Want to invest more in Heroic?

As we briefly discussed in our last Zoom call, we’ve had a number of people ask if they can invest more into Heroic and if so, when and how.

Today I want to talk about my decision to say, “Yes you can. Starting today. Here are the details.”

Note1: I deliberately took the time to unpack the details so it gets a little long.

Note2: Our attorneys tell me to that I should tell you to please be sure to read their disclosure on forward-looking statements below.

But first…

A quick story.

The first person to ask if they could invest more into Heroic was my coach and spiritual father and Yoda—Phil Stutz.

This is particularly meaningful to me (for a number of reasons) because Phil and I have been meeting twice a week for the last year (and weekly for the four years before that) and he knows me and the business better than ANYONE (other than Alexandra) by a factor of 10.

He’s also worked with a LOT of people who achieved a LOT of success so his ability to both see potential and help actualize it is, from my vantage point, as Ray Dalio would put it, beyond “believable.” (More context on Phil below.) (Check out my Notes on Dalio’s Principles here.)

So…

In one of our sessions not too long ago, Phil told me that one of his clients just closed a big (with a capital B and a lot of zeroes after it big) deal. That guy wrote Phil a generous check to say thanks for his mentorship and support.

Memo line on the check? “Nonnegotiable.”

Phil’s immediate response? To ask me if he could invest more in Heroic. (Which gives me tears in my eyes as I type that.)

I asked Phil to write a little blurb on why he wants to invest more. That’s below.

So…

For the last couple/few months I’ve been considering the idea of doing a quick convertible note (via Reg D) in advance of our prospective Series A.

Originally I was entertaining the idea because I have been so impressed with MetaLab’s work and I am so bullish on leveraging our partnership as a Heroic secret weapon of ours. I wanted to put some more capital in the bank to be able to confidently and easily commit to the next phase of our expanded partnership as we lean into post-launch/year two efforts to build a social platform worthy of becoming an answer to The Social Dilemma.

And…

The more I think about the astonishing (!) opportunity (goosebumps) we have to see if we potentially can make history again (hopefully this time as one of the fastest-growing startups to hit a $1B enterprise value), the more committed I am to playing to win and going all in.

Of course, throw all the appropriate asterisks on the enormity of the challenge and the small odds for hitting such an audacious goal and the importance of remaining antifragile and grounded and all that.

And…

Thank you Teddy Roosevelt and Jim Collins for the strategic wisdom on seizing opportunities and getting a high return on luck. (See below for their wisdom.)

So…

After consulting with my usual advisors, it’s official.

We’re going to open a Reg D Note and bring in as much as $10M. And, we’re going to keep it super simple. The note will have a 20% discount on the next round with a $100M cap (at 4% interest).

For those who may not be familiar with how convertible notes work, here’s the super short story.

If you invest in this round, you will own a note that is convertible into equity at our next prospective round. The price will not be set until I actually do that round. Let’s look at a few scenarios: Best, Good, Meh, and Worst case.

If we can hit the big, hairy audacious targets I’ve set for us and our valuation hits $1B for the next round (see all the asterisks on that big IF), then the “$100M” valuation cap will kick in and your note will convert at a price that is roughly 1/10th the price of our round.

Meaning, if the stars aligned and the Heroic gods bless us with good fortune (Deo volente!!), you would 10x your investment. That, my friends, would be a VERY epic win. 😂 (Literally laughing out loud. 🤠 )

Note: The $100M valuation cap will also kick in if we raise money in our next round at anything above $120M—which provides a really strong potential upside and is one of the reasons convertible notes are attractive for investors. If we hit $250M valuation, for example, you would get a roughly 2.5x return.

If, on the other hand, we are not able to create enough value to justify a valuation of over $120M, then the “20% discount” provision will kick in and you will get a 20% discount on whatever valuation on which we do raise the money—which provides downside protection for you and is another one of the reasons convertible notes are attractive for investors.

So, for example, if we raise money at, say, an $80M valuation, your shares would convert at a 20% discount of that or a $64M valuation. Again: It’s a way to make sure you have some baked in gains on next round, etc.

Further, as a debt holder, if things got REALLY bad (🤞 🙏 😂) and everything went sideways and we wound up liquidating the business, you would get your money out before the equity shareholders—which is yet another reason convertible notes are attractive for investors. (Note: I didn’t tattoo my body with HEROIC and 51 | 2051 with that in mind. 😉)

Now…

Back to the big picture.

