Want to join the movement as an Early Stage Investor in Heroic?

My Dear Fellow Optimizing Hero / Prospective Heroic Investor:

This is Brian. 👋

I’m the creator of Optimize and the Founder + CEΦ of Heroic.

I appreciate you taking the time to learn more about Heroic Public Benefit Corporation and the opportunity to become an Early Stage Investor in our business (and movement!)—even if it’s just for $100.

Today I’d like to tell you more about our Mission, our Big 2x2 (brand promises + key metrics), and our (super-ambitious) commitment to seeing if we can make history again—this time as one of the fastest-growing startups to an enterprise value of $1B—en route to seeing if we can change the course of history. (Our lawyers said that it was ok to mention our ambition to get to a billion dollar valuation but only if I told you that we might never achieve that and getting to zero was also a possibility. Start-ups are inherently risky and everyone should know the risks, including but not limited to the risks we set out in our SEC filings. People should never invest without considering those risks, and should never invest more than they can afford to lose completely.)

I’m also excited to tell you more about (and show you!) how our app will help people move from theory to practice to mastery so we can more and more consistently show up as the best, most Heroic version of ourselves so we can (literally!) change the world, one person at a time, together, starting with you and me and us, TODAY.

Then we’ll wrap it up with a discussion on WHY we are so committed to crowdfunding/raising money from our community rather than traditional venture capitalists and I’ll invite you to join us as an Early Stage Heroic Investor if you feel so inspired.

If you already know you’re interested in potentially becoming an Early Stage Investor, you can let us know here: https://heroicpbc.typeform.com/Invest-Survey.

(Note: We also have a separate Convertible Note that’s available for accredited investors. If you are an accredited investor and are considering an investment of over $50,000, please let us know here: https://heroicpbc.typeform.com/ConvertibleNote)

And… Before we jump in, how about we have some fun with a little video of the splash page we’ll be launching in February so you can get a sense of what Heroic will look and feel like?!

Note: Our attorneys tell us that any time we chat about our next prospective crowdfunding, we need to include some legalese. You’ll find that at the end of this letter.

With that… Let’s jump in!!

Actually, first…

I want to share a little video clip that I shared at the top of my original Founding Investor letter from December 2020.

As I said in that letter…

I think I finally have an answer to THIS question that one of our Optimizers (Nathaniel) posed to me at the end of an offline event we hosted years ago called Hero Training 101.

This clip captures the essence of WHY I am so excited about the contents of the rest of this letter. (I’m sending Love to all of you who were there that weekend.)

Wow.

Okay. Wiping tears away, here’s how I think I can answer that question in the most powerful possible way such that we can fulfill our Mission to change the world, one person at a time, TOGETHER, starting with you and me, Today.

Fun fact: Nathaniel is now one of our biggest investors and I’m 99% sure that more members of his family (from brothers and kids and nephews and nieces!) are invested in Heroic than any other family.

Thank you, Nathaniel. 🙏 And… Thank you and bless you Dale, Charles, Christian, George, Jenesis Emma, John, Josees, Joseph, Nathaniel III, Stacey, and Stephanie Lynn. 🙏🙏🙏

NOW we’re ready to talk about how I’m seeing things…

Let’s start at the top.

An Answer to The Social Dilemma

Have you seen The Social Dilemma?

If so, you don’t need me to tell you about the unintended, catastrophic (!) consequences of our current social technology. If you haven’t watched that documentary yet, I would strongly encourage you to do yourself and your family a favor and watch it. Immediately.

The premise of the documentary is, essentially, that platforms like Facebook (and Instagram, YouTube, etc.) are part of what’s called “the attention economy.” What that means is that they make their money by selling your attention.

In short: If you think that Facebook is the product, you’re wrong. YOU are the product. Facebook sells your attention to the highest bidder. Although they can deliver a lot of benefits, ultimately, their sites are not architected to help you become a better human being so you can flourish and give the world your best. Their sites are architected to make as much money off your attention as they possibly can.

This, as the experts in the documentary point out, has led to horrific unintended consequences that are leading to catastrophic levels of political polarization, depression, anxiety and social and personal unrest.

Again, watch the movie for the full picture.

Now…

Over the last 20+ years, when I wasn’t reading and writing and teaching (and running Optimize), I built and sold two social platforms.

The first was for families involved in youth sports. It was called eteamz. It serves over 3 million teams and, at one point, was the platform Little League Baseball used.

The second was for people who wanted to change the world. It was called Zaadz. John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, invested in that business and Whole Foods nearly bought us (we wound up selling it to another publicly traded company called Gaiam). I’ll share more on all that another time. (You can learn more about me and my background here.)

For now, the point I want to make is that, since I sold my last social platform business fifteen years ago, I’ve been waiting for someone to create a scaleable alternative to Facebook—a platform for people who want to make a difference in the world that is founded on virtue.

Which leads us to election night 2020…

Our Origin Story

If you know anything about me, you know that I approach sleep like it’s a sport. (Hah. Seriously.)

Which is why it was a VERY rare thing that I got up at 2:11am CT on November 6th, 2020.

To put it in perspective, here’s a slide on that night’s sleep vs. New Year’s Day 2022 plus my 12-month Oura average for 2021.

Like many people that night, I got up to check in on the election results. Saving the (much) longer discussion for another time with politics (truly) aside (we’ve been blessed to serve leaders at the highest levels across the political spectrum), I was, frankly, shocked by where we were at.

I practice my philosophy so my moment of shock was quickly alchemized as I went from negative to neutral to what we call TARGETED Thinking. (See this and this and this.)

Step 1 of Targeted Thinking is asking ourselves: “What do I want?” My answer to that question was unequivocally clear: “A more noble and virtuous world.” (As I wrote that in my journal, my eyes welled up with tears as I thought about the more noble and virtuous world I want for our two kids.)

Step 2 of Targeted Thinking is asking ourselves: “What am I going to do about it?” My answer to that was unequivocally clear as well: “Help create that more noble and virtuous world.”

Walt Whitman once said that he was “simmering, simmering, simmering” and that Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was one of his deepest influences, “brought him to a boil.”

Well, I had been simmering, simmering, simmering on how I was going to step forward into my Identities as both a Philosopher AND a CEO. The 2020 election brought me to a boil.

