Imagine spending twenty years in Miami nightlife—not drinking, not partying, but studying the whole circus like an anthropologist with a guest list. Now imagine taking that same energy into venture capital. That’s the story of Shaun Gold, and it reads like a screenplay he probably already wrote.
Shaun started in a world where attention, ego, and money swirl together like a tropical storm. Eventually, he walked out with a skill set founders spend decades trying to fake:
the ability to read people, sell ideas, build networks, and stay grounded while the room spins around you.
He never took a traditional job. Never wanted one. And—judging by the way he describes office culture—never will. Instead, he followed what looked like an unlikely trail: nightlife → books → screenwriting → startup consulting → VC → “venture comedy,” the witty, viral commentary he’s become known for.
That path sounds chaotic, but in Shaun’s telling, it becomes a pattern. A system. A reminder that the startup world and nightlife share the same unwritten rule:
You’re only as good as your last night. Or your last deal. Or your last post.
And most people underestimate how quickly things can change.
The Nightlife Degree Nobody Knows They Need
Shaun talks about Miami nightlife the way Navy SEALs talk about Hell Week. Brutal. Transformative. Not for most humans.
But if you survive?
You walk out with a PhD in human psychology.
Nightlife taught him:
how to identify client archetypes
how to handle powerful personalities
how to keep your ethics intact when nobody else has them
how to build repeatable, revenue-generating systems
how to network without sounding like a LinkedIn bot
Most importantly, it taught him urgency—the real kind, not the fake founder version where someone pretends a missed email will derail the company.
When your paycheck depends on filling a room, you either learn to make things happen or you don’t eat. Founders, Shaun argues, rarely operate with that clarity.
And they definitely don’t understand what it takes to keep relationships warm in a world where everyone has something to sell.
The Storytelling Thread Running Through Everything
Shaun didn’t pivot randomly from nightlife to writing. He was already doing the same thing—crafting stories.
A good party is a story pitch:
“Tonight is the night. Trust me. It’ll be worth showing up.”
Startup storytelling works the same way.
VC storytelling works the same way.
Even personal branding works the same way.
But what founders post online?
Shaun calls it “AI slop.”
Not because AI is bad, but because founders don’t edit. They dump a prompt into a text box, hit “publish,” and wonder why nobody cares. He sees the same thing in pitch decks—slides that feel like they were built by Clippy in 1998.
Good storytelling, he says, comes from reading things that stretch your brain—novels, mythology, philosophy—not self-help books with neon titles promising “10X results.”
Founders want viral posts but refuse to read anything deeper than a LinkedIn carousel. And it shows.
LinkedIn vs. X: Where Founders Should Actually Be
Shaun breaks down platform choices with mathematical simplicity:
X: compete with bots and Elon
LinkedIn: compete with Steve from McKinsey posting corporate oatmeal seven days a week
You can beat Steve.
You will not beat Elon.
LinkedIn has a billion accounts, but only a tiny fraction post consistently. The opportunity is massive… if you’re not recycling the same templated B2B wisdom as everyone else.
Shaun writes every post himself. No ghostwriters. No automation. No filler. And—unsurprisingly—it works.
Because authenticity is still rare online.
And humor is even rarer.
Founders Keep Making the Same Mistakes
Shaun has a running list of errors he sees every day. The highlights:
1. Fake Expertise
If ChatGPT goes down and you can’t answer a basic question about your industry, you’re cosplaying as a founder.
2. Building in Stealth for No Reason
If your “trade secret” is AI for anchovies, you don’t need an NDA.
3. Building in Public Like It’s a Reality Show
Not every latte-fueled co-founder meeting is a milestone.
4. Horrific Pitch Decks
Too long, too shallow, too generic, too boring.
5. Raising Money Before Building Anything
It’s cheaper than ever to create a prototype. Founders still want pre-seed rounds for six-figure amounts before validating anything.
Startup culture changes, but the rookie mistakes do not.
The Leap Into Venture Capital
Shaun describes getting into VC as harder than becoming a professional athlete. Not a metaphor—an actual joke in the industry.
He didn’t break in through cold applications or fancy credentials. He broke in the way he does everything:
three years of helping people, making introductions, building trust, and showing he could add value.
Eventually, when his now-partners launched Improv Ventures, they asked him to join—first as an advisor, then as a GP.
His superpower isn’t spreadsheets.
It’s people.
He connects the dots others don’t.
He spots communication gaps founders can’t see.
He plays the long game everyone else avoids.
The Secondary Wave Hitting Venture Capital
Improv Ventures originally planned to focus on emerging markets. But then something shifted:
founders and early investors wanted liquidity. Lots of it.
Suddenly, secondaries—stakes in later-stage companies—became the opportunity.
Shaun explains the core challenge:
VC portfolios follow a power law. One company carries the fund. The others? Dead weight.
But when VCs want to sell a slice of their portfolio, they usually want buyers to take the entire strip: the winners and the doomed ones.
For a secondary fund, that math rarely works. Shaun’s team hunts for:
strong balance sheets
real revenue
real exit potential
clean governance
and no decade-long waiting game
Companies with hype but no exit horizon—SpaceX being the poster child—don’t fit.
The goal isn’t a 100x.
It’s a 3-5x in a reasonable amount of time.
Patient, but not delusional.
The Daily Habit That Keeps Him Sane
Shaun’s secret weapon isn’t a tool—it’s a two-hour daily digital detox.
Every day between 4 and 7 PM, he disappears. No phone. No laptop. No pings. Nothing.
He walks. Runs. Works out. Thinks.
He lets the noise settle so clarity can surface.
The result?
He comes back refreshed and sharp until 1 AM.
It’s the opposite of hustle culture.
And yet it makes him more productive than the 996 crowd working themselves into the grave.
The Future: Venture Comedy, Live Events, and More Storytelling
Shaun has a slate of animated short-form videos coming out—punchy riffs on the best-performing posts from his “venture comedy” series.
He’s hosting VC and high-net-worth events.
He’s still ghostwriting for execs and founders.
And he’s quietly trying to get a movie made—his longest-running creative battle.
Hollywood, he jokes, is just like VC:
If someone says, “We’re excited to follow up,” it means “We will never speak again.”
Why Shaun Gold Resonates
The startup world often takes itself too seriously.
Shaun doesn’t.
But his humor never undercuts the truth.
It sharpens it.
He reminds founders that:
storytelling still matters
relationships still beat automation
content still needs a human voice
attention still needs to be earned
and the work still requires a grounded mind
His path looks unconventional only if you assume careers must be linear.
Shaun never did.
And that may be the most founder-like quality of all.