I’m excited about this convertible note financing for a number of reasons.

In addition to making it super easy to immediately extend our MetaLab partnership, it also gives us the necessary fuel (and antifragile conservative cushion) to AGGRESSIVELY go after our growth initiatives to see if we can get 100k new Optimizers in q4 via each of our three growth pathways: Ads, Big Partners, and Grassroots Partners en route to 1 million+ new Optimizers in q1 while parlaying that (and other energy) into 300,000 Heroic Founding Members before we even launch.

Again: The super rough napkin math on our path to $1B enterprise value a year after our last fundraising (and ~18 months after founding and BEFORE even officially launching our app) goes something like this:

Startups like ours are, ROUGHLY, often valued at 10x their 12-month future-looking potential revenue.

If we can get 1 million Optimizers in q1 and invite 300,000 of them to join us as Heroic Founding Members before we even launch on April 9th, 2022 then we can make a VERY strong case that, 12 months later, we will be serving over 1M Heroes.

1.43M Heroes x $70/year = $100M Annual Recurring Revenue. Multiply that by 10 = potential enterprise value of $1B on Day 1.

Again…

All of that is obviously remarkably ambitious and just on one side of crazy or the other. 🤓

But it’s not impossible.

And the more I dig in to the key levers to make it happen, the more the odds move from a non-zero probability to solid single digits. 🤓

But…

I’ll repeat: I’m eyes wide open and acutely sober to the challenge of executing this. (An hour of meditation in the morning and another 15-60 minutes in the evening helps with staying grounded. 😂 Seriously. It’s been my secret weapon.)

We’ll plan to have another private Zoom call with accredited investors to talk through my thinking and assumptions and all that.

For now, please let us know if you’re thinking you might like to invest more. And, if so, what your range might be.

We have two basic pathways…

If you are an accredited investor interested in considering an investment of over $25,000, please click here: https://heroicpbc.typeform.com/ConvertibleNote

If you are an unaccredited investor or an accredited investor interested in investing less than $25,000, please click here: https://heroicpbc.typeform.com/Invest-Survey

Obviously we have ground to cover before you’re ready to commit, but I’m going to start with you and our existing investors before going out more broadly and I want to make sure you have the opportunity to invest more if you feel so inspired.

I will ensure that we get you in for whatever you are prepared to commit to now so please do let us know what you’re thinking before we go out more broadly!!

I deeply appreciate you and your support.

And, as always, I’m fiercely committed to making you proud to be a Founding Heroic Investor.

Let’s change the world.

One person at a time.

Together.

Starting with you and me.

Today.

B

P.S. As promised, here’s what Phil has to say about why he wants to invest more into Heroic.

But… First, here’s a little more context for those not familiar with Phil…

Check out my Notes on The Tools (which remains my all-time favorite book) and Coming Alive (which is also awesome).

Plus1: You can check out Jonah Hill talking about his work with Phil as part of a recent GQ cover story.

Plus2: Jonah and Joaquin Phoenix (another one of Phil’s clients) are creating a Netflix documentary on Phil. It’s coming out soon…

Plus3: Phil wrote the foreword to the book I’m working on. Check it out here.

Plus4: I don’t think I ever told you but my WME agent (who I met indirectly through another one of Phil’s clients) got us a great deal with a Top 3 publishing house for our Heroic book.

I paused the book writing process to focus on the app and our launch but… Let’s just say that I’m VERY EXCITED (goosebumps) about the opportunity we’ll have to launch that book as a #1 New York Times bestseller that STICKS in the Top 10 for a very (!) long time. That should add some next-level momentum to our movement. (Still have goosebumps.)

And, now… Here’s what Phil has to say about why he decided to invest more into 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.S. MetaLab is working on our Heroic sales page. This is exciting for roughly 1 billion reasons.

Our strategy to hit our BHAG $1B EV goal is VERY simple and has two key levers.

1. Get 1 million new Optimizers in q1. 🎯
2. Get 300,000 of them to pay $35 for their discounted Year 1 Founding Heroic Member subscription. 🎯

= 💥!!

In the last two weeks, we hired a new director of growth and a partnership genius for #1. They are crushing (!) it.

