Hey —

You probably know me from the tech and startup world. Tech events in Miami, startup community stuff, that whole ecosystem.

But I haven't told most of you what I've been doing for the past year and a half.

And today felt like the right day to change that because tonight, I'm shutting it all down and starting over.

Let me back up.

Some of you know I ran a tech-focused education nonprofit in Miami.

Black Tech events, launched the Built in Broward Program with General Assembly, worked with NBCUniversal, Center for Black Innovation, and the Knight Foundation.

Helped launch the first VC-in-residence program in the Miami ecosystem. I've been in the startup world for a while.

And I'm going to let you in on something I learned while I was in it.

There's an open secret in tech that nobody talks about publicly.

(Don't worry it's not as bad as those island files.)

In Silicon Valley, Miami, and every other major startup city...behind fancy the pitch decks and the product launches, the smartest people in the room are quietly deep into psychedelics, plant medicine, and spirituality.

All the stuff that would get you laughed out of a board meeting if you brought it up at the wrong time.

But catch them a couple drinks deep at 2am after the conference.

That's when it comes out.

The marriage that's falling apart.

The toxic relationship and trauma they keep repeating.

The therapist they haven't told their co-founder about because of the soul crushing anxiety, panic attacks, and constant grind leading to burn out. In the hopes of outworking their fear of failure.

And when the therapy isn't enough...

that's when you hear about the ayahuasca retreat, the plant medicine ceremony, the breathwork practice.

They're not doing that stuff recreationally.

They're doing it because something in their personal life is so broken they've run out of conventional ways to fix it, and they can't exactly bring it up at standup.

The divorced founder is a cliché for a reason.

But it's worse in tech because there is no off switch.

You take your work home.

Especially if you're working from home.

Your laptop is on the kitchen counter, your Slack is pinging at dinner, and the person sitting across from you stops feeling like your partner and starts feeling like a roommate you're ignoring.

And the relationship problems don't stop at home.

It's the same patterns showing up with their clients, employees, and their co-founders.

The inability to have a hard conversation.

The avoidance.

The conflict that never gets resolved, just buried under another sprint.

I watched this for years. I just didn't know what to do about it yet.

But then in late 2024, I quietly started a YouTube channel.

No big announcement.

No launch plan.

Just me talking about how I managed to get my own relationship back against the impossible.

That snowballed into discussing relationships, identity, manifestation, and the psychology behind why high-performing people self-sabotage in the areas of life that matter most.

It took off. 123k views on the first video alone.

But shockingly, the people reaching out were exactly who I just described to you.

Startup CTOs.

A finance executive at a Fortune 500 company.

Real Estate Investors.

Entrepreneurs with 20 to 80 employees. Clients all the way from LA, NY, Canada, Mexico, England, Germany, Japan.

In one case, a real estate investor out in San Fran who could close a seven-figure real estate deal but couldn't stop the same avoidance pattern from blowing up every relationship he'd ever been in.

A PhD psychologist who was making over $360k a year, vibe coding an AI education platform for therapists, but she was working herself into burn out and kept dating the same type of toxic man on repeat even though she knew better.

An AI automation consultant trying to get an ex-situationship before realizing his sales were stuck because the same fear pattern showing up in his relationships was showing up in how he marketed on social.

Brilliant operators whose personal lives, and sometimes their businesses, were quietly falling apart while everything else looked perfect from the outside.

It turned out the hypnosis, psychology, and startup methodology background was the exact combination these people needed.

Someone who understood ambition AND relationships AND the woo — and wasn't going to judge them for any of it.

And here's the part that still surprises me.

They got their exes back.

They moved on to dream relationships.

And in one case, a client who applied one framework I taught him and within 8 weeks had retired his father, taken over the family business, and closed $135k in deals this month.

The systems worked and they actually started enjoying the relationships they always dreamed.

And as for my business, I found them all with no paid ads. No sales team. No real funnel.

A tiny YouTube channel with less than 5.3K subscribers. And a POS website (I don't mean Point of Service) that looks like it was built in 2007.

(It's one of the first things getting rebuilt).

Still closed clients at $3K, $12K, all the way up to $26K. The YT marketing systems worked. I'll explain how another time.

Because that's not why I'm emailing you today. (If you already know where this is going and just want to see what I offer: Tap here)

I'm flying to Bali on Tuesday for William Brown's private mastermind. When I come back, the entire business is getting rebuilt from the ground up.

The short version: I started this before Stephanie was pregnant with our second kid.

Built it as a lifestyle business so I could be present with my family.

It worked...until it didn't.

The way I structured the coaching offers meant everyone got the best of me except the people in my own house.

There was a specific night I was on the couch sending a client a voice message after a two-hour session.

Hadn't seen Stephanie or the kids all day.

She looked at me and asked if she could pay me to pay attention to them the way I do for my clients.

That broke my heart. That's when I knew the model was broken.

Which is ironic. I'm a relationship coach who was giving his family the leftovers.

So I'm doing what I'd tell any of my clients to do...burn the model that's not working and rebuild with purpose.

• New team so clients get real support between sessions.
• Other experts and speakers.
• In-person events.
• Weekly content again.

And bigger barriers to private access — specifically so I have the energy to actually show up fully for the people who work with me and the people who live with me.

But that means every current offer disappears tonight.

The one-time private sessions, the current 1:1 coaching spots, the pricing you see right now — all of it is gone after midnight.

When I come back from Bali, the private work will have fewer spots, higher investment, and a completely different model around it. The option to just book a single session with me won't exist anymore.

If anything I just described sounds like you — or someone you know — tonight is the last night to get in at the current access and pricing.

Not next week. Tonight.

Book before midnight: https://blackvalleydigital.square.site/

Tap Here to Book

(Yes, the website looks terrible. I know. That's part of what I'm fixing in the rebuild. But I closed six figures with it looking like that. The YT videos were that damn good. Imagine what happens when the infrastructure actually matches the results. That's what Bali is for.)

— Ryan

P.S. — If you read this and someone specific came to mind — forward it to them. After tonight, this door closes and the next version will be harder to get into and more expensive to access.

P.P.S. — I've never sent this list an email about my coaching business before. The fact that I'm doing it today, on the last day it exists in its current form, should tell you something about how much is about to change. Book Now