ART Opt-In – Stark Naked Startup

Stark Naked Startup™ — Advance Reader Team Invitation

Stark Naked Startup™: A Novel — Loneliness Epidemic, Solved By An AI Startup. Sexual Intimacy and Desire, Uncontrollably Addictive. Unintended Consequences, Their Truth Algorithm Weaponized — And Every Government on Earth Their Enemy.™

Book 1 of a planned four-novel series (also Book 5 of the Five Year Life™ Series)

If you arrived here from the Stark Naked Startup™ preview page, you already have a sense of what this novel is — character-driven, romance-forward, technologically grounded, and built to escalate from playful and intimate into something far more dangerous.

If you arrived here directly, the short version is this: Stark Naked Startup™ is Book 1 of a planned four-novel series — an erotic romantic techno-thriller about attraction, secrecy, ambition, and what happens when intimacy collides with power at the same moment a breakthrough begins to matter — not just emotionally, but strategically. It opens playful. It becomes intimate. And then it tightens into something far more dangerous. Behind the romance is a plausible path toward artificial general intelligence that I had to define carefully enough to pass the credibility tests of technically sophisticated readers — concepts substantial enough that they are now being protected as intellectual property in their own right. The result is a story that earns its intensity rather than performing it.

Either way you arrived, this page is about what being part of the Advance Reader Team uniquely gives you — and what your honest read uniquely gives back.

First, the Most Important Thing

The Advance Reader Team — ART, short for Advance Reader Team — is absolutely free. There is no cost to apply. There is no cost to participate. There is no cost ever. There is no upsell, no paid tier, no subscription, no “premium membership,” and no hidden ask of any kind. Every Team Member receives every benefit on this page entirely at my expense, as my thank-you for helping me make this novel meet readers with the precision they deserve. That structure is permanent. It will never change.

And you are not required to read the entire novel to be a Team Member. Even reading the first few chapters and telling me what worked, what didn’t, where the story pulled you in and where it pulled you out, is exactly what the Team is here to do.

Who This Novel Is For

You enjoy romance with intelligence, heat, and emotional truth
You like suspense that escalates steadily and rewards attention
You are comfortable with explicit sexual content and mature themes (18+)
You appreciate startup realism, high-pressure dynamics, and consequential choices
You enjoy technology that feels plausible without drowning you in exposition

What This Novel Is Not

A light romantic comedy
A “startup book wearing a fiction costume”
A plot that relies on vague, magical technology
A story that stays safe once it starts moving

It is an intense, romance-forward techno-thriller designed to escalate.

What You Receive as an Advance Reader Team Member

The pre-publication Stark Naked Startup™ manuscript as a watermarked PDF, delivered to your inbox as soon as the manuscript is ready — free.
Optional acknowledgment by name in the published novel’s Acknowledgements.
Recognition as a Team Member Superhero for Team Members whose feedback is especially substantive and influential — listed separately in the Acknowledgements.
First consideration for every future Advance Reader Team across the Stark Naked Startup™ series (Books 2, 3, and 4) and the broader Five Year Life™ Series.

Again: every one of these benefits is free, with no cost, no upsell, and no obligation beyond honest engagement with what you read.

What This Novel Is About (Without Spoilers)

Stark Naked Startup™ explores what happens when human desire, power, trust, and ambition collide with a technological breakthrough that should not exist yet.

While writing this novel, I was forced to go far beyond surface-level research into artificial intelligence. The story required defining a plausible path toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), even though AGI does not yet exist. That meant thinking through software architecture, hardware requirements, security constraints, and the real-world implications that such a breakthrough would demand.

As the research deepened, it became clear that this work crossed a line from pure fiction into something more complicated. As a 44X founder with more than four decades of entrepreneurial experience, I recognized that some of the concepts developed during the writing process constituted meaningful intellectual property. That intellectual property is now in the process of being protected through trademarks and patents, with the intention of licensing the underlying technology in the immediate future.

You do not need to be a total geek to enjoy the multitude of plots and subplots. You don’t need to be a geek at all. However, the breakthroughs in AI technology described here are just beyond the horizon, and I felt compelled to make sure that one of the backbone arcs would pass the plausibility tests of the super geeks who might also enjoy this book. This plausible technology is what allows the startup company in this novel to develop something so intriguing and enticing that every beta reader so far is overwhelmingly wishing the world had this tech available today.

