The new systems will be built quietly and calmly

I've been through many hype cycles in my lifetime:

• Building a taboo-breaking sex education company in India - and starring on an entire season of a reality show (reaching 10m viewers.) (Personal identity hype cycle)
• Getting into three accelerators with less than a 1% acceptance rate in the span of one year (Accelerator hype cycle)
• Getting featured in the press eight times within one year, including CNBC (Press hype cycle)
• Giving my first TEDx talk and being flown to NYC to pitch before I had a full prototype

Etc. You get it.

I've also been through extended periods of drought, uncertainty, and absolute, all-consuming stillness.

Here's what I know to be true, from building a venture that moved hearts and minds, partnered with the largest corporation in the country, and eventually seeded cultural change, within the span of three years:

1. The quieter and more boring your environment is - you'll get the most important, lightning-level insights at a faster pace. (You need to empty everything out to get the huge upgrades to your psyche, and then to integrate the big pivots.)
2. Limit the number of hours that you grind; rest and relaxation will allow you to know what the Next Big Decision to take is, which is way more productive.
3. Surround yourself with family support - this is a marathon, not a sprint.
4. The startup ecosystem feeds your ego, but not always your bank account - money in the bank usually reflects embodiment - that you have the consistency and groundedness to show up regularly, patiently, and faithfully, to build and sell the product until the thing takes off. If you're young and inexperienced, hype can actually take you further away from this deeply-rooted day-to-day presence which you should be striving for.
5. People will start to treat you differently - you have to accept this - your path will require you to leave behind your own misconceptions about who you are and what your mission on Earth is (and to leave behind most people.) It will also require you to face hard truths and change yourself.

What does this mean for startups looking to raise capital, get press and visibility, and participate in hype cycles?

• Participate in it with a healthy detachment - don't seek validation from any of it, or make it mean anything. Remain rooted in your larger vision.
• Silence should be your status quo. (Phone off most of the time, nature, stillness.) This enables you to gracefully and happily participate in the bigger chaos that's going on.
• Say no to any opportunity that makes you nervous or queasy (in a bad-signal-way, not in an up-leveling way.) Value your "empty space" until the right one comes along.
• Remember that you are the beginning and the end. Your venture came from you, your goals came from you, and your results will come to you when you're ready. Regardless of any external hype, you can't dependent on anyone else to save you.

I believe we are initiating a new era on our planet, and purpose-driven founders are leading the way. If you are one of them, shouldn't the way you build also reflect the ethos and values you're bringing to the world and your industry?

Question everything in your quest to create new systems.

What about you? Do you see value in building quietly and calmly? Is it hard to? Let me know in the comments.

My podcast last Friday with ?? Gillian Muessig and Anne F. Kennedy from Mastersfund was absolute fire. We discussed:

• If you take conventional venture capital, you are committing to selling/IPOing as quickly, expeditiously, and at as high of a valuation, as possible, and giving up a board seat, which means you can be removed as CEO (according to our guest, more than 80% of all exited company CEOs have been replaced.)
• For GPs, this means that 1 out of 10 or 20 investments will succeed, and the rest will fail. This doesn't work for many LPs either, who seek a lower risk profile - which means there's a lot of capital sitting on the sidelines that could, structured differently, be deployed into startups creating value for the world.
• Instead of that, Mastersfund invests with a redeemable convertible note which is redeemed (shares are bought back) in 3-5 years at 3x returns. The fund retains the option to convert it to equity.
• This means that they focus on increasing profitability instead of valuations, and ventures have the option not to exit - which means not getting gobbled up by big corporations and adding to the centralization of power and capital

You can access the full podcast episode here.

This Friday, July 12th at 2pm CST, I'm interviewing Sean Everett , the CEO of Evergence , which provides high-impact services for conscious brands ready to raise and scale for the greater good.?Register here.

He's a tech visionary; he's been a founder, done diligence on private equity funds, been a board advisor for Fortune 500 publicly traded companies, innovated in AR/AI, and been an early investor in Bitcoin and decentralized tech.?

He also helped invented social media "stories" (e.g. IG stories), which is now used by billions of consumers globally.?

We're looking at tech from a new paradigm perspective:

• What are the trends that will re-shape how we live, work and play??
• Will we become an inter-planetary civilization in our lifetimes?
• What role does Bitcoin play?
• What do founders and investors need to capitalize on?

Register here to catch this podcast live, or simply hit "attending" so you can watch it later!

Did you enjoy this? Let me know in the comments below if there are any topics you want me to address in future newsletters.

New Paradigm Venture Capital is my weekly newsletter - and live podcast - for investors, founders, and thought leaders creating a new paradigm for your industry and humanity. Subscribe now to join the community.

(It's a love letter because I believe in founders, and I think venture capital is the most powerful tool on the planet to create a new paradigm in all of our critical industries - e.g. healthcare, education, and more - in order to impact humanity and transform industries at scale.

My content is based on my lived experience of 15+ years in the impact venture space across the world. These are purposely opinion pieces, not rigorous academic pieces (though I have plenty of those, published at places like Harvard, UMich, and Kellogg.) Take what resonates. Leave the rest. And never, ever be a troll.)