Inside The Founders Club: Vision, Vulnerability, and What’s Next

In this episode of Founder2Founder, Aaron Spivak sits down once again with Chris Meade to talk about the evolution of Founders Club and where it's headed next. With nearly 700 members and over 120 events planned for the coming year, they share how they’re scaling intentionally while keeping the community tight and valuable.

They break down lessons from the Puerto Rico offsite, the LA chapter relaunch, and why success today means supporting founders beyond business, into relationships, parenting and personal growth. It’s a real look at what it takes to build something that lasts.

Chapters:

01:24 – Kicking off our LA Chapter
02:22 – Puerto Rico offsite and club planning
03:19 – Improving Member Quality and Filters
04:38 – Redefining Success Beyond Business
05:56 – How Money Doesn’t Solve the Hard Stuff
06:48 – The Missing Support For Personal Relationships
07:56 – A New Lens On What Makes A Founder Successful
08:58 – Member Anthony’s Shift From Brand Growth To Marriage
10:03 – Learning From Founders Ahead Of You
11:19 – What Really Got Discussed At Female Founder Day
12:15 – What Motivates Founders After Kids
12:57 – Why Peer Networks Matter More Than Ever
13:27 – 2026 Events And Picking The Right Venues
14:53 – Founders Club Is Not An Events Company
15:56 – Forums As The Foundation Of Deeper Value
16:48 – Members As Speakers, Not Hired Talent
17:28 – Booking Dream Speakers For The Community
18:28 – Keeping It Fun Or Shutting It Down
19:33 – Why This Is A 30-Year Vision
21:00 – A Goal To Be Part Of Global GDP
21:34 – The Club As The First Call When You Need Help
23:11 – Removing The Wrong Energy
24:40 – Events That Spark Action
25:25 – When The Club Drives Real Business
26:46 – Unlocking Perks And Member-Only Access
27:57 – Why Founders Need Better Tools And Support
28:50 – What FD Chat And The App Will Offer
30:18 – Creating Better Matches Through Data
30:52 – How Many Real Connections You Can Have
31:24 – Focus On 5 People A Year
32:46 – One Billionaire’s Honesty Changed The Room

Guest Links:
Instagram:@chrismeade

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:02

Welcome to another episode of the Founder to Founder Podcast. My name is Aaron Spivak, born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, here in Miami, and I've built multiple seven, eight, and nine figure brands and recently just had the third largest DSC transaction in Canadian history. But today is not about me because today you get to listen to another incredible story of the founder behind the founder. And we get to dive deep into what it takes to build something incredible. It's not always the tips and tricks, it's how you go about your life. So join us for another incredible podcast at the Founder to Founder. Meet Kinsugi, the AI-powered tax compliance platform trusted by over 3,000 companies worldwide, powered by Vertex. Kinsugi simplifies the sales tax process of over 11,000 U.S. jurisdictions, Canada, and the EU cutting compliance work from that long 40 hours a month to just 10 minutes. E-commerce companies that do the switch save over 50 to 70 percent, no long-term contracts, and of course, that unmatched level of support. With seamless integrations to Shopify, Amazon, QuickBooks, and more, the onboarding to Kinsugi takes less than 30 minutes. So Kinsugi. Smarter, faster, more affordable, tax compliance. Put the pieces together with Kinsugi. Welcome to another episode of the Founder to Founder Podcast. We've got Chris Mead here again. We're here in LA. We just did a really fun relaunch of our LA chapter, which is now absolutely buzzing. And today we're probably going to be shooting a few podcasts, but we wanted to jump on together to just kind of do it in a different way than last time. Last time was really about Chris's story and you know how we got to this point. But this time is going to be all about what we're up to now and what we see for the future. So, Mr. Mead, now that we're here, it is October 14th, 2025. The Founders Club is nearing or getting pretty close to 700 members. And we just came back from an incredible off-site in Puerto Rico where we planned all the 26. But we get so many questions, and one question we often get is you know, where do you guys see this going?

SPEAKER_00: 2:22

Yeah, it's been a crazy year. We just got back from the team off site, 10 people in Puerto Rico for three days. We're doing 120 events next year. We'll probably end up doing more. But the grow like dude, just the quality of the room last night, like the people that were there, like it's a it's a joke compared to like the people I showed up three years ago. Like the the quality, the talent. I think the biggest challenge we have is like how do we keep filtering better and better and not letting people in. Like we we want this to grow, but it needs to be sustainable. And like we go back and forth on this all the time. Like we we want to build the best uh like entrepreneurship community in the world. Like that's that's gonna happen, like a hundred percent. It's just how fast do we get there? And how how responsible do we get there? Because it's so nice going to an event and you meet one or two new friends. But when you meet one or two hundred new friends at once, that's the overwhelming difficulty.

