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The Conversations That Tend to Only Happen In Person
A few months ago I wrote about a dinner I hosted in Boulder for ten post-exit founders. This is something I do as the Colorado Co-Lead for PEF, Post Exit Founders. Chef Lance's food. The wine was good. The conversation started polite and ended somewhere most networking nights never get to.
In the months since, two things have happened that feel like the natural next chapter of that night.
The first: I'm leading the PEF Colorado Expedition Weekend at Tumbling River Ranch — October 9-11, 2026. Three days, twenty post-exit founders, in the mountains near Breckenridge, Colorado. A guided ranch experience, facilitated conversations on what comes after, and firesides under the stars at one of Colorado's most loved mountain properties.
The second: I'm forming and facilitating the first Colorado In-Person PEF Forum — an ongoing peer group that meets monthly, with the retreat sitting at the center of the year.
I want to explain why I'm doing both, and why I think they matter.
What I Keep Noticing in These Rooms
The dinner taught me something I should have known but didn't: post-exit founders are carrying a particular kind of weight, and they rarely have a great place to put it down.
Here is what I mean. Across the dinners I've hosted, the founder applications I've read for this forum, the calls I've taken with people wondering whether this is for them — the same themes keep surfacing.
Someone who sold their company to the wrong buyer, for the wrong currency, and is still doing the math on what that cost them — not just financially, but in how they think about what they want to build next.
Someone who hit the number they spent a decade chasing and woke up the next morning feeling emptier than they had in years.
Someone who lost their parents while they were still building, and now finds themselves post-capitalist — not chasing the next acquisition, but trying to figure out what it would mean to be impactful in a way that actually mattered.
Someone who's a new father at 39, holding a thirteen-week-old, trying to be the kind of dad they didn't have, and giving themselves grace to not figure out the second half of their life all at once.
Someone who's back in the saddle building again — but realizing the peer group that worked when they were building their first company can't go where they need to go now. The people in the room are first-time founders. They want someone to look up to. He doesn't want to be looked up to. He wants peers.
These are not edge cases. These are the people I'm seeing show up. They've built and sold meaningful businesses. They've spent ten years in YPO, EO, Tiger 21, Hampton. They've done the work. And they're looking for a different kind of conversation — one that's harder to find than people realize, because it requires a very specific room.
What the Right Room Looks Like
The right room has a few non-negotiables. It needs people who've been through the same particular thing. It needs trust thick enough that nobody is performing. It needs a structure that protects honesty without engineering it. And it needs to happen consistently — because depth doesn't compound at networking-event cadence.
That's what both the retreat and the forum are designed to be.
The retreat is the in-person anchor. Three days at Tumbling River Ranch — high country, generous accommodations, real food. Guided experiences during the day. Facilitated sessions on identity, purpose, and what comes next. Firesides at night. The kind of time-away that lets you actually hear yourself think.
The forum is the structure that keeps it alive. Ten post-exit founders, meeting monthly for two hours, with the kind of weekly between-session connection that real peer groups depend on. The retreat is the spark. The forum is what makes it last.
Both are facilitated. Neither is a course. There are no slides, no homework, no agenda you didn't sign up for. The group is the curriculum.
Why Peak Adventures and PEF, Together
I started Peak Adventures because I believe the best version of leadership doesn't happen by accident. It happens when you're intentional about who you're in conversation with, where you do the thinking, and what experiences you use to figure out what you actually want.
PEF — Post-Exit Founders — is the community I've been waiting for. A serious, curated network of founders who have built and sold companies, navigating the chapter that comes next. Stepping into the role of Colorado Co-Lead and PEF Forum facilitator is the most aligned work I've found since my own exit.
The retreat and the forum are how I bring that work into the world.
The Details
The PEF Colorado Expedition Weekend
October 9-11, 2026 · Tumbling River Ranch, Grant, Colorado
For PEF members who've built and exited, now focused on what's next — deal flow, health, family, building, passion projects, purpose. Open to PEF members in good standing.
The Colorado In-Person Forum
Forming now. Monthly two-hour sessions, in-person, in Denver. With the October retreat as our inaugural in-person experience together.
Forum membership requires PEF+ membership. If the forum is the kind of room you've been looking for, the path is a 30-minute fit call with me to talk through whether this is the right room for this season. If you're a PEF member and want to explore, reply to this post or reach out directly.
A Last Thing
If you're somewhere in the post-exit liminal space yourself — if any of this is landing — I'd genuinely like to hear from you. These are the conversations I'm most interested in having, and the rooms I'm most interested in helping build.
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