Alexa von Tobel: Daily Routine
Alexa von Tobel built LearnVest into a multimillion-dollar startup by treating her routine like a startup too — optimized, efficient, and always evolving.
Alexa von Tobel still remembers when the website for her company, LearnVest, went live. She was on a ski vacation with her family after spending the past few weeks working non-stop on bringing her idea to life. The only problem? The website quickly crashed after too many people signed up.
“I was actually literally sitting on the top of a mountain trying to get down on skis. I am lucky I don’t have a concussion — because that’s how quickly I was going to try and get down and get a computer to see if I could fix it,” she said in a Spotlyte interview. “We had about 4,500 people sign up on that first day and in the first month, we had about 10,000 people sign up!”
After that, it was off to the races. In 2014, Tobel spoke to Observer about her hectic daily routine while trying to grow and lead LearnVest:
My days are pretty non-stop, and no two days are alike! I start with an early morning workout (whether a power walk with friends, barre class or spin class), which is critical to feeling energized for the whole day. My calendar is often scheduled down to 15-minute intervals, so I can (attempt to!) make time for everything — internal and external meetings, speaking events, interviews, etc. I try to put as much as possible on auto-pilot (ex: using shortcuts like eating basically the same thing for breakfast and lunch). Also, I like to tackle the hardest things first, so I think through my priorities the night before and make sure I have time for my most strategic work. Evenings are my downtime and time to refresh with my husband and friends.