And we have MetaLab to help with #2.

As I briefly mentioned in our last Zoom, although MetaLab didn’t build Headspace’s app, they DID build their sales page. And Coinbase had a hard time explaining bitcoin before MetaLab helped them tell their story.

Check out MetaLab’s case study on Headspace here.

And check out MetaLab’s case study on Coinbase here.

Now…

Our vision is simple. Bring the iconoclastic dark mode black with striking red highlights brand we developed for the app (remember: “Tesla for personal growth” = Heroic is the essence of the brand we’re creating) and run that through our take on Apple’s insanely great (!) sales and voila!! We have our Heroic sales page.

(Check out this Apple sales page for their new phone for inspiration and imagine the Heroic version of THAT!)

So…

We are ONE week into our (EIGHT-week) sales page development process. In our meeting last week, they presented their FIRST design ideas.

I nearly fainted. (I’m serious. My heart skipped three beats at a couple of the reveals they shared.)

Here’s what they shared.

Here’s the best part.

They thought that was so BAD that our project manager said, “I’m sorry but this is just too rough to share yet!”

To which I said, “You’re really good at what you do. I’m pretty good at what I do and I’m telling you my investors would like to see it.”

Laughing.

Knowing this is already crazy long…

One more thing…

As part of that sales page process, MetaLab’s team asked us to get some professional photos taken of me in the new Heroic studio so they can use them on the new sales page they’re working on in the “Meet your guide…” section.

Although, frankly, I don’t spend much time taking or looking at pictures, I thought our photographer Ben did an incredible job of capturing my commitment to you and to our Heroic movement. Here are a few shots below.

Here are the pictures…

P.P.P.S. Here’s that leadership wisdom from Teddy Roosevelt and Jim Collins I promised! (And check out our full collection of Notes and +1s and the 101 on Leadership here!)

“Any man who has been successful, [Theodore] Roosevelt repeatedly said, has leapt at opportunities chance provides.” — Doris Kearns Goodwin from our Notes on Leadership in Turbulent Times.

👆📝

And…

Here’s the wisdom from Jim Collins on the fact that he believes that FIFTY PERCENT (!!!) of great leadership is “what you do with the unexpected.” 😲 🤯 !!! He quantified it in what he calls “return on luck.”

We have (goosebumps) been given a TON (!!!) of good fortune. It’s time to get an extraordinary (!) return on it.

btw: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND his great book Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0. Check out my rough notes here. (Get a copy here.)

One of my new friends and big Heroic investors recommended it to me. Thanks again, Gibson. 🙇

===

That letter was sent out on Monday, November 15th.

Here’s the follow-up we sent out later that week on Friday, November 19th.

===

We’ve been blessed to receive over $3M in expressed commitments in the first three days. 🙏

The documents are being finalized and Phil Stutz will be sending the first ceremonial wire to kick that party off.

If you’d like to invest more, please do let us know ASAP as I might be closing the round to “normal” ( 🤗 😂) investors and saving $5M for a select group of influencers including a number of world-class athletes and celebrities who I think might be able to help us go to the next level.

We have two basic pathways…

If you are an accredited investor interested in considering an investment of over $25,000, please click here: https://heroicpbc.typeform.com/ConvertibleNote

If you are an unaccredited investor or an accredited investor interested in investing less than $25,000, please click here: https://heroicpbc.typeform.com/Invest-Survey

Again: THANK YOU!!! 🙏

Quick highlights from the rest of the week:

We hired two PR firms—one for traditional print and TV stuff and one for online podcast interviews and partnerships.

We had two kick-offs this week. Here’s a video recording from the first one. I thought our facilitator (Lynya) did a fantastic job at helping me articulate why I do what I do and what Optimize/Heroic are all about.

Like MetaLab’s team back in the branding day, they graciously allowed us to share what was intended to be a private conversation.

I also had one of my first interviews. Hal Elrod and I had what he described as one of his “all-time favorite interviews”/conversations of his life. Check that out here.

Hal will be sharing that interview on his podcast that gets 200,000 downloads per episode as part of our Heroic Partnership in which we’re paying him 90% of our revenue on our now $300 Mastery Series as part of our campaign to get 1M new Optimizers to join by end of Q1.