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Chapters:
00:01 Shaun Gold Intro
00:34 Origin Story & Early Entrepreneurship
01:22 Rejecting the 9–5 Life
02:19 Freedom, Structure & Self-Direction
03:59 Lessons From Miami Nightlife
04:57 Psychology, Clients & High-Pressure Environments
06:02 Staying “On Point” as an Entrepreneur
06:52 Building Massive Nightlife Crowds
07:40 Networking, Relationships & Avoiding the AI Crutch
09:59 Strategic Helpfulness vs. Noise
11:04 Storytelling as a Career Thread
12:40 Why Business Books Fail & What to Read Instead
13:31 The Rise of AI Slop in Founder Content
15:24 LinkedIn vs. X: Where to Build a Brand
17:58 Why Most Founder Content Doesn’t Work
18:06 Fake Expertise & Credibility Gaps
20:00 Stealth, Building in Public & Startup Delusions
22:49 Pitch Deck Sins & Founder Blind Spots
25:10 Creating “Venture Comedy”
26:31 Humor as a Tool for Revealing Startup Truths
28:55 Becoming a GP at Improv Ventures
29:12 Relationship-Driven Path Into Venture
31:26 Breaking Into VC vs. Starting a Fund
32:31 Knowing Your Weaknesses & Partnering Around Them
34:39 Improv Ventures’ Thesis Shift to Secondaries
35:13 How Secondary Deals Work
36:57 The Power-Law Problem in VC Portfolios
39:22 The Surge in Secondary Demand
40:00 Founders Raising Too Much, Too Soon
41:40 Trend Chasing vs. Real Founder Focus
43:45 Staying Current & Avoiding Outdated Playbooks
44:01 Shaun’s Daily Digital Detox Superpower
46:08 What’s Next for Shaun Gold
Transcript
Brian Bell (00:01:07):
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Ignite podcast. Today, we’re thrilled to have Sean Gold on the mic. He’s a polymath, bestselling author, investor, and the creative mind behind venture comedy. Sean went from Miami nightlife to the VC world, writing for top founders and building the voice behind OpenVC’s content engine. He’s now GP at Improv Ventures and blending humor, storytelling, and startup strategy in a way a few others do. Thanks for coming on, Sean. Well, what an intro.
Shaun Gold (00:01:30):
How do I top that? Thanks for having me. That’s all true, but it’s highly exaggerated.
Brian Bell (00:01:35):
Well, I’d love to get your origin story. What’s your background? I like when people say origin story.
Shaun Gold (00:01:38):
Yeah, I mean, listen, I’ve been a lifelong entrepreneur. Always. Never had a real job. Something I’m very proud of. Essentially, I’m known kind of for almost two decades. I spent in Miami nightlife. Wow. And from that, I mean, I wrote my books. I got into screenwriting. I got suckered into working with startups. Then I got suckered into working in VC. And now here we are. But nightlife and VC, they have a lot in common. Both industries are a joke. So it’s easy to pull content from and have fun with.
Brian Bell (00:02:07):
That’s amazing. You say you never had a job. Tell us more about that.
Shaun Gold (00:02:13):
Yeah, it’s just one, nobody would ever hire me. Joke’s on them. But yeah, I mean, it’s not that lack of... I didn’t want to work or lack of trying. Just either nobody hired me or it just didn’t make sense or it didn’t fit in with what I wanted to do. But I never had, like, be at the office at 9 a.m., day till 6. You know, oh, we got five meetings today. You have the presentation ready? That’s a big account. Like, I never had any of that. You know, and I never wanted it. Who wants that? So I’ve always done my own thing, and I’ve always found a way.
Brian Bell (00:02:44):
People who want that are kind of weird, right?
Shaun Gold (00:02:45):
Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of people want to have a structure in their life when someone telling them what to do. Be here at this time, do this work. Your lunch is this time. You can go home at this time and they have that structure. But then if they lose that structure, they don’t know what to do. I’ve never had that structure. I’ve had my own structure, which is better, which is the structure of I’m going to sleep into when I want. And, oh, look, it’s nice out. I’m going to go to the beach, right? Like, not to call for permission. Hey, boss, you think I can take off today? Today’s a really important day. Yeah, I know, but it’s, like, really nice weather, low humidity. I really want to go. I’ll finish it later. Because I don’t think this is going to work out. So, yeah, I just – but I never – I mean, I tried a few times, but it never – It never appealed to me, and it never was something that was like, oh, man, I really hope I get this job so I can spend 60 to 70 hours a week doing something I don’t want to do for money that’s lower than what I expect and having nothing to show for it. Sign me up.
Brian Bell (00:03:37):
That’s so funny. I call that the triple 50. You know, I realized this in my early 20s that, you know, we’re all just like, you know, working 50 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 50 years. And then we die. Wow.
Shaun Gold (00:03:48):
I don’t think I’ve ever worked 50 hours in a week or 50 weeks in a year.
Brian Bell (00:03:52):
Or the triple 40, whatever you want to call it, you know. But yeah, it’s like, we’re just, yeah. It’s interesting that you were able to discern that about yourself. For me, I just churned through jobs, trying to find a job that would fulfill me and never quite found it, right? I was just like, oh yeah, this is pretty good, but not great. I think I might like this other thing. And I kept doing that over and over again, iterating. And that’s how I got into VC after like a hundred iterations, you know, going out on my own and doing this. But it took me like my whole life, like my whole adult life to figure it out, you know?
Shaun Gold (00:04:22):
Wow, but at least you had all those jobs. You must have a lot of badges.
Brian Bell (00:04:25):
Yes, I had a lot of jobs. A lot of logins. A lot of logos. A lot of logos on my slide deck. So you built a name as the Nightlife Ninja.
Shaun Gold (00:04:33):
Former Nightlife Ninja, but yes.
Brian Bell (00:04:36):
Ninja Emeritus. What lessons from that world still shape how you operate now? So...
Shaun Gold (00:04:41):
with nightlife i mean it’s the best education you can get provided you can survive it most people can survive it they get caught up in drugs alcohol the people i was always about two things the network and the money so i never did drugs i never drank i never even stayed late right i did what i had to do shook hands got cards got numbers had a good time got out of there but Nightlife teaches you things that, again, if you’re a nightlife, you’re not going to know it because you’re kind of like, oh, I’m a nightlife guy. It’s going to last forever. It doesn’t, especially now in this economy. But nightlife essentially gives you marketing expertise, right? Gives you a psychological education, what kind of archetype your client is, how they think, how they interpret information. how to navigate egos of some of the most successful, richest people that you’ll ever meet, how to network properly, how to conduct business properly, ethics. Most of them lack ethics, but if you have your ethics, you can have a strong ethics and those ethics. So just being true to your word, delivering on what you say you’re going to deliver, being dependable, things that people take for granted. It teaches you so much and it definitely teaches you how to be an entrepreneur because, you know, nightlife again, it’s you’re on your own. They provide you a club. It’s your job to fill it. How are you going to do that? And it gives you a sense of realism that most industries don’t give you because you could be on top of the world on Friday night, but find yourself at the bottom by Saturday. Because we had a saying that you’re only as good as your last party. And the people you work with were generally insane. So it’s like, hey, I sold $40,000 last Friday. That was last week. What’d you do this week? Right? So you can never really... Rest on your laurels. You always had to be on point. And I feel like a lot of people, especially founders, are not on point. I feel like a lot of people aren’t prepared to be entrepreneurs, to have that fast-paced lifestyle, to know what it means to go above and beyond. And that’s the world I just kind of came from. My whole thing was bringing the most people. That was my reputation. If you needed like a thousand people, then you called me. So I was always in demand because it’s very hard to bring a thousand people. People can’t even bring 20 people. Maybe they bring 20 or 30 tops, 40, but I would be bringing hundreds and hundreds. So I’ve worked with not just nightclubs, but Major brands doing brand activations, private parties, private penthouses, yachts, all the stuff you see in the movies. That was kind of my life for almost two decades. So you learn a lot, right? And you learn how to actually build out a system that works, right? A functional system that’s repeatable. And if you’re building a startup, you want a repeatable system that generates revenue that moves the needle to the next milestone, so to speak. Yeah, 9-11 was definitely a good teacher. But keep in mind, I also went to university. I went to University of Miami because I wanted to throw parties. I chose that school for better schools just so I could be there and follow this passion I had, this idea I had of doing this. So I also got two educations. I got an actual degree and I actually got like a street degree. And those kind of gave me an advantage over people that either had just one or the other.
