Peter Hwang spent 28 years building six companies across six completely different industries. He survived the 2008 financial crisis, which wiped out a near-IPO a month before closing and left him with $3M in debt and a wife six months pregnant with their third child. He rebuilt from that. Then built again.
In 2018 and 2019, two of his companies sold within 14 months of each other, an 8-figure and a 9-figure exit. He was 45. Technically retired, but then everything stopped.
In this episode, Peter and I get into what was driving him through 28 years of building, the fear, the proving, the scarcity model he carried his whole life without naming it. We talk about what it felt like when the emails stopped and the urgency disappeared, why achieving everything he worked for left him feeling lonely and depressed, and how he eventually found his way back to building for a completely different reason.
We also get into what separates founders who make it from those who get stuck, how his passion and purpose shifted across three distinct chapters of his life, and what his dad said when Peter finally gave him the one thing he actually wanted.
This is a conversation about what happens when the outcome arrives and it doesn't feel the way you thought it would. If you've ever felt like you were chasing an external feeling of success and needed to rediscover your internal purpose, this one's for you.
_______
(01:25) Growing up watching his parents' Baskin-Robbins
(04:47) Why he knew he had to work for himself
(06:07) What actually drove his early ambition
(07:42) Starting Extreme Pita and his first exit at 24
(10:43) Why he keeps building in completely different industries
(12:53) Enwise: the near-IPO that collapsed in 2008
(15:03) The email that changed everything
(16:22) Who showed up when things fell apart
(18:28) What Cindy said when he told her
(20:32) What kept him going through two years of rebuilding
(23:37) How Enwise led directly to Globalfaces
(24:09) Running two companies simultaneously for seven years
(32:01) What separates founders who make it from those who get stuck
(37:07) Two exits in 14 months and the arrival fallacy
(39:53) From 100 emails a day to three
(41:52) How he found his way back to purpose
(45:07) How passion and purpose shifted across three chapters
(46:18) What his dad actually wanted
(47:40) How building businesses built him as a person
(53:47) What he hopes his kids take from watching him
Show notes:
Connect with our host:
- Follow Melissa on LinkedIn where she shares stories & lessons from her founder journey weekly.
- Connect with Melissa at melissakwan.comand subscribe to 'your founder next door', Melissa's weekly newsletter on what it's like to build a company without an abundance of resources and friends in high places.
- Follow @themelissakwan on Instagram and YouTube where she shares short videos of business advice and other truth-bomb sound bites.
This podcast was brought to you by eWebinar:
Find out how you can turn pre-recorded videos into interactive experiences with chat so you can run your demos, onboarding calls, and training sessions on autopilot, 24/7, without being there. Hop into a demo at eWebinar.com, no salesperson required.
