Call Summary: Prenda vs Alpha Strategy & Christian Freemason Society Vision

Overview

Strategic catch-up call where Gary shared insights from Kelly Smith/Prenda call, contrasting with Alpha's struggles. Discussed Christian "Freemason society" vision being funded by wealthy mentor, with Ron sharing "New Bible Belt" parallel project. Both reflected on year-end positioning and validated Gary's forecasting abilities regarding Alpha's challenges. Ron suggested strategic partnership model for Alpha to pass price-objection clients to Prenda.

Key Topics Discussed

Prenda vs Alpha Analysis

• Price Comparison: Prenda sells similar product at quarter of Alpha's price
• Team Efficiency: "They have three salespeople. That's exactly how you would build it out... You just need killers"
• Alpha's Problem: "Joe delusionally thinks that he has a good product and that he's ready to scale"
• Legislative Advantage: "This guy Kelly Smith helped write the freaking TEFA legislation... to get his platform approved for the funds"
• Competitor Blocked: "A competitor of his is not listed as approved. It's called Kaipods or something. That's hilarious"
• Gary's Advice to Ron: "Keep milking your salary... just stay alive, keep getting the check"

Joe Liemandt's Struggles

• Private School Rejection: "He was like, I'm already talking to the top private schools and they don't want it... It's too risky"
• Risk Aversion: "You already have happy parents that are paying $40,000 and you're introducing a new product that's very invasive"
• Summer School Pivot: Joe considering "just do summer schools" - Gary: "That's a terrible gut"
• Replication Problem: "They threw so many tutors and stuff to get like El Lamont and stuff like that to have high test scores. So it's not replicable"
• Gary's Frustration: "Why doesn't he just fucking acquire it. Buy the whole thing and keep it fucking at cost"

Ron's Strategic Suggestion

• Partnership Model: "If you have price objection, just funnel them down... Why isn't there a stronger strategic business development partner for his company?"
• Framing for Joe: "Are you aware of any existing companies... What do you want to do for prospective clients that have price objections?"
• Discovery Approach: "If he volunteers, 'Oh yeah, actually put a couple dollars into this company,' yeah, okay, all right"
• Request to Gary: "Obviously, whenever you organically bring that up, let me know what he says"

Christian "Freemason Society" Vision

• Funding: "This wealthy guy that I've been building a relationship with basically wants to fund me to create a Christian Freemason society"
• Concept: "Secret society for Christian hyper agents. Like Ron Roberts... Teal Fellowship, but Christian"
• Purpose: "Fund projects that are Kingdom Aligned. Most of which are businesses that are self-sustaining"
• Structure: "Trans-denominational, meta-denominational... gathering the most high agency people across denominations"
• Diagnosis: "A lot of why the demonic world has conquered is because there's so much fragmentation amongst people that should mostly be aligned"
• Men's Focus: "It would be an only men's society as well... reincarnating the best of ancient orders, but also not racist"

"New Bible Belt" Reference

• Ron's Connection: "A guy that I know has something similar. It's called New Bible Belt"
• Team: Disco and others as co-founders
• Assessment: "They're all designers, so it's very designed forward and it looks nice. But operationally, they don't have the operational skill set or power to make it"
• Funding: "They have maybe a couple checks from a couple friends" - not properly funded
• Status: Dead site now, Ron has screenshot

Cult Prevention Discussion

• Gary's Question: "How do you prevent it from becoming a cult?"
• Gary's Reframe: "That's almost in good problem territory. How do you get people to get excited about anything today? That's the bigger problem versus like they're too excited"
• Reality Check Request: "I want you to have the conversation with me in six months, twelve months, that it's too sticky"
• Current Reality: "More people are more than anything just cynical about anything being impactful"

Ron's Teaching on Discretion

• Key Principle: "At a certain level of people, it's just about like the only thing they give a fuck about is discretion"
• Trade-off: "They'll sacrifice competency for discretion"
• Room Access: "If you can shut up, you can stay in the room longer"
• Gary's Acknowledgment: "I think you taught me a lot about shutting the fuck up about things. People being on a need-to-know basis"

