Hey, Justin here, and welcome to Just Go Grind, a newsletter sharing the lessons, tactics, and stories of world-class founders! Premium subscribers get full access to this newsletter, event discounts, and more.

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📅 Upcoming Events

I’m writing this right after hosting a coffee meetup Friday morning in SF and just wanted to say thank you to everyone who was able to attend! I had such a great time meeting new people, finally seeing online friends IRL, and catching up with people I haven’t seen in a while. Shoutout to Pilot for helping make this event possible.

Pilot is an outsourced accounting and finance firm that works with many SMBs & venture-backed companies throughout the U.S.

They partner with their clients by providing bookkeeping, tax, R&D tax credit studies and strategic / fractional CFO support. 

Get 20% off Pilot Starter or Core for six months by reaching out to Gadiel Morantes, [email protected].

Pilot, along with Cake, is also one of the sponsors for my next event, a December Holiday Mixer in LA happening next week at a beautiful rooftop in Culver City with room for up to 200 attendees.

It’s going to be a lot of fun and we already have dozens of people signed up!

You can sign up for the December Mixer below:

• December 11th: Just Go Grind: LA Startup Community December Mixer

Premium Subscribers will always get priority access and event discounts.

2 Years & Many More to Come

Nearly two years ago, while still working at VITALIZE Venture Capital, I decided to start this newsletter.

While it eventually morphed into an outlet for sharing stories and lessons of extraordinary founders, the beginning was much different—I just wanted to get back into writing. There was no grand plan, no structure, just me writing about whatever I was interested in at the time.

I published the first newsletter about planning for your best year on December 11th, sending it to a few hundred subscribers. From there, I published a piece on building a world-class network, reflected on 2 years in VC, and even shared 235 resources for founders and investors.

The main goal?

Get back to publishing something every week.

Then, in February 2023, after hearing about Sam Altman as the “Billy of the week” on the My First Million podcast where Shaan Puri said Sam wrote a $375 million check into one company, I decided to research the hell out of his story and write a newsletter about it.

I loved the process, being able to go deep down the rabbit hole on one founder, aggregate the best resources about them, and share their story and lessons.

That started me down the path of writing about more world-class founders, from Melanie Perkins and Tope Awotona to Estée Lauder and Jeff Bezos.

And guess what?

Their stories and insights resonated with tens of thousands of other people, with this newsletter growing to more than 22,000 subscribers.

For this, I’m incredibly grateful.

Of course, we’re just getting started.

So… what’s next?

Let’s get to it.

What’s Next?

I didn’t have a clear direction when I started this newsletter, but that’s changed drastically since.

Publishing deep dives on world-class founders is something that will continue as these both resonate with readers and are what I enjoy producing.

But it’s time to test new series and get other contributors involved.

I’ve published a few guest posts these last couple of years, but it hasn’t been a huge focus of mine. With the shift to a paid newsletter, supported by you, my reader, this is going to change.

This endeavor, largely a one-man show the last two years, is going to expand. If you’re interested in contributing, fill out this form. I’m looking for contributors who can share their unique expertise and experiences with other founders, operators, and investors.

As far as additional series for this newsletter, I’d love your input:

Also, I’m curious about which type of founders you’d like me to cover next.

I’m also bringing back the Just Go Grind podcast!

I don’t have the timeline just yet, but expect new episodes in 2025.

Candidly, I miss podcasting. It’s also something that makes more sense now than ever in my business given how much the newsletter and my social media following has grown in the past 2 years.

One more thing that’ll continue in 2025?

Events.

I’ve hosted dozens of events this year - coffee meetups, hikes, basketball games, comedy shows, mixers, and even a founder retreat.

More to come.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll be re-evaluating my strategy here and plan more impactful events for the new year to bring together founders, operators, and investors.

Finally, to take Just Go Grind to the next level, I’m going to raise some capital!

This will be used to produce more impactful content and events for our audience.

Just Go Grind can be 10x more impactful with some funding and it’s time to go way bigger with this thing.

If you’re at all interested in hearing more, reply to this email.

Much more to come soon!

Thank you

Just Go Grind feels like it’s close to hitting an inflection point and that’s thanks to supporters like you.

Thank you for being on this journey with me.

I’m so damn excited about what the future holds.

Onward!

📚 Recent Founder Deep Dives

In the past nearly two years, I’ve written dozens of deep dives on world-class founders, sharing how they built their companies. These typically take 20-30 hours to research and write. The most recent ones are below:

📈 Shayne Coplan, the 26-Year-Old Polymarket Founder

📚 Jeff Bezos: The Relentless Visionary Who Redefined Commerce

🍌 The Banana King, Sam Zemurray

🌲 Issy Sharp of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

🚗 Chung Ju-yung: Founder of Hyundai

Best,

Justin

Founder of Just Go Grind and Village Lane

P.S. Hiring? Check out the team at Athyna