What we got done in 2023:
$1.1M in investment raised for EXIT projects.
Anyone who has tried to get anything funded this year can tell you it’s a challenging environment — but our guys found a way. Of the funds raised, about half came from group members and the rest were sourced outside.
22 meetups in 13 cities across the US.
Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Orlando, Washington DC, New York, and Boston. Each meetup started with an “unconference” where the guys presented on topics of general interest, then we did something outdoors (hiking, rafting, shooting, etc.), then dinner.
Side Hustle Summer: This summer, we challenged the guys to go out and make a dollar on the side between June and September, and our 17 competitors brought in $27K. Not bad for a first round, but we think we can make it a lot bigger next year.
Natal Conference emerged at an EXIT meetup early this year, and brought over 100 people together to address the issue of demographic collapse.
Shaolin.ai took their first class of ten students through a six-month boot camp, going from zero code experience to building marketable AI and machine learning tools.
EXITbot is an AI networking tool (built by a Shaolin graduate) that takes natural language inputs and identifies expertise within the group. Our biggest networking challenge is that you can only really see the guys you spontaneously bump into on a call or at a meetup — a tiny sliver of the brain trust. When complete, EXITbot will allow each individual to securely access the full power of the group on demand.
Film Project: One of our guys got a film project fully funded this year with a $500K budget. They start casting next month, and shooting in March.
SaaS Startup: Another EXIT guy came to the group with a healthcare startup wireframe — he found his CTO, got his website built, found investors, and made hires. They’re now serving clients, displacing regional competitors, and are on track to dominate a multi-billion-dollar national market.
Our guys have also started a cancellation insurance platform, an apparel company, a firearms training business, a medical testing business, an algorithmic trading platform — others have started individual consultancies in law, accounting, web design, machine learning, analytics, etc.
The success stories we’ve seen have three things in common:
They find partners within the group to keep them asking the right questions
They work the network aggressively, talking to every expert they can find.
They keep iterating, experimenting, and failing, without losing their enthusiasm.
So this year, we want to make it easier to build high-trust partnerships; easier to access high-quality, relevant expertise; and easier for our guys to iterate on their ideas, clock wins, and stay passionate. With that in mind:
Here’s what’s coming in 2024.
Co-working groups.
In addition to our weekly accountability calls, we are now holding daily remote co-working sessions, where we set goals that will drive our projects forward, and knock them out in a two-hour period. We check in at the hour mark to make sure we’re on the right course, and then take five minutes at the end of the session to tally our wins.
Most of our guys are trying to build financial sovereignty in their off hours, on top of their work and family commitments — the dream can always wait, and it easily gets displaced. Attending a few working groups a week is a great way to dedicate the time and make it happen.
Subscriber Meetups.
In addition to our members-only meetups, we will host happy-hour style meetups all over the country for supporting EXIT newsletter subscribers. If you’re on the fence about joining up, it’s an easy way to get to know the EXIT crew in your town, along with special guests presenting on topics of interest to our guys.
Below is our tentative meetup schedule:
February 2: Washington, DC
March 1: Salt Lake City, UT
March 29: Seattle, WA
April 26: Austin, TX
May 24: Boston, MA
June 21: New York, NY
July 19: Columbus, OH
August 16: Salt Lake City, UT
September 13: Houston, TX
October 11: Washington, DC
November 8: San Francisco, CA
December 6: Austin, TX
Dates and locations are subject to change — but if you sign up now, you’ll be the first to get updates.
Full-feature EXITbot.
Our members’ biggest concern about networking is security, so the EXITbot prototype is (for now) locally hosted, and only accessible by individual request.
Once we have a secure solution that lets members control how they share data, they will be able to access the bot on demand, and ask for whatever they need:
“Who can help me with my tax planning?”
“Is anyone else in the group interested in commercial agriculture?”
“How many group members live within 30 miles of my city?”
The bot will also match-make spontaneously based on affinities detected from ordinary interactions. Eventually, we think this product could transform networking at trade shows, conferences, political rallies — any event where you’re in a huge crowd of people with a tight schedule, and there’s no obvious way to know who you should be talking to.
None of us knew what this was going to be when we started two years ago, but just by being in the lab with this many smart, energetic people, we’ve learned an awful lot. 2024 is going to be an exciting year. If you want to make sure it’s the good kind of exciting, check us out at exitgroup.us.