Remember: Our make-history-again (this time as one of the fastest-growing startups to an enterprise value of $1B) initiative has three key levers.

1. Get 1M new Optimizers
2. Get 300,000 of them to become Heroic Founding Members
3. Raise the prospective Series A at a $1B valuation

Our Heroic Partnerships initiative (with Big and Grassroots) is a key part of that strategy.

Our PR team is targeting 200 (!) partnerships featuring 200 podcast interviews (I’ll do the big ones; Michael will hammer the overflow) with the top influencers in our space.

The first show we booked is with John Lee Dumas. His Entrepreneur on Fire podcast gets 150,000 downloads per month and we’re pitching the partnership as, potentially, the most profitable one they’ve ever done.

Again…

90% of $300 = $270 so 3.7 Optimizers who sign up for Coach = $1,000!

And…

x 37 = $10,000
x 370 = $100,000
x 3,700 = $1M

On the grassroots side of things, we sent out our first invitation emails this week. In the first 3 days we had nearly 250 partners sign up.

Our new partnership genius has stepped straight in and is leveraging her deep experience to launch what we intend to make a case study worthy campaign.

And…

All of this Optimize Unlocked goodness is still just the warm up act for our Heroic launch in Q1.

Which leads us to our MetaLab design meeting today. We’re still only 2 weeks in to our 8-week sales page development project.

Here’s the latest.

So…

Tons of work to do and all the normal asterisks but I’m feeling REALLY good about our chances to knock down the first and second dominoes above en route to making history again with the third.

What started as a non-zero chance of doing the near-impossible and making history again crept into solid single digits and I think we might be flirting with double digits at this point. 🤓

Again… See attorney disclaimers (below!) on forward-looking projections, etc etc etc.

What else?

Oh, yah!!

I redesigned my office. Painted the back wall black and the side wall red so I could feel like I’m working from within our Heroic app. (Did I mention I’m all in?)

Then I expanded my collection of Heroes. I’m now surrounded by 22 of my favorite Heroes.

7 primary big ones on the side wall. And 15 secondary ones on the back wall.

Top 7: Marcus Aurelius. Abraham Maslow. My daimon. Abraham Lincoln. Steve Jobs. Joseph Campbell. Phil Stutz.

On the other wall, we have three rows of five columns. Each column of Heroes represents an important theme for me.

The first column features Jesus, Saint Ignatius, and Mother Teresa. This represents my Catholic upbringing and my commitment to using my gifts in service to the world while leading with Love.

The second column starts with Confucius then has Epictetus then John Wooden. This represents my commitment to ferociously practicing my philosophy.

Note: The portrait of Wooden is tied for first as my all-time favorite. We think of Wooden as this soft, sweet, 90-something year old guy. But I knew he had to be a BEAST back in the day. Goosebumps. When I found this picture I was like … WOW. 🤯

Every one of my Heroes issues me a command in my hour-long AM meditation as I bring them to mind.

Wooden? He tells me to put on my socks and make TODAY (!) a masterpiece.

The next column features Rumi, Gandhi, and Eknath Easwaran. Rumi is a Sufi mystic and, after dropping some wisdom 💣s, reminds me to honor our brothers and sisters of all faiths. Gandhi tells me to make my life my message.

Although you’ve probably never heard of him unless you closely follow my work, Eknath is one of my deepest influences. I’ve done more notes on his books (nine!) than anyone else.

His translations of the Gita and Dhammapada are STUNNINGLY good. He tells me to dedicate every moment of my life (Energy! Work! Love!) to my Heroic quest to serve and he sternly reminds me not to be a hero in the beginning.

Then we have Ralph Waldo Emerson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mister Rogers. When I realized I’d put these three together it gave me goosebumps. Just like it did typing this now.

We named our kids after Emerson and Eleanor. And my daughter Eleanor loves seeing “herself” up there. Dropping Mister Rogers (who is another BELOVED Hero of mine!) below them is a reminder to be a good man—a loving father AND husband.

Note: Eleanor Roosevelt is always the most demanding of my Heroes. Every morning she asks me: “What’s the #1 thing you’re going to do that scares you today?!”

Whatever arises is what I MUST do. I haven’t missed a day which is one of the reasons we’re creating such nice momentum.