In the early hours of that post-election night, it became absolutely clear to me that it was time to put all of my skills to use in service to the world. It was time for me to step forward and play my role as well as I could. It was time to step into the arena and strive to train and lead an army of virtuous Heroes.

That’s how, at around 2:43am CT on November 6th, 2020, I founded a business called Heroic Public Benefit Corporation.

It was time for me to come out of my hermitage and create a social training platform that could change the world.

A few days later, I learned that the crowdfunding regulations were changing such that startups like Heroic could go from raising a max of $1M of capital via crowdfunding to raising a max of $5M via crowdfunding.

It was one of those moments in which I didn’t think we could do it, I KNEW that we would be the very first company to EVER close a $5M crowdfunding round via the new regulations.

Now… All that’s warm and fuzzy.

Fast forward six weeks. It was time to see if we could actually do it.

We filed with the SEC and I drafted a (very!) long letter (much like this one) letting our Optimize community know about our vision and plans to go out and make history and then do our best to help change the course of it.

Within 24 hours (and I always get goosebumps when I share this), we had commitments from our community for OVER $5M of capital.

Within 100 hours, we had commitments for over $10M.

I will forever be humbled and astonished (now I have tears in my eyes) by the extraordinary outpouring of support we were blessed to receive from our incredible community.

You can read hundreds (and hundreds and hundreds) of notes on WHY our community of Heroic Optimizers was so excited to support our business here.

Here are a few of my favorites:

As part of that crowdfunding, I worked with my friend Pat Solomon to create a documentarian-quality “pitch” video for Heroic. You can check it out (and meet my kids and their chickens! lol) here:

btw: As you may know, I happen to be in a documentary that Pat created about Joseph Campbell and the modern hero’s journey called Finding Joe. Deepak Chopra, Laird Hamilton, Tony Hawke, Sir Ken Robinson, Robin Sharma and some other great teachers are also in there.

You can join over a million people and watch the entire movie for free on YouTube. Pat (heroically!) put it up for free when COVID did its thing. (You can also check it out at FindingJoetheMovie.com and on Amazon.)

Here’s the trailer:

Heroic Public Benefit Corporation is basically how I’m answering my own call to adventure while inviting YOU to join me on an epic Heroic quest!!

…

Fast forward another 13 weeks from that first email. The SEC officially changed the regulations.

And…

On March 23, 2021, with the support of 2,500+ (!) Founding Investors from 75 (!) countries around the world, Heroic Public Benefit Corporation made history as the first company to ever close a $5M equity financing via the new Crowdfunding Regulations as part of what became an $11M Seed round.

Before I digitally signed the documents that would make it all official, I went for a walk on our property here in the country outside of Austin, reflecting on my commitment to our community. Then I drafted a Sacred Vow that I committed to before signing the documents.

Here it is.

Note: I recommit to that Sacred Vow EVERY.SINGLE.MORNING after my hour of meditation.

Then…

Shortly after we made history, I partnered with the world’s best product development company: MetaLab.

MetaLab is the company that built Slack. And Tinder. And Uber Eats. And the app for Elon Musk’s new business Neuralink. (And Sam Harris’s Waking Up.)

Over 1,000 companies a year go to MetaLab wanting them to build their products. They only work with ~40 of them. We’re one of them. And… They invested in us.

Here’s a slide from their original proposal that perfectly captures our original vision:

Note: They have put HUNDREDS (!) of products into the hands of BILLIONS (!) of users.

I knew they’d be good. But they’re even better than I imagined. I feel blessed to have them as partners. The feeling has been mutual. Here’s a note from Arif Mansuri, the CEO of MetaLab, reflecting on our Heroic partnership.

We kicked off our work with MetaLab on April 21, 2021 and we launched the MVP of our Heroic Training Platform April 9th of 2022. (Then launching the Social side of things on October 11th, 2022!!)

Here’s that video of the splash page (again) that we’ll be rolling out when we officially kick off our pre-launch efforts on 02.02 2022

And here’s our App Store images as well:

If you’d like to join us (for only $35 for the first year—half off), you can do so here: https://www.heroic.us/

So…

That’s the high-level look at our origin story. Now it’s time to discuss our Mission.

Our Mission

Our Heroic Mission is as simple as it is ambitious. As discussed, we want to change the world, one person at a time, together, starting with you and me and us, TODAY.

More specifically, we want to help create a world in which 51% of the world’s population is flourishing by the year 2051.

I’m so fiercely committed to this goal that I tattooed my body with it. Right above our Heroic logo.

As I like to joke… Science says that if you write down your goals, you’re forty-something percent more likely to achieve them.

Most people write down their goals and tape them up on their bathroom mirror or put then in their wallet.

I put the goal to which I have dedicated my entire life somewhere I’d never miss it. 🤓

Btw. I have Heroic tattooed on my left forearm. On my right forearm, I put the Greek word that sums up my entire philosophy in a single word and captures the essence of HOW we can change the world: ARETE.

Let’s take a brief philosophical aside to discuss an important facet of our Heroic app…

If you want a longer aside, check out this video I created for our Founding Investors right after we set up the Heroic studio:

So…

If you asked Aristotle and Martin Seligman, the founder of the Positive Psychology movement (as proxies for ancient wisdom and modern science, respectively), what the ultimate purpose and meaning of life is, they’d give you the EXACT same ONE WORD answer.

Aristotle would tell us that the summum bonum (or highest good!) is to live with eudaimonia (which literally means “good soul”).

We translate the word eudaimonia into English as “flourish.”

Guess what? That’s the name of Seligman’s most recent book.

Ok.

Ancient wisdom and modern science agree: The ultimate purpose of life is to flourish or to actualize our potential in service to something bigger than ourselves. (Which, longer chat, is another way to say to be Heroic.)

The next logical question is simple.

HOW do we live with a good soul and flourish?

Aristotle would give us another one-word answer. He’d tell us that the key to living a noble, joyful life is simple. We must live with Areté.

Now, we translate that word into English as “virtue” or “excellence” but it has a deeper meaning. Something closer to “expressing the best version of yourself moment to moment to moment.”

When you do THAT, you feel GREAT. You do that often enough and you will actualize your potential WHILE feeling a deep sense of grounded, purpose-driven, eudaimonic joy.

