What Eric Learned From A Private Founder's Retreat

0:00So we're going to start off with what I learned from a private founders retreat. and I just came back yesterday. I was there basically 40 minutes away from Cancun and I was there from last Tuesday till yesterday, which was Sunday. Oh, wow. Before you go into what you learned, can you first describe the founder retreat, the type of people that make it up and why you do it and how long you've been doing it for? Yeah. So this group, we've had it since 2018. I started it and I kind of handpicked the people initially for the first one that we did. so some people you know some of the people in this group so we have syed bulky who is um owns you know portfolio of wordpress companies wp beginner wp beginner we have yaniv masjedi who owns um co-founder of nextiva they're like a um just call like a voice company um and they do well and then there's patrick campbell who's in the group as well so he sold profit well for was he even there this time he wasn't there this time he had some personal things going on so he was supposed to be there so she's still profitable for 250 um and then we have had some other people in the group too that are amazing we have al doan who has like a nine figure quilting company quilting quilting company like quilts for like blankets yeah yeah yeah yeah and and he buys towns so his town is like a quilt town it's like disneyland for quilting and so like all these middle-aged old women go to that town and they just go to town on quilting and do a lot of the people in the town work for him i don't know about that but he's he's kind of cracked the code on buying towns.

1:29And so that's something you haven't cracked, nor have I cracked. I'm okay on the buying towns. I don't need to. It sounds like a lot of work. Yeah. And I also don't have that kind of money to go buy. But it's a really good group. So I can tell you how we iterate over the years, but I think I answered your first two initial questions, right? Yes. But what is the purpose of a founder group? Because I'm assuming you're not talking about like, hey guys, we're all starting up our business. It's not like EO or YPO. It is like EO, YPO because EO, YPO, you do a retreat every year with your forum. And so we just, this is our annual retreat.

2:01We're actually going to do two now. And this is where we're just having a good time. We're eating good food. And we're talking about business ideas. We're talking about challenges we're facing, AI ideas too, and other things that are going on in our lives. And so the point of this is obviously you want to go with people that you get along with. And last week was really interesting to me because I went on my YPO forum retreat too, and I saw my former EO group on Monday before I left Tuesday. day. So I got a dose of all of it and it made me realize, um, what I really want and what I really value.

2:33And I can go into that too. Yeah, go, go into it. Okay. So what I learned with this group, cause we're all kind of growing old together. We're all in our mid thirties. Some people are in their forties or so this group, all we do is we'll, we'll do active act. We'll do activities. Um, we'll talk about business the whole time. So we're doing presentations like, Hey, here's my biggest challenge with this. Okay. Everyone experienced yours, things like that. Right. um we'll eat dinner and we go to bed after dinner but there's no like hey let's go party right whereas one of my other groups that i just was with we were they just wanted to party right so let's skip the other group that you're with let's let's go back to this group the first thing that you mentioned is you guys do activities i saw some of the activities online so tennis uh-huh uh was one bow and arrow tennis was tennis archery pickleball and then usually we play basketball because there's some people in the group that are really good at basketball all right what's the purpose of the activities one because we don't want to be bored um so it's either physical activities or spa because you need love spa right yeah i'm done with the spa yeah so it's he gets like all the massage so he books all the massages for us and everything um and wait did you do the spa of course we did the spa so this is a crazy massage too because this massage how long do you usually get a massage for depends which country i'm in because some countries are really affordable where it's like ten dollars okay you're in thailand uh in thailand i had two ladies misogyny at the same time i think it got a four in hand i i i think it costs thirty dollars for two and a half hours and it was me mike and some other entrepreneur in the same room and we were talking and uh i remember one of the ladies like was i was like oh walk on my back you know this is like just walk and it was a traditional thai massage like you come in you wear like this thai uh robe because usually like you wear a towel or you're under sheets and you just keep your underwear on but this is like you actually like dress up into like some thai clothes and dude i was in pain i learned the word bao bao which means softer or lighter or something like that because i was just in so much pain but after the massage it felt great okay so i'll give you and then i want to give some tactics to people as well but um we so you need booked us for these these massages were 150 minutes each so that's two hours and 30 minutes okay and they do all these things like they'll scrub you they'll give you apples apple ginger tea and everything right and then just like a crazy massage a lot of stretching and all that so anyway wait do you do them in the same room so you can start talking to people and brainstorm ideas or no no no no no oh actually no some of them did they did that but i did it the day before whatever so i didn't want to do it twice, right?