Why Your Feedback Matters — and Why I’m Releasing This Early

A novel either earns its intensity or it doesn’t. Pacing, restraint, escalation, emotional truth, technological plausibility — these properties cannot be calculated in advance. They have to be tested against real readers who can tell me what felt earned and what felt forced. That is why this Advance Reader Team exists, and that is why it is going out before the manuscript is fully locked.

The reader on the other side of this novel is someone who wants a story they can actually fall into — romance with real stakes, suspense with real heat, characters whose choices have weight, and technology that feels close enough to be unsettling. They are tired of fiction that telegraphs every turn, tired of romance that softens at the moment it should commit, tired of techno-thrillers built on magic technology that nobody bothers to make plausible.

Your honest reaction — where the story pulled you forward, where it drifted, where the heat felt earned and where it felt grafted on, where the technology grounded the plot and where it strained credibility — is how I make this novel meet them there with the precision they deserve. That is the most meaningful kind of help you could give to a lot of readers you will never meet.

You are not being asked to review it. You are not being asked to promote it. You are being invited to read what pulls you in — even a few chapters — and tell me where the novel can be sharper, tighter, hotter, funnier, or more suspenseful, before it reaches the people who will live inside it for a few hundred pages of their lives.

How Participation Works

ART is a Team, not a mailing list. The word “Team” is the operative one — Team Members are the people who actually help.

Participation can look like any of the following, in any combination, at whatever depth fits your life:

Pacing and momentum — where the story pulled you forward versus where it drifted
Emotional truth — whether the attraction, vulnerability, and choices feel earned
Tone balance — whether romance and suspense feel integrated rather than competing
Plausibility — whether the technology grounds the plot or strains your credibility
Heat — whether the explicit scenes serve the story or feel grafted on
Restraint — whether the suspense tightens without being telegraphed
Clarity — where you felt confused or unsure what mattered
“Oh by the way” reactions — any short observation that doesn’t fit a category but still matters
A few honest lines of the review you’d consider posting at launch — even in draft form — that I may quote (with your permission) in launch-day marketing

You do not have to post a public review. You do not have to read the whole novel. You do not have to write anything polished. You just have to genuinely engage with what you read and share something honest about it. Team Members who participate at that level are acknowledged by name in the novel’s Acknowledgements (if they wish), and Team Members whose feedback is especially substantive and influential are recognized separately as Team Member Superheroes — also in the Acknowledgements — and given first consideration for every future Advance Reader Team across the Stark Naked Startup™ series and the broader Five Year Life™ Series. Team Members who sign up and then disappear still keep everything they were sent and owe nothing — they simply will not appear in the Acknowledgements or on the Superhero list.

This is framed as a request, not a requirement, because that is what it actually is. A Team works when people show up. I’d love to have you show up.

Advance Reader Team Access Rules & Requirements

Please request the manuscript only if you are willing to fully comply with the following conditions. These rules carry additional weight here because Stark Naked Startup™ contains technology concepts that are currently being protected as intellectual property — patents and trademarks are in active filing.

Confidentiality: The manuscript is provided for your personal use only. It may not be shared, forwarded, uploaded, copied, or discussed publicly in whole or in part — including any plot details, character details, technology concepts, excerpts, screenshots, or summaries — before official release.
No Distribution: You may not give, sell, lend, license, or otherwise distribute the manuscript in any format.
Watermarked Files: Manuscript files are individually watermarked and traceable to the recipient.
Format & Status: The manuscript is delivered as a locked PDF and is not the final retail edition. The novel is approximately 80% complete; pacing, polish, and final-stretch refinements are still in progress.
Good-Faith Participation: Please request access only if you intend to read at least a few chapters and engage honestly with them.

If you are not comfortable with these requirements, please do not complete the request form below. Team Member participation in future Advance Reader Team opportunities is based on engagement, not obligation. Everything provided to you is free. There is no compensation in either direction.

Planned Release Formats & Pricing

Paperback $29.95 · Hardcover $49.95 · Audible Audiobook $14.99 · Kindle $9.99

Final page count, trim size, and exact pricing will be set as the manuscript completes its final stretch. As an Advance Reader Team Member, you pay none of the above. The pre-publication manuscript is provided to you free, and you receive it before the public ever sees the novel.

Request Your Free Advance Reader Copy

If this story is your kind of ride — romance with real stakes and suspense with real heat — you’re warmly invited to request your free Advance Reader Copy below.