SPEAKER_02: 3:18

Yeah, it's always interesting. Like, you know, this is our, I don't know, probably like six or s sixth or seventh event in LA, but last night was like our first time back in almost a year.

SPEAKER_00: 3:29

Yeah, it's a rebirth.

SPEAKER_02: 3:30

Yeah, and that room was absolutely incredible. Like the quality I wouldn't even say like the quality of the entrepreneur. I think what makes the founders club so special is just the type of human that we attract. And it's someone that is willing to be vulnerable. It's someone that steps into a room and just wants to give before they receive. So many of us have been like, we're so tired of going to these events or being a part of communities where it's just like hired guns, people just trying to extract value. And yesterday was so amazing. Like, you know, we had a founder there who she's built, you know, a 1.3, 1.4 billion dollar organization. And she was able to not only get vulnerable, but share with everyone what that's like as a parent, as a grandmother, to build something like that and then proceed to live life. And all of us would be like, oh, that'd be amazing. I want to be, I want to have a billion dollars, or I want to have this like incredible household name of a brand. But in that room, we were got to see the level of vulnerability. And everyone who was a part of at least her cohort, uh, really got to see the truth.

SPEAKER_00: 4:38

And I think that's the crazy thing about money, right? Like, as we're getting further in our careers with the exits and stuff, like there's a point where it's shitty to say out loud because I never thought I'd be saying this, but there's a point where like enough is enough, and money doesn't really change that much stuff. Of course, you can always get a nicer house, a nicer car, nicer vacations. But at the end of the day, these people that are super rich have just as much, if not more, problems than all the normal people that we started off with. Like to see her cry last night and talk about her children and like all the other people in that room, they're going through the same fucking difficult conversations they all need to have. Like all the people we know from back home are still going through. If not worse off, because if they only needed their friends there, I mean, dude, I haven't seen Lindsay in like three weeks.

unknown: 5:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 5:21

Like I miss my wife, right? Like, it sucks. Like we're on the road for work, and like sure the LA community is like getting better off, but I need to get home and see my girl. It's tough. It's the sacrifices we make. And I could I I'm very lucky that we have hard boundaries on like how much travel we do and stuff. But dude, if I was a single entrepreneur right now, like I don't even know how I'd imagine like building a relationship. Right. And the stress of our members like choosing relationship or business, like that was a common theme that kept coming up last night was how do I be more present in my relationships? It's tough.

SPEAKER_01: 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:56

It's super tough. And everybody has a different fight, and everybody's going through something different. But if we could break down the walls like we did last night, I think we're all to something.

SPEAKER_02: 6:04

Yeah, I think it's also the ability to like be surrounded by like-minded people because you know, from the outside world, the outside perspective, when you reach some level of success, people start to, you know, look at you and be like, oh, you have it.

SPEAKER_00: 6:19

Dude, imagine your high school friends there last night. Like they would not fail. Like I could I I think like I love those guys to death, but I could not dude. Yeah. It's just a different quality of person.

SPEAKER_02: 6:30

Aaron Powell Yeah. It's it's the idea that when you share, like, hey, although I have this bucket filled, which is maybe business and success and potentially wealth, I'm suffering in my other buckets, which can be, you know, family, connection, you know, intimate partners, even your own personal health journey. It's like, how do I say you go too far in one direction and the only space, you know, like one of our missions within the club is all also to like have resources and for you to grow your business and all that. But what good it is, what good is it if you just continue to skyrocket your business, but every other area of your life suffers to a point where you become miserable. For us at least, that's not the definition of a successful entrepreneur. A successful entrepreneur is someone that at least tries to be full in all their buckets health, friends, family, relationships, and business. And that is the hardest thing to do. And even more difficult to do it alone.

SPEAKER_00: 7:24

And the definition changes over time. Like this year it's about focusing on money, this year it's focused on my health, relationships. Like it's figuring out what the balance is. I think that's what we're seeing is people are coming to recognize this year, this year I'm gonna lock in and become the best version of Chris. And that means I'm I'm doing the marathon, I'm spending more time with my wife, I'm traveling less, and I'm I'm committing to that. Almost the same way like when we we just had our planning meeting. It's gonna be so hard when we have a thousand members in a couple months, and they wanted through all these events. But we promised ourselves we're only doing this many events.

SPEAKER_02: 7:56

Like, hi got a good team.

SPEAKER_00: 7:57

How do you stick to the guns?

