Built agencies. Broke some too. Writing about what I learned.#

I spent 15+ years in insurance distribution — building scratch agencies, scaling multi-location operations, founding a startup, and eventually shutting it down when it didn’t work. Along the way I wrote tens of millions in premium, hired and developed people, built systems that worked, and built systems that didn’t.

I’m not writing here because I figured it all out. I’m writing because I figured enough of it out — and screwed enough of it up — that some of it might be useful to you.

If you’re an agency owner trying to grow, a field leader trying to create real value for your agencies, or someone thinking about getting into this business, this site is for you. Everything here comes from operating experience, not theory. The math is real. The failures are real. The recommendations are things I’d actually do — or did do — not things that sound good in a slide deck.

My wife Katlyn and I bring a combined 20+ years across captive and independent agency ownership, producer development, L&D, and operational design. We have built on both independent and captive sides of the carrier-agency relationship, and that perspective shapes everything here.

Start Here#

If you’re new to the site, these are the pieces that do the most work. Pick whichever fits where you are right now.

If you’re starting (or thinking about starting) an insurance agency#

How to Start an Insurance Agency: The Complete Decision and Startup Guide

Everything I wish someone had handed me before I signed my first lease. Captive vs. independent, startup costs, carrier appointments, hiring, licensing — the full decision framework and launch roadmap with nothing left out.

If you work in carrier field leadership — or care about how it works#

The Role Nobody Designed for What Agencies Actually Need

The field leadership model was built for a different era. This post walks through what the gap between the current role structure and modern agency needs is costing carriers, field leaders, and agency owners — and introduces what we think replaces it.

Stop Telling Agencies What to Do

Why prescriptive advice doesn’t stick with agency owners, and what happens when field leaders learn to coach instead of direct. A practical look at Socratic coaching, servant leadership, and the identity shift that makes field leaders genuinely valuable to the agencies they serve.

Everything else#

Browse the sidebar for the full library. Business posts cover agency growth, sales, operations, financial modeling, and leadership. Life posts cover the personal side — resilience, headspace, and the habits that keep you in the fight long-term.

Tools and downloads (financial models, planning guides, trackers) are linked within the posts where they’re relevant. Everything is free.

If something here is useful, share it with someone who needs it. That’s the whole point.

Navy veteran. Grew up in the Fiji Islands. Currently based in Florida. Opinions are mine.