The Founder's Protocol

Welcome to The Founder’s Protocol

I interviewed Ryan Begelman, serial entrepreneur, investor, and executive coach with a track record of building and scaling businesses to remarkable success.

He helped grow Bisnow Media from $1M to $22M in revenue, ultimately selling it for $51M in 2016. As an early investor, his $46K investment in Bisnow generated an astounding $64M in cash distributions over 7.5 years.

Today, Bisnow is the largest publisher of commercial real estate news and events, surpassing $40M in annual revenue.

Beyond media, Ryan and his partners took on an ambitious project—buying an entire ski mountain, Powder Mountain, and transforming it into a thriving community before selling it to Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

His entrepreneurial reach extends to angel investing, where he backed unicorns like Uber, Coinbase, and Warby Parker early on.

From working at The Carlyle Group in private equity to co-leading Summit, and even exploring passions like Burning Man, cycling, and stand-up comedy, Ryan’s journey defies convention.

In this conversation, he shares his insights on scaling businesses, building communities, and achieving a well-balanced life.

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5 Cognitive Biases to be aware of:

Your brain is sabotaging your startup and you don't even know it.

I've watched dozens of founders & investors crash their companies because of these 5 cognitive traps:

• Confirmation bias - you seek info that supports what you already believe. Your product isn't failing because "users don't get it yet." They get it. They just don't want it.

• Sunk cost fallacy - you keep investing in a failing strategy because you've already put so much into it. Sometimes the best decision is to kill your darlings and pivot.

• Overconfidence effect - you think you're better at predicting outcomes than you are. This is why 90% of startups fail but 100% of founders think they'll succeed.

• Planning fallacy - you consistently underestimate how long things will take. That "2-week build" will take 2 months. Always multiply your time estimates by 3x.

• Authority bias - you give too much weight to what successful founders say. ”Sam Altmon said focus on growth not revenue.” Just because it worked for them doesn't mean it will work for you. You have completely different contexts.

The trick isn't avoiding these biases (impossible).

It's building systems to catch yourself when they happen.

Boredom is Necessary:

The average person touches their phone 2,617 times a day.

Endless scrolling. Constant notifications. Infinite content.

We never give our brains room to make the unexpected connections that lead to genuine insight.

We need the ability to think deeply while everyone else is distracted.

Having 2–3 hours of unscheduled time each day isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity.