Exploring Life & Business with Reuben Levinsohn of Washington Avenue Advisors

Today we’d like to introduce you to Reuben Levinsohn

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My entrepreneurial journey started around 17yrs old when my family fell apart in bankruptcy and divorce… it drove me towards financial achievements (not all for the right reasons).

I was confused during my time at MSU on what I wanted to do and who I was. Started to learn I was more of an entrepreneur and dropped out to buy a painting franchise. Grew this to become the largest non-unionized painting co in MI by the time I was 29 and then decided to package and sell it – amazing experience!

Thought I’d just focus on managing my $ in the stock market and in some real estate projects for a while and then friends and family started asking me to manage $ for them as well. Decided to get my securities licenses and joined a local firm where I could grow in financial planning and wealth management. This came pretty natural for me and then I started bringing on other advisors. I ended up partnering with a good friend and we launched Washington Avenue Advisors, a boutique wealth management firm here in Lansing/REO town, focused on helping entrepreneurs achieve their legacy through growing their business valuation and preparing for healthy exits. WAA is our core business today and the platform we’ve been able to launch other businesses from to support other entrepreneurs.

We also launched Washington Avenue Ventures, a venture studio and venture fund, focused on supporting early/seeded stage start up companies from Michigan and the Midwest. We support founders and startups bringing highly scalable new innovations to market, and we provide an avenue for accredited investors to participate in these private investments.

I’ve been very involved in developing the commercial real estate and business community on the main strip of REO town/ Lansing, including Blue Owl Coffee, one of the iconic brands in the area.

I have a unique podcast called Flying with Founders (on social media) where I take founders and entrepreneurs up in the plane to share their stories in my studio in the sky.

Personally, I’m enjoying this stage of life with my family and my growing children. I travel the world with my digital nomad daughter and enjoy amazing outdoor experiences (recently Alaska and Spain) with my two sons. We will be spending some of our winter in El Salvador where we can work and have an immersive cultural experience.

I can share a lot more detail but not sure what’s best here.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Nothing has come easy for me, especially starting from a broken home (financially and marital). I’ve always learned best by doing and I’ve always achieved more by being ‘hungry’ for it.

I was a workaholic in my 20’s – 30’s, driven primarily by fear (of ending up like my parents). I couldn’t have done all this without the constant support from my wife Rachel. I eventually burned myself and my wife out, and had a personal bottoming out point around 40. This was a pivotal time for me, I had to really take some time out to figure out who I was, learn to like myself, and start to trust that I didn’t have to keep working so hard to make things work. I began to rely more on my business partners for their strengths and narrow my focus into things I felt passionate about – growing younger entrepreneurs and helping them avoid some of the pitfalls I had experienced in life and business.

I could share more about my personal brand – ‘The Founders Compass’, providing direction to emerging business leaders, in life and business.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a boutique multi-family office wealth management group.
4 partners and a total of 8 on the team.
We focus on connecting Life & Wealth to help entrepreneurs grow their business valuation and achieve their legacy.
We specialize in business valuation growth and exit-readiness.
We have resources for entrepreneurs from ideation through exit.
We bring in top entrepreneurs from around the country for our Leadership Talk series and invite local business owners and community leaders to attend and learn from the best.
We also host retreats for founders and entrepreneurs, focused on personal wellness and leadership growth.

What makes you happy?
When a founder calls me to tell me how they handled a situation in their life or business, especially where I had an impact on them and the outcome from my coaching, mentoring, or advising. Very fulfilling.

Sharing flight and aviation with like-minded entrepreneurs. I love seeing their reactions when we take off to the skies and we have such authentic conversations in flight.

Sharing immersive cultural experiences with founders and entrepreneurs around the globe, watching them come alive and grow through our retreats.

Getting out into nature with my children, backpacking in other countries, fly fishing, back country hiking, etc.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.waadvisors.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reublevinsohn/profilecard/?igsh=ajRwNmZ5dWlxZTQy
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/rdlevinsohn
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@flyingwithfounders?feature=shared
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/washington-avenue-advisors/