#3 Nicolas Bustamante: From Paris to San Francisco (How to fail forward, find your people, build long term value, and redefine wealth)

**Tommy Roch** (0:02)
Hello and welcome to the third episode of The Tommy Roch Show. Today I interview Nicolas Bustamante. I think you will want to listen to this because Nicolas shares some impactful stories that could really help you on your journey. He has lived through success and failure and shares his learnings along the way in full transparency. He shares his story as an entrepreneur, as an immigrant, as a dropout. Now, what is most fascinating about Nicolas is his perspective on life and the way he approaches it. He shares how he built resilience, how he challenged the norm in Paris and how he found his people in France and then in San Francisco, where he currently lives.
As you might pick up on our accents, we both speak French. It's actually our first language. But we decided to do this episode in English. Nicolas mentioned that he prefers it because when he switches to English, it switches his mind and puts him into a mindset of thinking big, being bold and ambitious. This is really interesting to me and I can totally relate. He likes to talk French with his family and friends when he is being romantic or when he writes poetry. But English allows him to speak confidently about his ideas and perspectives on life.
It also illustrates the cultural difference between France and the United States.
Okay, that's my little intro to the intro. Now here is Nicolas in San Francisco, California.
Please enjoy.
Welcome to the podcast, Nicolas. I'm really excited to share your story of so much interesting things going on. And I'm going to start with a little introduction to kind of explain who you are. In your own words, I mean, I've twisted them a bit, but many of them are your own words.
Okay, so Nicolas dropped out of college at 21 to start a company called Doctrine in Paris. That's in France. Doctrine improves the legal system by making legal information accessible and understandable for professionals. As the CEO of Doctrine, he contributed to hiring 184 people, secure tens of millions of dollars in debt and equity funding, and build a fast-growing, profitable, B2B SaaS with tens of millions in recurring revenue. He just moved to San Francisco with his wife, Natalie. A couple of months ago, he transitioned from his role of CEO to chairman, focusing on strategy, finance, and M&A. He also advises startups. His mission is to build multi-decade businesses with long-term people. He is obsessed with product distribution, competitive moats, and holds unconventional views on fundraising, headcount, the role of the CEO, and product innovation. He is a physical and digital minimalist and a voracious reader. He admires Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet's life philosophy and is a fan of Austrian economics, Bitcoin and crypto, and value investing.
And Nicolas is only 27 years old. When I first met you, I was like, cool, this guy has done so much things, kind of where I want to be in the next five, ten years. And I was like, he's probably older than me. And I realized that you're two years younger than me. So I love your story. I love the way you think, your philosophies. I'm excited to share it. I don't know what we'll be able to pack in one hour because there's so much interesting things just in this intro. But I'm grateful for you to be here and thank you so much.

**Nicolas Bustamante** (3:40)
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

**Tommy Roch** (3:42)
So I want to start with books.
On your website, you have a list of books worth reading. And there's at least a hundred, I think, in there. And they're categorized in investing, biographies, economics, philosophy, novel, personal development, business and history. So books are definitely a big deal for you. And I want to know, and start with this one, why do you read?

**Nicolas Bustamante** (4:10)
I think it's just the best way to learn.
It's a good way to have a conversation with someone who is usually dead. But you can have like insights and knowledge and understand the person. And it can be like your teacher. So I feel each time I read a book, have like a conversation with someone.

**Tommy Roch** (4:28)
Do you have a book that, I mean, I saw the list of books. There's a couple that I read. There's a lot of biographies.
Do you have a book that stands out? Kind of like this book really made a difference in my life, made a real impact. I mean, I know there's a ton of them, but is there one that kind of stands out? And maybe there's a story that came from it.