Timothy Armoo, co-founder and former CEO of Funbyte.
Tim Armoo.
Timothy Armoo, co-founder and former CEO of influencer marketing company Funbyte, is not what you would expect from a millionaire.
He says he doesn’t own any mansions or real estate, preferring to spend some of his money on a variety of investments, from an exotic fruit business in Africa to financing the sale of a lithium mine.
Armoo made his money by selling Fanbytes to digital marketing agency Brainlabs in May 2022 for an eight-figure sum (the exact amount was not disclosed).
But the young entrepreneur told CNBC Make It that growing up poor in a council estate in south London “almost made it difficult to spend money.”
“I was convinced that once I started spending money, everything would be fine,” Almu said of what he called a “scarcity mindset” he developed growing up.
“I track it weekly, maybe twice a week,” he said. “I had a spreadsheet to track how much I had down to the penny.”
Almu knew he had to find a way to accept the fact that he was now wealthy and wasn’t going to lose everything, so he called his bank. “I said, ‘I’d like to come and withdraw £1 million in cash.'”
After various tests, Almu collected the cash from the bank and took it home in a large bag. Then he spread it all out on the bed.
“I just looked,” he said. “The reason I did that was because I wanted it to tell me very intuitively: “If all else fails, if you spend everything on gambling, or in crypto or something worse, If you spend, at least you have £1 million in cash.’
“Totally exotic” investments
Armoo said he invests money in index funds (passive funds that track indexes such as the S&P 500) and owns various stocks, including Shopify and Cloudflare.
“So I basically have two camps. One is a very safe bucket: index funds, overweight cash, bonds, and guilt and Treasury. And then there’s the other side of things. The sides are completely exotic.”
Armoo’s more unusual investments include financing avocado, soybean and mango businesses in Kenya, Angola and Tanzania that supply European supermarkets.
Almu on a banana plantation in Angola
Tim Armoo.
He also acknowledged being involved in “random stuff” and “alternative investments” such as buying uranium and financing the sale of lithium mines.
“I enjoy the game of finding different arbitrage and different cool ways to use that money and investing it instead of ‘putting it all into an index fund,'” he added.
Armoo is a minimalist and doesn’t own a house
Most wealthy people like to invest in real estate, but not Armoo.
“In fact, I don’t own a home. I’m not involved in any residential real estate or direct commercial real estate,” he said.
“Most people think of property as a way to build wealth, but I use business as a way to build wealth. I don’t have a family or a partner. So why not?”
Mr Almu said more young billionaires would make this choice, rejecting real estate in favor of being able to travel and move more. “I probably spend half the year in London,” he says.
And unlike his colleagues, he does not tend to buy luxury things.
“I’m usually a pretty minimalist person,” he said. An example of a “flashy” purchase he gave was first class tickets to Bali for him and his now ex-girlfriend. “That was cool. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, this is a gang.'”
The young billionaire emphasized that sometimes it’s good to reject traditional ways.
“Actually, I think there’s a bigger point here, and it’s to examine the rules by which you live your life. You should examine the rules and say, ‘Why do I have to do this? ‘Why should I choose a career or invest my money this way?’ he said.
“You should really consider those rules, or you’ll wake up later and realize you’ve been living your life according to someone else’s rules.”
