Dean Lyulkin & William Stern: From Childhood Friends to a $10B Company

The Proven Entrepreneur

Don Williams

Business, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Careers

0.0 • 0 Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What does it look like when a business partnership starts in childhood and survives real pressure?

In this episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show, host Don Williams sits down with Dean Lyulkin and William Stern, co-founders of Cardiff, a privately held small business lender that has deployed more than $10 billion to Main Street businesses across the United States.

Their story begins long before boardrooms and balance sheets. Dean arrived in America as a child refugee from Ukraine. William grew up alongside him in San Diego. They opened a joint bank account as teenagers, stayed friends through school and college, and eventually reunited to build a company that would weather the 2008 financial crisis, the collapse of traditional small business lending, and the economic shock of COVID.

This conversation goes beyond numbers. Dean and William talk candidly about how partnerships actually work when opinions collide, why “strategic laziness” is really about delegation, and how leadership roles must evolve over time. They share lessons from scaling Cardiff with technology, navigating existential business crises, and keeping enough cash on hand when everything else feels uncertain.

The episode also explores how their definition of success has changed over two decades. What started as ambition and growth has matured into something quieter and harder to protect: peace, freedom, and the ability to choose how and with whom they work.

If you’re an entrepreneur, founder, or business owner thinking about partnerships, leadership, or building something that lasts, this episode offers lived experience rather than theory.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Are you an entrepreneur looking for more free time, more money, or just looking for that success blueprint?
0:11.6	The proven entrepreneur is the podcast for you.
0:14.6	Host Don Williams and his guests share real success stories from proven entrepreneurs.
0:19.7	Here's your host, Don Williams.
0:28.0	Hey, Don Williams here with today's episode of the Proven Entrepreneur Show.
0:33.0	Got a real treat for you today.
0:35.9	140, 150 episodes of the show, the first time we've had partners
0:40.1	on the show at the same time. Welcome to the show, Dean Lulkin and William Stern with Cardiff.
0:47.5	How are you guys? Thanks for having us. Oh, man. Thrill to have you. You are both and Cardiff is based in San Diego, California, yes? Okay. And so tell us, what does Cardiff do? Who do you do it with? I mean, I don't know, but let's tell the audience, what do you do, who do you do it, why do you do it, how do you do it? What's your story? Dean, why don't you take that one? I'll take the next one.
1:14.9	Wow. He just threw you under the bus there. Hopefully there's an easier question subsequently.
2:05.1	So Cardiff's a unique business. We are a privately held lender to the very small businesses that serve America, serve Main Street. And we've been at it for over 20 years. And we've provided about $10 billion of financing to America's small businesses. And we like to brag a little bit, but we are America's favorite small business lender. I think we received that award, what, two years in a row? So something to be proud of. We're not young men anymore, but we've built this business for the last 20 years together, which is extremely unique. And we've stayed away from being public or being owned by private equity. So it makes Cardiff a pretty unique animal in this space. I agree. And when you say, you did say 10 billion with a bee, yes? With a B. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Congratulations. That's rare air in any industry. So, okay, we'll serve this to William and it's a tougher question because he deferred to you. So, you know, every great partnership can look back and find a spark.
2:21.2	So what first drew the two of you together and when did you realize that it was more than just a good idea, but you shared a mission worth building?
2:31.0	Yeah, that's not an easier question, but nonetheless. So I'm going to just sort of
2:35.8	go back in time a little bit. So Dean and I became friends really in like late 1989, maybe early
2:41.2	1990 when he first came to America from Ukraine. So I'm going to tell his story, but quickly, right,
2:46.5	they left, you know, communist Russia before communism fell and took nothing with them and settled in San Diego after going to, you know, after being through camps in Europe and trying to, you know, make their way to America.
2:59.4	And lucky enough, they landed in San Diego.
3:02.2	We became friends in Hebrew school. So like Sunday school. And, you know, at the time, I just thought he was cool,
3:08.5	right? I was, I don't know, nine years old. Maybe he was 10 years old. And I just thought he was
3:12.7	smart and he was funny. And he shared the sort of the same, you know, the same interests that I did,
3:18.5	right? You're young kids, right? You're bonding over nonsense. And so we just kept that relationship going. We opened up our first
3:25.4	joint bank account at Wells Fargo. I think when he was 13 and maybe I was 12, his grandmother,
	...

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