0:00

So what you're about to hear is an announcement of

0:02

two more founders events and then a recap of the

0:04

first founder event. And I published

0:06

this announcement on the latest episode of founders.

0:08

But the last time I did an event,

0:10

I only talked about it on two episodes.

0:13

And people that just didn't happen to hear those

0:15

episodes later learned about the event after it sold

0:17

out. And they said they would have gone if

0:19

they had known about it. So I figured putting

0:21

the announcement on the main feed would be helpful.

0:23

And that is what you're about to hear. And

0:26

you just tell you about something that

0:28

is time sensitive. I am announcing two

0:30

new founders conferences that are taking place

0:33

this year, July 29th through the 31st

0:35

in Scotts Valley, California. That's about an

0:37

hour outside of San Francisco and September

0:39

27th through the 29th

0:42

in Austin, Texas. I am doing

0:44

each event in partnership. So the

0:46

Scotts Valley, California event is

0:48

in partnership with Rick Burnham and Paul Bueser.

0:51

They're the founders of Sater Grove, which is

0:53

this $500 million holding company. And they're the

0:55

hosts of the Art of Investing podcast. That

0:57

event is going to be limited to around

0:59

130 people. The

1:01

Austin event is in partnership with Matt Russell,

1:03

who's an investor, the CEO of Colossus and

1:06

host of Business Breakdowns. That event will be

1:08

limited to around 150 people. You

1:11

can find all the details

1:13

at founderspodcast.com/events. But the reason

1:15

these events exist, the reason

1:18

I'm doing it, there's only one reason, and that's

1:20

to help you build relationships with other founders, investors

1:22

and high value people. And that's exactly what happened

1:24

at the last event. I did a few months

1:27

ago. I'm going to give you some details on

1:29

that. But really, there's a backstory here that I

1:31

think is very important. Number one, for years, people

1:33

have been asking me like to build a community,

1:36

to find ways to connect other people. Listen, they

1:38

wanted to be connected to other people, listen to

1:40

founders. And so that idea just stayed in the

1:42

back of my mind. I went to this private

1:45

invite only event in Texas last year. And

1:47

there was a guy there who actually

1:49

worked for a very wealthy family office

1:51

in Texas and his job was to

1:53

do these in-person events for other family

1:55

offices, in other words, helping people inside

1:58

of these family offices to build. relationships

2:00

with each other. And they

2:02

were putting a ton of time and energy and

2:04

money and resources behind this, and I

2:06

was asking why. And he had a great

2:08

line to describe why they were doing this.

2:10

He says, because relationships between these two kinds

2:12

of people, these like investor types, these founder

2:15

types, relationships between these

2:17

two type of people produce nonlinear

2:19

returns. This is something that we see in

2:21

the books that you and I study over and over again. Relationships

2:23

run the world. When I got to

2:25

speak to both Samsel and Charlie Munger

2:28

before they passed away, they said it

2:30

in different ways, but the idea behind

2:32

what they were telling me, the idea,

2:35

the advice they were giving me, was

2:37

the same. Invest heavily in relationships, build

2:39

a seamless web of trust, find the

2:41

most talented people you possibly can, and

2:43

work with them forever because relationships run

2:45

the world. And so that was the

2:47

thesis behind the first event I did.

2:49

And the result of that event, I'm going to

2:51

give you a list of these things that have just,

2:53

I've even asked for them. This is just people sending

2:56

me the messages, in some cases calling me and telling

2:58

me what happened as a result. So I obviously not

3:00

going to say any names, but one founder told me,

3:02

he's like, listen, this one relationship with this person that

3:05

he met at the event that he

3:07

did not know beforehand, he goes, David, that is

3:09

worth 20 times what I

3:11

paid. The person he met there

3:13

is now advising him, they're working on this deal

3:15

together on how to buy out existing shareholders in

3:17

a private company. He's helping them think through how

3:19

to do this and potentially helping them secure the

3:21

capital to do so. But they also genuinely like

3:23

each other. They become friends, they talk on the

3:25

phone, they have visited each other. This is the

3:27

craziest thing, which I'll tell you about, is how

3:29

many people met in the last event was in

3:31

Austin in March too. And how many people met

3:33

there and now have flown all over the country,

3:35

in some cases all over the world to spend

3:37

more time in person. And that was another example

3:40

that I was given where these two people met,

3:42

they did not know before, they did

3:44

not know each other before the conference, the

3:46

first conference. One of them

3:48

visits the other, they're having this random

3:50

walk, right? There's not like this agenda

3:52

that they went into this, they spent two days together.