[Note: Please enter your correct and most-used email address in the form below — you will receive an email at that address that contains the direct download URL for the manuscript once it is finalized. The manuscript is not yet available for immediate download, but should be ready for Advance Readers within the next few weeks. Once it is ready, you will receive the email with the link — at no cost.]

(If the form does not show here, you may have to turn off any ad-blocking software — especially on Firefox.)

You Made a Smart Call

If you’ve completed the request form, you’ve joined the story while it can still become sharper, tighter, funnier, hotter, and more suspenseful. Most readers meet a novel when it is already finished. You are meeting it while it is still being made.

Early access is intentional. You’re seeing this material privately, before public release, so you can engage on your own terms and help shape what ultimately reaches readers.

Thank you for even considering it. The reader on the other side of this novel will never know your name. But your feedback will reach them anyway.

Questions about the Advance Reader Team?
Contact: ARC@FiveYearLife.com

Thanks,

Robert

Robert Lee Goodman, MBA
CEO and Publisher, Good-Man LLC
Founder and Author, Five Year Life™ Series
44X Founder · Rocket Scientist ·
33K Compound Knowledgist™ ·
Chief Dragonslayer™ – Business & Love ·
Novelist Who Successfully Found His Heroine™

PS: If you are a corporate buyer, HR leader, coach, or program director interested in bulk purchase or organizational use, contact: SpecialSales@FiveYearLife.com

Job loss is never just a financial event. It’s an identity shock, a loss of stability, and a rupture in how you understand your own value. And in today’s economy, finding stable work often takes far longer than people expect — especially as AI continues to reshape entire professions.

Your Last Paycheck™ was written to prevent panic-driven decisions during one of the most vulnerable periods of a person’s life.

The first half of the book provides a calm, step-by-step stabilization plan for the critical early weeks: what to secure, what to protect, how to preserve both finances and emotional footing.

The second half offers a realistic blueprint for navigating the AI-driven job market — including how to assess which roles are expanding, which are quietly disappearing, and how to reposition yourself without chasing false promises.

For more information: FiveYearLife.com/YourLastPaycheck

There comes a point in nearly every life when the internal alignment that once held everything together begins to fracture. You feel it before you can explain it — a heaviness, a resistance, a sense that you are living slightly out of phase with yourself.

Reset Protocol™ exists for that moment. It guides you through 108 carefully sequenced questions designed to reveal patterns you’ve lived with for years, surface truths you may have been avoiding, and help you see your life with clarity rather than judgment.

You’ll also learn the Five-Year Lens™ — a future-focused way to evaluate decisions based on who you are becoming, not just what you’re trying to escape. Not the familiar path, but the one most aligned with what you actually want.

Reset Protocol™ is not about blowing up your life; it’s about realignment — done deliberately, honestly, and with realistic compassion. It’s how you move beyond the road less traveled and step onto the road most desired.

For more information: FiveYearLife.com/ResetProtocol

Some people prefer to read and reflect. Others need to engage, write, and move. This Workbook is built for action.

The Reset Protocol Workbook™ transforms insight into execution. It follows the same 108 carefully sequenced questions, but provides structured space to capture your answers, clarify your thinking, and turn reflection into forward momentum.

This is where your Reset Protocol becomes your own — not just something you understand, but something you actively work through, decision by decision.

Whether you use it alongside the main book or on its own, the purpose is the same: to move you from awareness into alignment, and from alignment into action.

For more information: FiveYearLife.com/ResetProtocolWorkbook

“I had 1,200 first dates” sounds like a gimmick. It wasn’t. It was the byproduct of an accidental experiment that started with a simple website: NovelistSeeksHeroine.com.

That page described the 28 traits I believed mattered most for long-term compatibility. More than 15,000 women responded, convinced they matched. What followed was a decade-long journey — roughly 1,200 first dates, over 300 second dates, and a hard-earned education in the difference between attraction, projection, and true alignment.

Out of those 15,000, out of those 1,200 first dates, there was one — and only one — woman I asked to marry me. She said yes. That was more than two decades ago… and we’re still happily together and counting.

But this book isn’t about my story. It’s about yours.

Efficient Love™ shows you how to avoid years of unnecessary detours, identify real compatibility earlier, and find the person who is right for you — where you also happen to be right for them.

It distills everything learned from that journey — including the Three Lists — into a practical, repeatable approach you can apply immediately to your own search.

