But they weren’t buying it.

“Bro, your showers aren’t even that cold.”

Mildly offended and dangerously stubborn, I set out to prove them wrong. I wasn’t just going to measure how cold my showers were—I was going to build a device that did it for me.

Then it hit me: maybe I wasn’t the only weirdo who’d want this as a product.

That’s how this whole thing started.

I was on a run with Declan(SLAM Co-Founder) pouring my heart out about this idea, how I planned to build it, who I thought would use it, how I would sell it, and the anxieties I had surrounding whether this was a good idea of not… and he kinda dropped a banger.

1. “Raj, just build it. Then use it everyday. If you like using it, that’s a good sign because you aren’t that unique and there are probably others that will also like using it.”

Then came the next step: telling people about my idea and making no progress. Yeah, I’m gonna build a cold shower thermometer! Well, it’s not gonna be that hard (I was wrong). I’m gonna start by doing x and then move onto y and then z is when I’m gonna sell 10,000 units. I would play out scenarios in my head of what this could be, who would use it, how I would build it, and how once it was done all my problems would be solved. I spent way too long plotting and not enough time building.

I kept doing things that felt like work but actually weren’t work. Trying to follow hardware founders on X, reading about Johnny Ive and James Dyson, or just going back and forth with ChatGPT ‘brainstorming’. Then I finally took some relevant action:

2. Create a little bit of buy-in.

I went on Amazon, ordered a Wifi capable microcontroller and a temperature sensor. It cost $25, which didn’t break the bank, but it did create this weird financial guilt.

The parts arrived with a blazing speed, and they sat there on my desk. I had to look at them every day as I attempted to waste time on Twitter or watch Mark Rober's YouTube videos. And it would make me feel guilty.

Finally, the guilt overtook the laziness and I started building.

3. Try to get a win, fast.

I’ve worked on personal projects before and the two most common outcomes are that the project loses steam or I don’t get started to begin with. Since I’d created some buy in and was now rolling, I needed a win. Just an objective or a checkpoint to hit. So that’s what I did, I found the easiest, highest leverage task I could accomplish and got started.

When selecting a task, I often fall into the trap of underestimating the complexity of implementing a feature. My first idea was to get the water temperature sensor to send data to my computer. But then I quickly realized that may be biting off more than I can chew. I broke the task down even further. Just get my microcontroller to connect to WiFi. And I did it.

Once you get a win, it’ll feel ecstatic. Yes! I got this little feature working. And then you’ll pull your roommate in and show him, and he’s a nice guy so he’ll say good job. But that confused look on his face will reveal that he isn’t that impressed.

Then this doubt will creep in once you realize that what you’ve just implemented is a small step in a long staircase. But you must remember:

4. Allow yourself to enjoy the little moments.

Let’s face it, we’re online all the time. And being online can distort our sense of reality. Watching AI Agent demos, humanoid robot videos, and Stripe screenshots can misrepresent what it actually means to be a builder. You must remind yourself that your accomplishment, no matter how small, is a step in the right direction. Just cause your roommate doesn’t get it doesn’t mean it isn’t an accomplishment.

Allow yourself to cherish these moments, because that’s what makes building worth it.

5. Ask your friends for help.

Eventually, breaking down your project into subtasks is gonna stop working. Those checkpoints are going to become more and more cumbersome, and you’re gonna need help.

I hit this point when trying to get a React App setup for cold shower tracking. Our killer software engineer Andrew kindly agreed to help me. His guiding a noob like me through getting GitHub set up, creating a virtual environment, and making my site secure was a lifesaver. But remember:

6. Don’t let your friends do your project for you. Cause then there’s no point.

Andrew is a super programmer, but it’s important for me, as a ‘founder’, to learn on my own. While he set everything up for me expeditiously, It’s really important that I don’t let him take over; not because he will Social Network me, but because it’s important for me to do things myself. At least at the start.

If people offer their help, use it not to just finish the task but rather to understand how an expert is approaching the problem that you’re currently stuck on.

7. Post on Twitter (And All Socials Really) about what you’re building.

I was talking with the team about how I was scared to post on socials about my project because it would give away too much about how I built it. And they all replied to me:

8. Your limiting factor is that nobody will care about what you build, not that someone will try to steal your idea.

Sam Altman said this about founders who are scared that a big company will steal their idea:

“You can put your idea on Tim Cook’s desk with exact instructions on how to implement it and take no risk… it probably is a great idea but everyone is busy with their own things”

Nobody cares about my silly little project (yet). Making them care about it is worth the risk of a copycat.

