Building a Life You Don’t Need to Retire From | Marc Sanderson | A Founder’s Life S7 E3

This episode of A Founder’s Life is brought to you by Thankz, helping founders scale with reliable remote talent. Get $1,000 off your first month by emailing founders@thankz.com with the subject line Founder’s Life.

Many entrepreneurs spend decades building a successful business, only to realize they never built the life they actually wanted.

In this episode of A Founder’s Life, Leo Gestetner sits down with Marc Sanderson, CEO and Co-Founder of INNERGY, to discuss entrepreneurship, leadership, work-life integration, and why success is ultimately measured by far more than revenue.

Marc shares the incredible journey from acquiring a small cabinet company in the late 1990s to building custom ERP software that eventually evolved into INNERGY, now serving more than 1,800 woodworking and manufacturing businesses across North America. Along the way, he also led the transition of his original company to 100% employee ownership—creating a lasting legacy beyond himself.

But this conversation goes far beyond software.

Marc opens up about surviving cancer three separate times, why community theater became one of the most important investments in his own well-being, and how intentionally balancing work, family, health, and fun has become the foundation of both his leadership and his life.

Throughout the conversation, we explore entrepreneurship, business leadership, resilience, health, family, legacy, personal growth, and the importance of designing a life you never want to retire from.

Whether you’re launching your first startup or leading a growing company, Marc shares practical lessons every entrepreneur can apply.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why building a meaningful life matters more than simply building a successful business
• How employee ownership creates lasting legacy
• Why every entrepreneur should intentionally invest in family, health, work, and fun
• How surviving cancer changed Marc’s perspective on leadership and life
• Why “me time” makes you a better founder instead of a worse one
• How systems allow founders to reclaim their time
• Why integrity creates stronger long-term partnerships
• How hobbies outside of work improve leadership performance
• Why balance requires continuous adjustment—not perfection

Marc also shares how performing in community theater helped him recharge, why monthly date nights remain a priority after more than three decades of marriage, and how one mentor fundamentally shaped his philosophy on trust, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

If you enjoy conversations about entrepreneurship, founder mindset, business leadership, resilience, work-life balance, personal development, health, and building meaningful businesses, you’ll enjoy this episode.

Connect with Today’s Guest – Marc Sanderson

Website: https://innergy.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcsanderson/

If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe for more interviews with founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business leaders sharing the real stories behind building meaningful businesses—and meaningful lives.

