Relationships run the world: 2 New Founders Events

This episode features announcements and discussions about two upcoming Founders conferences aimed at fostering significant business relationships among attendees.

1. Effective networking at Founder events can yield significant professional and personal gains.
2. The importance of face-to-face interactions is emphasized, with in-person meetings often leading to rapid trust-building and collaboration.
3. Events are intentionally intimate, catering to a select group of successful individuals to maintain quality interactions.
4. The conferences serve as a platform for potentially transformative business opportunities and strategic advice.
5. Testimonials highlight the real-world impact of connections made at these events, from investment opportunities to strategic partnerships.

1: Introduction to New Founders Events

David Senra announces two upcoming Founders conferences focused on building meaningful business relationships. Limited to 130-150 participants, these events promise exclusive networking opportunities. David Senra: "I am announcing two new Founders conferences that are taking place this year."

2: Testimonials and Success Stories

Participants share their success stories from previous events, illustrating how strategic connections have led to significant business outcomes. David Senra: "One founder told me, this one relationship is worth 20 times what I paid."

3: Details of the Upcoming Events

Further details about the events, including locations, dates, and the exclusive nature of the gatherings. David Senra: "These events are for already successful people. The price should not be a stretch for you."

1. Attend niche networking events to meet like-minded professionals.
2. Leverage personal meetings to build rapid trust and uncover collaborative opportunities.
3. Be selective about networking opportunities to ensure quality interactions.
4. Follow up promptly and personally with contacts made at events to solidify relationships.
5. Consider the strategic value of relationships in every professional interaction.

Relationships run the world. Come build relationships with other founders, investors, and high value people at a Founders Event.

People

David Senra, Rick Burnham, Paul Bucer, Matt Russell

Companies

Cedar Grove, Colossus

Content Warnings:

None

David Perell

So what you're about to hear is an announcement of two more founders events and then a recap of the first founder event. And I published this announcement on the latest episode of Founders. But the last time I did an event, I only talked about it on two episodes. And people that just didn't happen to hear those episodes later learned about the event after it sold out. And they said they would have gone if they had known about it.

So I figure putting the announcement on the main feed would be helpful. And that is what you're about to hear. I need to tell you about something that is time sensitive. I am announcing two new Founders conferences that are taking place this year, July 29 through the 31st in Scotts Valley, California. Thats about an hour outside of San Francisco.

And September 27 through the 29th in Austin, Texas. I am doing each event in partnership. So the Scotts Valley, California event is in partnership with Rick Burnham and Paul Bucer. Theyre the founders of Cedar Grove, which is this $500 million holding company, and they're the hosts of the Art of Investing podcast. That event is going to be limited to around 130 people.

The Austin event is in partnership with Matt Russell, who's an investor, the CEO of Colossus, and host of business breakdowns. That event will be limited to around 150 people. You can find all the details@Founderspodcast.com forward slash events. But the reason these events exist, the reason I'm doing it, there's only one reason, and that's to help you build relationships with other founders, investors, and high value people. And that's exactly what happened at the last event I did a few months ago.

I'm going to give you some details on that. But really, there's a backstory here that I think is very important. Number one, for years, people have been asking me, like, to build a community, to find ways to connect other people. Listen. They want to be connected to other people, listen to founders.

And so that idea just stayed in the back of my mind. I went to this private invite only event in Texas last year, and there was a guy there who actually worked for a very wealthy family office in Texas, and his job was to do these in person events for other family offices, in other words, helping people inside of these family offices to build relationships with each other. And they were putting a ton of time and energy and money and resources behind this. And I was asking why, and he had a great line to describe why they were doing this, he says, because relationships between these two kinds of people, these like investor types, these founder types, relationships between these two types of people produce nonlinear returns. This is something that we see in the books that you and I study over and over again.

Relationships run the world. When I got to speak to both Samzell and Charlie Munger before they passed away, they said it in different ways. But the idea behind what they were telling me, the idea, the advice they were giving me was the same. Invest heavily in relationships, build a seamless web of trust, find the most talented people you possibly can, and work with them forever, because relationships run the world. And so that was the thesis behind the first event I did and the result of that event.