SPEAKER_02: 7:59

You know, one of our members, OG, longest standing member, Anthony, he's got an incredible brand. And when he first jumped on, he was like right in the beginning stages of it, like just getting into retailers, like trying to make some money, trying to grow the brand. Now it's you know, pretty much a household name. It's well into the eight figures, definitely valued as a nine-figure brand at this point. And it was been so cool. He shared with me. He's like, you know, when I first joined the community, it was like all about getting my brand like to the next level. Now it's at the next level. And he was, you know, he shared with us yesterday uh how his you know biggest focus right now is actually looping his wife in and having a deeper connection with her. Because that's the stage that he's in right now. Because he's you know, the business part, not gonna say it's perfect, but it's it's more sustainable. Sustainable. He he did the time, like he put put the time in now. He's got this amazing relationship that he wants to go deeper in. And again, only like-minded people would be like, dude, I just went through that. You know, here's here's no advice, but here's what I did, and you can take what you want from it. And that's it, that's like, you know, when we tell people we're building a community that's gonna be there for you at every stage of your entrepreneurship journey, they're like, What about the stage I'm in right now? It's like, yeah, the stage you're in right now, but it will pass and you'll get through it.

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

That's kind of like the fatherhood thing we're talking about. Like, literally, we left last night planning an event for dads and their their kids. Yeah. You know, like that's crazy. In a couple of years, we we'll both have kids. We'll both think about it'd be cool to look back on how we were thinking about things now. Yeah, like four or five years from now.

SPEAKER_02: 9:33

Yeah, the dads group is pretty solid. I mean super solid. As an like as a father, now like when you're an entrepreneur and you're single. I mean, you can do like the entrepreneurship house thing, which like I totally did. I think you had one point at a house with a bunch of people in it.

SPEAKER_00: 9:45

Yeah, too many people.

SPEAKER_02: 9:46

And then you go to the next stage and you're like, all right, I'm gonna get my own place. And then the next stage is like I'm gonna be living with someone else, and then next thing you have kids, and like entrepreneurship changes. You have less and less time, you have to be more resourceful.

SPEAKER_00: 9:58

But you get better at your time.

SPEAKER_02: 9:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 10:00

You get better at managing your time, which is super interesting.

SPEAKER_02: 10:02

And I think this the hack is you know, hey, I'm about to enter fatherhood. Imagine you had eight to ten other incredibly successful like fathers who have potentially learned some lessons or have been successful in their relationships and have kids and could be like, hey, this is a really good setup I've developed through my five, six years of figuring this out, and you get to just boom, absorb that.

SPEAKER_00: 10:27

And I think we even missed out that as much as it's the fathers are gonna benefit, we need to do more stuff for the mothers. Because I I always feel so bad, and we have this conversation with Lindsay all the time, is like either decide to be a mom or a business girl, business lady, right? Like it doesn't seem like you get to do both, and you have to give up for a couple years to have the kids, and that seems so fucking wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 10:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 10:50

Like it sucks, right? Like you work all your life to like build something, and then you have a husband pressuring you, or you just want the pressure of starting a family, and you have to give up the give up the business to focus on the kids. Like, how do you find that balance? I feel like there's so many women in our group that would benefit from a weekend retreat of moms coming together, how they're running their business and running their household, and being a good wife. You know, like that's uh I love the dads, we're gonna do stuff for the dads, but yeah, I think the girls need some love.

SPEAKER_02: 11:19

Yeah, you know, we just had our our female founder day um in New York like two weeks ago, and the feedback was incredible. They loved it, and we're gonna do a lot more of it in 2026 because I know that's part of the plan. But one of the feedbacks, a consistent feedback that came in is like we all went in thinking we were gonna talk about business, and they ended up talking about exactly that. Like, how do you manage relationships and motherhood? And it's like, does you know, some people was like, Does life really end when you have kids? And then there was some there with kids saying, I'm here right now and I have to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 11:51

It literally restarts for the better.

SPEAKER_02: 11:52

Exactly. It's like, you know, and like I always love that. Like myself, as a when I was like, you know, 23, 24, I was like, I I'm not gonna do anything until I make money. That was like my once I make money, then I could have a relationship. And then you speak to fathers and they're like, dude, like you think you're motivated now?

SPEAKER_00: 12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 12:09

Wait until you have a kid. And it's like, I believe that because I I we can see it.

SPEAKER_00: 12:13

Well, you see it with Johnny, you see it especially with Johnny.

