'I lost purpose': At 27, he sold his company for $100 million — now, he says it's changed his view on money
When Jake Kassan sold his company for $100 million at the age of 27, he thought the money would make him happy. Though it did temporarily, it eventually took away his sense of purpose and threw him into cycles of anxiety and depression, he said.
In 2018, Kassan sold his Los Angeles-based accessory brand MVMT Watches — pronounced "movement" — to the Movado Group in a deal that left him walking away a multi-millionaire. The company, which he had started as a 21-year-old college dropout, granted him the financial freedom he sought.
"The North Star when I was younger, was always financial freedom," Kassan told CNBC Make It. "So my purpose, I always felt was: I wanted to make money."
"Then you sell [your company] and then ... for the first time in years, I don't want to talk about MVMT anymore, but I also didn't know what to talk about, and I couldn't find anything that felt as important as that entrepreneurial journey," he said. "I think I lost purpose."
Today, the 33-year-old is working on regaining his sense of purpose and redefining what happiness means to him.
As a kid, Kassan said, he was never particularly good at school. Instead, he saw more value in making money.
"Academically, I've just never done [well]. I've always been probably just a little below average," Kassan said. "Call it ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) or whatever they want to label it as these days ... I'm very good at being hyper focused, and it's a strength and a weakness of mine, to be honest."
"I found that if there's something I'm interested in, I'm extremely focused and almost obsessive over that thing to the point that you kind of will it into being successful, but also sometimes you sacrifice other areas of life," he said.
Kassan's first "business"