5:11So anyway, we do that. It's like, okay, why do we do the activities? Because we can only talk about business for so much throughout the day, right? Like when we're together, all we're talking about is business. We're at lunch, we're talking about business. Or Syed would bring up, this is new this time. It's like, let's talk about worldviews, right? So how do you feel about this war over here? How do you feel about this over here? How do you feel about the economy right now? And you're getting everyone's perspectives. What are you investing in right now, for example, right? And some people will disagree with me, like Syed would disagree with me on crypto for example right um and then like obviously i'm i'm big on i i love crypto right um and so i i think that the big thing is we have done this for eight years or so we're very comfortable with this group and we've gotten it to a point where this is our core group now we used to rotate people in and out we're no longer doing that and the idea here and and one of the people in the group has another group where these people are 60 to 65 years old in his group And he's the youngest person.

6:06And these people are some of the top investors in the world. One guy is even the GM of one of the largest automotive companies in the world, right? And so they do groups like this too. And they'll do a retreat like every year or so. The funny thing about the older group is they will go to lunch. And then after, they have nap time for two hours, right? Because they're older. And then at four sharp, you go straight to, you know, you go to activities and you go to dinner. Right after dinner, you go to bed. And I was like, I'm getting to that age now where I'm like, oh, I feel like that's really good, right?

6:34How old are you? 38? 38, yeah. But the key thing is these people are loaded with money, right? But there's still groups like this. And this person told me that there's a lot of groups like this that will be together for 20, 30 plus years or so and they'll grow old together. Like you'll hear about their kids, you'll hear about their family and things like that. And so I think the whole entire purpose of this is it's very lonely at the top. And we both know that entrepreneurship is a very lonely game. and to have a group like this where you know you can trust everyone and you would do anything for these people goes a long way.

7:06It's like you and I have a very, there's a close relationship, right? But I feel like that's that with this group. And that's why I love this. And that's why I've always been a proponent of EOYPO because they force you into groups like this. But I just happen to make my own and it's worked out that way. So let's go back to one of the first things that you talked about and then we'll go to the business side of the group. One of the first things you talked about is you do activities and you guys discuss things during meals activities one of the things you guys discuss is world views now i don't need to know what a specific person thought but what was the consensus that the group overall thought um about the world views and what's happening right now from a business standpoint we all think the economy is going to going to be worse it's going to get worse before it gets better yeah yeah and i think you're probably aligned with that too There's also a lot of uncertainty right now.

7:58I think we all agree on these outside wars as well, for the most part. It was a little complex because some people in the group actually think... So I think Elon's a net positive for the world. Some people in the group actually think he's maybe... A net negative. Maybe not a net negative. They think he's still positive, but they think he's gone off the deep end. And I can understand that perspective. So it's good to have different worldviews. so most people think the economy is going to get worse in 2025 but better in 2026 is their guess uh they didn't say 2026 or so we just think it's going to get worse and then there's already indicators i think i saw in today's um today's reports about gdp going to be down negative negative 3.8 percent i think they say gdp is going to be down yeah and so we're it looks like we're 3.8 percent going forward or from down down 3.8 percent quarter on quarter i think this quarter over the previous quarter?

8:51Was it for Q4? I think it was Q4. Q4, yeah, because they report later on. Yeah. So we'll see what happens. And then I think the investing thing, it's like everyone's mostly buy and hold type of thing. Here's an interesting business theme because I want to give some value to people too. There's a lot of, and I'm not going to name names here. Before we go back to the business themes, let's stick with the worldviews. If most people are thinking that things are going to get bad in the short run and long run, they'll start improving. No one gave a specific time frame. They don't know if it's 25, 26, 27.