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Transcript

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making sure that all four elements of family, fun, health and work end up finding that balance. If not, if one of those is out of balance, it's gonna it's gonna affect the others. And then all of them get affected. Spending the time being very specific about how the tactical elements of what you do in your life, whether it's date night, whether it's the conversation that you have with your EA about work-life balance, whether it is making time and recognizing when the equity account of fun or the me time or the me investment is too low and you need to make a new deposit, being very thoughtful through this life journey that we're all on, Welcome to A Founder's Life. I'm your host, Leo Gestetner. On this show, we dive into the real stories behind the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and how we pursue a more integrated and meaningful life along the way. This podcast is sponsored by Thankz, helping founders like us scale with reliable remote talent. Now, today I'm excited to be joined by Mark Sanderson. Mark, thank you for joining. Would you kick things off by introducing yourself to the audience, I'm really excited to be joining you, Leo. So thank you very much for having me on your podcast. it's an honor. and so defining oneself, one can think about it in terms of the standard North American way, or one can think about it in terms of a whole host of ways. You know, I can define myself as a father of three, I can define myself as a CEO of INNERGY⁓ I can define myself as a former owner of a company called Wilkie Sanderson that was in architectural woodworking. those professional definitions end up being very North American in its classification, you know, think about cocktail parties and what people say. So what do you do? but there's more to life than just what you do. And so I can define myself in terms of, you know what? I love community theater, and I've been on stage about ten times doing some really fun stuff. There's multiple ways to define oneself. but if you just look at it from a professional perspective today. And maybe one of the key reasons that you and I are chatting. I am the CEO of INNERGY I'm actually one of the founders of this organization. We are a SAS-based company saw serving the architectural woodworking industry, high-end residential, architectural woodworking, woodworking in general with an ERP package. and so I think that's how our paths crossed. But there are multiple ways to kind of do that introduction and to find and and kind of write one's bio. Perfect. So talk a little bit about your journey that brought you where you are today, and then a little more about what the business is doing for your customers. I mean, you're sort of in a very Yeah. traditional business, but very modern in some ways as well. Yeah. Yeah, very fair. I I'm I'm gonna go backwards in the story and give you the kind of the the nickel version all the way back, depending on who your listeners are and what they might find interesting. I ended up going to grad school, got my MBA at an East Coast school here in the States. I met an individual who ended up b becoming my business partner and we created an angel fund and we looked for a business to buy. We ended up looking at probably thir three hundred companies, made thirteen offers. Lucky number thirteen was this company called Ron's in Minnesota. small little firm, the name kind of implies what it was about. good cash flow, good organization, great industry, if you just kind of think Porter and Five Forces and all that kind of stuff. And so we bought it. that was in nineteen ninety-seven. as a result, in nineteen ninety-eight, I think we had like four computers in the whole company. And so we ended up in ninety-eight hiring our own developer and literally writing our own software in a program called FileMaker Pro the industry didn't have anybody serving it. the ones and zeros in terms of data was not key. Most entrepreneurs in our industry were were thinking about sawdust as opposed to information. And we took a very different tack thinking about the informational aspect of making money as opposed to the sawdust as the way to make the money. as a result, we wrote this program, hodgepodge together. I call it a farmhouse. Every time we had a new problem, we'd add a new wing to the farmhouse, we'd have a pair of twins or whatever the case may be, we'd add on to it, and it was put together with bubble gum and duct tape and baling wire very candidly. But enough companies in the industry, and we we were an open shop, we let competitors come in, we We kind of had a presence within the industry. And people kept knocking on our door saying, Hey, can I buy that software from you? And so about 11, 12 years ago, we decided, all right, there might be something worthwhile here. let's put some money aside and see if we can take this bubblegum kind of solution that it does solve the problems of the woodworking industry and put it into a modern architecture. And as a result, ~ We started this company INNERGY. And so from six firms within our CAM and within our ICP to we have over eighteen hundred today that we're serving not only on an ERP basis, but also with payroll, also with a CADCAM or computer aided design and manufacturing product. eleven years has been quite a run. about two years ago, ~ a company called Mainsail, private equity firm. Decided that they wanted to make an investment in us. And so they did. and so we are private equity owned. they own 51% of the organization, and we continue to grow. last year our growth rate was somewhere around 40, 45%. our budget has us putting this year somewhere between 37 and 40 million dollars, another 40 plus growth rate year. And so it's been an exciting rocket ride over the last 11. That's the short version of the story on how from a professional basis that you and I are chatting today. That's great. what about the original business? you pivoted more to the software. Yeah. What happened to the original business? Yeah, great question. In two thousand and eight, we ended up starting to sell pieces, parts to the employees. so one of the things I'm very committed to is how do we bring the organization along on this journey? And so with that woodworking shop that wasn't called Ron's Cabinets anymore, we named it Wilkie Sanderson. Two thousand and eight we started an ESOP and in two thousand twenty-five the ESOP, the employees of the organization Bought the remaining shares for my wife and I. And so now that organization is 100% employee owned. it's been a little bit over a year, year and a half since they've since they've done that, doing incredibly well, which I'm very proud of. The fact that if you can think about this is your businesses are kind of like your children. and so this child, Wilkie Sanderson, made it through puberty. got to adulthood, and now is a contributing member of society. And occasionally we have a conversation, but they're not running back to mom and dad or living in the basement. The organization is doing incredibly well. And