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 on principles of shared benefit, trust, and collaboration. Download the podcast. 

Hey everyone,

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. To explore what it means to be an entrepreneur who operates from a place of principle rather than just chasing outcomes.

What We Cover in This Episode

There are a few big themes we dive into, and I’d love to hear if any of them resonate with you:

• Conscious Entrepreneurship – What does it mean to build something meaningful while staying true to yourself? Can we create businesses that aren’t just about maximizing shareholder value but instead about maximizing positive impact?
• 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?

And at the heart of it all is a shift. A shift in how I see business, how I see myself, and what I believe matters most in the long run.

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. And we genuinely believed we could build something good—something that empowered local coffee shop owners. But stepping into the venture capital world, I quickly realized that the system isn’t always set up to reward doing the right thing. It’s designed to optimize for short-term returns, to push for growth at all costs.

And if you’re not careful, that system can shape you more than you shape it.

I found myself caught in that current, measuring our success in terms of funding rounds and milestones, making decisions out of fear—fear of running out of money, fear of failure, fear of not making it. 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, by the weight of the business, that I didn’t even fully see him. I was physically there, but I wasn’t present.

That realization hit me hard.

It made me question everything—not just how I was building, but why.

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 doesn’t have to be about extracting as much value as possible. It can be about creating more value—for everyone.

An Open Invitation

That’s what this project is about.

I don’t know where this conversation will lead. Maybe it turns into something bigger. Maybe it’s just a one-off. But 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.

If you’re still reading (or if you made it through the episode), thank you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts—whether it’s feedback, your own experience, or just a “this resonates.” Drop a comment, send a message, or let’s find a way to connect.

Here’s to building something real.

-Nick