I'm going to give you a list of these things that have just. I haven't even asked for them. This is just people sending me messages, in some cases calling me and telling me what happened as a result. So I obviously not going to say any names. But one founder told me, he's like, listen, this one relationship with this person that he met at the event that he did not know beforehand, he goes, David, that is worth 20 times what I paid.

The person he met there is now advising him. They're working on this deal together on how to buy out existing shareholders in a private company. He's helping them think through how to do this and potentially helping them secure the capital to do so. But they also genuinely like each other. They've become friends.

They talk on the phone. They have visited each other. This is the craziest thing, which I'll tell you about is how many people met in, the last event was in Austin in March, too, and how many people met there and now have flown all over the country, in some cases all over the world, to spend more time in person. And that was another example that I was given where these two people met, they did not know before. They did not know each other before the conference.

The first conference, one of them visits the other. They're having this random walk, right? There's not like this agenda that they went into this. They spent two days together. They.

They didn't go into this with an agenda. And so they're having this talk. And one of the guys has investments in a bunch of different companies, and he says one of their biggest holdings is having a problem. The person he's talking to just happens to have a ton of experience and connections in that industry, became an advisor and a board member to that other person's largest holding. And what the guy told me after was fascinating.

He goes, in person is the way you seed relationships. You can get more done in an hour in person than hours on Zoom, there is no way we could have got to this level this quickly without being in person first. I have a long list here. I'm not going to go through all of them, but I'm just giving you some examples. Here's another one.

So two people strike up a conversation randomly at dinner. We're all business nerds, so we know exactly where the conversation is eventually going to get to. We're all obsessed, and so they start talking about what they're working on. Any problems are having. And one guy was having an issue.

He runs this giant company and he has a problem he needed to solve. The guy he wind up talking to just happens to own a software company that builds products in the same industry. That one random conversation turned into a massive lead for his company. And then the last example I'll give you is really fascinating. Guy attends the event.

He has a massively profitable bootstrap business that him and his partner own 100% of. He thinks that using the same principles of how they built their business, they could attack different industries. He has a long, private, one on one conversation with somebody he met at the conference. That person has a giant pool of capital. And so the end result of that conversation is, for the first time ever, he's considering taking outside money and expanding into different industries.

And the punchline was that one conversation drastically increased the size of my ambition. I could talk about this forever because I think it's fascinating. I think this idea that relationships run the world because people do business with people they like is fascinating. I can talk about it forever, but I do want to give you some details. So, one, I ran out the.

When I do these events, I ran out the entire venue. Okay. Every single. That means there's nobody on site that is not part of the event. Nobody has not been vetted by my events team.

That means every single person you see is there for the same reason and has the same interest as you. The second thing, these are all inclusive locations. You get yourself there. I take care of everything else. Your lodging, your hotel room, your food, access to all events.

Everything is taken care of. Number three, if there is a way to bold something in audio, this number three would be bolded. These events are for already successful people. The price should not be a stretch for you by any means. I need to repeat that these events are for already successful people.

The price should not be a stretch for you. Multiple people came up to me after the event and in emails and phone calls since then, because I think you already know that founders has an excessively high value audience. You know, what did, what did Charlie Munger say? He's like, I've never met anybody that didn't read all the time. If you're building a business, why the hell would you not listen to a podcast that spends 40 hours reading a book and trying to give you an hour of ideas that you can use in your company?

Learning from history is a form of leverage, and this podcast is a tool to do that. So it attracts very valuable audiences where people pull me to the side and they're like, listen, I'm not joking. Multiple different founders and investors have told me, I have an David, if you can connect me to other people that are like me, I have an unlimited budget for that. And that leads directly into the last point, which is number four. These are intentionally smaller events.

The one in San Francisco or outside of San Francisco, it's gonna be 100, 2130 people at most. The one in Austin is only going to be about 20 people more than that. So if you want to attend, do not dilly dally. The waiting list could sell out both of these events a few times over. And in the difference between these events and the events in the past, I sold out the last event and the only time I mentioned on two podcasts.

That's it, didn't send it to my email list, didn't tweet it, didn't send it to link to anything else. These events are not only going to be advertised on this podcast, they're going to be advertised on business breakdowns, on invest, like the best and art of investing podcasts. Also, you're welcome to attend both events if you'd like. And to do so, you go to founderspodcast.com events. That's Founderspodcast.com events.

Thanks for listening and I hope to see you there.