Brian Bell (00:07:41):
Yeah, and I would imagine the ability to network is really paying dividends now for fundraising and deal flow.
Shaun Gold (00:07:48):
Yeah, I mean, just most people is all about like, give me it. Here’s my deck. Where’s my meeting? Where’s my money, right? Or I see you’re connected with this person on LinkedIn. Connect me. Like, why would I do that? I don’t even know you, right? So you have to know how to approach people. You have to know how to build relationships. You have to know how to actually, you know, when you call someone, they’re going to return the call. They don’t pick up. or if you text someone or if you email them, they’re going to say, oh, great, I’d love to hear from this person. Not like, oh, not this person again. Like, I never hear from them. So I think a lot of nuance is missing. And I think now with ChatGPT, it’s definitely missing because people just don’t know how to do anything. Can’t think on their feet, right? They can’t. they’re they’re not able to maneuver in the ways that they have to maneuver and that’s i’m not saying it’s like a gen z thing but i’m saying that it’s it’s across generations that if you don’t have a mind that is able to think quickly when you’re in the room with the right people and able to pivot your position and shake hands and remember their name their company what they do and why it’d be a good connection, you were operating at a disadvantage. At Nightlife, we had to. I had to know what they did, where they were from, what industry, what they drank, how much they spent last time. Now, granted, we had CRM systems, but the CRM system wanted to generate a report. You drank Grey Goose and spent $3,000. No, you have to remember. You remember by being at the table when they order. You remember because you introduced them to some models or whatever. You remember because you hung out with them and you just remember that stuff, right? And I had to do that for... Hundreds upon hundreds of clients for years, right? So it’s definitely a superpower, but it’s a superpower anyone could have. It’s just not something you can outsource to AI. And it’s not something that you can just do acting like a drone on LinkedIn. You have to have the ability to converse with people and build relationships and have, you know, a relationship where you’re offering what you can offer. And maybe one day you have an ask, not then, but one day. And you can, you know, feel confident in having that ask.
Brian Bell (00:09:41):
Yeah, I’ve kind of learned that over the years that it’s, you know, especially in this industry and startups and VC generally, it’s really about just being helpful. And it’s such a cliche and it’s kind of just, I feel almost like corny saying it, but it is. It’s just like trying to be helpful to everybody you meet because that will come back to you eventually, right?
Shaun Gold (00:09:58):
Well, not everyone, but... strategically helpful.
Brian Bell (00:10:00):
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Shaun Gold (00:10:01):
The DMS I get dear insert company name. I just love the work that you’re doing at insert company name. I’m curious. Do you use insert what you use in your daily operations? If so, I’d like to book a call. Like that’s not help. I’m not going to help that person. Now you’re going to respond. I’m going to take a screenshot. I’m going to make fun of them on LinkedIn. All right. They deserve it. I mean, I blot out their name and their picture, but come on. Well, yeah, generally if somebody is normal and if there’s cool, It’s no problem as I tell people, as I tell my clients, as I tell people just that I’ve met over the years. It’s no problem for me to just take 50 seconds to make an email introduction. And you can BCC me and I don’t need to know how it goes or I don’t need to be connected. I mean, there’s a lot of people are like, oh, well, if something happens, you got to take care of me. You know, if your AI for Stromboli raises $20 million, I made that connection. Like, dude, I don’t care. Like, it’s like something happens good for you. Go for it. You know, that’s fine. I just try to be helpful in that way to people that are worthy of it and deserve it.
Brian Bell (00:10:57):
Yeah. At what point did storytelling become kind of the through line between everything you do?
Shaun Gold (00:11:02):
I mean, it’s always been about storytelling, to be honest, even with the nightlife and the other things I’ve done. You know, with nightlife, it’s all one big story. Better come tonight. DJ’s awesome. Going to be packed. VIP sold out. The celebrity is going to come. I hope all that’s true. Right. But the storytelling exactly. It evolved for me just, you know, doing work with Open VC and pretty much, you know, writing, writing for their content and creating all the content and social media. And then expanding that to other founders and other investors and other executives that need a personal brand, don’t have the time to do a personal brand, are very successful, but they just don’t want to sit there and write. And they don’t want to ruin their brand with AI slop. I mean, I was doing it before the AI slop, but now the AI slop is everywhere. I mean, it’s just... We’re in the AI sludge era, right? So with that being the case, it’s something that, you know, just from writing so much, writing my own personal books, writing screenplays, you know, writing blogs, writing short form videos, all that stuff. It’s just a second nature to me, but it’s a craft that I’m still apprenticing to. Ernest Hemingway said, writing is a craft that we all apprentice to, but that we’ll never master. And I still believe that. So I’m constantly reading. I’m constantly, you know, not even just reading stupid business books. I’ve read a business book in a long time. Those are all stupid. They have someone’s ugly face on the cover. And it usually has some stupid title. And it’s always about like... millions like that, right? How you can turn your nine to five into an engine that lets you have multiple hustles to generate 50 bazillion dollars while living on a beach. It’s always something stupid. So I don’t read them anymore. This is the guy that wrote two of them that were number one on Amazon. I read a lot of novels, right? Because I like the storytelling aspect. I read a lot of mythology. I read a lot of philosophy. I read a lot of psychology because all that gives a competitive advantage. And I feel like a lot of people, if they’re just following like two people, like I really want to sound like Gary Vee does, you know, Gary Vee is, I read his book. It’s the only book they’ve ever read. Right. It’s like, they read like catcher in the rye in ninth grade. And then they read crush it and that’s it. And they have no knowledge of like a storytelling beginning, a middle and end. They have no knowledge of building out persona. They have no knowledge of building up presence. They have no knowledge of creating their own personal brand based on their authentic experiences that is going to drive inbound people. It’s going to drive relationships. It’s going to drive revenue. No knowledge. And if you told them and sat them down and told them and tried to teach them it, and this is from someone that’s lectured at over like a dozen universities, real ones, not New Jersey Turnpike Community College, aka the Pike, but real ones, they still wouldn’t take anything away from it and apply it. Right. So it’s really something that you can’t outsource to AI. I mean, you could, but it’s going to come out terrible. It’s something that you really need to have in this day and age, because I don’t think people go to websites anymore. Like no one’s going to go to your landing page unless you promote it. How do you promote it? You’re going to have to have some sort of form of content on a platform. Specifically in your own business, that platform is going to be LinkedIn or X. Or if you really want to, you know, go on TikTok or Snapchat, there might be an Amber Alert, but you do you, you know. But yeah, it’s something that I weave into everything. I mean, I practice what I preach. That’s all my LinkedIn. It’s Monday to Friday. Every post is unique. Every post is written by me. Every post is funny, or at least I try to make them funny. They’re all true and they’re all helpful in a way. So that’s what I try to do is to take really boring concepts that you’re going to need to know if you’re a founder or VC and make them fun and make them witty and make them memorable or else other people’s AI slot. CTO means chief technology officer. You should have one if you’re building a tech company. Follow me for my TED talk. Like it’s really terrible, stupid stuff, right? So I try to make it really interesting and I try to play on what just the zeitgeist of LinkedIn, what I’m seeing in our specific niche and what people are dealing with. And that’s why a lot of stuff I write tends to go viral and tends to just really create a lot of good connections and inbound and clients and just fun. I put the fun in fun. That’s what I try and do. I put the fun in fun.