Here’s another way I like to think about it then we’ll get back to the regularly scheduled programming.

I like to draw two lines.

One representing who you’re capable of being in any given moment and the other representing who you are ACTUALLY being in any given moment.

Like this

———————— Capable

———————— Actual

Now, here’s what we all need to know (and what our ENTIRE Heroic app is architected to helping us master)…

It’s in that GAP between who we’re capable of being and who we’re actually being in which regret, anxiety, disillusionment, depression and all that ick exists.

Closing that gap (by living with ARETE!!) is THE ultimate game of life.

Closing that gap and showing up more and more consistently as the best, most Heroic versions of ourselves is how we can change the world one person (and one virtuous act!) at a time, together, starting with you and me and us TODAY.

That’s also a long way to explain why I tattooed that on my right forearm. 🤓

Now…

Let’s go back to our Mission and that 51 | 2051 target.

I got that 51 | 2051 target from Martin Seligman and the founders of the Positive Psychology movement. Here’s the super quick backstory there.

James Pawelski is a brilliant philosopher—who also happens to be a friend and Heroic Investor.

He was there at the founding of the Positive Psychology movement in the year 2000. In fact, he helped facilitate some of the early meetings.

Apparently, at one of the meetings he encouraged the luminaries present to consider creating a “moonshot” goal for the movement.

And, apparently, Martin Seligman (who is a bit of a self-proclaimed curmudgeon!) kinda scoffed at the idea. Then Marty showed up the next morning and said he’d figured it out!

“Figured what out?” James asked.

“Our moonshot goal!” Marty replied.

The moonshot goal the founding members of the Positive Psychology movement created in the year 2000?

To help create a world in which 51% of the world’s population is flourishing by the year 2051.

The first time I heard that goal years ago, I thought it was crazy.

I STILL think it is crazy.

And, well, here’s to the crazy ones…

… the rebels, the misfits, the troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius—because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Fun fact: I just typed that out from memory.

I’ve said it thousands (!) of times in my head.

51 | 2051.

That’s our mission.

It’s not possible for me to be any more ALL IN on playing our roles as humbly yet heroically well as possible help create that world.

Before we move on to our Big 2x2 (brand promises and key metrics) to explore more on HOW we will concretize those high ideals into a powerful business, I want to chat a little more about HOW I think we can actually change the world—it’s something I’ve been obsessing about for the better part of two decades…

And… Before we go there… Here’s that classic Apple ad narrated by Steve Jobs himself.

And… While we’re on the subject… I’ve memorized a few other quotes as well. When I inevitably get up at night, I recite these to myself and fall back asleep to sweet dreams…

Ralph Waldo Emerson tells us:

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your heart. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful and you will accomplish your objective. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

W.H. Murray tells us (and I’m slightly modifying!):

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of creation and initiative. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which has killed countless ideas and splendid plans—that the moment one definitely commits then Providence moves as well and all manner of unforeseen events and circumstances come to one’s aid that never could have been anticipated in advance. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: ‘Whatever you can do, or think you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!’

And, finally, there’s Winston Churchill’s brilliant passage:

There comes a certain moment in everyone’s life—a moment for which that person was born. That special opportunity, when he seizes it, will fulfill his mission—a mission for which he is uniquely qualified. In that moment, he finds his greatness. It is his finest hour.

With that, here’s how I think we can actually change the world…

How to Actually Change the World

I’ve been obsessing about how to change the world for decades. I think Gandhi got it right. We need to be the change we want to see.

But…

For the record, when Gandhi encouraged us to “be the change we want to see in the world,” he wasn’t saying that in some woo-woo “oh that sounds nice” kinda way—he was saying it in a fiercely practical, HEROIC kinda way in which each of us needs to do the hard work to win the civil war raging within so we have the strength to meet life’s challenges head-on and lead our families and communities and world to a better place.

Practically speaking, to win that battle and move from Theory to Practice to Mastery, I think it all comes down to two primary things: Wisdom + Community.

I like to say that Wisdom is “inside out.” You give someone a Big Idea that can change his or her life. That’s important. And often the first step, which is why we’re going to feature plenty of wisdom in the “Theory” part of our app—starting with me as the Guide for Basic Training then inviting some of my favorite teachers to the party to share their wisdom.

Then we have Community which is “outside in.” Science says that this is actually the fastest way to boost someone’s well-being. When someone joins a community with high standards you know what happens? Boom! They immediately take a big step forward in becoming the most Heroic versions of themselves.

Which is why I’m so excited about our Heroic social training platform—it will combine BOTH the Wisdom AND the Community to help us move from Theory to Practice to Mastery so we can be that change we need to be and, as a result, have the Heroic strength we need to make the world a better place.

Now, let’s talk about our value propositions and how we will strive to put that Mission into action and move from an idea to a viable business to an enduring, great business.

Our Big 2x2: Brand Promises + Key Metrics

A good business has a strong value proposition.

A great business has a value proposition that is, in Steve Jobs’ words, “insanely great.”

Or, as Peter Thiel puts it (in Zero to One), you want to deliver at least 10x more value on a specific, highly-differentiated value proposition than anyone else in your market so, ideally, you’re the ONLY one doing what you’re doing.

That’s the standard to which I hold myself and our team at Heroic and this is the standard to which our partner team at MetaLab holds all of our work together as well.

Note: MetaLab REALLY (!) gets the importance of this. Remember my favorite line from that slide I shared above: They have put HUNDREDS (!) of products into the hands of BILLIONS (!) of users and you simply can’t do THAT without getting THIS right.

So…

What’s the ONE thing that we aspire to do better than anyone else in the world?

Simple.

We have committed ourselves to being the best we possibly can be at helping people move from THEORY to PRACTICE to MASTERY.

As I like to say, we don’t need to read another book or listen to another podcast, we need to actually DO the things we ALREADY KNOW we could be doing.

THAT is how we can close that gap between who we are capable of being and who we are actually being so we can more and more consistently show up as the best, most Heroic versions of ourselves in service to something bigger than ourselves.

Again… That’s nice and warm and fuzzy but… again… HOW can we make that more CONCRETE?

Well… I think we need to deliver on TWO brand promises (or value propositions). One at the INDIVIDUAL level and another at the COLLECTIVE level.