For more information: FiveYearLife.com/EfficientLove

Stark Naked Startup™: A Novel – Book 1 — Loneliness Epidemic, Solved By An AI Startup. Sexual Intimacy and Desire, Uncontrollably Addictive. Unintended Consequences, Their Truth Algorithm Weaponized — And Every Government on Earth Their Enemy.™

It begins with a problem that has quietly grown into a worldwide epidemic, spreading across cultures, countries, and generations, affecting not just millions, but likely hundreds of millions and even billions of souls on this planet, often without being openly acknowledged because it hides so easily behind lives that appear complete from the outside.

Call it loneliness, if you want, though that word barely captures the full weight of it, because what is actually being felt is not simply the absence of company, but the absence of being truly known, truly understood, and truly connected in ways that feel real, dependable, and impossible to fake, whether in romantic love, friendship, family, or the quieter forms of human connection that give life its meaning.

Four founders come together around that recognition, not because they believe they have all the answers, but because they share the conviction that this epidemic is neither small nor inevitable, and that if something could be understood at a deeper level, perhaps it could be changed, not merely for a few fortunate people, but in a way that might genuinely make the world a better place.

What draws them forward is , and at the beginning it still looks, at least from a distance, like a startup story, a few brilliant, driven people building something ambitious and hopeful in the face of a problem that seems too large for any small company to solve.

Then something begins to shift, though not in any clean or predictable way, and not in any form the founders would have recognized at first for what it really was, because whatever they had touched was no longer simply shaping what people said to one another, but the space beneath what they said, where hesitation, desire, restraint, and truth normally remain guarded, filtered, and quietly distorted.

Because when two people connect through , the distance between what is felt and what is revealed does not gradually close the way it usually does, but instead begins to collapse, giving way to a form of shared awareness that feels at once intoxicating, disorienting, and impossible to resist.

It does not feel reckless. It does not feel confused. It feels certain in a way that is almost unnerving, because the usual space people rely on to stay in control seems to dissolve almost immediately, leaving behind the unmistakable sense that something deeper has already recognized what neither of them has yet spoken aloud.

Time does not disappear. It accelerates until hesitation has no place to live, until desire and certainty arrive together, and what would have taken months becomes something neither of them can delay, and neither of them would ever choose to.

This is not the familiar courtship minuet people have come to expect, not the cautious circling, not the incremental testing of boundaries. It is something else entirely, a different kind of dance, where recognition arrives first, where alignment follows immediately, and where passion does not wander aimlessly but locks into place with a precision that feels both overwhelming and inevitable.

Desire is unmistakably part of it, but it does not stand alone, because what rises with it is something far more disarming, a sense of alignment so complete that the usual friction is simply not there, no second-guessing, no misread signals, no quiet holding back that people are used to carrying even in their most intimate moments.

Here, there is to reinterpret, to correct, and almost no place left for the subtle evasions that normally prevent passion from becoming what it was always capable of becoming.

What unfolds in that space is not merely erotic, though it is undeniably that, and not merely romantic, though it is deeply that as well. It is the experience of two people entering a form of connection where closeness is no longer negotiated, but revealed, where desire and certainty rise together, and where intimacy carries a depth that feels both intensely physical and profoundly understood at the same time.

Within that convergence, moments begin to emerge in which , where sensation deepens into meaning, and where the line between emotional connection and physical experience becomes impossible to separate.

And yet what begins here is not confined to romance, because the same underlying shift begins to extend into , , and , suggesting that what is being touched is not merely a better way for people to fall in love, but a deeper way for human beings to recognize, understand, and relate to one another across nearly every meaningful dimension of life.

What began as an attempt to address a global epidemic affecting hundreds of millions, and likely billions, starts to reveal implications far beyond anything the founders imagined, becoming less a product and more the early edge of a black swan event, one capable of producing outcomes no one can fully model and no existing system of control can comfortably absorb.

And that is when the attention shifts, because something like this will never be left alone once outside forces begin to grasp even fragments of what may be possible.

What follows is no longer simply a question of whether the founders can protect what they have built, but whether what they have touched can remain what it was meant to be once others begin trying to control, redirect, weaponize, or own it.

Especially once it becomes clear that beneath the emotional, romantic, and philosophical implications there may also be elements of that extend beyond fiction.

That realization was never part of the original plan, and yet somewhere in the process of developing this story, it became impossible to ignore the possibility that what was being described might represent something more tangible, something that could, under the right conditions, constitute , with the specific details intentionally withheld for reasons that should be self-evident.

This is not just a story. It is a partially redacted case file. And whatever is happening inside it has already begun.

For more information: FiveYearLife.com/SNSPreview