Then we have our final column featuring Viktor Frankl, Churchill, and Eisenhower. Frankl lost his pregnant wife and family in the horrors of the holocaust yet, somehow, conjured the wisdom and self-mastery and courage and love to play his role well as he served others in the camps to help them find meaning and endure.

Winston Churchill stepped up and played his role well to help liberate Frankl and win World War II while Eisenhower led the D Day invasion that played such a pivotal role in winning their war.

Important note: Starting with Jesus and what I perceive to be pure love while ending with Eisenhower is deliberate.

You know what day we intend to make history with our prospective Series A?

June 6, 2022.

D Day.

I believe that we are in an invisible war between Vice and Virtue.

It’s time to win it.

That’s all I’ve got.

Day 1.

Let’s go.

B

P.S. I’ve been meaning to share this little video from Eleanor on the fact that there are no perfect humans. (And I can’t wait for Heroic Social where we can share things like this!!)

The fact that nobody is perfect is a running joke with our family—as we teach our kids the power of mistakes and the growth mindset (must read for parents: Mindset and Self-theories!!) and the fact that we MUST be willing to make mistakes if we want to learn.

On that front…

I don’t think I’ve shared a clip from me in the studio filming the introduction to Heroic.

If you haven’t watched that full Heroic video yet, check it out: https://www.heroic.us/

Context for the little clip below: Our film genius Ben has NEVER missed an edit. Hundreds of clips. He accidentally included the mis-take below in his first share of our overview video.

Michael saw it. Said it was super powerful. I asked to see it. I watched it. I’d never seen myself unedited and doing my thing in the studio.

It was a very (!) powerful moment for me to see me connecting with my daimon and practicing my craft.

Btw: I counted how many times I’ve “missed a shot” in the studio. With 1,000+ Optimize +1s, 50 101s and the Mastery Series and all the other stuff I’ve done… I have made way (!) over 10,000 mis-takes. Probably closer to 20,000.

Which, as I type that, makes me think of Jordan and his epic Nike commercial…

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot — and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

P.P.S. And… Here’s a short clip on ARV. I’m REALLY excited about this.

I have a chat with a Stanford professor on Monday who is one of the world’s leading scholars on the science of effective interventions.

Sonja Lyubomirsky shared our data from the 300-day Coach program with him (data which, again, she said was so good that if she hadn’t done the research herself she would have thought it as fake). He saw it and was blown away too.

We’re chatting about doing some world-class research together to PROVE that committing to and hitting virtuous targets on Heroic will fundamentally change your life.

Imagine a world in which 300M people hit 1 TRILLION virtuous targets a year.

That’s the virtuous reality I want to help create and in which I want my kids and their kids and your kids and their kids to live.

P.P.P.S. It’s been a good week. But you know what my ultimate highlight was? This note from Emerson. All in. On all the important things.

==

That letter was sent out on Friday, November 19th.

Here’s the follow-up we sent out two weeks later on Monday, December 6th.

==

Heroes!!

This is Brian with another quick-ish note and a Top Secret update (or three).

First, THANK YOU (!!!) to all of you who expressed interest in and, for many of you, have already (!) invested in our convertible note round.

We sent out two emails over the course of about a week and had over $5 million of expressed interest.

All I can say is wow and thank you and LET’S GOOOO!!

If you’d like to invest in this round, please do let us know as I’m about to go out a little wider and see if we can close out the $10 million with some influencers who might be able to help catalyze the movement.

If you are an accredited investor interested in considering an investment of over $25,000, please click here: https://heroicpbc.typeform.com/ConvertibleNote

If you are an unaccredited investor or an accredited investor interested in investing less than $25,000, please click here: https://heroicpbc.typeform.com/Invest-Survey

One new investor had this to say: “I have read Brian’s investor notes more times than I want to admit, his transparency has made investing in Heroic a no brainer.”

The influencer-type of investors who might be able to chip in and help catalyze our movement leads us to…

Top Secret #1: I might have had/be setting up chats with an NBA Hall of Famer, a Cy Young Winner, and another great MLB player to plant some seeds on investing and advising on some future Heroic Sports goodness… 🤫

Top Secret #2: MetaLab just shared their latest rev on our Heroic splash page.

It’s still a little rough around the edges but let’s just say I’m feeling pretty good about getting a lot of people excited about joining us as Founding Members. 🤓