9:21It was left open. What are people doing differently with their marketing or how they're running their business? Hoarding as much cash as possible, taking as much profit as possible, trying to jack up profit margins as much as possible. Because some people in the group, and you might be able to pinpoint this, but we're not going to name names. Some people in the group understand that maybe they're in the Warren Buffett likes to say cigar butt stage. Right. So cigarette butts is like they're they're fading, but there's you could still get a couple of puffs. Right. Yeah. Or you can look at it as the blue stamps face.

9:54Right. Like Warren Buffett has the blue stamps, blue chip stamps or whatever. Like they were always going down and down and down. But you can still kind of ride the profits for a period of time. So does that make sense? Yeah. I'm clear there. OK. So some people are like that. They're playing more defense and they're looking to figure out where to deploy cash. but they're also slowing down quite a bit on M &A because they're not sure if they were deploying a lot into M &A, but they're not sure about their industry anymore. So there's that. And then some other people in the group, they're looking at buying iconic, you know, multi-billion dollar companies where they can just, you know how like Tai Lopez bought Pier 1 and Radio Shack?

10:31I think he just bought the intellectual property, right? The domain and the naming rights. So at that point, you're paying pennies on the dollar. You're paying like a fraction of multi-billions, right? And so there's some people in the group that are looking to do that. So they're just waiting for the opportunities of things to go bankrupt. Yeah. And the opportunity is here already. They were actually talking about how to potentially work on this opportunity. Yeah. So they're already putting bids on deals or they're... Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And you and I know this company. Cool. Yeah. All right.

11:00So from a business standpoint, what did you guys end up discussing during the retreat? So this will probably be helpful for everyone. I want to give you guys some frameworks that you can use. So the way we do this is when you're in the EO or YPO forum, you will come with your, we call these hot seats, right? Or no, we call these now explorations. So Neil, let's use you as an example. What's the biggest challenge you have right now in your business? When I first started my business, the overwhelm was real. I didn't have the tools to help me scale. If only I had Shopify from the start to handle all the behind the scenes work.

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13:12Animations, responsive layout, search optimization, and all the things that matter. Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at framer.com and use code MS to get your first month of pro on the house. That's framer.com, promo code MS, framer.com, promo code MS. Rules and restrictions may apply. The biggest challenge I have on business is convincing people to sign up faster. Okay. Sales cycle is long. So sales cycle is long. Okay. So you might say, okay, that's the challenge. And then you get 10 minutes to frame what the problem is. And then we get 10 to 15 minutes to ask you clarifying questions around the room.

13:50So you have a group of smart people in different industries, right? They might not understand your core issue, but they might have an experience here that's relevant, right? And sometimes they can say pass. Then after that, each person gets five minutes to experience here. Not exactly give you advice. I know Neil's the type to kind of be direct and say, no, you should do this, right? In this scenario, you're actually supposed to hold back and just share your experiences. Sometimes people go directly into advice sharing, but each person goes for around five minutes. Wait, wait, wait. Why are you supposed to just experience your and not give advice?

14:18So I know Heaton hates this. I remember talking to Heaton about this. So you're not supposed to give advice because whatever advice that you give is unique to your experiences in your life. And so what happens is the argument here is from EO YPO. It's called Gestalt Rule, right? If I give Noah a piece of advice here and it screws him over, he will hate me for that, right? Or if I give you advice and you don't take the advice, supposedly I will be annoyed or whatever. I actually don't really care, nor would Neil care. Like Neil would just give advice, right? So the idea here is like if I just experiencer you, I tell you my story, you will come to your own conclusions on what you should do, and that feels better.

