I didn’t want to start this business…

When it comes to creating a meaningful life, I recently stumbled across the following in a book:

1. “Is it big enough?” - Those who have been fortunate to receive a good education, who are healthy, and have had great work experiences should not be solving small problems. If you were born with privileges, you should solve big problems.
2. “Am I uniquely positioned…to make this happen?” - Looking back on the experiences you have had. Have they prepared you for this specific mission?
3. “Am I truly passionate?” - Does the issue generate obsessive thinking? Does it keep you up at night?”

Today I am announcing something that answers all three of those questions with an emphatic yes.

In the new year, we will be officially launching Catalyst Community - What will soon be a series of localized and highly curated communities of entrepreneurs. 

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Back on February 9th 2013, I made a similar post to this one today when I launched MastermindTalks. Being arguably the biggest public announcement I made up until that point in my life, I was absolutely terrified to hit "POST".

"What if I nobody buys a ticket, what if I can’t get good speakers, what happens if I run out of money before the event, what if I have to cancel it…"

In full transparency, my outlook on life was very bleak at the time... I don’t think my soul (nor my ego) could take another failure. If the long shot that was launching MMT didn’t pan out, there is a chance that I wouldn’t be here today. Ending my life, for a short but intense period of time, felt like not only the easiest way, but the only way to end the suffering.

(If you’re unfamiliar with my backstory, the quick version is that after 7 years into my first “successful” venture, I realized that I built a business I hated, to enable me to buy things I didn’t need, to impress people I didn’t like. Upon this discovery, I impatiently tried to transition out. In August of 2012, after a perfect storm storyline, I was left with no business, no cash flow, and was sitting with over $250,000 in debt. When the dust settled, I was bankrupt on virtually every level. Emotionally, physically, spiritually… Just crushed. The full story can be found here: https://bit.ly/jaysonpodcast)

Thankfully, in ways that I couldn’t have even predicted or imagined… The stars began to align leaning into our first MastermindTalks event on May 26-28th 2013. With close to zero money for marketing, speakers, etc… somehow I managed to convince folks like 5x NYT’s Best-Selling Author Tim Ferriss, Billionaire Dani Reiss, Celebrated TED fellow AJ Jacobs, and other amazing individuals to speak. And with great speakers, came a stream of applicants. Ultimately, we ended up having 4200 of them for an event capped at 150 people.

Although it’s a best practice in my circle of peers, I have always had an aversion to looking too far into the future and setting a “vision”. What could a business look like in 3 years... 5 years… 10 years?

I understand the importance of planning intellectually, but emotionally I think back to this post almost 8 years ago, and the fact that I could have never, ever, EVER predicted what MMT is today. As my good friend, Philip Mckernan always says, “Sometimes we're too busy seeking out opportunities we often miss the possibilities”

Setting a crystal clear vision, by design, creates blinders. Purposefully shielding you from noise and distractions that may veer you off course. However, I’ve come to realize that there’s huge value in creating space and being open to the unexpected. In life, beautiful course corrections can feel like a gentle feather on the face, and if you’re not present to these moments, they can easily be missed.

In our case, we originally set out to do a single MastermindTalks event, and it was a very traditional “speaker driven” event at that. However, as I often say... ignorance, confidence and hard work can go a long way when you’re an entrepreneur.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my lack of knowledge and experience worked in our favour as the event ultimately felt more like a wedding than it did a conference. Because the feedback of the first event was so positive, we decided to do a second… a third... a seventh.

There’s a saying that if you’re surfing, you can’t take responsibility for the wave. With a mix of right people, right time, and the right opportunity, MMT has evolved into something beautiful. Selfishly, the level of richness and depth that the community has brought to my life, truly renders me speechless… All I can do is shake my head and smile. I am beyond grateful for the opportunities and privileges I’ve been blessed with over the years.

