Conscious Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, and Building a Business with Purpose

This is part of our "Building In Public" series. No flashy editing, no perfect sound bites—just raw, honest conversations about what it really takes to scale a purpose-driven business.

First off, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to check this out. Whether you stumbled across this by chance or were intentionally looking for conversations like this, I'm grateful you're here.

This podcast episode is an experiment—maybe the first of many, maybe the only one—but at its core, it's an open invitation to connect. To build something deeper than just another business conversation.

What We Cover in This Episode

• Conscious Entrepreneurship – What does it mean to build something meaningful while staying true to yourself?
• The Reality of Raising Venture Capital – I share my own journey in raising $7.5M for Joe, what I thought venture capital was before I stepped into it, and how my perception has changed since.
• Balancing Success with Authenticity – How do we navigate the tension between achieving material success and staying rooted in who we are?

Why I'm Doing This

Over the past few years, I've gone through a pretty profound personal evolution. I lost my father unexpectedly, and that loss forced me to take a step back and really look at my life. At my work. At the way I was spending my time. And I had to ask myself: Is this worth it?

At Joe, we started with the simple idea that small businesses should have the same convenience and tech advantages as corporate giants. But stepping into the venture capital world, I quickly realized that the system isn't always set up to reward doing the right thing.

I found myself caught in that current, measuring our success in terms of funding rounds and milestones, making decisions out of fear. And that fear started to own me.

Then my dad passed.

And in one of the last moments I had with him, I was so consumed by stress that I didn't even fully see him. That realization hit me hard.

Choosing a Different Path

From that moment on, my brother and I made a commitment: if we're going to keep building this company, we're going to do it on our terms.

• We stopped trying to shape our business into what we thought investors wanted to see.
• We stopped making decisions from a place of scarcity and started focusing on what should exist in the world.
• We started thinking about business not as a game of domination, but as a system of collaboration, harmony, and equilibrium.

Business doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. It can be about creating more value—for everyone.

An Open Invitation

If any of this resonates with you—if you're an entrepreneur, a creator, an investor, or just someone searching for a different way to do things—I'd love to connect.

Let's have more of these conversations. Let's challenge the idea that business is just about making money and start asking how it can be about making meaning.

Here's to building something real.

-Nick