Here they are.

First, on the individual level, I believe we need to get to a place where we can unequivocally (!) say: “Science says… If you use Heroic, then you will flourish.”

More specifically… We need to get to a point where we can unequivocally (!) say: “Science says… If you hit 10 virtuous targets on Heroic every day, then you are x% more Energized, Productive and Connected.”

(We’ll talk more about those “virtuous targets” in our product discussion in a moment!)

That’s a quick look at the first brand promise—focused on the individual level.

Here’s the second brand promise, this time focused on the collective level: “If enough of us use Heroic, then we can change the world together.”

Again: Getting to a place where we are THE BEST IN THE WORLD at delivering on those brand promises (/value propositions) at both the individual and collective levels is HOW we will create a truly great business that can literally change the world.

We will measure our success in delivering on those two brand promises in two ways. On the individual level, we will keep track of something called a “Soul Force” score. On the collective level, we will keep track of something we’re going to call “Annual Recurring Virtue” or “ARV.”

Let’s look at both in a little more detail now.

The Individual Metric: Soul Force

“Soul Force.” It’s the Hero’s superpower. Activating this superpower is the whole point of the Heroic app (and the seventh Objective in Basic Training).

There’s an origin story for “Soul Force” as well that involves another one of my heroes: Mahatma Gandhi.

(Btw: Did you know that mahatma means “great soul” in Sanskrit? Yep. Aristotle had a word for that in ancient Greek as well: magnanimous.)

As we already discussed, we’ve all heard of Gandhi’s (paraphrased) admonition that, if we want to change the world, we each must be the change we want to see.

What you may not know is just how FIERCELY disciplined Gandhi was. He practiced his philosophy with a relentlessness that I find deeply inspiring. He’s literally the living embodiment of Areté.

Of course, Gandhi liberated India via what we called “nonviolent resistance” in the West. But “nonviolent resistance” is a VERY weak translation of the Sanskrit word he coined to capture the essence of his movement and practice.

The phrase he used was satyagraha. That word comes from two Sanskrit words: sat and graha. Sat means “beingness” or “truth.” Graha means “polite insistence” or “force.”

Gandhi fiercely believed in and fiercely challenged his followers to stand in the power of truth. He knew that Britain’s domination of India was morally wrong and that, if he and millions of others could stand in that truth without resorting to violence, he could liberate the country without having to go to war.

Now, like many ancient/foreign words that are difficult to translate into English (see: eudaimonia and areté!), satyagraha can be translated as not just “truth force” but also as “love force” or…

SOUL FORCE.

There’s an ineffable and extraordinary power that is palpable in an individual who is standing in their truth—living with fierce integrity to their highest ideals.

THAT is what Gandhi cultivated within himself and was able to help cultivate within enough people to LITERALLY (!) change the world.

It’s also what I am so fiercely committed to personally embodying and to helping you and enough people embody in your own idiosyncratic way such that we can LITERALLY (!) change the world.

btw: When I think about all this making-history and changing the course of history business, I think of Gandhi and one of the passages from our Notes on Eknath Easwaran’s great book Gandhi the Man.

Easwaran tells us: “The historian J.B. Kripalani, who became one of Gandhi’s closest co-workers, has said that the first time he heard Gandhi talk this way he was so shocked that he went up to him and told him point-blank: ‘Mr. Gandhi, you may know all about the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita, but you know nothing at all about history. Never has a nation been able to free itself without violence.’

Gandhi smiled. ‘You know nothing about history,’ he corrected gently. ‘The first thing you have to learn about history is that because something has not taken place in the past, that does not mean it cannot take place in the future.’”

And… Get this…

I drafted this part of our letter on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

We all know that MLK was inspired by Gandhi and his “nonviolent resistance” to the morally bankrupt practice of racial discrimination.

But…

Did you know that MLK actually used the phrase “Soul Force” in his iconic “I have a dream” speech? Yep.

If you’ve never actually watched that speech—which is arguably THE greatest speech (and certainly ONE of the greatest speeches) in history—I highly recommend you do.

Here are my notes on the speech.

What does MLK admonish his followers to do? The exact same thing that Gandhi did: to stand in the power of truth. To cultivate their Soul Force so they could LITERALLY (!) change the world.

All of which leads us back to our Individual metric by which we’ll have fun measuring how well we execute on our first brand promise that… “If you use Heroic then you will flourish.”

We’re calling it your Soul Force Score and we’re excited to make it a “thing” kinda like Oura’s “Readiness Score.”

Our Soul Force Scores will be calculated based on the consistency with which we show up and idiosyncratically hit our self-selected virtuous targets.

You’ll be able to incrementally build your Soul Force over a period of 30 days from a starting point of 70 to an 80 to a 90 to a 100 to an ALL IN, LET’S GO 101.

It’s going to be awesome.

That’s the individual metric that will help us measure how well we deliver on our first promise that, again: “If you use Heroic, then you will flourish.”

Long term we believe we’ll be able to correlate that Soul Force Score to metrics like your HRV, how much Deep Sleep you get and other quantitative data points that reflect your health, well-being and flourishing.

Now, let’s chat about the collective metric that will help us track how well we’re delivering on our SECOND brand promise that “If enough of us use Heroic, then we can change the world together.”

Introducing…

The Collective Metric: Annual Recurring Virtue

I have a been a student of, practitioner of, teacher of, and advocate for Conscious Capitalism for over fifteen years.

In fact, John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods who also created the Conscious Capitalism movement) and I met when my last business (Zaadz) was partnering with his non-profit that became Conscious Capitalism.

I also contributed a chapter to a book (called Be the Solution) on the power of business as a force for good alongside John and Noble Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. My chapter was called “Areté and the Entrepreneur.”

Of course, as a Public Benefit Corporation, we are committed to embodying the ideals of Conscious Capitalism.

(Although, as we like to say… Why stop at “conscious” capitalism? That’s clearly better than “unconscious” capitalism but we’re all about showing the world what Heroic Capitalism can look like.)

As you may know, John wrote a book called Conscious Capitalism with another brilliant thinker, Raj Sisodia. I highly recommend it. In that book they tell us that one of the guiding tenants of a conscious business is that a conscious business exists for an explicit purpose beyond just making money.