8. Have Fun

I was talking to the SLAM guys and they told me something that no employer has before. “At no point should this feel like a chore, we want this to be fun for you”. And they’re right: if it isn’t fun, then what’s the point?

9. Surround yourself with positive, yet honest people.

I was told. “Raj, it’s unlikely that this project will be widely used by the public; not that many people care about cold showers… but I still think you should build it.” Honest, yet encouraging. That may be the best way to treat a project in its infancy. Allow yourself to dream and get excited, but remember to be grounded and make actual progress.

10. Try to Sell it

I intend to sell my product. Yes, the financial incentive is exciting, but there’s a deeper reason to put it out into the world.

When you build something for yourself, it’s easy to cut corners. But when you build something for others—something they’ll pay for—you hold yourself to a higher standard. You can’t ask someone to spend their hard-earned money on something you didn’t pour your heart into. Selling isn’t just about making a profit; it’s about proving that what you’ve built is genuinely worth something.

Money isn’t everything, but as Hank Green from SciShow once said:

“Money is a proxy that shows how much value you are adding to the world.”

If people are willing to pay for what I’ve made, it means I’ve built something that matters.

And that, more than anything, is what I’m after.

Keep Building,

Raj

Btw you can check out my shower temps @ ishiver.com

But what about a company? What does a company need to survive—or better yet, to grow?

If you’re new here, I’m Rajveer, author of The SLAM Digest. I write about our company, SLAM Ventures. If you like what you read, maybe you’d be a good fit for our team (we’re hiring, by the way)..

SLAM is growing. What started as a team of three is now a team of eight. Three people can stroll down the main street, find a coffee shop with a table, and plop down for several hours to complete their work. And if every table in town is occupied, our founders can just work from home—because they live together.

But when your team grows, even a little, that system falls apart.

Case in point: five of us were attempting to schedule some group work time and we spent more than half our time aimlessly wandering around in search of a coffee shop that could accommodate us. After being let down a handful of times we drove deep into the suburbs to work at a local library. Even then, we couldn’t sit together. We split into three separate areas, surrounded by young adult novels, whispering like we were in the back of a lecture hall.

It became painfully clear: we need an office.

And honestly? We’re excited about it. Needing an office feels like a milestone in a startup’s life—a marker of legitimacy and the start of a new chapter. Plus, there’s something warm and fuzzy about realizing that even the biggest companies once faced the same humble dilemma.

Google’s first office was in Susan Wojcicki’s garage. She couldn’t afford her mortgage so she let Larry Page and Sergey Brin rent out a portion of her house.

As Google grew they moved into a more traditional office space.

But it’s not just Google. Every company’s retro office photos are such a vibe. You can see the raw enthusiasm and sheer thrill leaking out of the pixels.

The search is quite early and we still have several months until we expect to find a place. But speaking with Commercial Real Estate brokers and touring cool offices has us feeling giddy.

Honestly, it feels a lot like visiting colleges back in high school. You walk around with a tour guide pointing at buildings while you daydream about your future life there—volleyball in the quad, meals with friends, late-night study sessions in the library.

We have no idea where our first office will be, or when we’ll actually get it. But in the spirit of pure optimism, I asked our co-founders what they’d want in an office if money and practicality were thrown out the window.

Here is what they said:

Derrick: Basketball court, espresso machine.

Declan: Basketball court, high ceilings.

Phillip: Squat Rack, fireman pole, dedicated poker table.

Honestly, I really don’t care about any of those things, I’ll vote for the office that’s closest to my house. And until we find that, we’ll all just have to make do with what we have now.

-Rajveer

My flight to LA started boarding 10 minutes ago. If there was even a sliver of a line at security, I risked missing my fight. And that would have been a bummer because I was excited about this work trip.

SLAM Ventures is undertaking a creative project involving the fabrication of custom clothing; I volunteered to go on the trip with our clothing expert, Jason Hong.

There is construction at SFO, so when I finally reached the terminal I was met by an unrecognizable maze. The TSA agent looked at my boarding pass and snapped at me, saying that TSA Pre is on the second floor.

Second Floor? Since when did TSA become a multi-floor endeavor? On the elevator up I nervously asked the girl next to me if she was also going to TSA Pre.

“I think so”, she answered timidly.

At this point, there was a 50-50 chance I’d miss this flight. The airport gods blessed me with a short queue, which I quickly got through and sprinted to my gate. I made it. Thank god. Jason was waiting for me at the gate.

