shane's Early Career and Return to Family Business (09:12)
Navigating Family and Business Conflicts (11:49)
The Importance of Land Value (16:25)
Venturing into Domain Names (17:27)
The Unexpected Offer: Selling My Blog (21:07)
Family Tensions: Side Income and NFTs (21:43)
Measuring Wealth: Personal Stories (23:01)
Leaving the Family Business: A Tough Decision (24:59)
Reconciliation and Moving Forward (30:42)
Advice for Founders with Kids (33:41)
Financial Overview and Spending Habits (35:37)
Final Thoughts on Family Legacy (39:10)

This podcast is a ridiculous concept: high-net-worth people reveal their personal finances.

Inspired by real conversations happening in the Hampton community.

Your Host: Harry Morton

Founder of Lower Street, a podcast production company helping brands launch and grow top-tier podcasts.
Co-parents a cow named Eliza.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	My dad did not speak to me for a year. Literally one year he didn't talk to me at all.
0:06.8	That's Shane Culture. And the reason he's saying that is because he decided to walk away from his family's business.
0:12.6	And for a very interesting reason, by the way. I'm not going to lie. I think Succession is the reason I left.
0:18.4	Shane is a fifth generation nursery man.
0:21.8	Nurseryman?
0:27.3	He's a plant farmer anyway, and this is the story of a family legacy and how a narrow view of that can pull your family apart.
0:31.0	Shane went from being a stock trader,
0:32.4	the kind before computers,
0:33.8	screaming buy or sell across a busy room,
0:35.9	to back to the family business
0:37.3	and then eventually stepping away for good, back to the family business and then eventually
0:37.9	stepping away for good, much to the dismay of his father. Along the way, he's amassed a net
0:42.7	worth of about 10 million and started a family and is now raising his daughter with an entirely
0:46.9	new set of expectations. I'm Harry Morton and this is Money Wise, a podcast that only exists
0:52.4	because of the Hampton community. So if you're a founder doing at least $3 million in ARR, you should go and check it out at
0:57.8	at joinhampton.com.
1:02.5	The thing with Shane's story is that his relationship with money and work ethic are actually
1:06.7	both quite healthy. And that's because of his family business, not in spite of it.
1:11.6	So before you start thinking, this is a simple story about why you shouldn't pressure your kids to be involved
1:15.5	in your business, you should know that it's more nuanced than that. And the nuance holds a lot of
1:19.8	value, actually. But let's get to what you're waiting for, the numbers. I calculate that out.
1:24.8	Worth them about $10 million when it's all said and done.
	...

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