so that business, Wilkie Sanderson, they're doing about twenty five, thirty million dollars annually, a hundred employees, and they're all shareholders in the organization, which is really exciting. Excellent. Are you still involved at all or just as an advisor? no no. No, actually, they don't want dad around at all. And so it was a complete buyout. There's no note, nothing along those lines. they're on their own and doing really, really well. I occasionally run into employees from Wilkie and they're like, Yeah, things are going extremely well, which again, from a parenting perspective, if we one thinks about thinks about business and puts that family and work life together. what we do as CEOs is really has elements of parenting in it. And so I'm just extremely proud that the organization is on its own, doing extremely well and and you know, that's to people, systems, process, the whole nine yards. It's it's fundamentally there. And it's exciting to see them. and by the way, they're an INNERGY user also, which is also kinda cool. and talk to us a little bit about family, what family looks like for you? Yeah, great question. my wife and I have been married thirty-six years, high school sweethearts. And so we have three boys, two dogs. the three boys, my eldest is in Sydney, Australia. He just graduated in a PT degree. So he's the first doctor in the family, which is just exciting. And by the way, he makes sure that dad knows that, which is a lot of fun. my second son is here with us in Florida. He's about to go to Scotland for a soccer career. And my youngest is in Minnesota ~ working in the machine trades. So three boys all out of the house were slightly empty nesters. you know, kids come back once in a while in between things, as our one son's going off to Edinburgh for for the next four years. So my wife, Marie, sweetheart, she keeps me in line. She's the real boss of the family. And so, like I said, married thirty-six years, and we still go out on date nights and and have a lot of fun. having a healthy marriage post kids. is really important because you can get to that point. You go, we were married for a reason and then we raised kids and that seemed to be the primary reason. And when the kids leave, then you go like, ~ what's our purpose again as a couple? and so we've spent time working on that and being very specific and committed to not letting that little dip as the kids leave the house become a a footnote in our~ married life and the family life. Lovely. I remember when I first moved to LA, like 16 years ago, I remember meeting someone and he said to me, I said, how long have you been married? And he said, just celebrate our something like 288th Yeah. anniversary. And he said, we celebrate monthly. He said that the anniversary of when we got married, every single month, that's an anniversary. big date night, but it's an anniversary. That's how they looked at it. They didn't say they'd be married 24 years. It was 288 months. That was a I love it. great way of doing it, actually. I liked that. I might steal that one. and Leo probably not give you any credit or your friend any credit towards towards that. So I'm gonna start changing my answer. As I'm getting divorced, I wouldn't credit me with it.⁓ I never managed to very fair, young man. Very fair. I understand. I understand. implement it. I always wanted to. I never managed to actually implement that one. I do think it's a great one. Because you have regular date nights, so why not make that a, know, something fun about that and something that makes Amen. ~ it an extra special date night, that once a month So yeah, I love that.~ Yeah. And health. Now I know health isn't, you know, isn't... Yeah. core of everything to you, but what does health look like? And to me, health, there's lots of aspects. sleep is important, mental Yeah. health, physical health, nutrition. Yeah. How does everything around health look like for you? Yeah, so let me I'm gonna give you a little bit of a backstory on this one so that you have context. I'm a three-time survivor of cancer. So I've had thyroid cancer, I've had colon cancer, and I've had I had prostate cancer. And so towards that end, I would describe myself in my health journey is cancer one has a small c. technology and what one can do to overcome very important and absolutely key. So So my health journey to your point has been one of a little bit of a fight. it's not I would say normal from the perspective of maybe some of your other participants ~ and what they're doing on a daily basis, but health is important. I do subjugate health at times for my professional career. That's a defect upstairs that I'm trying to work on and make time. When I do make time, it is pickleball. I'm of a certain age ~ and I'm missing part of my spine. So some sports are off limits. I do play racquetball, I play pickleball, I end up biking. That's kind of my and I live in Florida, so it's either biking in the morning it Or in the evening. and that couples with the element of what your podcast and your audience looks for is that family component and the health and the fun component. we try and put all three of those together. So biking is something that I can share with my wife. in addition to that, I am obsessed with monitoring all my vitals. With a three-term, three-time cancer survivor. you can imagine, you know. blood, PSA, the whole nine yards, we monitor the information. And so I will say this, I've had my genes checked, the full genome, and they're still trying to find that cancer gene. But for whatever reason, yeah. But I'm I have no plans for number four, if that's fair, Leo. Well, congratulations for beating it three times. I think that's excellent. I think Yeah. it's great to hear. Yeah, and if there's a fourth, you know what? It's it's mental. It is how one approaches it. And and again, my favorite phrase is cancer doesn't have a capital C in front of it anymore. this is something that we can we can tackle and beat. And yeah, so I'm not looking for number four, but if it comes, man, we're gonna put up a fight again. Yeah, I like what you talk about on the, you know, you're talking about genome and things like that. I mean, I do full sets of blood tests. actually, Yeah. my genome, my full genome, I will be receiving in the next week or so. I have a full AI system I built that looks at all of my... biometrics, looks at, you know, like sleep every night, I'm a massive runner. It looks at running, it at, you know, it's Yep. looking at every aspect every day. Built into that is, you know, blood test results, the genome, will be re-sequencing, Yeah. again, I've built out that that will be able to analyze that and compare it against everything else. And it is interesting what you can do these days you just couldn't do before. incredible. In to the same point, I don't have the whole agent set up with all my data. But recent medical testing, the the full chem analysis, threw that in and wanted to have an analysis because some move things moved in the wrong direction. And it absolutely made some correlations and some suggestions in terms of health adjustments that I needed to make vis-a-vis my kidneys and some calcium content and etc. So that's the second idea that I'm gonna steal from you is actually create the full agent in Claude. So I thank you.