Arcbound Update #18

A LETTER FROM THE FOUNDERS

To know the way, we go the way.

At some point in most films or television shows, the main character has to make a choice—or three. Do they stay in their job or find another? Do they let themselves fall in love or walk away? Do they stay in New York or move to LA?

After agonizing over the decision for weeks, they finally decide and change the trajectory of their life. Find a new job. Walk away. Stay in New York.

As people, we are often presented with the opportunity to make a choice that will shift the world as we know it, and we, like our favorite film and tv characters, must decide.

How? Often, we trust our gut.

Arcbound’s CEO, Bryan Wish, recently relocated to the San Francisco area.

At its core, Arcbound is a media company, so at first, it seemed counterintuitive. He was living near New York, where it would have been easier to make certain media-related connections that might have grown the company more quickly. Even so, he couldn’t get San Francisco out of his heart.

Trusting your gut can be scary. Not being able to know for sure if your decision is right or wrong before you make it means taking a huge leap of faith. It means betting on yourself.

But it also takes you down your most authentic path.

We trust our gut at Arcbound. We do it because we know that we’re on the right path—our ‘arc’—and that following it won’t steer us wrong, even when we can’t quite see where we’re headed, or how we’ll get there.

San Francisco has undoubtedly influenced Bryan in ways different than New York would’ve. Now we’re layering technology into our work in ways we might have never imagined if Bryan were still on the East Coast. We’ve added incredible advisors like Dhriva Rajendra and Nir Eyal to our board to help us evaluate how technology plays a role in our future. We’re finding ourselves at the intersection of creativity and technology, and while we’re still figuring out exactly what that means, we know we can trust it.

You might not be thinking about moving or finding a new job or making any kind of change just yet, but one day soon, you may find yourself in the same spot your favorite television character once stood—an office lobby, an apartment door, an airport gate—trying to decide which way to go.

Listen to your instincts. They’ll tell you which direction to choose. We can help you with the rest.

Mobilizing people around a shared vision is something Arcbound prides itself on, and so far we've had incredible dinners in Los Angeles and New York. We're bringing dynamic thinkers together to make big changes, and we can't wait to see what they do.

THE ONE AWAY SHOW

Gorick Ng and Shuo Chen: One Email Away From an Epic Love Story

Gorick is the Wall Street Journal best-selling Author of “The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right “, and Shuo is a General Partner at IOVC, a business-to-business investment fund focusing on startup. Both Shuo and Gorick are Lecturers at the University of California, Berkeley, where they both teach courses on Entrepreneurship.

Gorick and Shuo have an epic love story that began with them being introduced in college and waiting 10 years to date due to unforeseen circumstances and distance. Recently, Gorick and Shuo were engaged on a business trip to Brazil, and then married each other in December 2022 in Shuo’s grandfather’s living room. How did their story unfold? Find out in this special episode on the One Away Show.

ON THE BLOG

5 Reasons Why You Need a Newsletter

Have you ever looked at your inbox and thought, Jeez, everyone has a newsletter now?

That might be true, but we love an inbox full of newsletters. From inspirational anecdotes and funny childhood stories to the advice we needed to hear and the new practice we’re going to try, newsletters are filled with vital content. We love curling up with a coffee cup in a big chair and scrolling through our list of newsletters, and we want yours to be in there.

ARCBOUND RECOMMENDS

PITCH PERFECT BY HAJE JAN KAMPS

Pitch Perfect by Haje Jan Kamps expertly teaches you how to tell your startup’s story. To raise venture capital, it is absolutely crucial that your foundation is a story that is accessible, compelling, and succinct. In the process of creating and formulating a pitch deck and the story to go with it, founders often discover deep flaws in their business idea. Perhaps the market is nonexistent. It could be that the “problem” isn’t worth solving. Maybe the idea is so simple that it would be too easy to copy. Maybe it’s already been done, or the team simply is not up to the job. Pitch Perfect has all of those bases covered so that you can excel.

At TechCrunch, Haje (He/Him) covers general tech news and focuses mostly on hardware. He has founded several companies to varying degrees of success, spent a while in the VC world, and has been a journalist and TV producer since the dawn of his career. He is more-than-averagely interested in photography (and wrote a stack of books about it) and can often be found with a camera slung over his shoulder. You can find him on @Haje on Twitter (yes, really), or at Haje.me for everything else.

INVEST WITH LINQTO

Linqto is a technology-enabled investment platform allowing accredited investors to identify, evaluate, invest in, and make liquid investments in the world’s leading unicorns and private companies. Linqto buys equity stakes from private company shareholders. VCs, founders, and employees can realize early returns and liquidity without waiting for an IPO or trade sale.

We can provide:

• Services as a no-fee liquidy providers

• Average check sizes of $500,000 to $1M per company

• Facilitation of all transaction documentation

• Experience coordinating management teams and supporting them through transactions

DECODING THE WHY BY NATE ANDORSKY

GET YOUR FREE COPY!

According to numerous neuroscience studies, 95% of our thoughts, emotions, and learnings occur before we are consciously aware of them. However, much of today’s technology is built based on the other 5%; the part users are able to articulate in focus groups, interviews, and when filling out surveys.

It’s our job to decode the other 95%.

RIDE OR DIE BY JARIE BOLANDER

Modern society has a warped sense of the partner-caregiver role, especially for men. Too often, men are ill equipped to handle switching from provider to caregiver, and the “just suck it up” advice so many offer up falls as flat as the Kansas prairie in the face of the reality of life and death.

Ride or Die takes its audience through the intimate conversations and thoughts of a Gen-X latchkey-generation husband—a man who has always had to fend for himself and believed that it’s up to him to solve his own problems—as and after his wife, Jane, succumbs to a terminal disease.

Jarie Bolander wrote this raw, heartfelt tribute to Jane and her handling of her illness to help men and the people who love them through the experience of loss and grief. A frank chronicle of how an intimate relationship can change and grow—even when the people involved feel there is nothing left to give—Ride or Die offers a detailed exploration of the male experience of grief, in the hopes that others suffering through it will not feel so alone.

ONE LAST THING

Saylor Brown, an Atlanta high school student, is one of the Student Visionaries of the Year for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. We love seeing young people taking on a leadership role, and we're excited to see what Saylor does.

Thanks for letting us play a role in launching your arc.