I hope everyone survived and thrived during our Texas-style winter last week. Although the Taylor family made the most of our snow days, we’re ready to get back to our usual outdoor programming.

In this issue: Slow Serendipity, Lunch Driven AI, Take a Gamble, Funny Founders, Steamy Cocktails, Fridge Forums, and Curing Cancer

This February marks five years since I sold Square Root. Half a decade is enough time to have fully reinvented myself—from SaaS founder to Proprietor and curator of serendipity at the Red Fridge Society. Most founders think of serendipity as something that happens to them (right place, right time, lucky intro). I’ve spent the last few years learning how to engineer it.

I usually write about instant serendipity: get out of your house, put yourself in the right room, and increase your surface area for luck. It's real, it's powerful, and I see it every week in the form of crazy intros, unexpected insights, and mental unlocks. But there's a second kind that matters more in the long run: slow serendipity. And it is embodied by another Society value: Forward Together. Our community is stronger through success. We root for each other and help where we can.

Instant serendipity comes from broad, shallow connections. Slow serendipity is nurtured through deeper relationships rooted in trust and openness. When you truly understand someone's story, their motivations, what they're building, and what they're up against, you become invested in their success. And it's our nature to look out for those we care about.

The quick wins are easier to spot. They feel like crazy coincidences (I can intro you! That happened to me!), and I see them at the Fridge every week. But the long luck game is quieter and far more powerful. It runs in the background, works while you sleep, and compounds over time. Just in January, I've witnessed multiple client referrals, a key hire, and a few funding checks—not because anyone asked, but because members cared enough to connect the dots (alas, no romantic relationships secured… that I know of).

Giving a shit about each other is why organizations like EO and YPO work, and why I modeled the Red Fridge Society around a peer-advisory ethos. Whether it's here at the Fridge or somewhere else, find a room of people you want in your corner. Then show up, be authentic, and build some slow serendipity.

The entrepreneurial journey is much easier (and way more fun!) when we move Forward Together.

What types of entrepreneurs are part of the Fridge community? Behold!

The February Magnate is Ben Freeberg.

Ben founded Oncology Ventures in 2023 to invest in commercially-validated start-ups transforming the future of cancer care.  On Friday, they completed the first close of their $50M Fund II, hitting 94% of their target. 

Ben is a cancer survivor who experienced many of our healthcare system’s issues during his treatment, from a missed early diagnosis (leading to a Stage 3a diagnosis instead of Stage 1) and countless emergency room visits due to neutropenia. He started the fund because every day, cancer takes 1,700 lives in the U.S.—over 1,000 of them avoidable.

​This is a preventable tragedy and one of the largest underfunded investment opportunities of our time.  We need to take action right now to improve early detection, ensure guideline-based care for every patient, and build the infrastructure that turns what we already know into lives saved. This is why Oncology Ventures exists. Together, we can turn today’s avoidable losses into tomorrow’s victories.

Fridge Factoids

You can check out our full, always-free-for-founders calendar, but here are some featured events open to non-members. Note that “founder” events are limited to founders and start on a waitlist.

We know it’s hard to keep up with everything going on at the Society, but here’s a little visual recap of some of the events from last month.

That’s a wrap for our February newsletter.

As always, be cooler than necessary, and I hope to see you Fridgeside soon.

Chris Taylor

Proprietor, Red Fridge Society

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