⁓ what you can do. I mean, you know, we do a lot of development, so mine's pretty advanced. but like my agent has everything from the last 15 years, has every MRI I've done. it's actually built in a full jeez. MRI for you. I've got some some things I'm looking at and I'm looking at some stem cell treatments and I can give the doctor full access to my system, to every health record, to every MRI I've ever done in the last 15 years. and they can really dive in. it's ~ quite interesting what you can do. a quick request to the audience, if you're enjoying this conversation, please click subscribe. And then Yes. moving on, talk to us, you sort of touched on it a minute ago, but talk a little bit about fun. What do you like to do for fun?~ yeah. I I I might be weird, I probably am, very candidly, but fun for me, the moment. finding balance includes others, you know, family, your work life, and then you you have to do something for the me in that equation. And so the me time for me is community theater. And so I have been on stage at Great Theater in St. Claude, Minnesota. I think if I'm counting correctly, roughly about ten times, ten performances, ten shows. Everything from Le Miz to Shrek to ragtime, newsies, footloose, so shows that those that are familiar with Broadway are like, Yeah, I know that show. and so it's I enjoy the performance, I enjoy the singing, I enjoy the acting, and that is a classic me time. I in fact, Le Miz is coming back again. into St. Cloud, Minnesota for a community theater. auditions are this August, so I'm I'm gonna try again. as I've been telling people, I'm now the right age for the death scene at the end of that show. So we'll see if I get cast. so that's that's the fun thing for me. I'll just do one little simple story towards that end. in Shrek. Most people have seen Shrek, whether it's the movie or the TV cartoons or in fact the Broadway performance, but Lord Farquad was the the the role that I ended up playing. So I had to do the whole show on my knees, on knee pads. it was it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. So that's the me time for me. I love that because I don't have a creative bone in my body, but I love that you ha. can do that. Talk to us little bit about, as we look at those different aspects of your life, how you really integrate everything and how you make sure that you do fit time in for those different Yeah. aspects. you you're touching on a really important piece and I know that this is a theme throughout all your podcasts, is finding balance amongst all four is absolutely key. And there are moments where that balance is out of line. But having that fundamental mental rubric of work life, family, health, and fun, or the me time, that would be my expression. putting all of those in the right balance. I have an EA and Kate's my EA. And so she recognizes that balance. And so we've had numerous conversations of how we find that. Because I think it and I and I've discovered this and maybe with your AI agent when you see a blip in some of your medical data, you can kind of correlate that back to what's going on in your life. Without the AI agent, I bet all of us can relate to and say, it's, you know, I'm not in balance. I don't find that harmony or that sweet spot right now. And I would argue it's finding all four of those in the right spot. One of the reasons that I'm auditioning this August is to come back to with a little bit of me time. It's been about two years since mainsail made an investment in us. And so I haven't been on stage in that period of time. I haven't done much me. The organization is starting to get systemic. and on the right vector that were scalable. Now it's time to make an investment, a deposit in the bank account of me, very candidly. Cause I'm gonna be a better leader, a better CEO in this organization, a better husband with that type of investment. And it's and it's gonna impact my health also. So all four of those end up overlapping on that Venn diagram. And it's trying to find that sweet spot very candidly, Leo, which you and your audience already know. But take the same approach here. It all makes complete sense. And tell us what has been a pivotal moment in your life? I'll do it professionally, if that's okay. when I started to do the nickel version of the story at the beginning of the bodc podcast, I was talking about meeting a business partner at ~ Harvard when I went to school for my MBA. that individual in that moment absolutely pivotal. Walter Wilkie ended up teaching me an incredible amount from a professional perspective of How to live life. And I'll give a very deep dive example that ~ and Walter's not with us anymore. but one example was after 9-11, our woodworking business ran into some difficulty. the construction market, as you can imagine, collapsed. Walter ended up writing a check over a phone call, putting money into the business which we needed over a verbal phone call handshake. the man taught me an incredible amount of just in terms of how business is done in the past or how business can be done with integrity as part of it. And so I would use Walter as an example as that moment, but there are moments all along that journey in terms of that individual and him as a mentor in my life. And so hopefully that answered your question in a slightly unique sort of way. I think that was a great story. And tell me, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur? Given the context of what we talk about in your audience, I would say that being specific about finding that balance, making sure that all four elements of family, fun, health and work end up finding that balance. If not, if one of those is out of balance, it's gonna affect the others. And then all of them get affected. Spending the time being very specific about how the tactical elements of what you do in your life, whether it's date night, whether it's the conversation that you have with your EA about work-life balance, whether it is making time and recognizing when the equity account of fun or the me time or the me investment is too low and you need to make a new deposit, being very thoughtful through this life journey that we're all on, of re reassessing all four of those elements and are they in balance, are they all moving in the right direction? That would be my wife is you've got to take a moment and just stop and think about all four of those. And how can people find you? great question. Mark.sanderson at INNERGY.com would be the easiest way. So that's Mark with a C. easiest way to reach, happy to have a conversation with anybody. I enjoyed the conversation. I have two notes that I've taken away already. I'm hoping that your audience has some takeaways from our dialogue also. Perfect, well thank you, I really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you, Leo. It's it was my honor. It was my privilege. and thank you to your audience also, sir. And thank you for listening to today's episode.