The Circle
There is a conversation founders don’t have.
Not with the board. Not with investors. Usually not at home. Never more than twelve. Three days, somewhere quiet. No recording, no press, no pitching.
Why it exists
Every room a founder is offered is full of people they might do business with. So nobody says the true thing.
The private clubs and founder networks all sell the same thing: access. The right people, one room, a better set of introductions. That is a crowded market and it is well served.
This is not that. The Circle exists for the conversation those rooms cannot host — what the climb actually costs while it is happening, and what is left when it stops. Reinvention. Succession. Isolation. What follows an exit. What it does to a marriage. Some of this gets discussed publicly. None of it gets discussed like this.
Everyone in that position knows the conversation exists. Almost nobody has a room in which to have it.
What gets talked about
- What happens after the thing you built is finished
- Succession, and handing over something you made
- Reinvention, and what survives it
- The isolation of the top, and why it is not discussed
- What ambition costs the people around you
- Money, once there is enough of it
Who it is for
It is for
Founders, chief executives and owners who have built something real — and have something they haven’t said.
It is not for
It is not for people looking to raise, sell, pitch or recruit. Anyone who arrives with an agenda will find the three days frustrating, and everyone else will notice.
The room
Three days. Twelve people. Nothing leaves the room.
Residential
Everyone stays. The conversations that matter happen at the edges of the day, not in the sessions.
Peer-led, not taught
There is no expert at the front. The host has been through it and goes first, which is what makes it possible for anyone else to.
Published in advance
The subjects are set out beforehand, so nobody arrives unprepared for what will be discussed.
Small by design
Twelve is the limit because thirteen changes how people speak.
What is agreed
- No recording. No photography. No press
- No pitching, no raising, no selling — to anyone in the room, during or after
- Nothing said is repeated outside it, including who was there
- No partners, no plus-ones, no observers
The host
I run these three days because nobody offered them to me when I needed them.
I built and sold businesses across Central and Eastern Europe over thirty-five years, sold in full ahead of the 2008 crash, and lost a good deal of what came afterwards. I have written about it publicly, at length, with my own name on it.
More about PaulThe gatherings
Further dates and locations are published as they are confirmed.
Apply
Every application is read personally.
- You apply. Every application is read personally.
- If it looks like a fit, we speak — fifteen minutes, on a call. This is where the decision is made, on both sides.
- If we both think it is right, you are invited and the table is confirmed.
Your application has been received.
Paul reads every application himself. A response follows within a week.