Brian Bell (00:14:50):
What do you think of LinkedIn versus X? You know, some people hate X and some people hate LinkedIn. What do you what do you like more?
Shaun Gold (00:14:56):
And so here’s what I tell everyone, because I do both. I mean, not for X for myself, although I’m starting one. It’s coming soon. Put the link below. So with LinkedIn, it’s like this. If you’re on X, you’re competing with bots and Elon Musk. If you’re on LinkedIn, you’re competing with Steve from McKinsey. Steve from McKinsey posts AI corporate oatmeal slop because his boss tells him to, but he does seven days a week and that’s your competition. It’s boring. It’s trite. It’s tedious, but he does it every day. He’s consistent. That’s your competition. That’s who you have to be. I’d say 99% of the people are more impressive, especially in startups in VC than Steve from McKinsey will ever be. So I always say go with LinkedIn because even with LinkedIn, there’s over a billion people, but Out of those billion people, I think 134 million people use it daily. Right. And out of that, maybe, maybe like 0.1% of them actually post. So the competition is, it doesn’t seem it, but the competition is very, very low, especially if you’re trying to build out a brand. So again, I do everything, like everything I tell people that I do for people, I do myself. Right. So I built out my brand on LinkedIn, continues to build out, you know, I don’t pay for auto DMs or anything stupid. i just write good content that’s it i just write good content and i i just that the reputation precedes you when you have that good content granted i’ve done a ton of podcasts i’ve been on tv i’ve done a bunch of things right it’s cool but i mean i’m always you’re always hustling with your personal brand you’re always evolving you’re always trying to create content that’s authentic and reflective of what you’re doing now That’s not to say in three years, it’s going to be like venture comedy still going on. Maybe I’ll switch to something else. But I think for now, just it’s been working. And now I’m actually, you know, doing actual gigs and stuff of that nature. So for me, it’s a lane I can own. And with LinkedIn, you want to have a lane you can own. You want to have something that you can own and be the expert. And if you can’t be the top expert, you can be in the top five. But that takes experience. It takes authenticity. It takes consistency. And a lot of people are just like, ChatGPT and Associates, give me five things on B2B SaaS. Make them snappy. And they just copy and paste. And it’s horrible. And everyone can see that they’re horrible. Everyone can see. And then they come to me and they’re like, I don’t know why it’s not working. I post five times a week. And it’s like, yeah, because you literally copy and paste it. One of your posts says Ask ChatGPT. You even edit it. You even take the effort to edit it. I know you’re busy, but fit in the editing of your ChatGPT content between doing nothing at work and nothing at home. Please, for all of us.
Brian Bell (00:17:18):
That’s amazing. So other than, you know, AI slap, obviously, what are some of the biggest mistakes founders are making when they’re trying to build credibility online?
Shaun Gold (00:17:27):
Being an expert in something that they’re not an expert in. I mean, you can do that. That’s a good strategy, right? The best way to establish yourself in the world is to already appear established. But you have to have the knowledge to back it up, right? So people will be like, this is the greatest opportunity in startups I’ve ever seen in my entire career as a founder. Chad, founder since date 2024. That’s what it is. You have to have the knowledge and you have to be the expert. So that, for instance, if ChatGBT goes down and people are asking you questions, you’re going to have to be able to respond or just say, I don’t know, instead of like, oh, let me think. I wish I could answer it. You have to know, right? So I feel like if you want to be an expert, there’s no barrier that says you can’t, but you should have the knowledge and the ability to speak on it. So, you know, if you’re talking about venture capital and you’re not a venture capitalist, but you want to break into it, cool. But if somebody were to ask you, tell me about venture capital on two and 20, two and 20, huh? Yeah, it’s a good number. Like you have to know what it is, right? Or if I say, tell me about Arthur Rock and the Trader USA, huh? You know, you have to know about your industry. It’s not that long of an industry. I wrote a 5,000 word blog on the history of venture capital. I know everything about it. Right. So if I’m going to ask somebody, they should at least have the basics. Right. And it’s not old. It’s not like, well, venture capital started, I believe in Sumeria. Yes. Yes. Yes, they needed money for the clay tablets and they went to an original VC. They were building a ziggurat. Like, no, it didn’t. Modern venture capital is barely a century old. It’s not that much. OK, it’s really, you know, it’s something that you could really learn in a day if you’re really passionate about it so that at least you know where it came from, how it started, you know, the cycles of it. Just because if you’re going to work in that industry, you should know it. So things of that nature, you have to know what you’re talking about. You have to have that presence. You have to have that expertise. You have to, I think, also have a personality. You have to just be able to, you know, deliver on what you’re doing. And there’s so many things that I think people get wrong. And I mean, I can go, we don’t have enough time, but there’s a lot of things I can do without. A, the people that build in stealth. Can’t talk about what I’m doing unless you sign an NDA. It’s the best thing ever. We’re taking on a billion dollar industry. Actually, no. Hold on, let me ask my co-founder. Is it a billion? Oh, no, sorry. It’s a hundred billion. I made a mistake. Sorry, I’m just getting all the bearings down. Can’t tell you about it, but here, I’m going to send you a 10-page NDA. And by reading it and signing it, you’re locking up the entire internet because you can’t look at anything else in this space. Like, it’s stupid. Like, nobody cares. Unless you actually have a trade secret and you’re working in a lab to create something, you don’t need to build and stuff. Nobody cares that much about AI for anchovies. I’m sorry. It’s not a thing. Here’s another thing I can do without these people that like to build on the opposite side of the spectrum in public. Every single thing is not a milestone. Today, me and my co-founder met in real life at Starbucks. They got the matcha latte. I went with the coffee. We’re so different, but opposites attract. This is why we’re going to be successful. Comment below on what you guys do when you’re building in real life. Like nobody cares. OK. The building in public is like, Hey, we just launched this. And then three days later, Hey, we just hit number one on product. Thanks. OK, that’s building in public. So there’s so many different things that I think people are just are cliche and people keep doing. And there’s no one to call it out until now. I’m calling it all out.