14:57And I will say I hated that in the very beginning of EO and YPO, but I grew to love it because I came up with my own solutions. And I actually I didn't really like it as much when people gave direct advice because it was so contextual to them. Yeah. So you've gotten used to people, quote unquote, experience sharing instead of giving direct advice. The group every once in a while does share direct advice, but majority of the people just to experience. sure they do if you're trained like um sayed is trained in ypo uh david henzel is trained in eo i'm trained in both eo ypo um we'll hold back um but you need for example can't hold back so he'll go straight into experiences he's not an either though right no he's not an either which is why he goes straight to experience so if you are hanging out with us which would be fun um you would go you should do this you should do this you should do this yeah yeah but um so so we would do that and that's the format of it each person gets about 40 the each person's presentation goes about 45 minutes and we'll just go around until everyone kind of finishes it and then when we go to like um is that part clear before i go into another set yeah so you you first talk about your problem people have 10 minutes to um ask clarifying questions and for anyone listening kind of like chat gbt if you pay 200 bucks you ask it a question to do research for you it'll ask you clarifying questions before it goes and does the research because it doesn't want to do research on the wrong thing it's just making sure everyone's giving you the right type of feedback hence clarifying questions yeah and plus by the way um i'll give you some of the experiencers as it relates to my context because you and i have been talking about my context a lot right it's like okay but before we go into that 40 minutes total so then the rest of the time is people then telling you about their experience related to your problem give or take the whole thing takes about an hour 45 minutes to an hour for the whole thing to wrap up got it so you do all the people over multiple days that means correct too many to do in one correct and then typically we'll try to split him in two days and then at the very end let's say it goes back to you and you basically say oh um no thank you so much for experience sharing i learned this right or i learned this and it's like usually you'll get like a summary from the person that was um that has the issue and hopefully it was valuable and i think for everyone everyone got value there and that usually is the primary value of of these things um so for me if i go into me for a second um you know right now it's like okay i showed them i demoed them um carrot right and then i also said okay well i have this issue right now where it's like i'm you know i'm spending a lot of my time on on single grain right um and your whole thing was like hey single grain kind of seems like a distraction right um and you're like maybe maybe you should figure out a way to um just focus full-time on carrot correct yes okay so everyone has different opinions um but in this situation i thought everyone was going to go your in your direction where it's like, hey, just all in on Carrot.

17:47But everyone, everyone was like, dude, one, they love Carrot. Second thing is they're like, no, you there's actually a lot of synergies with single grain and carrot. Right. And like you should have both, but just, you know, maybe you need to hire more operators for single grain, but, but still you need to be involved 10, 15 % of the time. And that's not something you can ever get rid of. And, you know, that's something that jives more with me, but like, I also respect the feedback you have. right so i like here there's no right or wrong everyone has a different solution or different way to do different things like elon musk will go create five businesses at the same time or however many and he makes it work yeah i can't do that i don't think most entrepreneurs can but elon made it work i think he's rare but there's a lot of entrepreneurs that have two businesses going at the same time you know what warren buffett said warren buffett said there are multiple ways to go to heaven yeah yeah and so there's no right or wrong way at the end of the day.

18:40Totally agree with that. I'll give two, um, two frameworks and then we can move on to the next topic. Give some other ones. So that was one of your problems. What were some other things that people helped you solve? Not so, I mean, that, that was kind of the main thing. It's like, okay, what do we, what do we do? Um, what do I do? I have this thing right now and where, where should I focus my time? Right. And then this is my, my challenge is I'm spending a lot of time on single grain and that are distinct, this thing's about to take off. Right. So that was the primary thing we just focused on that yeah um and it's interesting sayed actually brought up a good point as we're walking out um because we actually have this um let's just call it omni channel reporting in carrot that will show you how how how our product is influencing your pipeline and it works it works on ourselves right we were going to add an organic social for it he's like dude that seems amazing but that seems like another that seems like a completely different product and i was like yeah you're right um and so i was i basically i immediately texted my cto i I was like, yeah, we should probably hold that for now.