“Where have you been man?”

“Sorry dude, traffic”, I gasped.

This was a lie. There was no traffic, I’m just a chronically late human being.

Before this trip, Jason and I didn’t know each other very well. But the dissolved tension of almost missing the flight fast-tracked our friendship.

The purpose of our trip was to visit clothing manufacturers in LA to begin making merch for SLAM Ventures. This merch is different from all other corporate merch; it’s going to be bespoke and be made just for SLAM.

Why do we want this? Wouldn’t it just be easier to buy blanks from an established brand? Yes, but that’s not what SLAM is about. SLAM’s ethos is that of an artisan, producing things of the highest quality out of a love for the craft. And that’s what we want our merch to be, the highest quality garment made with passion. That’s why we were on this plane to LA.

On the plane, as Jason filled me in on the details of the trip, I gained a deeper understanding of his passion for clothing; I finally understood why he didn’t want to buy blanks and embroider our logo on them. For him, buying a blank and sticking a logo onto it would be like a painter buying a coloring book and filling in the lines with crayons… it just wouldn't feel right.

This endeavor is purely one of passion, one to express ourselves and set our small team apart from the dozens of others, while basking in the satisfaction of wearing a piece that’s as bespoke as they come.

We landed in LA and took an Uber to a matcha place: Community Goods. I peered out of the Uber and saw a line of influencer types, I sighed and joined the queue. Jason started taking a video of me. Man, I hate being an influencer.

Finally, off to some business, we headed to Koreatown to meet a pattern maker. A pattern is a drawing that a pattern maker produces: it serves as a blueprint of the garment. Jason explained patterns, blanks, MOQ (minimum order quantities), and all sorts of other clothing jargon to me on our Uber from the Matcha place to Koreatown. He further elaborated on how we don’t want to buy blanks because the ethos of this project is complete customization, he then popped a neuro mint in his mouth, turned to me, and said that he wants to lock in this business trip.

The Uber driver dropped us off at a seedy-looking strip mall. I swiveled my head to discern my surroundings: I saw a strip club across the street, graffiti lining the walls of all the buildings, and boarded-up storefronts. Jason dramatically pointed to a shop on the second floor and said: that’s the one. We nervously trekked up the stairs. Jason greeted a man in his mid-sixties in Korean, who gestured to both of us to take a seat. I’d hoped the conversation would be at least partially in English, but the pair dove into a deep talk… exclusively in Korean.

The lack of English was a blessing in disguise, it allowed me to walk around the studio, and peer into the world of textiles: one of which I had no prior knowledge. I touched the spools of fabric, marveled at the sewing machines, and examined the patterns strewn across the main drafting table.

As the conversation finished, I turned back in the direction of Jason, who gestured to me to come outside.

“It’s not gonna happen”, he whispered to me in a somber tone.

“Why”, I interjected.

“He thinks I’m just a wide-eyed kid trying to launch a clothing brand; he suggested that I just buy blanks, and embroider my designs onto them.”

“Well, what do we do now?”

“He suggested a few other manufacturers for me to go see.”

We walked through a freeway underpass onto Santi Street in Los Angeles. The vibrant Latino neighborhood was filled with sights and smells that reminded me of the Mission District back home. Only this neighborhood had shop after shop of garment stores. Each of these stores sold miscellaneous items at a price a few bucks cheaper than what one would find on Amazon.

We entered our second factory, where we were greeted by a Southern European man in his mid-50s. We explained to him that we were trying to make merch for our startup, and he showed us samples of the fabric.

“How many hoodies are you looking to make”, he asked.

“50”, Jason replied.

“No can do, we do a minimum of 250 units for custom orders”, he explained.

He then went into how it isn’t worth the factory’s time to get set up for a custom pattern without making at least 250 of the same design. The money seems to be in the volume. He told us to get a pattern, buy some fabric, and go to a tailor if we wanted to make a small volume of product. I naively took his advice and asked Jason how we should go about finding a tailor.

Jason, while visibly frustrated, kept his cool and patiently explained that while our clothing is meant to be custom, it isn’t DIY. The craftsmanship must remain high, and while we will only do about 50 hoodies to begin with, the goal is to do a big batch. A tailor is a temporary solution to a bigger problem: we need to find a good manufacturer to test out our product at a small volume now so that we can produce at a larger volume later.

He called an Uber to another factory we were scheduled to visit. This next one is fancy, not like the ones before. There was a waiting room and fake plants lined the corners of the office. A quintessential LA lady comes to get us; she fake smiles at us, judges us based on our age, and condescendingly leads us through this magnificent warehouse.