SPEAKER_02: 12:15

Yeah, you see that level of motivation to be there for your kids. And it's it's so cool because you don't know until you know. But when you surround yourself with people who do know, you start to believe it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:27

And there's no from what I've seen or what I've read, there's no way to prepare, right? Like right as kid, like you get thrown into the fire. Full set. But it's uh it's good to be thrown into the fire with people who've actually been through it. You know, imagine having not even a Founders Club plug, but like imagine just having a hundred, two hundred, three hundred members who have gone through the shit that you have. It's one thing to text your homie from back home who had a kid, but it's another one they're running a multi-million dollar business and trying to be a father and trying to like be a husband. Like having those resources is super powerful.

SPEAKER_02: 12:57

It is. And a big question we've been getting from our members, and I hope they're listening to this, uh, or to you know, potentially entrepreneurs who are thinking of the founders club or or uh what what is that thing? You know, someone called us uh speed daters the other day.

SPEAKER_00: 13:10

Yeah, fuck that guy.

SPEAKER_02: 13:12

But I mean I mean we appreciate it. Some form of networking, but we we're we're not entrepreneurship speed dating. But you know, the club has evolved so much from a year ago to six months ago to literally what the next three months are gonna be. It's quite crazy, and I think it would be fun for us now just to like share what we think based on our plan 2026 is gonna look like. And maybe we look back on this and be like, ha ha, we were such idiots a year ago.

SPEAKER_00: 13:39

So we're renting out the Cosm, which is probably the sickest venue I've ever been. Like, we gotta hit the B-roll, like show the venue. But uh I don't know, dude. Like, I don't know if we're making a mistake. Like this, this we can't go any bigger.

SPEAKER_02: 13:55

Yeah, we we might be going too big.

SPEAKER_00: 13:57

I think we are. We're supposed to be doing two events, one in Miami, one in LA.

SPEAKER_02: 14:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:03

And if we do this in LA, I don't dude, I don't know of a venue in Miami that comes close to the quality of the venue in LA.

SPEAKER_02: 14:10

I mean, this place is insane. It's it's got like a like a sphere, like a mini sphere.

SPEAKER_00: 14:16

Mini sphere inside.

SPEAKER_02: 14:17

Imagine like listening to a keynote in the sphere, basically. It's got an incredible rooftop. It's the rooftop has freaking SoFi Stadium in the background.

SPEAKER_00: 14:28

There's a Quentin Tarantino pop-up in the back. We've hit 400 people on the roof. We're definitely gonna have like little uh musicians up there, like little uh violinists.

SPEAKER_02: 14:37

Founder club style, mind body, and business for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 14:39

Cold plungers at the top. Yep. Um but yeah, the venue's crazy. I don't uh I think we're going too hard, but I think uh our members are gonna love it. And if we're gonna make everybody fly out to Los Angeles, it's gotta be for something special. And it's on a Monday or Tuesday, so it's on a Tuesday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 14:54

Yeah, I uh it's always like a weird thing. Like every time we we sit out to do something big. I think actually I want to talk about the the forum a little bit because we're not an events company.

SPEAKER_00: 15:03

No.

SPEAKER_02: 15:04

And sometimes just because we throw like a hundred events a year, people think we are an events company, but we're not. We're just a majority. They're totally free. Like we don't have a revenue model.

SPEAKER_00: 15:16

Yeah, we would be broke if we were an events company.

SPEAKER_02: 15:18

Yeah, we don't charge. Um it's strictly for our members. Like our number one goal heading into 2026, more than ever, is how do we 10x or more the value that our members expect to get out of the founders club. And we have to do so in so many different ways because so many founders are at different points in their journey. But for us, it's how can we create deeper connection for our members again and again and again? And one of the ways we do so is our incredible forums that we do twice a year now. So we have LA in March, and then Miami in October. Is it October?

SPEAKER_00: 15:56

Late September, early October, depending on the venue. And we're looking for speakers. So if you guys uh that are listening have high quality speakers, yeah. What's a really good room?

SPEAKER_02: 16:06

We had incredible speakers in New York.

SPEAKER_00: 16:07

Like they were great. But this year we need if we're gonna spend a hundred thousand dollars on a venue, if not maybe more, it might be two hundred thousand dollars on a venue, we need a big time speaker.

SPEAKER_02: 16:21

Yes. And let's define that because you know people are looking at our speakers in in New York and they're like, How did you get this one guy today? He's like, How'd you get the how'd you get her to speak? And we're like, she's a member. You know, so like so many of our members, like we could like that's a big reason for this podcast. A lot of the people that come on this podcast are members. This is everything we do is to spotlight and champion our members to give them a platform. So like 80% of the speakers end up do being members, but we love to bring people that you don't typically hear from 100%. That are not on the circuit.