19:37And just we need to continue to work out that focus muscle every single day. And he's like, yeah, you're right. So you just hear things in passing, like little things like that. Like that happens in like five seconds. Like, oh, shit. Right. But it tweaks things pretty significantly. And then we did share a lot of stuff around AI. And that was fun. But I want to share two frameworks that we use at dinner that can help bring people closer together. because I think my value for everyone with this is if you can somehow learn to be the connector, you can be the node because the thing I've gotten really good at over the last decade or so is putting people together, right?

20:13If you can become a node and you can put these groups together, like the first group I put together was I had a bunch of marketing directors at my place. I lived in Hawthorne, right by the SpaceX place, right? SpaceX wasn't even around yet. But I brought people together and all I had to feed them was a half eaten bag of chips. Right. But I put, that's the first mastermind I put together. Eventually you get better at this stuff. Eventually you can upgrade to Mediterranean dinner. Everyone gets one and eventually you can upgrade more and more. Right. And in 2018, it eventually led to the first event that we did in Cabo.

20:42Um, so I would just say that if you can somehow figure out how to do this, there's a lot of templates on how to run a mastermind. We'd like to call this a founder's retreat because we're not charging anyone money for this. Everyone's just paying costs. Um, that's powerful, right so david henzel remember david henzel of course i remember okay he found us ice cream in germany oh yeah oh that's right we walked there together that's right okay he knows germany really well of course he does but uh germany he was from that town yeah that's what i'm saying of course he knows it but yeah he found us ice cream when there shouldn't have been any ice cream shops open yeah So this exercise We like ice cream now Ice cream's great Coconut Coconut sorbet though Is that what you That's my favorite Dude Mint Kind bars So you know kind They have ice cream bars They have a mint chip flavor It's really delicious Is it cancerous You know the Girl Scout cookies I gave you Basically they're like They're very cancerous Yeah So no more But I found new cookies I was the one who told you that You told me that I saw that on Twitter I also told you that When we were recording But But I found these new cookies I'll bring them for your kids next time They're organic They're as clean as they can be My friend's mom makes them Oh my god, they're amazing They're called to me, I think But I'll bring them David Henzel, the last night Saturday, we're having dinner And he does this exercise called the 3-2-1 exercise So we basically all go around the table Let's say the three of us are having dinner So I'll be like, Noah Tell me three events that totally impacted your life Okay.

22:16Then you tell your stories, whatever. It didn't go to you, then me. And then the second one, the two is two people that most impacted your life. Okay. So you can say your parents, whatever it is exactly. And then the one is one decision that impacted your life. Okay. Now you might be like, what the hell is the point of this? Right. The point of this is if we're going to be together for a long time, we need to really get to know each other. And doing that exercise, we got, we all realized we're all kind of the same. So I don't know if Sayed will kill me for this. He probably will so he's a private guy yaniv i never knew this you probably never knew this either he used to run all the time right i didn't know that um or i wasn't paying attention and then um we have a guy in the group uh walter he's really good at basketball but i didn't know that his dad was really good before and then walter actually wanted to play in the nba right but we learned that we're obviously we're all competitive at the but we're all competitive i played a ton of games um and so when you share these stories you can in certain cases people are tearing up and stuff, you got a lot closer to these people too.

23:14And if you're going to spend a lot of times with these people, you want to know how they are. Right. Um, for you, you probably be like, screw this stuff. Right. But, but like it, it, it has been generally helpful. And, um, the other question that Henzo asked, I like these dinner questions. He, you just keep going around the room. So I'd say, Hey Noah, um, no, I'd say, no, if you really knew me, you would know that I play drums when I was in high school. Right. And so random facts. And then you would go, if you really knew me, um, you know, something else, right. If you really knew me, you, uh, if Neil said this, Oh yeah, I used to sell CDs and I used to burn CDs and sell them in high school.