Shaun Gold (00:20:33):
But yeah, there’s so many different things in the mistakes. And again, not knowing how to raise capital, but talking about raising capital, not knowing how to build a company, but talking about building a company, not knowing how to sell and get a customer, but talking about getting tens of thousands. Like I see it all the time, every day. And it’s just like people wonder why, like, oh, well, why can’t I raise money? because you don’t have a product or a deck or a team or a company you have an ai lawnmower idea that’s in a post-it note on your fridge and you’re asking for money to make it a reality like come on bro yeah there’s so many different things and someone’s got to call it out and i guess i will answer the call to call it out that’s kind of my been my main focus and it’s been working out really well people dig it from all over the world people say i love it whether they’re in college and they’re learning and they want to get into startups whether they’re and they just laugh, whether they’re fund managers, whether they’re founders, either first time or exited. It’s just something because it’s true. I don’t make anything up. I mean, sure, I make up the AI for anchovies, but I guarantee someone’s probably working on that. But the information is just there. Just the medium is different. The messaging that I do is different. You know, you can go online and say, how long should a pitch deck be for a pre-seed or seed state startup? It’s going to be the same thing I say, between 10 to 13 slides. That’s it. But it’s boring. I’ll take it and go through why it needs to be 10 to 13 slides. One, I don’t need five slides on how you met your co-founder in seventh grade chemistry lab and how you grew closer over the years. And this is why you’re doing this. I don’t need a slide of your 25 slides. you know associates and advisors that looks like the avengers assemble that just show me gaps you don’t know what you’re doing i don’t need seven slides on the market showing you tam sam and som but even breaking it down further and further like there’s so many things that you just that people like miss and that’s why i try to break it down and make it funny and make it memorable so that way they can avoid those mistakes and actually have something that oh wow an investor whether it’s Uncle Saul giving them their initial seed or if it’s actual tier one tier two fun is going to say this person actually has competence and knows how to do storytelling and knows what goes in a deck and knows the metrics and I think I’m going to take a call instead of I couldn’t send you to deck because it’s like one terabyte okay so I put it into a doc send link just just put your email in okay and I did a post on that the other day where it’s like the stupid emails like okay no one wants to give out their emails it’s like All right. Batman at Wayne Enterprises has viewed your deck. Steve at Apple.com has viewed your deck. Oh, wow. Steve from Apple.com. Wait, wait. He’s not around anymore. Why is he viewing our deck? Like there’s so many little tricks that people don’t know and mistakes they make. So I try to bring light to them in a comedic way, in an entertaining manner.
Brian Bell (00:22:56):
Yeah. I love the pitch decks that look like they came from, you know, the community college business 101 course.
Shaun Gold (00:23:01):
That would be an improvement. Now they look like they come from chat GPT and associates and they’re and they’re just and they were made with Clippy. Clippy was going, hey, want to raise some capital? And they just it looks like something from when I was at university. Looks like you’re raising capital. Yeah, exactly. And that he would pop up and it would be something that help. Yeah, exactly. That’s what they look like. So I’m not saying it has to be the Mona Lisa, but you should. It’s a first impression. Maybe you should go to Upwork and just pay someone 100 bucks to help you out. And I hear that, oh, we’re going to be able to have our own design team once you raise $5 million. Okay. But for right now, maybe you should just get Rajesh the $100 so he can do it for you and make it somewhat good. But yeah, and it just, it never ends. No matter how many times I talk about it, no matter how many webinars I do, how many classes I teach, how many accelerators I speak to. It’s just people are like, nah, this’ll do. It’s always the, nah, this’ll do. Thanks for the information, Sean. But I think we’re going to go in this direction. Which direction? Toward the abyss? Okay. You do you.
Brian Bell (00:23:56):
So you actually coined the term venture comedy. Where did that idea come from? And what truths do you think humor can reveal that?
Shaun Gold (00:24:02):
I got to trademark that now that you actually said that. Hold on. Don’t put the episode live. I got to go to the pan and trademark office. It just seemed natural.
Brian Bell (00:24:09):
Comedy.com. Venture.com.
Shaun Gold (00:24:10):
Yeah. It’s buying all the domain names. Yeah. Right. I got to go. Right. No, it’s fine. I am the brand. Right. Everyone can do it.
Brian Bell (00:24:18):
But you’ll have a couple of weeks before this show actually hits the air.
Shaun Gold (00:24:20):
But I feel like, listen, there are accounts that are funny and witty. We have. vc brags and liquidity like there’s a few of them but their content is all like meme based and it’s just like screenshot and like this is one that i follow that’s pretty funny yeah like there’s there used to be prank and uh vc’s congratulating themselves yeah yeah that’s vc brags so i mean i did something with like like a year or two ago vc brags he’s a nice guy i like him he’s it’s funny but like there wasn’t someone doing what I was doing with actual like advice, like infotainment, right? Or if they were, it just wasn’t funny. So with me, I was just like, all right, I always make fun of stuff anyways. Like I’ve always, everyone’s like, you’re so funny. Everyone’s always like, so funny, so funny. And I was on Jeopardy. I made Alex Trebek laugh in front of 10 million people. I made the audience laugh. I had dinner with some of the biggest movie stars in the world. They were all laughing. Everybody’s laughing. So I was like, just, you know, I’m gonna make fun of venture capital. It’s VC, it works, venture comedy. So that’s it. I mean, but again, it’s not just like, look at this guy. He’s dumb. It’s not funny what it is. It’s like here we have a funny like line. Right. But we back that line up with useful information so that someone that has no idea what they’re doing. and doesn’t want to have the time to read all these blogs or watch videos or anything, they can at least get a bite-sized piece of information that makes them laugh, which is my main goal, but also lets them learn. So at the same time, you’re having fun and you’re learning something. And to me, the greatest thing is that, yeah, it’s working. People from all over the world, they’re like, this is great. I follow your stuff every day. This is exactly what I need because you tell it how it is. and essentially you you know you make it easy to digest and it makes me laugh i mean that’s that’s like one of the reasons i do it is for like the comments i mean i do it also to showcase just my own personal brand and build out this whole thing and go on tour but at the same time i want to have fun myself This is an industry that’s not too fun unless you have a 500 million dollar exit then it’s fun. It’s not fun. Startups are not fun. DC is not fun. It’s endless meetings that lead to nothing. It’s endless heartbreak. So let’s have some fun with it. So with me, it’s just all about having fun with it.
