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