#297 Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show, so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. It's amazing how many times that the same themes reappear over and over again in these books. You and I have talked about this idea over and over again, the fact that as a founder, what a large part of your life is trying to search for your life's work, the thing that you are uniquely meant to do, what you feel you're put on this earth to do, and in almost every case, that means starting more than one company. In the podcast you're about to hear, Yvon Chouinard goes to that exact same thing. He founds his first company reluctantly when he's 19 It takes him another 15 years till he finds Patagonia, which is his life's work. This is so common that the sponsor of today's episode, Tiny, has built an entire business around buying other businesses. The difference between Tiny and other companies that buy businesses is that they make it hassle-free. They get rid of the headache. If you have a business that you want to sell now or in the future, make sure you go to Tiny first. You can get in touch with them by emailing them, hi, at tiny.com, or you can go to tiny.com. You'll get a response within 48 hours. You'll get an offer within 7 days, and then they close within a month, and you get a bag full of cash. They can do deals of all sizes. They bought businesses in the past for as little as a million dollars to deals well over $100 million. If you want a no hassle, straightforward cash exit now or in the future, make sure you go to tiny.com.
This episode is also brought to you by Hampton. Hampton is a private network for high-growth founders. It is a highly-vetted membership community for entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs. A few months ago, I spent three weeks reading and rereading Paul Graham's excellent essays. And I came across a paragraph on why ambitious founders need. It is mandatory. They need to be around other ambitious people. And I'm going to read this quote from Paul Graham's essays. And I really feel it describes the value proposition of Hampton. Ambitious people are rare. So if everyone is mixed together randomly as they tend to be early in people's lives, then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers. When you take people like this, ambitious founders, right, and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. If you're an ambitious founder looking for a peer group of other ambitious founders, go to joinhampton.com. I'll also leave the link down in the show notes and it's available at founderspodcast.com and apply today. And one more thing before we jump into the episode, make sure you're following whatever podcast player you're listening to this in. Invest Like the Best, it's one of my favorite podcasts. The host Patrick just did me a very big favor. He just replayed our episode together. If you search, if you haven't listened to it yet, please listen to it. It's on the Invest Like the Best podcast feed. It is David Senra, Passion and Pain. He just replayed that episode. I don't think he's ever done that for any other episode in the past. We recorded it six months ago. We put it back out and a ton of people missed it the first time. I think it's the best interview I've done describing why founders are so important to me and what are the main lessons I've learned from this bizarre seven-year experiment. And you can find it easily by searching Invest Like the Best in your podcast player.