About

Hey I'm Marshall Haas

I started this site to teach everything I’ve learned about building businesses & products, personal finance, and investing. If you’re new here, this page is a great place to start.

Overview

I’m the co-founder & CEO of Need/Want, which has turned into a small group of companies we started and own. Over the years we’ve started & created many different products and brands. Some of them failed, some were acquired, and others turned into multi-million dollar companies. I’ve sold million of dollars of my own physical product inventions. I don’t have any formal training – I’ve winged it ever since dropping out of college.

I co-own several businesses. You can explore all of them here.

Awards I'm Proud Of

  • Inc. Magazine ranked my company one of the fastest growing private companies in America. In 2018 we were ranked #1 in St. Louis, #1 in Missouri, and #108 nationwide. We stopped applying years later.
  • Forbes 30 Under 30 alumn.

Notable Stories & Projects

  • My story was featured in the book Company of One by Paul Jarvis
  • I worked at MetaLab as a Partner in their software division for a short time. I co-founded a software service called Peak with Andrew and the team there.
  • I was kicked out of Canada while building Peak – fun story (for a future blog post). While I had nothing to do with it, I witnessed Slack get designed and built at MetaLab during my time there. That experience ingrained in me that massive things can have tiny beginnings.
  • I funded my first startup at 21 by moving to Chile for an equity free grant from the Chilean government.
  • I spent half of 2019 traveling full-time through Europe and Asia with my wife, funded entirely by credit card points.
  • Our longest running company is Peel, a minimalist essentials brand from Need/Want. Peel is most well known for creating the original super thin iPhone case. We’ve since expanded to additional product categories.

Investing

I bought a boutique building in downtown St. Louis called The Ludwig and started buying residential rental properties in the area.

The Ludwig building in downtown St. Louis

I occasionally invest in my friend's companies and startups. I’m a part owner in Loop Internet, a fiber internet provider in Pennsylvania. Finally, I've invested a chunk of my net-worth into Tiny as an LP. They run a fund focused on buying wonderful internet businesses.

What I Write About

I write and teach about a range of topics branching from my own experience being an entrepreneur for the last 10 years. Some popular topics I write about:

  • Starting & Growing Businesses – I've started businesses in e-commerce, hospitality, services, digital goods, software, and real estate.
  • Making Physical Products – everything from designing and prototyping a physical product idea, getting it manufactured overseas, building an e-commerce store, and growing a brand.
  • Building Wealth – all things personal finance, investing, real estate, and passive income.
  • Travel Rewards – one of my favorite hobbies has become accumulating and optimizing credit card points to travel for free.
  • Productivity & Improvement – I'm always looking for ways to improve my life or free up my time through delegation.

Today

I’m 31 years old and live in Frisco, Texas with my wife Jaimie and our son Finn. In addition to adjusting to parent life, we're focused on designing & building a collection of cabins under our brand ofHaas.

My wife Jaimie and I with our baby boy Finn


My Writing

Read The Blog

I write about the inside details of my businesses & finances.
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