What would you do if you sold your company for 300 million dollars? Retire? Explore the world? Do all these other things you had no time to do while building a business?
This is not what my friend Alex Macdonald did when he sold his company Velocity Black two years ago. In fact, Alex made it quite impossible for himself to have any kind of post-exit sabbatical. Why?
Well, Alex has seen enough of his post-exit founder friends getting stuck in full-blown existential crisis after they sold their company. He didn't want that to happen to him.
In this episode, we're going to explore why he made this decision, whether two years later he still feels it was the right one, and how he applies the lessons from his first full entrepreneurial cycle to building his new business, appropriately called SQL.
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:02:25 - The Story of Velocity Black
00:07:46 - Selling Velocity Black to Capital One
00:07:05 - Why Alex Started Another Business Before Selling His First One
00:10:52 - The Founder’s Existential Crisis After an Exit
00:12:45 - The Shortage of Builders, Not Investors
00:14:19 - Work-Life Balance & Health After an Exit
00:16:21 - Lessons from Running a 24/7 Business
00:19:52 - Changing Approach to Work with Sequel
00:21:19 - Different Approaches to Post-Exit Businesses
00:24:19 - Sequel: Building a Next-Gen Goldman Sachs
00:27:26 - Managing Motivation After Financial Success
00:31:03 - Fulfillment vs. Happiness: What Really Matters?
00:33:15 - The Biohacking & Longevity Obsession
00:35:51 - Community & Meaning in Life After an Exit
00:39:13 - The Idea of Creating a New Religion
00:45:46 - The Role of Structure & Responsibility in Life.
00:54:08 - The Challenge of Freedom After an Exit
00:57:46 - Angel Investing & How It Led to Sequel
01:03:42 - Helping Athletes Transition Beyond Their Careers
01:07:37 - Building a Legacy vs. Just Making Money
01:10:52 - Avoiding Mistakes in Early-Stage Investing
01:15:30 - The Power of Influence in Investing
01:20:05 - Sequel’s Future Plans & Scaling the Model
01:25:00 - What Drives Long-Term Success?
01:30:10 - Final Thoughts & Advice for Founders
