--- title: Happy Father’s Day to the dads building for the next generation slug: fathers-day excerpt: "This Father's Day, we're celebrating the dads who are building with Whop." customExcerpt: "This Father's Day, we're celebrating the dads who are building with Whop." featureImage: "https://storage.ghost.io/c/12/7b/127b828b-bdc2-4972-9cf2-de857df9c324/content/images/2026/06/fathersdayblog.png" status: published publishedAt: "2026-06-21T15:00:14.000Z" updatedAt: "2026-06-23T13:24:19.000Z" createdAt: "2026-06-19T06:01:02.667Z" tags: - { name: Whop Business, slug: whop-business } authors: - { name: Keisha Singleton, slug: keisha } - { name: Colin McDermott, slug: colin } --- # Happy Father’s Day to the dads building for the next generation ## Key takeaways - Driven by their children's futures, these dads built businesses on Whop to create lasting financial legacies. - Each founder turned personal struggle into a venture that helps thousands of other families thrive. - Building something worth passing on requires showing up daily, without shortcuts or guarantees. Every parent wants their children to have more than they had. But with the average US home now costing over $400,000 and college costs rising to $95,000 a year, parents are worried the future isn't looking bright for their kids. About three-quarters of adults in the US believe children will grow up to be financially worse off than their parents *(Pew Research)*. Some dads refuse to accept that future. They grind hard, making sure that they leave behind not just financial security, but also the knowhow – and confidence – to build something of their own. This Father's Day, we're celebrating the dads who are building for the next generation with Whop. ## Meet the five building on Whop ### Phil Choi, LetPhil ![Video thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/12/7b/127b828b-bdc2-4972-9cf2-de857df9c324/content/media/2026/06/pc_thumb.jpg) [Watch video](https://storage.ghost.io/c/12/7b/127b828b-bdc2-4972-9cf2-de857df9c324/content/media/2026/06/pc.mp4) Phil Choi grew up watching his Korean immigrant parents run three businesses: a shoe store, a grocery store, a liquor store. They put their sweat and blood into giving him a better future. And for a long time, he took it all for granted. He fell in with the wrong crowd, got kicked out of school, and spent years in a rut living the same day in, day out. At 30, he was in Korea, teaching English to children, spending his spare time drinking and playing video games. Then he picked up a coding bootcamp brochure, called the number, and changed his life. Within a few years he was a six-figure software engineer. Unfortunately, he was eventually laid off. But rather than fall back into old patterns, he had enough belief in himself to build something of his own. [LetPhil](https://whop.com/let-phil/) is what happened next. A [mentorship programme](https://whop.com/blog/letphil/) that's placed hundreds of people into tech careers, built on the exact path Phil walked himself. But ask Phil why he *really* built it, and the answer isn't the money or material goods. It's all for his son. *"My son is my motivation. Every late night, every hard problem, every uncomfortable thing, it's for him. He's still little and doesn't understand what dad does yet, but one day he will. I want him to grow up and look at me and think 'My dad had nothing, went through hell, and built something anyway.'"* ### Lance Morgan, College Funding Secrets Putting one child through college in the US can cost up to $95,000 a year. The median American salary is $62,000. Lance Morgan has five children. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/12/7b/127b828b-bdc2-4972-9cf2-de857df9c324/content/images/2026/06/image-12.png) That's a *lot* of money. Rather than accept the usual choices of a) giving up your retirement or b) watching your children starting adulthood tens of thousands of dollars in debt *(the average borrower takes ****20 years**** to repay their student loan debt)*, Lance spent years building a better system. What he found became [College Funding Secrets](https://whop.com/blog/college-funding-secrets/), a programme that has now saved families over $100 million in college costs. *"I learned a lot of this out of desperation more than inspiration".* The whole business exists because Lance refused to let his children *sacrifice* their futures in order to *improve* their futures. Now his kids will graduate not just debt-free, but with assets. And he's helping thousands of other families do the same. ### Brennan Schlagbaum, Budgetdog Brennan Schlagbaum was a CPA in Cincinnati when he and his wife Erin started budgeting their way out of debt. He decided to share his system with others, launching [Budgetdog](https://whop.com/blog/budgetdog/) about three weeks before his daughter Logan was born. ![budgetdog](https://storage.ghost.io/c/12/7b/127b828b-bdc2-4972-9cf2-de857df9c324/content/images/2026/06/image-13.png) Logan has Dravet syndrome: a severe form of epilepsy, with seizure risk and developmental complexity that means his wife needs to be home with her full time, without question. When Brennan thinks about the alternative – a desk at Deloitte, billable hours, two working parents – that's not the family life he wants to live. *"Ever since she's been born, I've been doing this. It means my wife can stay at home, which was huge for Logan because of her Dravet syndrome. She has to be home with her because of seizure potential, development, all the stuff that comes with it."* Now there's also Ellie, who is two. When interviewing Brennan, he said that once the call ended, he was going to walk out of his home office and straight into the kitchen where both girls would be waiting. Isn't that every dad's dream? Brennan has built Budgetdog to the point where he could step away for 30 days and 95% of it would run without him. Not because he doesn't want to work hard (it took a lot of sacrifice to get to this point), but because a business that needs him every hour is a business that's standing between him and his kids. *"Being present with your children during their transformative years is really, really important for development. It's given me that ability. I think about that alternative situation and it would be a world of difference."* ### DJ, Stock Dads ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/12/7b/127b828b-bdc2-4972-9cf2-de857df9c324/content/images/2026/06/stock-dads-1.png) When COVID shut down the world in 2020, DJ was an athletic trainer. But, he had always been interested in stock markets, so now that he was forced to stay home, he decided to take it more seriously. This led DJ to look for help in a dad-themed Facebook group. Noone had any recommendations, but everyone wanted to get involved. So, he decided to make the Facebook group himself. Thirty thousand members joined almost overnight. That group became a podcast, then a paid Discord, then one of the biggest retail trading communities in the world. [Stock Dads](https://whop.com/checkout/plan_EhisIjpPPMesS) now runs on Whop with in-house CPAs and CFPs, a team of analysts across options, futures, and more. The purpose of the groups is in the name. Dads who trade stocks. Father's wanting to create a more financially stable future through consistency and hard work. *"Being a father is a lot like being a trader. There are no shortcuts, and no guarantees. You just have to show up every day, stay consistent through the ups and downs, and trust that the work you're putting in today will pay off for years to come."* ### Nathaniel, Fit Fatherhood Nathaniel is a former Marine, a collegiate athlete, a husband, and a father of three. He's spent his whole life showing up for others: in uniform, on the field, and now at home. [Fit Fatherhood](https://whop.com/fit-fatherhood/) is a fitness and lifestyle community built specifically for busy dads. Being a parent is all-consuming, and so Fit Fatherhood is not an extreme programme you'll abandon after two weeks, but a simple, sustainable system of training, nutrition, mindset, and accountability. Faith is central to the group. There's a weekly call, and monthly challenges across mindset, movement, nutrition, and finances. The whole community runs on a simple belief: your health is not a luxury. The standard you hold yourself to is the one that your kids are watching. ## To every dad doing the work These dads decided that the world their kids inherit is going to look different from the one they grew up in, and built something to make sure of it. It won't always be easy. There are late nights and hard problems: both in fatherhood and in business. But as DJ put it: there are no shortcuts and no guarantees. You just have to show up every day and trust that the work you're putting in today will pay off for years to come. Happy Father's Day to every dad building something worth passing on. **[Build your legacy with Whop](https://whop.com/network/)**