Since our inception in 2013…

• We’ve had over 18,000 entrepreneurs apply without a single penny spent on traditional advertising.
• We held seven annual gatherings, with our last three having an average approval rating of 9.81 / 10.
• Leading up to MMT Napa (2015) we offered a $1000 refund incentive for folks to give up their spot and had one person out of 150 people take us up on that offer (Note: It was oddly enough because of a legitimate schedule conflict - he didn’t accept the incentive, just requested a refund).
• We sold out MMT Ojai (2016) four months in advance without announcing any speakers or agenda, which is rather unheard of in the event space.
• On the final morning of MMT Carmel (2017), John Ruhlin spurred the idea to host a random charity auction that night which resulted in us raising over $295,000 in less than 15 minutes.
• MMT Park City (2018) had an average acceptance rate on direct invitations of 81%.
• MMT Cabo (2019) sold out MMT 14 months in advance.

For MMT 2020 (and beyond) we’re actually closing off applications indefinitely. We’re at a point where we can’t accommodate, or allocate any future bandwidth towards filtering cold applications. Should spots come available for MMT, the only way to be considered is to be nominated through an existing member of the community, and our current nomination list sits at over five hundred fascinating entrepreneurs.

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Today, I am making a similar post to the one 8 years ago.

The simple, yet profound difference, is that I am not stepping into this new chapter alone. I have cultivated an incredible allegiance of supporters along the way.

MMT has become an ever-growing family. And similar to most families, we find ourselves dispersed all over the world. Every year we gathering for three beautiful days together, and then there are 362 days of sporadic satellite events, meetups, and online discussions. 

For years I have hoped that someone who create a community similar to what Kandis and I have have done with MMT, but on a local scale. As time has gone on, my frustration has become greater and greater, with nobody stepping to the plate. Being immersed in the space, I’m constantly frustrated to see...

• Community leaders shifting their focus to building their communities online (when really what we need as a society is more in-person interaction).
• Organizations preach that they have a high level of curation (when in reality, the only real barrier to entry is if you can cut the cheque).
• Organizers who do indeed “curate,” but do so with poor benchmarks like a revenue figure. (Strong communities are built on shared values, not revenue figures. Curating based on values takes a lot more work, however, the end result creates a community filled with diversity and an opportunity for members to feel seen and valued)

So today, I’m stepping into this ever-growing opportunity, with a market-tested and proven solution.

For those that are curious, here’s how things have unfolded up until this point:

• On October 8th 2018, I posted to Facebook asking for help. I had seven different projects that I was considering in investing my time into, and I needed to focus on the critical 1 or 2. The feedback and support for the idea of Catalyst was both overwhelming and unexpected.

• In December 2018 in conversation with my wife and business partner Kandis, I voiced my frustration for the umptieth time that nobody was focused on building highly curated communities for entrepreneurs based on values. She replied with “I think you’re the only person that could do it.” This vote of confidence from her was a turning point for me. It was at this moment when this kernel of an idea became real. Without Kandis’s support or blessing, I would have never explored this opportunity any further.
• On January 14th, a loose connection named Tam, posted to social media that he was looking for a new opportunity. Not thinking that anything would come of it, I messaged him indicating that if he were willing to relocate to Toronto, I may have an opportunity that would be of interest. To my surprise, he was open to it, and we leaned into that conversation (and relationship).

• On February 28th, I decided to host an event with a friend of mine, Brian Scudamore from 1-800-GOT-JUNK to simply start bringing together some great local entrepreneurs and dip my toes in the water so to speak. Even though that day we were blessed by the worst snowstorm of the year (I actually didn’t think anyone would show up and recorded this video), 73 entrepreneurs did, and the gathering was very well-received.

• On April 15th, Tam took a leap of faith and relocated from San Francisco to Toronto to join me to build Catalyst. With Tam now being in close proximity to me, we started to work alongside each other to build out the initial plan.

• With more clarity on Catalyst, we invited a group of close friends who we know would offer honest and frank feedback. Over four different “Catalyst Design” Dinners, these hand-picked advisors poked and prodded at our initial model and we all re-imagined how this type of community can come to life. With delicious Italian food, sticky notes everywhere, and hours upon hours of audio recordings… we went back to the drawing board with some important decisions to make.

