9/4/2026
Sanguine Reality (the entirety of this blog post was written with this playing on loop)
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I’m actually a bit bummed to be leaving at this second. I feel like I’ve been building up my pipeline and working a steady rotation of ~60 deals in a consistent and rhythmic way since I got back from paternity leave in April. It’s been a steady build over the past 5 months, and I’m seeing some companies I’m really excited about take flight. I expect that the results will look good over the coming months, and I feel optimistic about my positioning within Wefunder.
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The core business has historically not been the big bet, largely perceived as having a “non sexy” growth ceiling. Over the past 3-4 years, 10-30% growth has been the goal. Resources have always felt thin. I haven’t felt the excitement of the “growth seasons” in a while, but that’s never really been the goal for me.
These seasons are actually marked by people. Kati Conley and Suz and Mattia and Mark Rodli and Haley and Ben Garcia and Chris Brown and Jasmine represent these seasons and periods at Wefunder. Jonny and Jake as my main squeezies.
At the end of the day, I’m spending ~40-50 hours every week trying to help out entrepreneurs with colleagues that I genuinely see as friends. It’s a good use of that time in my life. I don’t tie my happiness here to growth. I am lucky and blessed to have a cool job. I enjoy helping entrepreneurs. Wefunder is flexible and values individualism, which is huge for me. I love the people I'm surrounded by at Wefunder.
At Jakes wedding, during my first sabbatical, I wrote this Settlers of Catan analogy that I frequent to this day. My favorite piece of writing that very much speaks truth into my experience at Wefunder. Sanguine reality.
This is a marathon. I head out for a month starting today. For the deals I have now — a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things. For my deals, the average raise is probably close to 7-8 months. But the relationship between pre-launch and post-launch is years. Probably the coolest part of my job is how relationships evolve and mature and compound over the years. I have made so many good friends from the job.
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In 2026 those friendships have been intentionally and organically developed in the sciences. Josh at Sunstone Health was my favorite founder friend pickup in 2025. This year it’s Dan at Rejuvenate and Nina at Epibone and Nicole at Siren and Sharon at HCO and Del at Harmony Baby and Yael at Mahzi and Remo at Axiom.
I never saw myself as a “sciences guy”. I am actually too stupid to understand what they’re doing. But that actually doesn’t really matter. My expertise is in fundraising. And “what they do” is actually not super relevant. Them accessing capital that they see as high quality is relevant. And they love Wefunder and they love me and I love them.
I plan to continue riding that wave when I get back. Doubling down.
Back in 2023, after coming back from my first sabbatical, I tested the waters with VC partnerships. In Q1 / Q2 2023 I had meetings with 76 VCs. My goal was to get them to refer us deals. Largely they told me to go fuck myself and I got very jaded with that group of humans. The type of person attracted to the VC stuff was not my cut. I hold that opinion today as well.
Then I transitioned to Revenue Share (and wrote this). I became obsessed with the idea that companies should not be raising equity. I pretty much believe everything I wrote in that manifesto today as well, but it doesn’t bother me like it used to.
Both of these were calculated experiments, and neither of them stood the test of time. VC partnerships flamed out after ~4 months and Revenue Share after ~9 months.
This one is different.
Why do I care so much about the sciences? The founders love us. To them, this is a highly desirable option that they would prefer. They talk loudly about their experiences on the platform, and they’ve driven lots of strong connections (Pirouette, Safar, Siren, Rejuvenate, Epibone). The organic growth of this high quality core is very cool to me, and something I’ve never really seen before. And the most important thing — it’s quality. Quality founders. Quality deals.
The biggest question that we get on the BD team is “what % of my raise will come from the Wefunder investor base”. That’s the primary reason they’re coming to Wefunder. For a Main Street small business, or a CPG startup that number might be 10-20%. Not a super compelling value proposition, because they really just want access and connections to new people they don’t already know. Which is a bummer because I love helping Main Street small businesses (like Harlan Brewing) and CPG companies (like Yaupon Brothers), but the Wefunder value proposition is frequently missing the sweet spot.