Shaun Gold (00:26:22):
So with me, it’s just all about having fun with it. And just it makes me laugh. If something makes me laugh, it might not like pop for the general public, but it’s going to make me laugh. I’m going to have fun writing it. So at the end of the day, it’s kind of self-serving. But if it helps other people, I’ll do it. Yeah, but that’s how it just kind of came about. I mean, I was only using LinkedIn for about not even two years now. I remember I just had it. I just kept having people connect with me. Why do these people connect? I don’t know who these people are. So I just, I turned on creator mode and I said, all right, I’m going to start posting funny stuff. And I just started. And then I came up with the butt Sean trope and I just ran with it because people really liked it. And I just kept it going. And now we’re, you know, now approaching 10,000 followers on LinkedIn. Let me throw up. I feel like a influencer, you know, and maybe we’ll get a protein thing out of this. This post is sponsored by Vega protein. Just remember when you’re building and need that energy to push forward, big Vega. Okay. Where’s my check? Wait, it’s a product placement only, you know, but yeah, it’s just really doing cool stuff. That’s funny. It’s unique. Again, it makes me stand out in a sea of AI slop. And it really is something that I don’t want to say it’s fulfilling, but it makes me laugh. You know, it makes me laugh and makes other people laugh. And that’s that’s what it’s all about.
Brian Bell (00:27:30):
So you started nightlife, which is interesting enough. And then you go on to start venture comedy, writing, being funny, building a following. And then you somehow end up as a GP at Improv Venture. Maybe you could talk about that journey. What was that transition?
Shaun Gold (00:27:46):
Yeah. I was easy. I wrote a check. It’s so easy. No, we, um, I met my future partners during the pandemic. Right. And we just like clicked. Right. And this is what, this was during a time when I couldn’t spell VC, but I learned, I learned now we got it. And, uh, we just, we spent like almost three years just doing favors for one another. They were trying to start First Adventure Studio. And then I said, we’re going to set it on a fund. And it just was back and forth. I was like, hey, meet this person or hey, meet this person. We just clicked. We started working together on stuff. It wasn’t just like, hey, Sean, you’d be great as a GP. Let’s do this. It wasn’t that. It was three years of endless conversations, emails, connections, mutually beneficial, health, relationship building, all that. And then when they were getting ready to launch, I said, well, do you want to... Because I helped them out with... At first, plugging with my guy here that he does all the back ends for hedge funds. So he’s like, oh, yeah, you want, you know, VC fund? I can do that. I can set you up the auditor, accounting, legal, no problem. And they were trying to find the right person. I brought him the right person. So like, oh, you know, you’re going to just be an advisor to the fund. I was like, all right, whatever. Never been a fan of being advisor to all that stuff. You know, just... just a way to get free work but at the earlier times i had to do it to say i did it it did advisory services i won’t do it again but yeah so it came about two years ago it’s like listen we’re getting ready to launch do you want to be part of it and if so this is how much you should invest and i said okay done um and since now we’ve done some cool stuff i mean our focus has changed we do mostly now we’re focused on secondaries into well-established companies or strip sales uh vc port portfolios but we’ve got some pretty solid you know spvs and some very very you know late stage profitable companies and they’re always looking for more i mean they’re the people that actually come from wall street and hedge funds and i’m the guy that just puts the fun in fun right but i’m a master connector so i can plug people in and and you know hey you should really meet this person or hey you should do this but it’s also like the ability to learn right and the ability to be in the right rooms and the ability to have that access to knowledge that you wouldn’t get from you know Check out our Maven course, you know, working in it and doing something that felt like a natural extension of what I was already doing. Besides the fact that I was already doing a lot of different work with VCs with plugging in different startups and whatnot. They’re all like, you should really join a fund. And I was like, okay, let me try. And then like, it didn’t work. Like nobody like, like venture capital to get a job. I mean, the old joke is it’s easier to become a professional athlete than to get a job at venture capital. Right. So like, if you have one opening, I gave up after a few months. Yeah.
Brian Bell (00:30:12):
I came from big tech. I have an MBA, like all that stuff. I worked at startups. Yeah. Spent like three months. I interviewed. I actually got interviews. I interviewed with a few. And then I just said, I don’t think this is going to happen. I’m just going to start my own thing.
Shaun Gold (00:30:23):
Yeah, you have to, because at the end of the day, it’s like you have 50 bazillion people go after one job opening. And it’s like, it’s not even worth it. It’s like, it’s not. It’s like, dude, I don’t even want to do all that stuff. They say, you have to do the financial modeling. You know, like, how do you do that? Is that with an actual model? Because I’m not too good with little like painting or nothing. Leave the room, Sean. So again, I think another advantage is working with people that are smarter than you and people that have the core competencies that you don’t. I do not have the core competencies in finance. No, I can look at a deal. I can evaluate if a startup is going to be good. Can I do a cash flow analysis, waterfall? Can I do any of that? No, I can’t. Don’t even know how. I’m not good with numbers or anything like that. But one of my partners, you know, worked on Wall Street and was part of a team that managed like $9 billion. So he can do it. So, yeah, you want to have the right people in place, right, for what it is. But, yeah, and it’s been fun. I mean, everything I try to do is fun. I’m sure that’s the theme of this is like, you know, put the fun in fun, put the adventure in venture. I try to have it. I don’t want to do any work where it’s like I show up and I’m like, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to deal with this. Right. It’s not going to work out.
Shaun Gold (00:31:33):
Right. It’s not going to work out. So everyone I work with, I work with everybody, especially on the content side, from funds of funds to GPs of other funds to well-capitalized founders, executives at publicly traded companies. And they’re all cool people and they have fun stuff that they do. And I try to add that wit and add that knowledge to what they do when it comes to storytelling. But if there’s someone I don’t want to work with, I just don’t work with them. You know, and if there’s some startup I don’t want to deal with or some fun I don’t want to deal with, I don’t do it. I mean, that’s kind of the I think that’s the freedom that most people forget, especially, you know, if you grew up on social media that like entrepreneurship means having a yacht. It’s like, no, it kind of means doing what you want to do and having the freedom to do it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s it. It’s not like for me to get on this. I had to be like, hey, boss, I got a podcast. I got I can’t make that meeting. And it’s like, you have to be there. Well, I can’t. Well, you have to be there. Someone’s going to be disappointed. Yeah, it’s going to be you. You’re fired. Like, it’s not like that. It’s having the freedom. It’s the ability to do what you want and when you want to. And I think a lot of people miss that. Plus, I’ve been on some of the biggest yachts we have here in Miami to throw parties. It’s terrible to have one of those. The upkeep’s horrible. People don’t take their shoes off. You got to clean it. You got too many rooms. There’s a storm. It rocks. It’s not good. You don’t want it.