Year-End Reflections

• Gary's Progress: "I'm ending the year pretty strong with this Hackathon thing. And then the organizer of the hackathon interested in doing an event in January with me"
• Multiple Threads: "Prenda being interested in exploring something with me and then secret society stuff"
• Blessing Recognition: "It's such a blessing, it's crazy. Like nothing short of that for sure"
• Mentor Appreciation: "It's a great place to be when you have people in their 40s and 50s, like men, really smart men that you look up to, dedicate time with you"

Ron's Year-End Update

• Direction Clarity: "I feel like I've been ending the year strong with a lot of kind of clear direction on like where things are going"
• NYC Crib: "I think I'm getting a crib here. Not sure yet. But probably like a little studio space"
• Independence Milestone: "I've never lived by myself. Every time I live somewhere, I always have roommates"
• Family Support: "My brother and stuff like that. He's been great"

Trump & Education Freedom Perspective

• Gary's Reflection: "If education, educational freedom, and accelerating the future where people can choose their education more, if that really matters to you... Trump sucks in so many ways, but do you think Kamala would have allowed any of this?"
• Perspective Shift: "I would not be working in education and having hope about how much freedom parents and educators could have if not for this convergence of ton of school choice funding"
• Maturity Recognition: "Perspective is helpful. Perspective is mature. It's easy to villainize someone completely"

Forecasting Validation

• Gary's Validation: "One aspect of intelligence is predicting... One part of intelligence is forecasting what's about to happen"
• Self-Doubt Processing: "I felt pretty self-gaslighted this year. I was like, is my prophetic sensibilities off? Like, is it just all going to work out by just getting on podcasts?"
• Reality Check: "It actually, it's not just 'oh, I feel better.' It's... my intuition around growing microschool movement is pretty good"
• Application: "I should probably apply that sensibility to another organization that is more on the right track"

Kelly Smith Relationship Context

• Tomorrow Call: "We're chatting again tomorrow for another 30 minutes just to figure out something"
• Approval Timeline: "He's supposed to find out in the next week or so just to fully finalize that they get access to TEFA money"

Key Quotes

On Prenda vs Alpha:

• Gary: "You have basically the same product that's being sold for a quarter of the price and has way more... It's super lean, bro. They have three salespeople"
• Gary: "Alpha doesn't need fucking seven people on the team. You just need killers"

On Joe's Delusion:

• Gary: "Joe delusionally thinks that he has a good product and that he's ready to scale"
• Gary: "They threw so many tutors and stuff to get like El Lamont to have high test scores. So it's not replicable"

On Discretion:

• Ron: "At a certain level of people, it's just about like the only thing they give a fuck about is discretion. They'll sacrifice competency for discretion"
• Ron: "If you can shut up, you can stay in the room longer"

On Christian Society:

• Gary: "A lot of why the demonic world has conquered is because there's so much fragmentation amongst people that should mostly be aligned"
• Gary: "Reincarnating the best of ancient orders, but also not racist"

On Perspective:

• Gary: "Perspective is helpful. Perspective is mature. It's easy to villainize someone completely"
• Gary: "One aspect of intelligence is predicting... One part of intelligence is forecasting what's about to happen"

On Blessings:

• Gary: "It's a great place to be when you have people in their 40s and 50s, like men, really smart men that you look up to, dedicate time with you. A blessing. It's such a blessing"

Action Items / Takeaways

• Ron to organically bring up price objection strategy with Joe, exploring Prenda partnership
• Gary continuing Kelly Smith/Prenda exploration with follow-up call December 18
• Ron pursuing NYC studio apartment
• Gary to keep Ron posted on Christian society developments
• Ron shared "New Bible Belt" as reference for similar initiatives

Special Context

Andy Price/Andy Montgomery Validation

Gary referenced previous day's conversation where Ron shared intel about "Andy Price or Andy Montgomery boys hangout thing" that validated Gary's earlier predictions about Alpha's struggles. Gary expressed relief at external confirmation: "It feels good to hear 'I told you so' type stuff... I felt pretty self-gaslighted this year."

Ron's Caribbean Food in NYC

Call ended with Ron in NYC having ordered Caribbean food, offering to meet Gary downtown, but Gary had a call in 15 minutes. Demonstrates continued closeness of relationship despite geographic distance.