The warehouse had 40-foot ceilings, the edges of the room were lined with conference areas and offices, while the center of the room was scattered with a dozen or so tailors hard at work on their sewing machines. Light spilled through the double pane honeycomb windows into the center of the room: it was beautiful.

Ms. Hollywood continued explaining the exorbitant pricing plans associated with manufacturing at this factory; just to get started with a few samples costs a pretty penny. She name-dropped designer brands that chose to make clothing here and led us upstairs to the most glamorous conference room of them all. Jason asked her relevant questions about their manufacturing process and other garment-related specifics. All the while, I felt this undertone of unseriousness coming out of her voice, one instilling a vibe that we aren’t good enough to make our clothes here.

We finally left, wholly dejected that we had traveled hundreds of miles, and met with 3 manufacturers and all of them gave us the same answer: we can’t make your thing here. We hopped into an Uber, and headed to our last hope and final stop of the trip.

We stepped out of the car and walked around this final block looking for someone named Gio. Jason went up to a group of people washing cars, and asked them, “We’re looking for Gio!”.

They pointed us toward a set of silver doors and were let in by a man in his 30s. He had a well-groomed beard, dozens of tattoos on his forearms, and was wearing a Rolex Submariner with a rugged cloth strap on his wrist. He looked like a pretty cool motherfucker.

“We’re looking for Gio”, Jason said.

“That’s me”, he replied.

I was internally surprised. I was expecting Gio to be a grumpy 65-year-old man, but instead, he had this chill Rolex-wearing Hipster vibe.

“I’m Jason”

“I’m Raj”, I blurted out as an afterthought.

“Oh, welcome guys it’s nice to meet you”, Gio warmly responded.

He led us through a warehouse not as polished as the one before, but weirdly seeming of higher quality, kinda like a Carhartt jacket you know. We spoke in the back room, and Jason gave him the same spiel that he gave to the others: custom clothing, small batch, but with the potential for lots of expansion. As the grand finale, Jason pulled out one of his favorite hoodies and looked Gio in the eye.

“I like this hoodie, it’s my inspiration for making our own”, he said.

“Oh nice, yeah we make that hoodie here, and I designed that fabric myself”, Gio responded while simultaneously running his fingers across the seam of the garment.

I’d like to double-click on how much of a coincidence this is. There are tens of thousands of clothing factories in the US, and an order of magnitude more hoodies that Jason could have based his design off. But here we were, in the factory that made the hoodie that we love so much.

It was destiny.

Gio was warm to us before, but after we showed him his hoodie, there was a new feeling of comradery. Also, on the logistical side, it would be comparatively easy for Gio to work our product into his factory now that we revealed our preference for a style and fabric that he is deeply familiar with.

After we worked out the details, he offered us a tour of his factory.

We walked through the first floor, which was littered with people hard at work on their sewing machines. We exited through the silver doors that we originally walked in through, and took a flight of stairs up to the second floor.

As we walked through an assortment of things I can only describe as “textile manufacturing equipment”, he told us about how he built this factory from the ground up and how this represents everything he’s worked for: there was a look of pride in his eyes. I liked him a lot more than Ms. Hollywood.

I asked follow-up questions about how he keeps up with demand, why he has a factory in LA, and what the plan is for the future. He explained that his offshore facilities can quickly ramp up for high volume, while the factory in LA is for quick turnaround sampling.

I looked around and was so impressed. Because I saw a humble man, who built a business from the ground up, provided good-paying jobs for people in his community, and did what he loved.

We finalized a plan to get moving on the hoodies. As we left the factory, Jason jumped in excitement.

“Let’s fucking goooo”, he shouted excitedly.

In the Uber back to the airport, I looked Gio up and was so inspired by his story. He started designing clothes out of his dorm and posted a T-shirt design on Tumblr. He woke up to a viral post with comments from A-List celebrities. He skated down to the garment district and tried to figure out how to make that shirt.

Gio slowly but surely got deeper into the details of manufacturing clothes; in search of the perfect factory, he decided to start his own. At 22 years old he opened the Mancini factory, without taking on outside investment. More than a decade later that factory has grown into a business with a home in LA and multiple factories across the globe. The humility that he showed us despite all his success is a testament to his character.

These SLAM hoodies led us to a person who inspires us, it's crazy how creative pursuits lead you to the most interesting people. I bet when Gio started his factory he also just wanted to be an artisan, and make good clothes that he was proud of.

