Issue #83 • July 25th, 2026

Hi Reader,

There's a specific kind of tired that comes with running a $5M+ business. It's not the tired from working hard. It's the tired from carrying decisions alone, because the people around you either haven't built anything at this scale or don't have the time to really sit with your problem.

That's the gap Giants at the Table exists to close.

On August 13th, I'm hosting the third dinner in this series. Eleven seats. Business owners doing $5M or more in revenue. Same format that's worked the first two times: a peer-led workshop, then dinner, no pitches, no panels, no strangers by the end of the night.

Here's how the evening runs, and what that actually means for you as a business owner.

The format

5:30 PM — Doors open. No rushing straight to seats, just space to settle in.

6:00 PM — The workshop opens. One theme drives the room for the night. We frame the topic, break into small groups to work through it, then bring it back to the full table for shared takeaways.

7:25 PM — We move to dinner. By this point everyone's already said something real, so the table sits down already warm.

7:30 – 9:00 PM — Seated dinner, open conversation. No agenda from here. The workshop fuels the discussion, and I'll only step in if the energy needs a nudge.

9:00 PM — Close, with a preview of what's next.

That structure is deliberate. A dinner alone gets you polite conversation. A workshop first gets you a room of people who've already contributed something real before the food even arrives.

You get real answers, not networking-event small talk

Every person at the table has already lived through the problem you're wrestling with, or is living through it right now. When you bring a hiring mistake, a cash flow crunch, or a decision about scaling too fast, you're not getting theory. You're getting the exact lesson someone else paid full price to learn.

You get a room where your real numbers are normal

At $5M+, most rooms either don't understand your scale or don't believe it. Here, nobody's impressed by the revenue and nobody's intimidated by it either. That means the conversation goes straight to what's actually working and what isn't, instead of circling around credibility.

You get structure, not just cocktails

The evening opens with a workshop, not idle mingling. Everyone contributes on a real topic, in small groups, then shares back to the room. By the time dinner starts, you already know these people said something honest. That's what makes the rest of the night worth your time.

You get confidentiality by design

What's shared at the table stays at the table. That single rule is why owners actually say what's true instead of what sounds good.

You get a peer group that compounds

This isn't a one-off. It's quarterly. The value isn't just one good conversation, it's a room of operators who keep showing up, keep tracking each other's progress, and keep raising the bar on what "doing well" looks like.

If you're a business owner running north of $5M in revenue and you've been missing a room like this, reach out. Seats are limited, and I'm looking for the right people, not just more people.

Giants at the Table Thursday, August 13 · 5:30 – 9:00 PM Austin, Texas

Mathias Ihlenfeld | Entrepreneur | Coach | Advisor

​LinkedIn • Instagram • Website​

You're receiving this because you subscribed to by Mathias.