Of course, making money is extremely important for a business (to state the obvious) but it’s not the ultimate reason the company exists. They tell us that just as a healthy human being needs healthy red blood cells to live, a healthy business needs healthy profits to live.

But… Just as a healthy human being doesn’t live FOR their red blood cells, a healthy business exists for a purpose beyond just making profits.

Our purpose with Heroic, of course, is to help people flourish so we can change the world together. We need healthy profits in order to do so. One of the primary metrics a subscription-based business like ours needs to track is something called “Annual Recurring Revenue” or “ARR.”

Think of Calm for example. They charge ~$70/year for their service. We plan to have a similar subscription-based business model. With 1.43M Heroic Members paying $70/year, our ARR would be $100M (which, btw, would point to an enterprise value of over $1B). (Insert legalese asterisks, etc.)

Now, as important as our ARR metric will be as a proxy for how much value we are creating in the world and to provide us with the resources we need to create the team and the technology that will allow us to fulfill our Mission, it’s ultimately not the most important metric for our business.

This is: Annual Recurring Virtue or ARV.

The ultimate measure of our success will be seeing just how many virtuous acts we can empower our community to create in the world. THAT is how we will change the world—one person and, more specifically, one VIRTUOUS ACT, at a time.

Here’s the math.

When we have 30,000 Heroes hitting 10 virtuous targets per day, that’s 300,000 virtuous targets hit a day. Multiply that by 365 and you get an ARV of 100M+.

When we have 300,000 Heroes hitting 10 virtuous targets per day, that’s 3 million virtuous targets hit a day. Multiply that by 365 and you get an ARV of 1 BILLION+.

Seeing how fast we can get there is one of our primary goals. We think we can do so sometime next year—which would not only establish us a highly impactful business, but a potentially highly profitable one as well.

Let’s add a few more zeroes. (Cue: Here’s to the crazy ones…)

If, over the next thirty years, we can get 300,000,000 (!) Heroes hitting 10 virtuous targets per day, that’s 3 billion (!) virtuous targets hit every day. Multiply that by 365 and we get an ARV of 1 TRILLION+.

Imagine a world in which millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of people are DELIBERATELY trying to show up as the best, most Heroic versions of themselves by closing the gap between who they are capable of being and who they are actually being moment to moment to moment—committing to and then hitting virtuous targets all day every day.

That’s how we can change the world. And that’s why our Annual Recurring Virtue number will be the ultimate measure of our success in fulfilling our second brand promise that if enough of us use Heroic then we can change the world together.

Now that we’ve discussed our origin story, our mission, and our Big 2x2 (brand promises + key metrics), it’s time to talk about our targets then we’ll move on to the product discussion and wrap up with more on our next prospective crowdfunding round.

Making History Again

As you’ve probably noticed by this point, I’m an ambitious guy. 🤓

But the reality is that I’ve struggled with my ambition and gone through phases where I was ambivalent about it as I figured out how I could integrate my philosophical practices and “spirituality” with the material world and the realities of our modern lives.

There were two books that changed my life on the subject—one by Unity Minister Eric Butterworth and another by biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Let’s have another brief philosophical chat then we’ll discuss how I think we can make history again—this time as one of the fastest growing startups to an enterprise value of $1B.

We’ll start with Eric Butterworth. He was a beloved twentieth century spiritual teacher. He was Maya Angelou’s spiritual advisor. In fact, she wrote the foreword to a book called Discover the Power Within You that Oprah says is one of her all-time favorite books. (Check out my Notes on that book.)

Now… As much as I LOVED that book, it was a different book of his that most changed my life—one called Spiritual Economics. (Check out my Notes on that book as well.)

There’s a bunch of impactful wisdom from that book including this:

Prosperity comes from the Latin root which literally translates: ‘according to hope’ or ‘to go forward hopefully.’ Thus it is not so much a condition in life as it is an attitude toward life. The truly prosperous person is what psychologist Rollo May calls ‘the fully functioning person.’

And this:

Why be an average person? All the great achievements of history have been made by strong individuals who refused to consult statistics or to listen to those who could prove convincingly that what they wanted to do, and in fact ultimately did do, was completely impossible.

And this Harry Truman quote:

How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if he had taken a poll in the land of Israel? What would have happened to the Reformation if Martin Luther had taken a poll? It isn’t polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It’s right and wrong and leadership.

But it was THIS passage that most changed my life and to which I have dedicated my spiritual economic practice:

The goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it.

Knowing that we could talk about all that goodness for a weekend… That’s our Eric Butterworth wisdom for the moment.

Now, let’s chat about Doris Kearns Goodwin’s wisdom from her EXTRAORDINARY book called Leadership in Turbulent Times in which she profiles Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt and how they led in their own respective “turbulent times.”

Note: I have reread my Notes on that book DOZENS of times—more than any other I’ve ever created. (My Notes on this book sit on top of a stack of other frequently reread Notes including my PN’s on: The Effective Executive, Future Visions, and The Great Work of Your Life plus my rough notes on: Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and my all-time favorite biz book Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0)

There’s a lot of powerful wisdom in Goodwin’s book. But this is the passage that changed my life and my relationship to my own ambition:

No single path carried them to the pinnacle of political leadership. Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt were born to extraordinary privilege and wealth. Abraham Lincoln endured relentless poverty. Lyndon Johnson experienced sporadic hard times. They differed widely in temperament, appearance, and physical ability. They were endowed with a divergent range of qualities often ascribed to leadership—intelligence, energy, empathy, verbal and written gifts, and skills in dealing with people. They were united, however, by a fierce ambition, an inordinate drive to succeed. With perseverance and hard work, they all essentially made themselves leaders by enhancing and developing the qualities they were given.

That passage is from the foreword to the book. It might have jumped out and high-fived me. In fact, when I read that, a chorus of angels began to sing.

Abraham Lincoln. Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lyndon B. Johnson. Those four towering individuals differed in many ways.

But what they all shared was a FIERCE AMBITION. As in (I repeat): a FIERCE AMBITION.

Goodwin describes Lincoln’s ambition as “ferocious.” And tells us that his “ambition was as central to his makeup as his backbone.”