23:51That's Neil. Right. Yep. So you just share these random facts and you learn all these things about people. It's like, Holy crap. Right. Like some people have been through some really tough stuff. Um, and I learned in that group that everyone was broke before at one point, which is why I love this group you were broke before everyone being broke when they're growing up or as an entrepreneur growing up and that i love because wait you need was broke he grew up in beverly hills he there's a whole story around it and i don't think it's my place to reveal no no yeah it's um yeah we're all broke yeah yeah yeah but i will tell you i don't one thing i don't think you and mind me sharing is that you know how he's a very calm person yeah like you know you're generally pretty calm unless it's like you're really about to lose something then you might lose your shit um but you're generally pretty calm i think i have more of a short fuse um but he brought up a good point so he's he learned from his father that like you the reason why he's so calm is because your father his father was like look if if you don't have your calmness and you lose it all the time you're in control of nothing and life's gonna throw so many things at you that you just the one thing that you can control is how calm you are and that's something i've been trying to work on for a very long time but even listening to your stories reminds me of these things i agree with him on the calm the reason i'm calm most of the time and typically when i'm not it's over stuff that i'm just really irritated on and by not being calm it'll get people to solve the issue that i'm facing or having with certain people when you let emotions get or when you start getting heightened and you start getting angry you get really emotional it clouds your judgment and you can't think straight so then you start making decisions that are really bad for you and when i was younger as an entrepreneur i would let emotions get the best of me instead of logic so what would happen is i would make decisions that were really terrible for the long run and that's why i stopped just put it you know stop being emotional put them in a box yeah and that At least for work.

25:53That's how the game should be played in entrepreneurship. Emotions don't help that much in general. Yeah. The final thing I'll say before we move on from this is one other dinner question that I brought up was, what's the most impactful thing that you've ever done for somebody and why did you do it? And then there's a flip side to that. What's the most impactful thing someone's ever done for you and why did they do it? And then you got a lot from that. But this is where people got emotional too. but you know it's as entrepreneurs we typically will put on this front that we're you know very strong and we're kind of impervious but it's like you get to see the emotional side and it is helpful because it brings you closer to these people and you get to see the authentic side and I hate using that word because it's overused but yeah no and entrepreneurs even when they're close friends with people they usually don't reveal everything and this is a great way to get to know people who like to who they really are but I guarantee there's some people at your event um i don't know all of them but there's no way everyone revealed everything and no i know at least few of the members are reserved yeah there's you get a lot more than you would typically i mean the people that you're referring they reveal they reveal a lot yeah but they're not going to fully reveal everything they're still reserved no not everything everything but more than they would to other people i would say yeah yeah if you ask them their revenue they would not reveal that no they would not yeah um so okay let me just end up with this and we can move on and you can pick the next which by the way when someone asks revenue it's a irrelevant thing to ask most people when it doesn't matter if someone's making a lot of money good for them if they're not you know uh help them try to do better in life and just because someone's making a lot of revenue doesn't mean they make a lot of profit and just because someone's really well off right now doesn't mean they'll keep making that money or vice versa um and the amount of money someone makes doesn't really define them.

27:42Yeah. And I think what we're both saying here is ultimately, I don't care how much money you make, you should stay humble no matter what, because there's always someone bigger than you. So ultimately, let me just close it off with this. I think, in my opinion, most people, if you're playing this game of ambition, I don't even care if you're a marketing director or you're just starting out. It is helpful to have a peer group, in my opinion, because I remember when I was 25, I called an entrepreneur and I said, hey, what's the most impactful thing you did? I don't even know why they took a call with me, but they're like, oh, joining a group EO.

28:11What's so good about EO? It's like because you're growing together and people know what you're going through. And you share kind of these struggles, the same struggles with like-minded people. And I think to me, it's almost a form of group therapy. And some people, I'll say these things and eventually they'll drink the Kool-Aid and they'll love it. But in the very beginning, they'll be very resistant to me. But these have always helped. And you don't need to join like an EO or YPO. You can form your own groups and that's how I've done it in the beginning. And you don't need to have a lot of money to do these things too.

28:44You can go, just go have dinner with these people too. Go to like, I don't know, go to Chick-fil-A or something like that's fine. No, I do totally agree with that. All right guys. So that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, view, subscribe, and we will catch you tomorrow.