A friend asked me at dinner the other night when I'm raising for the new business. I told him I'm not.
It's not just funding. I don't have a team either. And I don't sell courses. Three things every founder is told they need. I closed all three doors on purpose.
When I closed my venture-backed business last year, I walked away from a team I loved and a Delaware cap table that took years to assemble. I had every reason to do the next thing the same way. I didn't. Not because the old way was wrong, but because I wanted to know how far I can take it alone. What is your business when you can't hand it off to anyone else? You're in the driver's seat and the co-pilot at the same time.
For 15 years I had a team, investors, and clients, all with their opinions on what things should be. Now there's no one but my own gut to trust. No one to blame either. Every call sits on my desk. I like that kind of risk and responsibility. It forces a clarity you can't fake.
Same as the DJ booth. You spend years learning what to play, and just as much what not to. The nights I remember most from Pacha weren't the ones where I dropped every record I knew. They were the ones where I left the obvious choice in the bag, took the risk, and turned a set into something the room and I would both remember. It comes back to trusting your gut.
No team forces my taste to be the product. No investors dictate my timeline or metrics. No courses means I get paid for outcomes, never information. The business left after that subtraction is the only one worth running. It also happens to be the smallest, sharpest, and most defensible version of what I do.
Dave Chappelle put it better than I can. "I have the most joy thinking. If you ever see me staring off into space, don't bother me. I'm working."
The work that matters is the thinking. I'm building niccjohnson.com, and the tools that come with it, around that ethos. I like finding patterns where others see noise. I've shipped the wins and worn the losses, and I want to spend the next stretch helping other operators get to their best outcomes.
🎵 Anderson.Paak — The Season / Carry Me Two songs in one. Anderson.Paak switches halfway through. Traditional songwriting says it shouldn't work. It does.
— Nicc