I’m taking a page out of Gio’s book going forward.

And honestly, I think we all should. Build good things, and do good along the way.

-Rajveer

One would think a good night’s rest would be the best preparation for the afternoon I had planned, but the degenerate side of me started to emerge the night before our run. Long story short I stayed out too late and woke up hungover, dehydrated, and sleep-deprived.

I begrudgingly threw the covers over, put on my running shorts, and let Declan into my house.

“Gimme a sec dawg “, I croaked, fumbling to fasten the silicone straps on my running watch and slip on my cushy long-run shoes.

Declan looked well-rested and happy, “This is gonna be ugly”, I muttered.

We head out the door, hitting 7:30 min/mile. I dunno if we have any Eliud Kipchoge’s in the audience but that pace is too fast for me. My ego was strong, so I didn’t ask Declan to slow, and let my heart rate rise as we slipped into conversation.

I explained away my raspy voice from earlier as the consequence of a failed night out. The girl I was trying to charm at the bar started flirting with a guy who had a British accent; the night only went downhill from there. Declan then told me about his love life and how a girl randomly recognized him at the track in Berkeley.

“OMG are you Declan”, were supposedly her first words.

“How did she recognize you?”, I interjected. “Did she have an essay due at midnight– .com”, I joked.

We eventually got the horseplay out of our system and started talking about SLAM– fitting during this activity as SLAM stands for Sprint Like a Marathon. As a writer I think a lot and do a little; I was slapped in the face by Declan’s insights and struck by his bias for action.

We ran up a brutal hill on the intersection of Page and Divisadero Street in San Francisco, and I finally gave up on trying to breathe quietly.

As we entered Golden Gate Park, Declan took over the conversation and updated me on the day to day at SLAM Ventures. The team is working on maintaining our flagship app: Minutes AI, while simultaneously developing Entries AI our new AI journaling product.

I’ve always wondered how many resources the SLAM team dedicates to building business and brand "moats" around their consumer apps. Declan explained that the team doesn’t focus on moats—they focus on building great products with low churn. Which is hilarious, because low churn is a moat—essentially, their moat is trying to build the best possible product.

He goes on to explain that during the product development phase, he deliberately avoids MBA jargon words like moats, brand value, ROIC, and CAC. While these concepts are important, he argues that it’s much simpler to focus on building a product people want—everything else can come later.

When advising other builders, Declan’s tone is encouraging. He believes most founders overthink the market, their potential users, and the economics of consumer businesses. In his view, once an entrepreneur starts building something useful, the economics, business, and brand can be developed around it. His advice is simple: just start. Every step forward makes the path ahead clearer.

On the JFK Promenade Drive, we deeply inhaled the Eucalyptus smell that lingers in the park.

Declan told me about his dialed-in Reddit research, and how he uses it to generate ideas and save money. He scoured the depths of the /deals subreddit to find the promo code “GoBruins” for a vacation rental; he saved hundreds of dollars but brought shame to his UC Berkeley roots.

All this storytelling on his end allowed me to get my heart rate under control; on the down side there wasn’t much breathing room for clarifying questions.

He uses Reddit for more than just discounts. According to him, these threads are gold mines for uncovering user behaviors that can spark new product ideas. During one deep dive on addiction recovery, he came across an intriguing method to break the cycle: a handwritten note from a close family member expressing care and encouraging the person to quit..

Declan took this idea and built an experimental app where you convey your goals to an AI agent, and the agent spits back a letter from your future self similar to the one described on Reddit. Functionally serving as a letter from your future self telling your present self how glad it is that you followed your plan and stuck to the systems that are going to allow you to reach your goal.

I found it interesting that when building a product or trying to solve a problem, he goes back to the principles of human psychology.

We’re now on the Great Highway, battling the wind to make it back down to MLK Jr Road.

On MLK Jr Road we talk more about lifestyle, managing risk, and doing things that make us happy. Declan and I both love putting out our creations into the world. For me, it’s writing, for him it’s his products. The problem that I particularly struggle with is monetizing my passion. Can we build great things, charge people a fair price for them, and live a good life?

According to Declan, yes. He walked me through how scary it can be to go all in on your creative thing, but how having delusional self-belief is a powerful tool (or defense mechanism). Declan explained to me that through all the financial thick and thins he had this firm belief in himself and that he would sort of just… figure it out.

Back on Page Street, running down the hill on Divisadero, my legs started to give out.