• On May 22nd, my buddy John Hall was in Toronto and I decided to meet him for drinks. Unbeknownst to me, his business partner John Rampton would be joining us. Both of these John’s are so driven on helping people. In conversation with Rampton, he asked countless times what he could help with, and ultimately I started to open up about my idea behind Catalyst. I expressed to him that the only way it would fail is if I didn’t ever get around to launching it. I knew in my heart of hearts that building off of what we learned with MMT, once Catalyst was officially off the ground, it had all the ingredients of being something both super meaningful and impactful. On the spot he made me commit to specific deliverables and set a calendar invite for us to reconnect in the near future. Thankfully, we were well on our way before his deadline.

• On June 5th and 6th, Tam and I decided to host a Community Builder Mastermind with folks in the event space that I respect immensely. People flew in from far away places like Tampa, London and even Australia to join us. The spirit of the gathering was to “sharpen the axe” and share best practices when it came to hosting events and gatherings.

• Throughout the months of June to December, through my coaching and mentorship, Tam facilitated 14 dinners and experiences on his own.

These gatherings served two purposes. To create a sandbox for us to execute, take feedback, and refine our formats, system and processes. All while keeping our finger on the best and most promising entrepreneurs that the great city of Toronto has to offer. Entrepreneurs are not hard to find. We have compiled a consideration list of over 480 of them in a few short months. However, finding entrepreneurs who are willing to be their authentic selves, who are proactively generous, and who strive for both growth and greatness in all areas of their lives… That’s a group of individuals that are significantly harder to target.

With clarity on our offering with Catalyst and exactly who we want to serve, we approached a small handful of entrepreneurs who really embodied the ethos of what we’re trying to create to be founding members. Nine amazing humans trusted us and said yes along with a handful of early adopters who eagerly jumped at the opportunity to join after coming to one of our preliminary gatherings.

This morning (November 28th)... We sent in the contract for our official launch event which will be taking place on January 14th.

Our goal for a successful launch of Catalyst is to get to fifty members. Once we’re there, we can focus all of our energy on delivering the best experience we can. I definitely see a day where we have dozens of vibrant communities all over the world, but scale comes secondary to delivering the best member experience possible. The feedback thus far has been super positive...

Serving great people, challenges you to do great work.

As a result, our growth will be controlled, organic, and fuelled through word of mouth. We will only explore opening new communities when existing ones have renewal rates of 85% or higher. This to me is our most important KPI. I don’t care how many people get in the door, I care about how many people see so much value in the organization, that they never want to leave.

Where does this leave me and MMT?

MMT is my family. That will never change. Kandis and I will continue to serve this beautiful collection of people through our annual gathering and satellite events throughout the year.

Catalyst is not about me… and in fact, it’s far bigger than me. 

I will support Catalyst every step of the way, however, the organization is in the capable hands of Tam. I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside him since April, and I can confidently say that we (as in me, and the organization), have hit the jackpot… Tam continues to impress me with every day that passes, and he’s demonstrated time and time again that he’s the perfect person to execute on this opportunity.

The beautiful thing about both of these organizations is that they will help and support each other immensely. Almost 8 years of community building experience through MMT is going into the launch of Catalyst, and we’ve already seen great refinements to our most recent MMT as a result of looking at Catalyst from a fresh perspective.

With that said, you can see from the outset of this announcement, that it’s laced with the names of early supporters and advisors... Folks who have championed this idea since the beginning.

Many will ask how they can help…

Those closest to me know that I’m terrible at asking for specific things, but I will say that if you know of any Toronto based entrepreneurs who would benefit from something like Catalyst (and should ultimately be on our consideration list to join us at a future gathering), please email Tam at [email protected], or ping me and I can make the connection.

Thank you for reading, and the support… I’m excited to watch the next few years unfold.