She also tells us that it wasn’t just about him. She says that his ambition “was, almost from the start, two-fold. It was not simply for himself; it was for the people he hoped to lead. He wanted to distinguish himself in their eyes. The sense of community was central to the master dream of his life—the desire to accomplish deeds that would gain the lasting respect of his fellow men.”

Once again: Fierce ambition. Plus love. That sounds like HEROICALLY FIERCE AMBITION.

I have Lincoln on my wall of heroes. Every morning I connect with him and my other heroes during my hour of meditation. They each share wisdom with me for that day.

Lincoln tells me to win the civil war within so I can help others win their internal civil wars so we can all help win the invisible cultural war between Vice and Virtue.

Then he tells me to embrace my “Fierce Ambition” to make a difference in the world.

I then think of some Jim Collins wisdom—who is my favorite business strategist. (See rough notes on his classic Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0.)

Collins talks about what he calls “Level 5” leadership. Here’s how he puts it:

Our research showed that having charismatic leadership doesn’t explain why some companies become great and others don’t. In fact, some of the most disastrous comparison cases had very strong, charismatic leadership in the very era that the companies fell or failed. Rather, our research found that the critical ingredient is Level 5 leadership. The essence of Level 5 leadership is a paradoxical combination of personal humility and indomitable will. The humility expressed at Level 5 isn’t a false humbleness; it’s a subjugation of personal ego in service to a cause beyond oneself. This humility combined with the fierce resolve to do whatever it takes (no matter how difficult) to best serve that cause. Level 5 leaders are incredibly ambitious, but they channel their ambition into building a great team or organization and accomplishing a shared mission that’s ultimately not about them.

All that to say, I am committed to embodying the virtues of Fierce Ambition with Personal Humility and Indomitable Will as I strive to lead and serve as humbly yet heroically as I can.

btw: I almost deleted this section as I know this letter is already super long. I decided to keep it in when I read THIS note from one of our prospective Early Stage Investors:

And all of THAT leads is to our fiercely ambitious targets.

Of course, our ultimate, long-term target is 51 | 2051. Our near-term big hairy audacious goal?

We’re ALL IN on seeing if we can make history again—this time as one of the fastest growing startups to an enterprise value of $1B.

Note: To state the obvious… This “let’s make history again!” goal is AT LEAST (!) ten times harder than the goal we successfully hit in becoming the first company to ever close the $5M round via the new crowdfunding regulations.

Here’s a little chart to help us put the speed with which we would need to hit an enterprise value of $1B to put us in the discussion as one the fastest growing startups ever.

You’ll notice that Bird hit the Mark in an insane 1.25 years. Airbnb and Instacart did it in just under 3 years—which is also mindbogglingly awesome. 🤯

I want to see if we can do it in 3.33 years.

To re-state the obvious: That is a VERY (VERY VERY!) difficult goal. But… It’s not impossible.

(Did you know that, according to Pitch Book, more unicorns were minted in 2021 than the prior five years combined? Yep. Of course, 2021 was a historically significant year for the capital markets but, as per the article: “Founders have been able to grow more while bootstrapped than in the past, due to the ubiquity of cloud computing, non-dilutive funding sources and other third-party resources … That’s resulted in stronger metrics for early-stage startups, helping them achieve growth earlier and draw significantly higher valuations.” … Self-Efficacy 101 for the win!)

Here’s a super-quick look at how I think we can do it.

Actually… Before we go there, now’s a good time to ground our ambition in a little more wisdom.

It’s also a good time to reference the requisite legalese (see below!) and make it very clear that (echo!) we’re talking about some very ambitious targets here. 🤓

As discussed, Jim Collins is my favorite business strategist. Have you ever heard of what he calls “The Stockdale Paradox”? Here’s the short story. (Check out this Optimize +1 as well.)

James Stockdale was the commanding officer in the prisoner of war camp in the Vietnam war. Collins asked him who survived the camps and who didn’t.

Stockdale told him that the naive optimists didn’t make it. They thought they’d be free by Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving came and went, they thought they’d be free by Christmas. When Christmas came and they still weren’t free they thought they’d be free by Easter. When Easter came and went, they gave up hope. And didn’t make it.

Stockdale said that the ones who survived never lost faith that, one day, they’d be free. AND… They knew it wouldn’t be easy and that it wouldn’t be tomorrow. Stockdale figured it would be at least five years. It was seven for him.

As he put it: “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

I share that in this context to make it clear that, although we have some very ambitious goals, I don’t expect any of this to be easy or to (necessarily) come quickly. And, I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t TATTOO MY BODY with a thirty-year goal (!!!) to give up the moment(s) things get hard. If it takes us thirty years to hit a fraction of these ambitious targets then perfect.

Having said that…

Let’s talk about what our business will need to look like to have a shot at making history again.

The fastest way to get clarity on what our business would need to look like is to look at a comparable business in our space. There are a number with a $1B+ EV to pick from including BetterUp, Whoop, Headspace and Calm. (Note: The size of the well-being market is growing quickly and larger than you may think!)

Calm is the closest proxy for us. They are a subscription business like ours. They hit an enterprise value of $1B after seven years. At that time they had 1M paying customers.

So, if we could hit similar numbers in 7 years, we would be well positioned to hit a similar valuation.

If we wanted to be in the best position to hit a similar valuation in 3.33 years, we’d need to have strong unit economics, high velocity and a clear path to getting to 1M Heroes.

We have a LOT of ground to cover between here and there.

And…

We’re all in.

P.S. Did you know that they actually had a word in ancient Sanskrit for being “a hero in the beginning”? Yep.

Here’s how Eknath Easwaran (one of my absolute favorite teachers!) puts it in his meditation classic, Conquest of Mind (see Notes on that plus his translations of The Bhagavad Gita and The Dhammapada):

In Sanskrit we have a word which means “heroes at the beginning”: people who take up a job with a fanfare of trumpets but soon find that their enthusiasm has tiptoed down the back stair. Those who go far in meditation are the ones who keep on plugging. They may not be very spectacular; they may never hear a trumpet. But they keep on trying day in and day out, giving their best in every situation and relationship, never giving up. Such people are bound to reach their goal.

Guess what? Heroic will empower you to be a Hero all day every day.

It’s time to go from Theory to Practice to Mastery.

Our Product Demo

Ultimately, our success will be driven by our ability to deliver on the two brand promises we discussed above.

