41/52: Party, Party
#CapitalAtRisk
The 2010s was the decade of the Entrepreneur. The 2020s will be the decade of the Investor.
“You have probably had more dinners with more founders than anyone else in Europe”.
Bogumil Baranowski1
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A teenager
Thanks to everyone who came to the 9others Winter Party. The winter party is an excuse to wish 9others a happy birthday — and this year it’s 13 years old, a teenager, just hopefully not a grumpy one.
The OGs
Of the nine people at the first ever meal with 9others in 2011 five of us were at this winter party 13 years later. There was Katie and myself of course, but also:
Seena, whose birthday it was on the night of that first meal — what an incredibly generous thing to do, spend his birthday with us and giving his thoughts on this idea we’d had...
Toni, who I wrote about here, and who brought his new-ish co-founder for his next startup after successfully selling his first.
Gerard, whose advice I’ve sought many times over the years and who did some terrific IP work for me just this summer.
The lesson?
Many, but one occurred to Katie and me as we were clearing up…
We remembered that over the years some very smart and successful people have tried to convince us to run 9others differently. We should do more dinners, they said — why not have them every night of the week if they’re so good? Or have a membership model for recurring revenue, or different levels of membership to an online portal and exclusive content, or a co-working space, or, or…
They were actually all decent enough, sensible ideas. And those ideas may be perfectly fine for someone, but just not us.
The lesson, therefore, is to continue to do what is congruent with us. What is congruent to us is welcoming new people to 9others and introducing them to people we haven’t seen in a while, sometimes that’s many, many years. That would never happen if we were forever chasing the next membership subscription.
So while some ideas, especially if they come from smart and successful people2, might sound logical, rational and a recipe for success they won’t be if you’re not completely and utterly inline with making it happen that way.
Our gut told us that 13 years ago. What does yours say about your ideas now?
In other news
🎧 I listened to Morgan Housel on the Huberman Lab podcast and one line stood. It’s obviously relevant to my search to understand the quiddity of founders — Morgan said, “All behaviour makes sense with enough information”. You can listen to the episode here.
🎅🏻 If you’re struggling to think of things to either put in your letter to Santa or for ideas to get something a bit different, why not get a gift voucher for an Unplugged stay, here (and if you buy one for your partner you might get to go with them….!), or their merch here, which includes the lockbox (I have one), Dark Arts coffee and a ‘Get Closer’ conversation game (perfect for starting or resolving Christmas arguments).
💰 As many of you know I’ve been in and around startups and VC since 2010. The ‘investing stuff’ has long been my intention and with 24 investments (including 4 exits and 6 failures) I’m taking things to a new level. If you’re keen to do this with your investing hit reply and tell me how and why.
More from me?
If you like my writing you can get more by buying my book, ‘Find your 9others’. It’s on Amazon here.
And if you’ve already read ‘Find your 9others’ please leave an Amazon review here.
Q&A
🆓 Free subscribers get a short preview and all free public posts. NB: All posts in 2024 will have paid-subscriber-only parts.
💰 Paid subscribers get access to all posts, the angel investor Q&A podcast I did during the 2020 lockdowns, the full archive and can request a video call to ask me anything and talk about the things I don’t share anywhere else.
💰💰💰 Founding Members get all paid benefits plus you get to WhatsApp me unlimited questions for discussion, you get a one hour discussion session once a quarter plus a great lunch in London, on me.
Important: None of these posts are investment advice. If you are thinking about investing you should seek the advice of a suitably qualified independent advisor.
#CapitalAtRisk
I’m sure it was my friend Bogumil who said this. If I’m not remembering correctly please let me know!
The thing is, those ideas sound logical and rational because they’re obvious — they make sense, right? But even those giving the advice know; the best things are obscure in the beginning and only become obvious much, much later.