This episode of The Art of Entrepreneurship is for founders building inside industries that move slowly, even when everyone agrees they need to change.
My guest is David McFarland, founder and CEO of Coterie Insurance, who has spent seven years modernizing insurance from the inside instead of building around it. Coterie has scaled to over $200 million in premium, more than 100,000 small business policies and a recent equity investment from Allianz.
David shares what it took to self-fund Coterie's early days after an investor backed out the night before he moved his family to start it. We talk about delusional optimism and why David believes tenacity, not talent, separates founders who make it. He gets honest about fundraising, including a less than 1% investor success rate and why he'd rather have the right investors than the highest valuation. We also discuss why individual accountability, not committee consensus, lets a company move fast in a slow-moving industry.
Tune in if you're ready to stop waiting for permission and start building the tenacity to change your industry from the inside.
About David McFarland
David McFarland is the Founder and CEO of Coterie Insurance, a P&C insurance MGA focused on bringing speed, simplicity, and service to the small business insurance market. A Fellow in the Casualty Actuarial Society, he works across the org to drive profitable growth, strengthen loss performance, expand product offerings, and build durable carrier and reinsurance partnerships, all while aggressively leveraging AI and automation to create a highly expense-efficient operating model. David lives in Wisconsin with his wife and six children.
Follow David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmcfarland23/
About Coterie Insurance
Coterie Insurance (Coterie) is a tech-enabled, data-powered managing general agent (MGA) providing commercial property and casualty (P&C) coverages for small business (SMB) owners in all 50 states. Coterie’s technology enables a rapid, transparent, accurate, quote-to-bind process that results in opportunities for agents and the right coverage for small businesses, on-demand.
Check out Coterie: https://coterieinsurance.com/
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