Can we help you move from theory to practice to mastery so you can more consistently show up as the best, most Heroic version of yourself?

And, if so, can we get enough of us to do that such that we can change the world together?

Check out a recording of a recent Zoom with our Heroic Founding Investors to see me walk through an interactive product demo:

As you’ll see, I walk you through the Basic Training that’ll be the core of the Theory at launch. (I’m the first Guide. Imagine other world-class teachers sharing their wisdom as well!)

Then I walk you through the two-step Practice.

It all starts with our 1-Minute AM commitment process in which we re-commit to showing up as our best selves in our Energy, Work and Love.

As I like to say, New Year’s resolutions are nice. New DAY’S resolutions are MUCH more powerful if we’re serious about actualizing our potential.

Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.

Boom. In 1 minute we’ve set our intention for the day and we’re ready to rock. That’s Part 1.

Part 2? It’s time to actually HIT those targets we set for ourselves.

I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to personally use the app in a couple months and set those targets then HIT them all day every day.

MetaLab came up with Tinder’s swipe left/swipe right thing. The moment I learned that, I KNEW that they’d help us create our equivalent swipe to hit our virtuous targets, giving us a splash of dopamine every.single.time (!) we do what is best for us—using the absolute best of persuasive, behavioral design to help us show up as the absolute best version of ourselves.

We had THE best motion graphics designer at MetaLab (which makes him, in my opinion, at least tied for first as the best motion graphics designer in the world) design this swipe effect.

As you swipe/pull to the left, you’ll feel a haptic tension kinda like angry birds only rather than a slingshot it will be for a bow. Then you’ll release and BOOM!

Another virtuous target hit, Hero.

30,000 Heroes hitting 10 virtuous targets a day = 100M ARV.

300,000 Heroes hitting 10 virtuous targets a day = 1B ARV.

300,000,000 Heroes hitting 10 virtuous targets a day = 1T ARV.

That’s how we’ll help you flourish one virtuous act at a time. And that’s how we’ll change the world, one person (and virtuous act!) at a time, together, starting with you and me and us, today!!

Heroic Crowdfunding

And now we’re back where we began.

It’s time to see if we can make history again (!) and then change the course of history.

As we discussed, most startups are capitalized by the elite few in Silicon Valley or its equivalent around the world. We think there’s a better way to finance a public benefit business like ours, which is why we are going to do so with the support of an army of small investors who believe in our mission and who would otherwise not have the opportunity to invest in a startup like ours.

I’m passionate about helping solve not only the historically significant/pandemic levels of anxiety and depression and diabetes and cancer and social injustice and environmental degradation we face, but also helping to address the pandemic levels of economic inequality in the world—which is one of the reasons I’m so proud of the fact that we have financed our business exclusively from individual investors in our community and why I am committed to seeing if we can continue to do so exclusively in the months and years ahead.

Now…

We’ve talked about a lot of warm and fuzzy, inspiring stuff.

Startups like ours are a powerful way to create a better future while creating value for each of our stakeholders: Society + Partners + Investors + Customers + Employees.

Of course, startups are also inherently incredibly risky ventures—which is why the SEC limits the amount that “unaccredited” investors can invest.

KNOW THIS: You shouldn’t invest more than you can afford to lose. You also shouldn’t invest unless you’re ready to play the long game—not expecting any returns for 7+ years.

So…

I’d like to be very clear on this point as we all take a deep breath…

Do not invest a SINGLE dollar you cannot afford to (and are not prepared to) lose. Again, startups are inherently risky ventures. Most fail. You need to be well aware of that possibility and embrace it fully.

Further, and related: Do not invest a single dollar that you cannot live without for at least 7+ years. Your investment will be illiquid. There will be no market through which you can easily transfer shares.

Although I will be doing my absolute (!) best to serve you and our other SPICEY stakeholders (and, for the record, I’ve never lost a single dollar that has been invested in me!), I repeat: I do not want a single dollar from you that you are not prepared to lose and/or that you will need for at least 7+ years.

You must be prepared for things NOT to work and your investment turning into a sad face $0. 😕 (Lol)

Having said that…

The high risk goeswith a potentially high return—in society and for yourself and for your family.

I have unapologetically ambitious goals with Heroic. I am, as we discuss in our Notes on Abraham Maslow’s Future Visions, post-ambivalent.

I literally want to change the world. And, I think that we can achieve that while creating a multibillion-dollar business that is one of the most virtuous, respected, beloved and impactful companies and brands on the planet.

Although you should be prepared to get a 0x return on your investment, you should also know that I will be doing every thing I can to create a 10x return on your investment. (And, frankly, although it’s just on this side (or is it the other? 😉) of crazy, I’d like to add a zero to that 10x.)

It’s hard to put into words just how motivated I am by the prospect of fulfilling our Mission while striving to help you and your families create significant wealth from your investment in us.

I actually got tears in my eyes as I typed that as I remembered the moment—over 15 years ago—when I first read John Mackey’s debate with Milton Friedman in Reason magazine. Friedman, as you may know, was an intellectual giant who played an incredibly important role in shaping our understanding of the power of free markets and capitalism.

In the debate from the October 2005 edition of the magazine (check it out: Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business), John Mackey, co-Founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market and ardent free market supporter, argued that there was a force even more powerful than free markets: Love.

In the debate, John walked us through the success of Whole Foods Market and the fact that his commitment to serving not just his investor stakeholder is WHY he was able to give those investors such a great return.

I literally wept when I read this debate on the power of conscious capitalism. As a young man and young entrepreneur who was struggling to find a way to integrate my noble intentions with the marketplace, I found John’s exemplary commitment to virtue to be incredibly inspiring—only matched by his ability to articulate the mechanics of what drove him and why his approach worked.

As it turns out, John and I met shortly after I read that piece. I was able to tell him just how much he inspired me and how much I appreciated him and his wisdom—which led to a friendship that endures today. (Alexandra and the kids literally ran into him at Whole Foods in Austin the day before I wrote this. Focus of their chat? Our respective chickens!! John has 30. Emerson told him about our 5 fully grown ones and the two chicks. Hah. 🐔)

But what REALLY got me was reading the COMMENTS to John’s blog post on the Whole Foods website. I can’t find that post now and don’t recall the precise details but I remember one person saying something along the lines of the fact that their investment in Whole Foods was so profitable for them that it literally helped pay for their kids’ college education.

