Nate Checketts had just closed the biggest deal of his career, bringing a major private equity investor into his apparel brand Rhone. He was feeling pretty good.
Then he spoke with a friend who’d closed a similar deal. “Yeah,” said the friend, “I’ve got two years, and if I don’t do my job, they’ll replace me.”
Oh, wow, Nate thought to himself. What did I just do? Investments can be game-changing for companies, of course. They provide the capital to take risks, innovate, boost marketing, and more. But when a founder raises money, the goals of their company change: They must now build toward a big exit, so their investors get a return on their investment.
What if a founder has other priorities, other hopes? Could they ever regain control?
Eventually, those questions began to weigh on Nate (Rhone’s CEO), as well as his brother and cofounder, Ben Checketts (Rhone’s creative director). What if we want to be different? the brothers wondered. Could they ever grow on timeline, thinking more about long-term (and maybe even lifetime) investments?
