From Built to Sell to Built to Last - The Tugboat Institute Story
Dave Whorton built companies to sell, then founded Tugboat Institute for those built to last. What evergreen founders and their families share.
Dave Whorton
Founder of Tugboat Institute; earlier founded Good Technology and Drugstore.com
On the show
The Business Family Diagnostic · Purpose
Built to last, not built to sell.
Dave's evergreen founders say the company's purpose matters more than any one of them. Does your family have a written statement of what the family enterprise and its wealth are for?
“Most adult family members could describe our long-term goals in similar words.”
Biography
Dave Whorton is an entrepreneur, business leader, education reformer, and investor. Dave founded four companies including Good Technology and Drugstore.com. He also worked for three venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TPG, and Interwest.
A small angel investment that Dave made in 2005 opened his eyes to an alternative way of supporting seasoned entrepreneurs who wanted to build large, profitable, innovative businesses that they would run privately for their lifetimes. In 2013 he founded The Tugboat Institute, a membership organisation designed to support Evergreen leaders and their companies over the very long term.
Keep listening
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21
Val Hollingsworth & Annie Hollingsworth
7th Gen Hollingsworth & Vose - Manufacturing Innovation Since 1728
The oldest company in Dave's evergreen community, still innovating.
04
Vicki TenHaken
Lessons from Century Club Companies
The five practices that companies over 100 years old share.
25
Khalid Muhmood
Using the Family Holding Company to invest in Education
Deciding to hold rather than sell.
The newsletter
The most useful things in these conversations are the things families rarely say out loud.
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