Brian Bell (00:32:47):
So what is the thesis then at Improv?
Shaun Gold (00:32:49):
So right now, again, we started. Yeah. So we started going after early stage companies in emerging markets, essentially looking where no one else is looking, right? But we shifted that because we had opportunities where we had people in our network that were selling stakes and really, you know, like very, very highly valuable companies, Series B and beyond. And I did a work for another GP that was a client of mine that He’s really connected in the Bay Area for all the secondary funds. So I put everyone together as a connector to say, hey, we can really do these secondary deals. So we’ve been focusing on doing that. So Series B companies that either their founders or earlier stage investors that want liquidity, that they don’t want to sell their whole state, but they want to sell a portion of their state because, hey, I want to go to Monaco. But all I got is these shares and the airline doesn’t take them. I got it. I got to go to Spirit or something. They probably take shares. You know, but yeah, we’re, we essentially found these opportunities that, you know, we have people that want us all stakes. So we, we created SPVs and we essentially have these stakes in these companies. And we work now with different family offices and whatnot and different VCs that are interested in selling their stakes. The problem that we’ve encountered is that while everyone wants liquidity, the secondary game, we may not need a 30 to 100X, like a VC firm, like a normal VC does on a deal. Well, we kind of want a four to five X. And the problem is with like a strip sale is that VCs, as you know, not every bet they make is a winner. So they want to kind of unload a portion of the portfolio. And it’s like, well, we only want four of those companies out of the 10. It’s like, no, you got to take them all. But like, we know those six aren’t going to, like, they’re not going to have an exit.
Brian Bell (00:34:27):
So what is a strip sale for the audience that may not know what that means?
Shaun Gold (00:34:30):
So for you kids at home, the strip sale is when a venture capital fund sells off a strip of their portfolio. So if they’re invested in 10 companies and they want some liquidity and they want to decrease the risk, they would sell it to a group like ours. And we would take on we would, you know, give them cash for that equity so that when those companies do have an exit, we would share in that in the winnings. The problem is...
Brian Bell (00:34:52):
Is there an actual share transfer there or is it just kind of a promise to distribute in the future?
Shaun Gold (00:34:57):
Oh, I mean, we’re buying into it. Yeah. So I go, I mean, I don’t evaluate the deal.
Brian Bell (00:35:02):
You actually go to the founder, go to the company, do the rofer, actually sign the share transfer agreement, all that stuff.
Shaun Gold (00:35:08):
Well, yeah, my partners would handle that, to be honest. But I think it’s actually with, yeah, they handle that. My whole thing is like, hey, I met these people. They were interested. Take the call, right? That’s where I stop. And then I just wake up and say, hey, it went through. Look at us now. And then I go into our data room and we have stuff. Right. So but again, the problem is because, as you know, we operate on power law. It’s the one company that becomes the billion dollar plus IPO. Nine could fail. So if we’re buying 10 companies or stakes in 10 companies, we’d hope it has the one. But at the same time, we also want more than one. Right. This secondary investors, they’re happy with, again, two to five, three to five return in three to four years. You don’t want to wait 12 years to get X. It’s more fluid that way. But the problem is, again, a lot of VC firms, zombie funds, as we know, that they just don’t invest anymore and they just have these holdings. They want liquidity. A lot of what they chose, just they’re not good companies, right? I think that’s a lesson also for founders that just because you get VC investment doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to win. I mean, it decreases a little bit of the risk and it makes your life easier because you have working capital. It doesn’t mean you’re going to have a $50 billion IPO or you’re going to be the next Figma, Airbnb, Uber, OpenAI. It doesn’t. Most of the companies are just going to end up failing. Maybe you’ll have a two to three exit, but every VC wants to have that one company. They want to have that one next Facebook because that’s the business model. Right. And it’s hard because a lot of funds don’t ever have that. And even the funds that do still write down a lot of their failures because that’s the game. It’s a game of gambling. It’s a game of, you know, we’re going to position you for success. We’re going to position you to, you know, have your chance at that giant liquidity event. but it’s not guaranteed. You know, it doesn’t mean just because we give you the investment doesn’t mean, you know, you’re going to the IPO or that Facebook’s going to acquire you. We’re hoping for that, but it’s not a guarantee as always. So a lot of founders miss that.
Brian Bell (00:37:04):
What are you seeing in the market right now? I see a lot of demand for secondaries right now.
Shaun Gold (00:37:06):
There is. So there’s a lot of demand for secondaries. And there’s, yeah, there is. It’s just, again, it has to make sense, right? Because with secondaries, you want to have a company that is not looking to get rid of shares for just, like, because they need the cash influx. They want to have healthy balance sheets, right? That’s the thing. We want to have really good investors on the cap table. That’s a good thing, too. They want to have, you know, the ability to actually grow and scale. And it’s just trying to avoid dead companies. And, you know, and not even dead companies, but companies that have no hope of exiting.
