Community Spotlight

Vegans Explore Founders Report: The Week That Was

In this weekly founders report, Sean A. Russell recaps roughly 79 straight days of the Vegans Explore daily podcast and walks through what changed behind the scenes this week, from new guides to a February return to New York City.

Vegans Explore Podcast

Episode 79 · Jan 18, 2026 · 17 min

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Breaking one interview into many episodes

Russell explains a shift in format: rather than releasing one long interview, conversations like his recent one with Dr. Michael Klaper are being broken into standalone five-to-eight-minute episodes on single topics, covering everything from the new dietary guidelines to aging to AI. The goal is more digestible, shareable content without sacrificing depth, alongside hot-topic standalone episodes like the recent one on ocean microplastics.

New guides, local directories, and a February return to New York

Using GoHighLevel on the back end, Russell released three new Vegan Survival Guides this week, for restaurants, content creators, and nonprofits, each breaking down practical steps to grow. He is also building out monthly local guides city by city, essentially a business and service directory model, with access tied to a free survey at vegansexplore.com slash surveys that also unlocks a seven-month free trial of the Vegans Explore Passport community. Looking ahead, Russell confirmed a February return to New York City timed around a UN event, with an open invitation for a community meetup.

Russell credits Robert Sheik, known in the community as the godfather of vegan bodybuilding, for the introduction that led to the Dr. Michael Klaper interviews.
TikTok has become an unexpectedly strong platform for Vegans Explore this month, with Instagram still steady and YouTube gaining traction.
Vegans Explore remains a team of one, run entirely by Russell, by design, to avoid repeating a past burnout cycle from scaling a team before revenue existed to support it.