This is Good: HIGHTOWER AT YEAR 1

Written By Trevor Hightower

“Now I have had most of the life I am going to have, and I can see what it has been. I can remember those early years when it seemed to me I was cut completely adrift, and times when, looking back at earlier times, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods of error. But now it looks to me as though I was following a path that was laid out for me, unbroken, and maybe even as straight as possible, from one end to the other, and I have this feeling, which never leaves me anymore, that I have been led.”

~ Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

HIGHTOWER started in August 2024 out of Eucatastrophe.

A “sudden happy turn” where I found myself starting and running a business that had founder-product-market fit. Given the circumstances (and absolutely no master planning), this still seems miraculous.

In another way, it feels like the straight line that Berry’s Jayber Crow describes.

As I simply put one foot in front of the other, I was not precisely clear on what HIGHTOWER‘s place in the market would be a year ago.

Looking back at the straight line, it’s clear that I have been led to create a firm that prioritizes long-term relational trust and successful aligned partnerships over short-term sell-side or buy-side metrics.

Relationship over transaction, always.

I see now this is not only possible but the firm’s ultimate competitive advantage and moat.

With this as a preamble, I do find it “good” a year in, and with full knowledge my Mom may be the only one who reads all of it (love you Mom), to write an annual update with simple goals to:

  1. Glorify and thank a very good, patient, and awesome God.

  2. Update and share vision for the clients, investors, and stakeholders we work with.

  3. Help more than one friend who has recently asked, "Now, what exactly do you do again?"

I aim to do all three with candor and a desire to encourage all who read (my Mom first, and then you).

Aspirationally, I hope to do so with some words to give you clean fuel for your Hero’s Journey disguised as an aggrandizing annual letter.

If that is the case, it would be very good indeed.

COMPULSIONS AS FLYWHEEL

“I can carry on playing at this level because I like hitting the tennis ball.”

~ Novak Djokovic

I resonate with David Ogilvy:

“I cannot read a balance sheet, work a computer, ski, sail, play golf, or paint. But when it comes to advertising…”

Many things that are easy for others are difficult for me. I confound my team (Patch and Anne are incredible) at the range of these things. My wife is rightly perplexed that I can’t find my way to any restaurant we go to without Google Maps. But when it comes to encouraging and connecting …

Like advertising is for Sir David, these activities are compulsive to me.

“Encouraging” is best defined as illuminating what is true in individuals and teams. This isn’t flattery or even optimism. I see and point out what’s true and help individuals and teams live into this truth.

“Connecting” is best defined as bringing together people through earned trust and understanding. There must be something good, right, and true around a connection that creates value. When you connect through what is true and authentic, you have the best chance for something really good to occur. The result is often exponentially greater than the sum of the parts.

The beauty is, you can’t fake these definitions of encouraging and connecting. The power for each is found fully in sincere intent.

Put me in a room with nothing to do, and I’ll do these two things. This is work that feels like play to me. I could do them all day and not lose energy. I just like hitting these particular tennis balls.

A company I lead with a business model built around authentic encouraging and connecting will be impossible to compete with.

I did need to figure out how to fine-tune each so that there would be market value and compounding trust among the clients and investors I serve. God willing, that will be a multi-decade-long pursuit and thrill.

One year in, here is what that looks like in a working business model.

WHAT HIGHTOWER DOES

HIGHTOWER is an advisory firm that serves select early to mid-stage managers/sponsors with proven character, performance, and differentiation in alternative asset classes of Private Equity, Private Credit, Real Estate, and Venture.
We provide fractional Capital Formation services for these clients with a focus on creating new high-trust relationships and capital commitments from investors who are gated for values and mandate alignment. While capital placement is our primary focus, we additionally refer sourced deals and talent for clients when we meet relationships in those categories that are a true fit for the mission, mandate, and values of the client.

Investors in our network are select high-character/high-conviction family offices, foundations, and institutions that are clear on their mandate, values, and mission. We take an intentional approach to know and honor an investor before we share any client’s investment with them. For our closest investor relationships, we are serving as buy-side advisory, helping to source select deals that are a right fit for mission, mandate, and values.

YEAR 1 UPDATE

It’s worked. Not perfectly for every client. But we have had success in helping create new partnerships and investment placements. This has been the particular case when we can connect a client and an investor at the second or third level of alignment and fit beneath the iceberg (see below).

The clients we have are exceptional and we are proud to advocate for each. Clients like:

We have relationship and growing trust with a network of over 150 family offices, foundations, and institutions. As mentioned, we have to know an investor before we can connect and encourage them. So we seek first to understand and clarify history, vision, team, values, and mandate before sharing any client’s particular investment. In this way, we earn the right to become a trusted source of deal flow to a select group of investors we have taken the time to know and understand.