Shaun Gold (00:37:40):
Like, for instance, what we call the spam of the secondary world is SpaceX. SpaceX, every week, somebody will slide into the DMs with tons of SpaceX to sell. Because yes, they’re one of the most valuable companies in the world, depending on the day. But at the end of the day, who knows when they’re going to have a liquidity event? And people have been holding onto that for years and years and years. So we don’t want that either. We want stuff that actually is going to have a liquidity event relatively soon. So, but I’m seeing a lot with secondaries. I’m seeing a ton of startups that, despite the fact that AI makes your life easier, despite the fact that you have, you know, the ability to build for much cheaper, they still want to raise an obscene amount of money. Right. For nothing for pre-seed. I feel like they’re operating on how startups used to operate more. It’s like, listen, you don’t need three guys in a ramen budget anymore in a garage. I feel like, all right, get yourself a Claude Pro plan. Get yourself a chat GPT plan. Work with it. Put your own money into it. Build fast and have something that actually works and see it and see if it can actually scale. I mean, you have all the tools that you’re available at your fingertips now. Everything’s available. So, you know, oh, we need to raise this. No, you don’t need to raise it. I mean, that’s one thing also I’m still seeing despite it. And if you’re building an AI, you should know what AI can help you with and just a lot of people because it’s a trendy thing to build in. It’s what everybody’s investing in, right? I mean, I saw it when it was blockchain. Remember NFTs? Everybody was building an NFT blockchain thing during the pandemic. Web3 is going to be amazing. And it’s like, okay, that was hot. Web3 is not hot anymore. Ad tech was pretty hot 10 years ago. It’s not hot anymore. Some people are trying to build on a hot market. Right. But again, when when the hot market becomes cold, not saying there’s an AI bubble, just suggesting it when it pops, you know, what’s going to be the next hot market? You know, what’s going to be the next thing, the next bandwagon startup to build on? I mean, the real founders, they have an idea and they’re going to build on it and they’re going to make it happen, whether it’s a hot market or not. They don’t care. Right. If it happens to coincide with the hot market. Cool. Right. Cool. But at the same time, I’m going to make it happen. And a lot of times also it’s really unsexy businesses. You know, it’s it’s unsexy, not spicy, but they have clients and some even have enterprise clients and they’re actually have revenue and they actually have a path to. really scaled us to a series A, series B. So yeah, it just, to market us, it’s always in such flux. And there’s always some new terms. Like a few months ago, the new term was seed strapping. You know, they always make up something. I have to say, and I wrote for OpenVC, the largest startup, like glossary on the internet. We have like 500 terms, but there’s always something that’s being made up. It’s like seed strapping. When you raise a seed round and that’s it, you’re done. Those seed investors are happy. They don’t need you to go to series D. You know, so there’s always something that’s coming up based on the market conditions and based on what you can do now. So it’s always changing. And there’s always some stupid VC term where it’s like, you know, when AI the past year became big, it’s like agency. It’s all about agency. And it’s basically another word for willpower. What, were you afraid of offending people that weren’t named will? It’s the same thing. You have to make up a new term for it. Before that, it was grit. Before that, it was determination. It’s the same word, right? It’s the same thing. But yeah, it’s got to be agency. And we got to have, you know, agentic. That’s another new stupid thing. It’s like, all right, well, let me know when we get there. you know, but like, it’s always something you just, I mean, that’s another thing too, which I try to do through my content as well as making it funny is keeping people up to date on stuff that they wouldn’t know about because a lot of the information they’re reading is probably out of date, whether they took a class, whether they bought a course, whether they went to an accelerator three years ago, a lot of it’s probably out of date. So I try to keep everybody, you know,
Brian Bell (00:41:13):
point how do you balance all of this being a creator and an investor and does that ever conflict
Shaun Gold (00:41:18):
no here’s the secret this is this is the sean gold patterned way of staying sane staying productive i hate that we’ve got to be productive ai’s gonna 10x myself stupid okay i sent i choose my own schedule and i focus on what i want to focus on right and if i have a conflict just don’t do the other thing It’s that easy. But I spend two, two and a half hours a day, usually between four to seven every day. No phone, no screen, nothing. I’m working out. I’m walking. I’m running. I’m doing anything or I’m out of here. Not on my phone. No notifications. Nothing. I’ll get back to it later. That is a superpower. You give yourself a digital detox every day and you let your thoughts roam. You can do whatever you want. And essentially, you come back refreshed. So, you know, I’ll come back and I’ll shower. I’ll eat. I’ll get back at 839 o’clock. I’m good to go till one in the morning. Right. Give myself kind of like two days, not exhausted, not burned out, nothing like that. So that’s something I recommend everybody. Like I recommend like like they’ll call back. The email is not going anywhere. The LinkedIn message is staying there. The comments are not being deleted. Like really take two, two and a half hours and just let your mind wander. right like don’t bring the phone don’t listen to the podcast unless it’s this podcast but don’t like don’t listen to music just like walk be active walk run work out seven days a week it’s it’s it has served me well it is oh because i always come back feeling better feeling clear mentally clear feeling refreshed and it gives me the energy to keep going on and if i miss a day that’s when i get a little like annoyed oh i missed you know my my walk yesterday. I missed my burpee work. I missed something, you know, but that’s a superpower. You have to do it. So, because again, you have to be able to take on, you know, whether you’re a founder, VC, whatever, you have to be able to take on all this material and understand it and take action and, and turn, thought into something that actually is tangible. And if you’re not taking a break, if you’re just working, you know, I nine, six, stupid, you know, just sitting there six days a week, nine to nine, like you’re going to kill yourself. It’s fine. You can take two to two hours off. Okay. It’s fine. In fact, if you’re doing nine, nine, six, six, four hours off, you’ll be much more productive and you’ll be happier. You’ll just feel better. So that that’s kind of like my personal unfair advantage that anyone can do. Anyone can do it. They can start anytime. All they need is the ability to close the laptop and turn the phone on silent and just not even have the phone on them. My phone stays in the car because I don’t even want to touch it or look at it or anything. I’m free of it, you know? So that’s something I recommend to everyone.
Brian Bell (00:43:50):
Yeah. Good advice. So what’s, uh, what’s next for you? What are you excited about in the coming year or two?
Shaun Gold (00:43:55):
I’m hosting two events in person of EC events, high net worth events where I’m actually performing, hosting, speaking, all that stuff. So going beyond the zoom, that’s going to be cool. I’m launching a series of short form animated videos. Like I said, they’re going to take taco. There’s no Amber alert, but there’ll be also be on LinkedIn. There’s going to, they’re going to be on X as well.
Brian Bell (00:44:14):
So don’t have to uncheck the box made for kids.
Shaun Gold (00:44:17):
yeah yeah this is gonna be this might have to be outsourced you know post this i don’t have to deal with it yeah because i i mean i’m not what’s the animated series about so i’m there 30 second to two minute short form clips based on all my linkedin posts the top performing ones but now they’re actually funny so it’s me narrating there’s funny clips thrown in we used uh chat gpt to do them and i have a really good editor so now you can actually have but sean on the go Right. You don’t have to sit there and read. So, yeah, there’s a lot of that. I have about three months of content. So that’s coming up. And yeah, just more speaking, I’m hopefully going to get that movie. I mean, I got the screenplay that, again, I have a Netflix director or casting director. I have a producer and it’s like so annoying. Getting a movie made in this day and age is horrible. I want to get that movie done because I got two other movies I want to do. I feel like I’m going to have to start my own production company. To the back of my mind, I feel like I’m just going to have to do it because no one that’s just working in Hollywood is terrible. And I’m the one with the connections. OK, I have connections to all these people. And even when you have the connections, it’s Hollywood is like venture is where the only two industries when people say we’re so excited to read your material. We’re looking forward to getting back to you as code for meaning. I’m never talking to you again, ever. It’s always code. So I like to do that and just continue to scale, you know, not only our investment opportunities, but also my personal business, you know, writing and ghostwriting for various founders and VCs and, you know, executives across the board. I mean, it’s definitely something I’ve got some notoriety for. The not boring content. That’s another one. I got to write that down. But yeah, just cool stuff. Every day is a new adventure to me and I try to keep it going. Nothing’s ever the same.
Brian Bell (00:45:50):
Very cool. Well, I really enjoyed the conversation. I could talk to you for another hour and we’ll have to have you back on at some point in the future.
Shaun Gold (00:45:56):
Oh, I’m taking it. When you say let’s do it, I’m there.
Brian Bell (00:45:59):
All right, let’s do it. All right.
Brian Bell (00:46:00):
Thanks, Sean.
Shaun Gold (00:46:01):
Thank you for having me.