On the contrary, investors seemingly love these sciences deals. Many of these companies are seeing 60 / 70 / 80% of their total raise coming from existing Wefunder investors. If you raise $3M and $2M comes from people you don’t know, our value proposition goes up in a major way.
And there’s also an ethos around the investors that I really like. If the company succeeds, the impact on society is tangible and positive. If Mahzi wins, the world wins. There’s incredibly good energy in the comments that investors share. The founders feel the love.
It’s a snowball.
To me, this is where our product market fit is right now. I see the sciences vertical as the single best bet to 2x the core business in the next 12 months.
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I’d like to give a special shout out here to Jonny. Jonny and I started more intentionally tag teaming high quality deals in August. I pulled him in to help drive the 11 star experience goals.
Jonny finds them and gets them to sold. I run the deal. And we layer in Frances, Anson, or Matt to support the legal / admin (all of whom are crushing right now). I think that is working really well. You can feel momentum.
I also see that organically developing outside of my little buttbuddy fest with Jonny. Sam and Peter finding high quality deals and cycling to Haley / Anson as a team. And the inbound team funneling deals to Jasmine and Matt on the volume side. We have teams of people linked with the right founders.
We’ve been slowly building this strategy and structure. We laid it out in April and we’ve been consistently driving in that direction. It’s been slow and organic in its construction, and I feel we are very much on the right path. A few months of focused execution should be a huge unlock to growth. Again — I’m super optimistic. And again – this is a marathon.
I don’t believe that without any major regulatory changes the core business has the potential or ability to 10x. We’re patient on the regulatory stuff and largely it’s out of our control. I believe that the syndicates / funds stuff is the right calculated bet for 10xing Wefunder in the next 2-3 years. “Founders wanting access to money” is easily the value proposition that founders are telling us. Nick is trying to figure that out, and I think it’s the right bet. And I’m happy to try and 2x the core business in parallel. And hopefully we’ll find overlap and compounding wins, whether that be with vault, or with (the) product (actually working), or with Reg D. In theory this stuff should come together in harmony.
If you polled me every day at Wefunder, I think my pulse would largely be “happy”. There’s only one thing that would make me more happy. And that’s having Jake back into the day to day of my professional life. My hope is that Jake and I will reunite as the Shake and Bake legends and continue to crush sick deals together upon my return. Frances has been incredible to work with. Matt and Anson are amazing. But no one will ever replace Jake. Jake is my bestie. So that’s going to be the only thing on my agenda upon my return. Continuing to tag team with Jonny, and pull Jake into our little buttbuddy fest. And also trust the process that these organic pairings of Sam / Haley and Haley / Anson and Jasmine / Matt will flourish with consistency and intention.
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Over my sabbatical, my primary goal is to try and be on airplane mode for 30 consecutive days. The tentative plan is to use my satellite-nature-safety device to communicate with my wife, but no one else. It’s going to be a fun challenge. If you need to get a hold of me, you're going to have to convince Jonny to call Julia, which is a high bar (Joni is actually the only one given explicit persmission to request).
As opposed to taking three consecutive months, I wanted to space it out, as to spend time with Jack at different phases. I currently have it mapped out as:
1 month old - March
6 months old - September
12 months old - January
18 months old - August
Being a dad is truly the best. It lives up to the hype, and Jake said it way better than I could have, so re-read his sabbatical blog.
I think it’ll be fun to spend focused and fully present time with him in month long windows. I’ll be in Mammoth, Yosemite, and Seqouia (with extensions to Shaver Lake and Kings Canyon). Most days will be small hikes, alpine lake beaches, hot and cold springs, trees. Blu (my dog) just turned 17 and she is just as much in the equation as Jack. It’s got to be chill for her too. Hopefully some good disc golf in the Sierras, I have not yet checked. It would also be dope to figure out the “baby + bike” combo, and that’s a stretch goal for the month. Lots of time outside. Lots of writing. It should be fun.
And I’ll be excited to come back and keep kicking ass in October.
Thanks to Nick and Greg for starting the company and agreeing to this sabbatical thing.
Thanks to my squad for being my homies.
See you soon.