The company is sustainable, profitable, and we are looking to invest in order to grow in capacity. This means we will begin a slow and patient process to add teammates. The right culture fit for HIGHTOWER is obviously essential. A person who fits this culture is one part finance bro/sis, one part life coach. A high performer who might have experience at both Goldman and Kanakuk. A learner who loves to read Warren Buffett and Wendell Berry. A pardox who may equally love Buffet’s shareholder letters and Ecclesiastes. It’s a unique fit to say the least. I can’t wait to connect to and encourage these future partners and teammates.

FUTURE + “LUXURY ADVISORY”

I have no healthy anger (passion) to build an advisory that has traditional metrics of success, even if it were wildly successful.

I have all kinds of abounding clean fuel passion to build the best firm in the world that places compounding relational trust as the measure of success. In this, we endeavor to be “luxury”.

I am fully aware that, like claiming to be cool or humble, once you say you are luxury… you are not. But luxury in this business is earned and purchased only with the currency of earned trust.

So, we aspire to be luxury through a maniacal focus on improving a team, processes, and culture that compounds earned trust.

To this end, we will always be limited in the clients we can serve. That scarcity is the result of selecting clients through increasing standards of the quality of character and earned reputation of the manager or sponsor.

We want being a HIGHTOWER client to be a telling signal of character and founder/market fit for sponsors.

While there is good (maybe great) room for growth, no matter how big we get, we will always be for the few. Our clients and investors in our network will be a small minority of the marketplace.

Our path that is laid out for us, unbroken and maybe even as straight as possible, will be to earn compounding earned trust with this minority. It is a gift to know we are “led” to this end.

ON ANNIVERSARIES

A year in, I am compelled to thank a few dear friends who I simply would be adrift without. Austin Adams, Brent Beshore, Terry Looper, the entire Cloud Camp group of sages and peers, my MOTA group, my parents, and my wife and kids, whom I hope to most deeply encourage and connect with the years I get to live. I love and am grateful for each of you.

My wife, Tyler and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary this past Friday. Something about this and its coinciding with the one-year anniversary of HIGHTOWER makes me particularly reflective.

Many truths transcend both anniversaries. Here are a few:

  • The best things in life tend to be the hardest, and the hardest things in life tend to be the best.

  • Life is a gift and filled with gifts, we need grace and truth to see.

  • Failure is a painful, beautiful, and essential forcing mechanism to grow.

  • A healthy and whole-hearted response to failure increases our capacity for grace and truth.

  • The things we have healthy anger for require our whole heart and whole self.

  • Attraction is better than promotion.

  • My bride, Tyler, is the best thing that has ever happened to me (Less of a transcendent theme and more just spitting facts.)

And, a final transcendent truth:

  • The best partnerships happen when “knowing” is found below the surface.

Picture an iceberg. Above the water, you see more obvious levels of connection. What attracted you to your spouse when you were dating. Alignment of values and the qualities you are looking for in someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.

On the investor side, you see alignment of mandate. A team of people and a strategy you align with and can trust the stewardship of your capital to.

It’s essential you connect above the service.

But below the surface is where the magic lives.

The things below the surface include what someone is angry for. What they’re passionate about. What they long for and why. What makes them come alive and why. Who they are becoming and why.

The best partnerships (and marriages) require alignment above the surface. But the most redemptive and powerful ones? They are forged through the hard work of knowing and alignment beneath the surface.

This requires the hard work of “knowing thy self” on each side. It also requires curiosity and presence on each side. Identifying, knowing, and creating alignment beneath the surface is one of the most gratifying things in the world.

Bringing clarity and alignment beneath the surface in a way that creates the most enduring and flourishing partnerships is what I hope to do for our clients and investor network.

If we get to do this proximately (I love you, Steve Garber), but with increasing skill and capacity, well, I can’t think of anything better or more exciting.

That is truly work that feels like play. A ball that is a gift to hit and an unbroken path that, while full of obstacles and detours, is actually as straight as possible.

BEACON LIGHTS

“See! The beacons of Gondor are alight, calling for aid.”

HIGHTOWER Clients: It’s a gift to represent (encourage and connect) clients who are “the type of people you want to do business with”. We are early, but it’s with gratitude and conviction, I can say this description fits the clients we serve. We are proud to advocate for each. If you are interested in how to partner with any, let me know.

HIGHTOWER Investor Network: We follow Uncle Charlie’s advice that in order to build a seamless web of deserved trust, we should “deliver what we would want to buy if the circumstances were reversed”. When we apply this advice to investors in our network, some obvious and simple principles emerge. We have to know an investor before we can connect and encourage them. So we seek first to understand and clarify history, vision, values, and mandate before sharing any deal. In this way, we aim to be uniquely valuable. A trusted source of deal flow to a select group of investors, we have taken the time to know and understand. If you would like to be part of our investor network, let us know. The first step would be to satisfy our sincere curiosity about you.

Gratefully, 

Trevor Hightower 

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This note is meant as an encouragement and, practically, as an update with my new contact information below. Again, if you want to connect or I can help you, don't hesitate to reach out. 

Trevor Hightower