Just pure pain, lactic acid seeping through my calves as Declan tells me about how I should get carbon-plated shoes for my upcoming race. I stopped talking during this last portion of the run, just grunts of pain as I finished up the final two miles and hit our goal of 15.

Back at my apartment, Declan and I rehydrate on my kitchen table. Sipping on the glass of water in front of me is more euphoric than anything I’ve ever experienced; I’m dizzy, drenched in sweat, and am having a hard time saying more than a few words at a time. Declan looks the same as when he arrived. Goddamn endurance athletes.

I’m bullish on Declan, and on any products that he has his hands on.

-Rajveer

Glossary

SLAM Ventures: Venture Foundry focused on building great products powered by AI.

Minutes: AI Meeting minutes - a SLAM product

JotBot: AI-Powered Writing - a SLAM product

Derrick: Co-Founder SLAM

Declan: Co-Founder SLAM

Phillip: Co-Founder SLAM

Rajveer: See Below*

*I’m Rajveer, a wannabe ‘creative’ who accidentally went to graduate school for engineering. Most of my time was spent scrolling on X, writing, and asking people for the DS278 problem set solutions. I found myself working an adult job, yet I yearned for a creative outlet to have my voice heard. That’s where Declan, Derrick, and Phillip came in. I've written about them before, specifically a piece about JotBot for UC Berkeley's MEng writing competition. One thing led to another, and now I've been tasked with telling the story of SLAM: our people, products, and journey.

As a newly minted member of the SLAM squad, we met up this weekend to hang out. We caught up over coffee and a long walk through UC Berkeley’s campus. “What’s been up with you guys!”, I asked them. “Uh, we went to Kauai”, Declan replied. “Surfing, running, and unknowingly meandering in the meadows by our corporate lawyer’s house”. “That’s cool, what lawyers?” I probed.

As we wove through the curved paths along campus, they filled me in on the happenings prior to me joining the team: calls with said business lawyer, info sessions with data privacy compliance reps, managing the SLAM assistant in Mexico, and the ups and downs of their entrepreneurial journey. A common denominator I sensed throughout all our conversations was optimism and belief in the uncertainty of running a business.

UC Berkeley is a beautiful place—one that optimizes for certainty. For some students, the allure of Cal is the prestige paired with the funnel into a well-paying career. Our co-founders are, dare I say, a ‘defective’ minority of students who have said no to the status games. They are here simply to build and be around other makers.

I say 'defective' because they chose uncertainty over a guarantee. JotBot, SLAM’s AI-writing product had gained some traction but reached a begrudging plateau. Minutes, SLAM’s AI-meeting-transcription app diverted attention from the main cash-flowing project.

They explained to me how the success of their apps teetered on the performance of their social media marketing content. “The strategy was to pay influencers to make videos about our products as a top of funnel” Derrick explained. However, the view counts and conversion rates of these videos were firmly outside their locus of control. The only certain thing was the payment that had to be sent out to the Tiktokers (regardless of the sub-500 view count).

The way they explained it sounded scary. The banking app was exclusively showing withdrawal notifications, Mom and Dad were begging them to go back to school, and their peers were landing esteemed jobs at reputable companies.

Bzzzz Bzz Bzz (That’s the banking app again).

Deposit? From Stripe? For the new AI-Meeting app?

Holy shit one of the Tiktoks has 300k views.

It’s driving a ton of traffic, and converting them to paying users.

The funnel is working…

It’s hard to predict when things will work and when they won’t. One of my favorite quotes about

business is as follows:

“When the lion roars, fight the urge to turn and run” - Mohnish Pabrai.

It’s easy to turn and run when your social media strategy isn’t working, your numbers are flat, and your parents are telling you to go back to school. The lion was roaring, but they didn’t turn and run. An important lesson, and a trait that is at the core of our team’s ethos.

The SLAM apps are now profitable, but it hasn’t always been this way. And even if something goes unexpectedly wrong I bet that we’ll be fine, because our Co-Founders have a skill more that’s more valuable than money. The skill to hunker down and keep shipping, even when things get hard.

We are currently working on Minutes, which you can download in the App Store. We are looking to grow our team, specifically with “generally cracked people”. So if you’re cracked, apply here.

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With this blog, I hope to tell our team's story through the lens of an optimistic technologist and writer. Products diffuse into irrelevance, companies wither away, but great teams fight entropy to keep things alive.

Will SLAM succeed? Only time will tell.

-Rajveer

Andrew: Software Engineer at SLAM Ventures

Sabrina: Growth Marketer at SLAM Ventures

Jason: Making (Custom) Merch for SLAM Ventures