Nicholas Cook on Building Money 101 Academy and Breaking Free from the 9-to-5 Mindset

From early days as a financial advisor to founding Money 101 Academy, Nicholas Cook’s path to entrepreneurship is a story of growth, grit, and vision. With a passion for blending technology and education, Nicholas created a scalable brand aimed at helping others achieve financial freedom. In this edition of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight series, he shares how embracing skills like blogging and website development helped him shift from small-scale freelancing to building a business with lasting impact—and why learning, pivoting, and having fun along the way were key to his success.

Hi, Nicholas! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?

I like finding meaningful projects and communities to collaborate with. I am the founder of Money 101 Academy, which creates personal finance and business educational content and the Money 101 Academy Membership to help people on the road to financial freedom. The website, money101academy.com, includes a blog, membership, YouTube Channel, and the Money 101 Newsletter.  

I also invest in real estate and enjoy blogging about life, business, and creativity at www.nickcook.blog

Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.

My business life has consisted of both entrepreneurial and freelance-type businesses. Creating a brand that can outlive you, that has customers, is on the entrepreneur track. So, probably Money 101 Academy is the first business I created that has done something like this. 

But, I've also had experience more on the freelance or small business track, including a career as a financial advisor, e-commerce business, and investing in real estate.  

Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.

After working in a career as a financial advisor about 15-20 years ago, I gained experience that helped me appreciate more of what it is to be an entrepreneur, though I don't consider financial advising to be a true entrepreneurial business.  I think it was many years later when I began to develop some greater technology skills, particularly in building websites, blogging, and doing an email newsletter, that I began to see I could create a brand that was bigger than me that could be scalable.  

Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?

WordPress.  It has allowed me to quickly build a minimum viable product (MVP) and test to see if there's a market for a startup idea.

We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.

Having experience working as a financial advisor from 15-20 years ago, I tried starting a financial coaching business several years ago. I quickly realized I wanted to create something that was more scalable and technology-based, which is why I pivoted to starting Money 101 Academy.  

What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?

Learning to bootstrap a business. Perhaps not unconventional, but I've learned ways to keep costs low, especially early on in a business. However, I've also learned that spending money can be important, especially if you are partnering with somebody with tons of experience and resources that can help you shortcut and skip many iterations to find success quicker.  

What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?

You don't have to figure it out today. But keep building projects and companies where you can look back later and at least be glad about the new experiences and skills you developed, which can help you with whatever comes next.  Find a mentor who has done what you want to do and work with them.  Have fun while you're building.

Want to dive deeper into Nicholas's work? Check out the links below!

• Visit Money 101 Academy's website money101academy.com
• Subscribe to the Money 101 Newsletter
• Visit Nicholas's blog about life, business, and creativity nickcook.blog
• Follow Nicholas in X @NicholasinUSA