SPEAKER_00: 16:48

They're aspirational.

SPEAKER_02: 16:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 16:49

Yes. The whole thing is we do not want to create an event that happened two weeks ago and you just didn't go to that event.

SPEAKER_02: 16:55

Yeah. I'll catch them at the next thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:57

It's once or twice a year, founders forum, members only. And if you missed them, you missed them, and that's it. You're not gonna get in at the next show. And we're not gonna repeat speakers.

SPEAKER_02: 17:07

Yeah. Are we gonna repeat speakers? So that's a we no?

SPEAKER_00: 17:10

I feel like Shelby would be great again.

SPEAKER_02: 17:12

Shelby. I think Ann's always amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 17:14

Yeah, Shelby and Ann would be great.

SPEAKER_02: 17:15

Brett was fucking amazing. Like he was so good.

SPEAKER_00: 17:19

Dude.

SPEAKER_02: 17:20

But we can't bring everyone back.

SPEAKER_00: 17:21

No, we can't bring everyone back. We need to, I think we need new speakers.

SPEAKER_02: 17:23

Maybe a couple. Yeah. Maybe a couple.

SPEAKER_00: 17:25

Um LA locals, because we're not out here often.

SPEAKER_02: 17:28

Yeah, some people out in LA. Yeah, that'd be good.

SPEAKER_00: 17:30

Maybe some actors, some movie stars, some musicians. Yes. LeBron.

SPEAKER_02: 17:36

LeBron? They just maybe some. I think it's just important. Like, again, like again, most people when they throw conferences because they're an events-based company, they use the status and the popularity of the speaker to then sell tickets.

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

Which we do the exact opposite.

SPEAKER_02: 17:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 17:56

The event's already sold out, and then we plan the speakers.

SPEAKER_02: 17:58

Exactly. So our members are coming.

SPEAKER_00: 18:00

And then we selfishly just book the speakers that we want to listen to since we have to be there because it's gotta be worth it. So for you, like you're gonna book mine. Like, I selfishly, now that we have a little bit of influence, a little bit of budget, like I wanna get in the room with the people I've always dreamed of talking to, right? Like athletes, music, culture, like that's the world I love and live. And if I could get them to selfishly speak at our conference.

SPEAKER_02: 18:24

Yes. We love people that don't have a platform. No.

SPEAKER_00: 18:28

And dude, the the the line item in Puerto Rico we wrote the moment this job stops being fun is the moment the company dies.

SPEAKER_02: 18:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 18:35

And everything we do has to be for that exact reason. You're talking about this today today on the interview. Like, yeah, this is fun. This is fun. And this is like that uh that inspirational quote of like, keep doing your hobby until it turns into a job.

SPEAKER_02: 18:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 18:49

Like we kind of fell into that.

SPEAKER_02: 18:50

Yeah, and and you know, some people get freaked out when we say, like, you know, we're only whatever it is, 21 months uh into this 30-year journey, and they're like, oh, that's cliche. It's like, no, like we actually think we can do this forever because we have so much fun. Like our job is to create value and to bring incredible founders together. It's like, what what what else could we get? I don't know what else I would rather.

SPEAKER_00: 19:15

We have to go to events, we get to create concerts inside of saunas, like 15 like we'll we will be having music festivals if we want.

SPEAKER_02: 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:22

Like we could do whatever we want with this platform.

unknown: 19:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:26

Because we're not connecting chefs. We're not not no not to the chefs, but we're we're connecting the most powerful, influential in career. The future, really.

SPEAKER_01: 19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:35

If you could create a community of people, the number one thing you'd want would be founders, entrepreneurs that are changing the world.

SPEAKER_02: 19:43

What's up, founder to founder fam? I just want to quickly pause here and thank you so much for tuning in and being a part of this journey. Starting a podcast is no joke. And the fact that hundreds of you listen every single week means the world to us. We want to continue to bring better and different and unique conversations to you to give you the most amount of value. Our only ask is that if you enjoy the pod, to please just share it with a friend. And most importantly, leave a comment, DM us, give us any sort of feedback. This entire production is for you. So if we can make it just one percent better, we will. We love you all. All right, let's get back into the pod. It's like we're not there yet, but I definitely think there's a future where we're some decent sign like some decent percentage of the world's GDP. Because I know like YPO is like twenty something per s percent, granted they're like a hundred-year-old organization. But I think in like twenty to thirty years from now, you know, our average age in the in the club is like mid-30s. I think in twenty, twenty-five years from now, when everyone's approaching their peak and they have relationships that they've built for twenty years and the size of their business and just what they're what they are gonna have accomplished in those next 20, 25 years, that we can definitely be some significant portion of the world's GDP, if not America's GDP at least.

