Meet Dave Won | Founder of Budget Captain LLC

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dave Won and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dave, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California to parents who are both immigrants of South Korea. I spent the majority of my childhood in Orange County, California. They instilled the importance of education and working hard in everything I did. I remember asking my dad if he could buy me a CD player when I was 12 years old and the first thing he said was … “you figure out how to get it”. That’s when the lightbulb went off in my head.

It was that very moment when I decided it was time for me to take responsibility and figure out a way to get what I wanted (it was the CD player at that time). I rode my bicycle around town knocking on every business trying to figure out who would hire me with the skills I brought to the table as a 12 year old. My skills at that time were math and teaching. Knowing I was able to leverage that, I was able to land a job at $5.25 an hour tutoring 8 year olds math at a local after school program that focused on Math and English. I was ecstatic! My first paycheck was $40 and that’s when I knew I could work hard to get what I wanted.

That same determination and grit is how I am where I am today. I was able to attend the Air Force Academy and serve my country for 9 years. I now have my run my own personal finance coaching company where I focus on helping singles and couples get out of debt and be able to save and invest consistently for their future!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I was motivated to start Budget Captain because of the hardships I personally experienced growing up with parents who had a difficult time with their own personal finances. It was painful going through some of the things I did as a child and I truly believed a baseline knowledge when it comes to personal finances could have solved a lot of the problems we had as a family.

After coaching for 5 years as a hobby, I turned Budget Captain into an official business in 2021 and have helped clients pay down nearly $150k in bad debt and helped them increase their savings rate by over 300%. I am extremely proud of the successes I’ve had with my clients through my coaching program.

Budget Captain’s mission is to help unleash your potential to get out of debt and start building wealth. I am extremely diligent, meticulous and have a personal touch to each and every client that I work with. I don’t use the same brush with everybody that works with me. That’s important to know because everybody’s situation, past situation, upbringing, etc. are all different. Starting a coaching business is not easy. You have to deal with a lot of different personalities, different motivations, different goals. But what made me overcome all of these different factors is the fact that I’ve been able to just sit down and LISTEN to my clients and hear out their pain points and put them on a path to help them reach their goals.

When running a business, it’s important to automate as much as possible so you can then put your energy and time on what really matters to take care of your clients and find ways to grow and scale your business.

Knowing what the pain feels like to be in a lot of debt and a negative net worth, I have made it my mission to turn their dream of paying off debt and building wealth into a reality. I do things with a lot of effectiveness and efficiency and my goal is to change lives very quickly. There is no time to waste!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
So many great things to do in the city of Colorado Springs and the surrounding area! I would take them on a nice hike up the Incline in Manitou Springs along with other great spots to hike so they can take in the beautiful nature this city and surrounding area has to offer. Garden of the Gods is a very exciting place my friends would enjoy. This is a drive out but taking them out to the mountains on west of Denver on I-70 is absolutely breathtaking. Mount Princeton and getting to spend some time out there is also really good as well. Colorado is known for its breweries so checking out a lot of the local breweries and being able to enjoy a nice burger will set up nicely for a great time.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have so many mentors I can give a shout out too

Website: www.budgetcaptain.org

Instagram: instagram.com/budgetcaptain