Dear Richard Branson:
An Open Letter
Dear Sir Richard Branson,
For the past 50+ years, you have and will continue to disrupt everything you come into contact with, whether it be from your innovative thinking, drive or simply kindness.
You definitely won’t remember me, but we have met several times. The first being at your launch of Virgin Megastore on Market Street in San Francisco, where you signed my “Losing My Virginity” book, and my coveted Virgin Blue airplane cutout that I swiped from a travel agency while in Australia. And again, in Los Angeles at your charitable event, where the famous wig picture (above) was taken. These small interactions have monumentally impacted me, which in turn, have impacted the thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses I’ve served through my business, Ubiquity Retirement + Savings.
I’ve been an entrepreneur since grade school and have always been driven by a sense of, fearless independence, and the need to solve for points of pain. After reading your book “Losing My Virginity”, I saw many parallels between us. For example, you published Student magazine and I published a menu guide book to the restaurants of San Francisco. Your story inspired me to start the business I have today. Through this journey, I heeded your most straightforward piece of advice, “Go where people are getting screwed.”
That has always been a part of my DNA. I’ve built multiple businesses in service, hospitality and, most notably, in financial technology. Everything I have accomplished has been driven by this same premise. It’s all about pushing the boundaries to the point of breaking, to rewrite and rejuvenate old standards that no longer fit our way of life.
Business is emotional, counter to what we are told and our expectations. But instead of a path or destination, building a business is more so building on a vision that is meant to deliver a home for our employees and an amazing experience for our customers. In that order.
But what matters most is the story, the struggle and those that are screwed. That’s why I chose small business retirement– where the “little guy” is getting screwed every single day. Historically, the small business community has not been able to afford retirement plans for their employees and, frankly, plan providers couldn’t find profitability in small accounts. For years, they were left to pay for overpriced plans they couldn’t afford, and workers were left with non-existent personal savings and scraps for Social Security.
So, I went where the people were getting screwed. A daring task if you ask me. But as you say Richard, you don’t learn by following the rules.
That necessary evil you talk about not being necessary? It’s pervasive in finance, as you and the rest of the world knows. As a prior broker from a top firm, I found myself living in an antiquated model, as they all are. I also found in my clients, micro-small business owners in need of affordable retirement plans. It was in these masses of the screwed that a business opportunity was born.
Twenty years ago this year, I created The Online 401(k), now rebranded as Ubiquity Retirement + Savings, out of my apartment in San Francisco. We are in the business of changing people’s futures and I created a brand-new model in a space that is just now coming to life with much-wanted and needed competition.
In these 20 years, we’ve helped thousands of businesses and dedicated employees save billions of dollars, so that elderly poverty is not part of their future equation. We’ve partnered with the same firms that we originally railed against to provide the much-needed solution they had not been able to monetize. As new competition comes into the market, we offer them the foundational lessons we learned, so they don’t have to reinvent any unnecessary wheels. We do this because the problem is too big to be solved by one company. We need to band together and deliver the solution. Together. It started here. And it started with you, Richard, as a silent mentor.
You have been, and always will be, a part of the soundtrack to my drive. They say the entrepreneur’s path is a lonely one, but I disagree. We choose to be the black sheep. We are part of the same tribe, powered by morality and ethics, together.
So, Richard, I want to thank you. For being as much a part of my story as you are to millions. Your impact is not lost on anyone, and your paying it forward has helped me do the same.
Chad Parks
CEO and Founder
Ubiquity Retirement + Savings
P.S. Want to partner in solving the looming retirement crisis for millions? Reach out–I’d love to fight this battle together.