SPEAKER_00: 21:07

It'd be incredible. And it's not something that I keep track of, or like we'll get we'll get to the city. I don't even think we keep track of that yet. I think for for me, like my perfect plan is like and we're I would say we're probably 20% there, but any person in your life has a problem. If you have a problem, the club should just be the answer to it. You shouldn't have to go text somebody else. Yeah. You go into the club and there's an answer to every problem. Like you walk down the streets of Santa Monica where we're at right now recording, you know that founder. That founder's in the club, that founder's in the club. That founder wants to become in the club because it's aspirational.

SPEAKER_01: 21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:40

You know, like there's so many ways to look at this business, but to it's like a super you know, one of my friends, he's coming on the pod, Armstrong, which you'll meet, uh like the most unique individual I've ever met. There's nothing like him. And he once uh I once asked him how wealthy he was, because I'd love to ask people that, and he never gives you a straight answer. But he gave me the funniest example. He's like, Aaron, if you and I go to like some random, like like we go to the forest, and you know, there's like those tribes, and he's like a random tribe, like captures both of us and puts us in a cage, and we both get one call. Um didn't matter how one matter like if you have billions of dollars and I have billions of dollars, like they don't they don't use money. Money's insignificant to them. Who do you think's getting picked up and saved? Me or you? And I was like, probably you. He's like, Yeah, me. And I'm like, why? He's like, because I'm like almost six years old. I have I can pick up the phone and call one person right now, and I've got a helicopter coming to pick me up, and you don't. And I thought that was just super cocky at the time. It's like the cockiest thing I've ever heard. But what he was telling me, he's like, it doesn't matter how much money you have, life is exclusively about the quality of relationships you've you've been able to build. And that's what this club is. It's like a vetted relationship of like-minded people who we've established from the beginning, from the beginning of your application till you get in, literally, actually till after you're onboarding, we established that everything here is about giving and not taking.

SPEAKER_00: 23:10

And like So the fact we actually made a document before we got here of all the people we're not letting in the club who exclusively take. Yes. And we've let it a few a few cancers come into the club.

SPEAKER_02: 23:21

Yeah, it's a big thing. People ask us all the time, like, how do you ensure the quality? It's like I had to kick out a friend of mine for ten years. Yeah. Because he, you know, just didn't follow the rules. And I know that's like sounds harsh, but it's it's the rules are the rules. Yeah, and it's how we ensure the room is tight and that the quality of the people in the club are people that you want to spend your valuable time with. Because people here don't have hours to just throw in the garbage. Yeah. And we all do that when we go to these random conferences or join these random groups. It's like you leave, you're like, well, why did I go to that? And then what happens? You're like, next time I go, I'm gonna have an ROI play. And then you become a hired gun. And then they have a bunch of people just literally extracting from each other, and you leave, you feel empty, you need to shower and go to sleep. When you leave, our goal is that when you leave our events, like you leave fired up. You know, Austin, when a great member of ours, uh young legend, Austin, um he was at um one of our events in Miami, and oh, at the I think it was Ryan's house, I believe. It might have been Ryan's house, it doesn't matter. And he hasn't come to the last two events. So I texted him, I was like, Austin, where are you at, man? What's going on? He's like, dude, I left the last event realizing like I've got so much work to do. I was I was so inspired that like I'm going monk mode for the next month. I'll see next time I see you guys, I'm gonna be like at a new level. And I was like, at first I was like, okay, but still come. But then I realized I was like, what an amazing outcome for an event. You go there with no expectation and you leave feeling more inspired and driven than ever because you look around, you're like, if that guy can do it, I can do it. And that's like to me at least, like what we're building is like for people to just see that it's possible. Like Adam, he had eight kids. We did our men's retreat, and he told people, he's like, Hey, like uh, I've got eight kids, and his co-founder has eleven. And everyone's like, and you're both here right now for a weekend? And he's like, Yeah, you can do it. And everyone's brain exploded. Like, I got one, it's too much, I got two, it's too much. Like, I got eight and eleven.

SPEAKER_00: 25:25

Yeah, we had the another new member, Adam from 17 John, actually just brought that up from New York.