When I read that, I remember sobbing—nearly uncontrollably.

For whatever set of reasons, it was an extraordinarily powerful moment for me.

I imagined the ripples of impact that one man could have as he strived to serve heroically in partnership with countless others. I knew I wanted to be that type of man.

All that to say that I intend to make Heroic Public Benefit Corporation the vehicle through which we can do great things together—while, if we do our jobs, creating an astonishing amount of value for Society, Partners, Investors, Customers, Employees and YOU.

So, with eyes wide open and a full awareness that this quest of ours is SUPPOSED to be hard (we’re going to be battling dragons, folks, not side-stepping lizards! See: +1s on Lincoln’s Response to (Epic) Failure and Reverse Indicators), let’s remember Joseph Campbell’s wisdom on the subject from Pathways to Bliss where he tells us:

“The hero journey is one of the universal patterns through which that radiance shows brightly. What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco. There’s always the possibility of a fiasco. But there’s also the possibility of bliss.”

Here’s to following our Bliss AND following our Grunt as we see if we can make some Heroic magic together.

Over 1000 prospective investors from our community have already expressed interest in investing over $12M into our prospective next crowdfunding.

Here’s a collection of notes on WHY they are excited to invest.

And here are a few of my favorite notes:

Of course, we have a lot more details to get clarity on before we’re ready to officially launch our Early Stage Investor campaign (and we need to get qualified, etc.).

And…

If you think you might like to support our Mission to change the world by investing in Heroic Public Benefit Corporation, please let us know!!!

We set up a super-simple form for you to express your interest. Just cruise on over here and we’ll keep you posted as we take the next steps in this Heroic quest of ours.

→ YES!!! I’d like to express interest in investing in (+ owning a piece of!) the Heroic movement!

(As discussed: We are also in the process of closing a separate Convertible Note that’s available for accredited investors. If you’re interested in potentially investing in that, please let us know here.)

I’m honored to be a part of your life and I appreciate your support. I’m excited about the possibilities of taking the next steps in this Heroic adventure together with you.

It’s time to change the world. One person at a time. Together. Starting with you and me mastering ourselves and serving Heroically. TODAY.

With Love + Wisdom + Self-Mastery + Courage I say…

HEROES UNITE!!

-bri

P.S. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

P.P.S. Here’s one more fun video. This is from one of our accredited Zoom chats in January in which I invited a couple of new dear friends and Heroic investors to join us to share why they invested.

These two guys happen to be two former Major League Baseball players.

Sean Casey was a 3x All-Star who batted .300 for his career. Sports Illustrated said he was the friendliest guy in baseball. (I think he might be the friendliest guy in the world!) (Check us out chatting on his podcast called “The Mayor’s Office.”)

Brandon Guyer was nicknamed “La Piñata” by the sportscaster in the World Series one year because he was hit by more pitches per at bat than ANYONE in MLB history. He also hit a home run in his first at bat which is pretty awesome.

And… He’s a Heroic Coach grad who says this about that experience. And… He’s the guy who inspired me to my Areté tattoo. We trade Oura scores every morning and I can’t wait to do that on Heroic Social.

Here’s what they said about why they invested in Heroic:

Btw. We have a TON of potential with Heroic Sports.

A few weeks ago I got a note from a friend and long-time Optimizer telling me just how much he loves The Score. (See video below. If you haven’t gotten into their music yet, what are you waiting for?! (Hah!) )

That friend’s name is Dennis Mannion. I met him years ago when he was the CEO of the Pistons. He said this after finding Optimize…

Being obsessed with both individual and team performance, your podcast resonated. The Notes, et al, are brilliant. I am a crazy reader, so getting into your Notes is like a trip to the sporting goods store when I was a kid.

Before Dennis ran the Pistons, he was the President of the Dodgers. We might be chatting about how we can (goosebumps) do some really exciting stuff with Heroic Sports.

As in, REALLY exciting. Imagine the best players in the world using Heroic to show us what Mastery looks like—with their fans (who see them as their heroes!!) actually SEEING (goosebumps again!) what their heroes DO every.single.day to BE so Heroic.

P.P.P.S. Here’s a note from my beloved Coach, Phil Stutz on why he invested in Heroic.

As you may know, Phil and I have been working together every single week for over five years. He is the author of The Tools and Coming Alive and will be featured in an upcoming Netflix documentary produced by two of his other clients, Jonah Hill and Joaquin Phoenix.

Phil also wrote the foreword to my upcoming book which we intend to make a #1 New York Times bestseller to help take Heroic to the next level when we launch the book in 2023. (Check the foreword out here.)

Here’s Phil’s note on why he decided to invest in Heroic…

“MY INVESTMENT IN HEROIC

Deciding to invest in Heroic was unlike any other investment decision I’d ever made. Until I met Brian investing was a process where I gave money to people I didn’t know so they could use it in ways I didn’t understand.

Because I was so removed from the process my imagination was free to run wild. I would swing from the fear of losing everything to rage at being tricked. Investing, for me, was the equivalent of betting on a roulette wheel which was fixed to never stop on my number.

The decision to invest with Brian felt more like betting that the sun would rise in the morning. It wasn’t based on a financial analysis (although he had one if I had wanted to see it). For the first time in my life I felt moved to invest in something - not because of what it would do for me – but because of its intent to move the world.

It’s easy to disparage this as the claims of a snake-oil salesman or mad-man. But changing the world requires one thing that can’t be faked: the ability to inspire others. Brian has more of this ability than anyone I’ve ever met. Enough to change the world.

How could I not invest in that?”

==

P.P.P.P.S. As promised, here’s that legalese from our attorneys! 🤓

This content may contain forward-looking statements and information relating to, among other things, the company, its business plan and strategy, and its industry. These forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of, assumptions made by, and information currently available to the company’s management. When used in the content, the words “estimate,” “project,” “believe,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management’s current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the company’s actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. The company does not undertake any obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after such date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

With regards to our prospective Regulation CF offering, no money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent in response, will not be accepted;

No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the offering statement is filed and only through the platform of an intermediary (funding portal or broker-dealer); and

A person’s indication of interest includes no obligation or commitment of any kind.