3:55

They didn't go into this within agenda and so they're

3:57

having this talk and one of the guys has investments

3:59

in a bunch. to different companies and he says

4:01

one of their biggest holdings is having a

4:03

problem. The person he's talking to just happens

4:05

to have a ton of experience and connections

4:07

in that industry became an advisor and a

4:10

board member to that other person's largest holding.

4:12

And what the guy told me after was

4:14

fascinating. He goes, in person is the way

4:16

you see relationships. You can get more done

4:18

in an hour in person than hours on

4:20

Zoom. There is no way we could have

4:22

got to this level this quickly without being

4:24

in person first. I have a

4:26

long list here. I'm not going to go through all of them, but I'm just giving

4:29

you some examples. So two

4:31

people strike up a conversation randomly at dinner. We're

4:33

all business nerds so we know exactly where the conversation is

4:35

eventually going to get to. We're all

4:37

obsessed. And so they start talking about what they're working

4:39

on and the problems they're having. And one guy

4:42

was having an issue. He runs this giant company

4:44

and he has a problem he needed to solve.

4:46

The guy he wind up talking to just happens

4:48

to own a software company that builds products in

4:51

the same industry. That one random

4:53

conversation turned into a massive lead for

4:55

his company. And then the last example

4:57

I'll give you is really fascinating. The

4:59

guy attends the event. He has a massively profitable

5:02

bootstrap business that him and his partner own 100% of. He

5:05

thinks that using the same principles of how they

5:07

built their business, they could attack different industries. He

5:09

has a long private one-on-one conversation with somebody he

5:11

met at the conference. That person has

5:13

a giant pool of capital. And so the end

5:15

result of that conversation is for the first time

5:18

ever, he's considering taking outside money and expanding into

5:20

different industries. And the punchline was that one conversation

5:22

drastically increased the size of my ambition. I could

5:24

talk about this forever because I think it's fascinating.

5:26

I think this idea that relationships run the world

5:28

because people do business with people they like is

5:30

fascinating. I could talk about it forever but I

5:32

do want to give you some details. So one,

5:34

I ran out – when I do these events,

5:37

I ran out the entire venue. Every

5:39

– that means there's nobody on site that is

5:42

not part of the event. Nobody has not been

5:44

vetted by my events team. That means every single

5:46

person you see is there for the same

5:48

reason and has the same interest as you. The

5:50

second thing, these are all inclusive locations. You get

5:53

yourself there, I take care of everything else. Your

5:56

lodging, your hotel room, your food, access to

5:58

all the events, everything is taken Number

6:00

three, if there is a way to

6:03

bold something in audio, this

6:05

number three would be bolded. These events

6:07

are for already successful people. The

6:10

price should not be a stretch for you

6:12

by any means. I need to repeat that.

6:14

These events are for already successful people. The

6:16

price should not be a stretch for you.

6:18

Multiple people came up to me after the

6:20

event and in emails and phone calls since then

6:22

because I think you already know that Founders has

6:24

an excessively high-value audience. What

6:27

did Charlie Munger say? He's like, I've never met anybody that

6:29

didn't read all the time. If you're building a business, why

6:31

the hell would you not listen to a podcast that spends

6:33

40 hours reading a book and trying

6:35

to give you an hour of ideas that you

6:37

can use in your company? Learning from history is

6:39

a form of leverage, and this podcast is a

6:42

tool to do that. So it attracts very valuable

6:44

audiences where people pull me to the side and

6:46

they're like, listen, I'm not joking. I have multiple

6:48

different founders and investors who have told

6:50

me, David, if you can connect me

6:53

to other people that are like me, I have

6:55

an unlimited budget for that. And

6:57

that leads directly into the last point, which is number

6:59

four. These are intentionally smaller events. The one in San

7:01

Francisco or outside of San Francisco, it's going to be

7:03

120, 130 people at most. The

7:06

one in Austin is only going to be about 20 people

7:08

more than that. So if

7:10

you want to attend Do Not Dilly-Dally, the waiting

7:12

list could sell out both of these events a

7:14

few times over. And the difference between these events

7:16

and the events in the past, I

7:18

sold out the last event, and the only time – I mentioned

7:20

on two podcasts. That's it. Didn't send it

7:22

to my email list. Didn't tweet it. Didn't send it

7:24

to link to anything else. These events are not only

7:26

going to be advertised on this podcast. They're going to

7:28

be advertised on Business Breakdowns, on Invest Like the Best,

7:30

and Art of Investing Podcasts. Also,

7:33

you're welcome to attend both events if you'd like.

7:35

And to do so, you

7:38

go to founderspodcast.com/events. That's founderspodcast.com/events.

7:40

Thanks for listening, and I

7:42

hope to see you there.