SPEAKER_01: 25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:29

But he literally moved from St. Louis, he knew nobody, and now he's in New York and he's buying hotels, buying Airbnbs, like raising hundreds of millions of dollars to buy buildings all throughout New York. But not only that, like he's the guy never sent an email in his life, he told me. So now he's like using an email marketer from the club that he found. Wow. And uh all of our members now have like free comp stays in New York or super discounted. It's like imagine when we stack a hundred atoms in every city. You go to Los Angeles, you have all these perks, you go to New York, you have all these perks. Like, that's the that's this year. I think we've spent very little time on unlocking resources for the members. They've happened organically. We have the lawyers, we have you get in a pinch, we have a solution. Yeah, but actually access to the world. Like kind of what anatomy does, right? Like with our membership, my membership, you canceled, but I get one on my driveway. I I I get uh 15% off in my favorite coffee shops. And like I I don't attribute them together. Like I'm going to the gym regardless, but yeah. It's a nice perk. So like for our members to be able to show their founders' club card at their favorite restaurants or their hotels or airlines and to receive a perk back, that's something that would be a huge win by the end of the year. Like if we could if we could unlock that for our members, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_02: 26:46

Yeah, I think it's the idea of just like as a founder, you should have, you know, different types of access. You should have like founders are the biggest spenders. We spend like ungodly amounts of the biggest.

SPEAKER_00: 26:58

We're about to go spend at represent.

unknown: 27:00

I guess.

SPEAKER_02: 27:00

You are. You want to go buy some clothes. But like we're like, we spend just ungodly amounts of money between like advertising and and hiring and uh freaking travel, travel hotels, anything. Everything we spend so much money. And then like personal development. Like founders spend, we spend on ourselves, whether it's therapists or personal trainers or dietitians, or you and I just spent like 13 G's at one of our members. Shout out uh Hector, what a legend. Longevity Labs. Like, he's like, yo, I'll take care of your guys' health. We're like done. We need to be in peak shape. Yeah, we need to feel our best, look our best, like have that energy to show up. Founders do that. It's like we're professional athletes at this point. And to not have the world at your fingertips to take advantage of all the spending you do is like you shouldn't have to like reverse engineer how to hack a credit card system to get into a freaking lounge. Like the founders club will in the future just be the access you need to everything that an entrepreneur will eventually need.

SPEAKER_00: 27:56

We should do a topic on uh credit card points. He didn't even say that, but that just made me think about that. Like credit card hack, that should be a founders club. I'm putting on my phone, actually.

SPEAKER_02: 28:04

There you go. So we do. So what Chris is actually talking about right now is FC Chat. So for those of you not members, like pretty much every Wednesday we have a virtual, so like the whole club can get on these calls. Uh we've had like Mark Cuban and Harley Finkelstein and uh just incredible. Noah Rosenfarb is like arguably the best tax specialist ever. We actually did a mastermind on his boat, which was dope. He's coming up recently. Um and we just have like some big names, but also just experts, like people you would never hear about who just like are so smart in this like super niche thing, like how to hack your credit card points, get the most out of your spend. And it's such a value add. And then some people are like, I can't make the calls. It's like, well, then we ended up developing an app.

unknown: 28:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 28:44

And the app is gonna be we're putting a lot of pressure on this app. Our team's like, every like last week we're like, everything is gonna be solved. Everything is solved in the app, you know. But it's like at the end of the day, it's like it's a it's what our members asked for. They wanted one place to see everything, on-demand content. So all of the masterclasses, you can just search for it. Some of the conversations you miss in the Slack, you'll be able to pull all that data right into the app, member database, search for people, connect with people. There'll be AI recommendations. So you log in, and here's three people you should connect with as in Founders Club based on your interests. Like, how cool is that?

SPEAKER_00: 29:16

What events did I miss this month or what events are coming up? Boom, boom.

SPEAKER_02: 29:19

Boom. All right there for you. The offers, take advantage of things.

SPEAKER_00: 29:22

So it's like I think the coolest thing is gonna be like because it's categorizing everybody's data on like who they are and like what they're what they're good at, what they're bad at. So whenever a situation comes up in your life, hey, I want to sell my company. Hey, I want to start thinking about selling my company. Hey, I'm going through a partnership issue and I want to buy out my partner. You're gonna be able to search for that in the database, be connected to four or five people that like have that skill instead of just DMing someone on LinkedIn. Like, this is kind of like how it all started was like we felt like we had to bother people. Hey, do you have five minutes of time? Is it the worst fit? Can I pick your brain? My brain was getting. Dog out. Now it's like you know you have four or five people, and everybody has signed up for the same thing. It's to help one another. And so because you give you give back to one person, they're gonna come back and ask for it eventually. It might not be this year, it might not be in ten years. But we're all growing together.

SPEAKER_02: 30:18

Yeah, you it's like you know our money compounds in the market. We all know that. Rule of 72 recently, five years, usually double your money. It's like no one's taking that same equation and applying it to the relationships in our life. It's like we all know of like there's people we'd now we can call, and it's because we had one experience with them at one point. So that's my guy.

SPEAKER_00: 30:37

Trevor Burrus, yeah. And we're like doing the vetting for you. Like normally you just have to lose all your friends and like one collect them. One friend remains every year and they keep staying. Now we're like, yo, here's like 700 amazing people. Obviously, you're not gonna build a rapport with all of them. Yeah. But they're vetted for a reason.

SPEAKER_02: 30:52

I think it's like done done bars or done biz done sun done something's law is that you can only build deep connection with 150 people. And then someone's like, that's not a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 31:03

That's a lot. Oh, I think that's a lot.

SPEAKER_02: 31:04

I think it's a lot, right? So that's like the the maximum capacity you can build deep relationships with is 150. That's what people say. Most people don't have 150. No, I think that's way too much. And if you even and if you do somehow have 150, maybe Ryan's got 150. If you have 150, it's like, what are the likelihood that A, they're all like-minded and they all feel the same way about you? It's like virtually impossible.

SPEAKER_00: 31:24

I'd say that like I don't have a lot of mentors in life, but the one that I did, uh shout out Wade, uh Wade Girard, amazing guy. Um, but he had told me one time in life, this was four, maybe four or five years ago. I don't think he meant to give me advice, but he said it by accident, and I loved it. Was he like, every year, Chris, and this is before Founders Club, pick five people in your network that you actually want to become friends with. And those just just five. No more, no less, just five. And do the next step. Keep going the extra mile. Get the coffee date, but after the coffee date, it normally falls off into the year, like, oh, what can I do for you? Keep pushing, keep becoming friends, keep sending the invites out. And I thought, dude, I I did that for two years. And I think actually you were probably one of those people four years ago. And it's like go the extra mile with that connection, and you never know where it's gonna go. So for people that are struggling, that don't have the ability to be in the founders' club, or maybe aren't there yet in their business, or don't even have a business, just pick five and keep going for the rest of the year. The year's about to restart and go the extra mile with five. Because those five people could change your life, let alone one person, dude. Just having one person to call. You know, like I'm gonna get to the airport, I'm gonna call my friend Kevin. Doesn't own a business, but we're gonna talk shit, and he makes my life better. Right. You know, it's just having one person to make your day better. Um, if we could do that, that's that's all I can ask for.

SPEAKER_02: 32:46

Yeah, I mean, that's what you said at every mastermind. You have no idea who you're who you're talking to. Yeah. It's like it was amazing yesterday in my own little group, is like, you know, like we we bring her up again, but she she was the last person to share. So the whole group was sharing.

SPEAKER_00: 33:01

And then she shared, and everyone's like, uh were they more vulnerable before her, or was she?

SPEAKER_02: 33:07

They were like 10% vulnerable. Okay. She went 120%.

SPEAKER_00: 33:11

I love it.

SPEAKER_02: 33:11

And when they realized that they had a billionaire who was being vulnerable with them, the And she was watching them the whole time.

SPEAKER_00: 33:17

Yeah, no idea.

SPEAKER_02: 33:18

And she's just like, I'm gonna share. I don't know if y'all are ready for this. And we usually give people two minutes because we have to keep a time, otherwise, you know, there's always those people those people that love to talk. And we're like, no, no, you just keep going. You keep sharing, you're good. And the room broke, but one thing I thought was so cool is I shared my story of like, you know, during the acquisition, I found my lawyer on a Google search, and the woman beside me, Catherine, she's like, I'm not only am I one of the largest MA lawyers in the country, but she did like seven of the last top 10 MA deals in the US. And she's like, if you ever need any ideas or resources to like the whole group, if y'all all just want to talk, this woman is like unreachable.

SPEAKER_00: 33:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:59

If y'all want to talk because you're founders club members, literally just DM me.

SPEAKER_00: 34:02

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 34:03

And she told me, she's like, I would have got you probably an extra 10, 20 million bucks, really word for word. And I was like, Oh fuck. It's like, but I was 25, I didn't have a network, I had nobody. So good for our members though. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Founder to Founder podcast. And I have one favor, just one favor to ask. It's the only favor I'll ever ask from you. And if you like what you listen to, to please like, subscribe, and please just leave a comment. Let us know what you think, how we can make it better. We are all in on delivering value to you, and all we ask in return is that you hit that subscribe. It goes a long way for what we're trying to build here. And as always, we post an episode every single Wednesday. So stay tuned, and thank you for tuning in.