Most of the calls on your calendar this week pay you nothing. This one pays.

Paul Cohen has an open ask on the Propel marketplace, ref eS0rHJJPFqOJCoIrB0GM. He matches founders with scale stage B2B vendors who want a demo taken seriously and honest feedback given back. His listing says $100 to $250 for thirty minutes.

Who it is for: venture backed or revenue generating founders, and nobody else.

What you give: thirty minutes, real feedback on the tool you get shown, and cursory numbers up front so he can match you to the right vendor. Revenue, fundraising, headcount. If you are not willing to share those you will not get matched, so decide that part before you raise your hand.

Comment here and I make the intro.

Five Propel rooms ran between Monday and Thursday. The Catalyst Fundraising Cohort opened on Monday. Investor Office Hour and Hiring Hour both ran Tuesday. Propel Rooms and the Azariel AI investor webinar both ran Thursday.

I know they ran because they are on the calendar. That is genuinely all I know.

There is no guest list I can reach, no recording of any of them, and no record anywhere of a single introduction made in any of those rooms. Propel Rooms exists for one reason, which is that I make introductions out loud in it and follow up the same day. The ledger has zero rows against this week. Either nobody needed one, or I made them and never wrote them down. It is the second one, and that is on me, not on the room.

So I am asking instead of reporting. If you were in any of those rooms, put it in the comments. Who did you meet, and did anything come of it. If somebody said they would follow up with you and then did not, say that as well. I would rather know than not know.

The room runs Thursdays at noon. Bring one specific ask when you come. Name the company or the kind of person you need, and say what happens for them if they say yes. That is the only version of this that has ever worked.

Instead of another announcement.

Put one question in the comments. Whatever you are actually stuck on right now. Fundraising, pricing, your first hire, whether an event is worth the money, how the introductions in here actually get made, why an ask you posted went unanswered. If I do not know, you get that instead of a guess.

Make it specific enough that the answer changes what you do next. A vague question gets a vague answer and neither of us gets anything out of that.

Answers go in the thread rather than my inbox, so the next person with the same question finds it too.

I keep asking people in here to write a post, which is a big ask when the room is still quiet. So here is a version that takes one click.

Pick the closest one, then type the specific version in the box. The box is the part I actually work from.

Worth being concrete about why. Aurora Winters answered a question like this on a Demo Day registration form instead of writing something safe. We read it, matched her to an investor before the doors opened, and she closed $100,000 a month later. She did not work the room.

Five options, ten seconds. I will take whatever comes back and start making the introductions by hand.

Posting this because I have been bad at recording the ones that work, and if I do not write them down here they may as well not have happened.

Yesterday an intro request came in for Hawke Media, who do outsourced CMO work, wanting to reach MindMuscle Health. I sent one email to Vitali. He replied in under two minutes to say the call was already booked.

Ninety minutes from request to scheduled call. Nothing clever about it. The request named the company, the person and the reason, so there was nothing left for me to guess at.

That is the pattern in every one of these that lands. If you want an introduction from me, name the company or the kind of person, and say what happens for them if they say yes. Post it in Asks and I will work it.

Innovation in Public Mixer 2.0 is not happening on the original date. What is happening instead is the Times Square Masquerade Mixer, Wednesday 9 September at M Social Times Square. If you registered for the old one your spot carries over.

Here is why it changed rather than just moved.

Every mixer in this city sorts itself by status in about four minutes. You scan the room, you decide who is worth the conversation, and you spend the night with the three people you already knew. I do it too. That sorting is the reason most of these nights produce nothing.

So we are taking it out. At the door you get a mask and a blank card. You write what you are working on and what you need. No name, no title, no company. For the first hour you talk to people by what is on their card. At 8 PM the masks come off and you find out who you have been talking to.

I do not know for certain this works. That is the point of running it. If you are coming, say so here so I know to find you, and tell me what you are going to write on your card.

New Year's Day I sat down and wrote a whole first issue of this newsletter. Front page, calendar, pilot projects, an awards night, the lot. Then on January 2 there was an event, and on January 6 there was another one, and it did not stop for eight months. The issue never went out.

So the next Build Log is that issue, opened up, with what actually happened printed next to what I said would happen. Including the parts I would rather not print. That January draft claimed 750 members across six continents. This community has twelve people in it.

There is one job in there I cannot do alone. I do not know who is in this network, not really, and every introduction I have ever made came out of something I happened to remember from a conversation. I am building the actual record and I need people to help write it.

If that is you, say so here or reply to the edition with the word archive. And tell me straight whether this format is worth more of your time than an event roundup.

If you have a product or chief of staff seat open and you have been putting off writing the job post, this is the shortcut. You get to talk to a person this week instead of drafting a req and waiting to see who applies.

Anis Amir. Seven years in product strategy, a master's in design strategy, wants product design, strategy or management, or a chief of staff seat. Full time, ninety five to a hundred and fifty thousand. His own line for what he brings is the shamelessness to go out and get it done.

This is for you if you are hiring in that band and can make the call yourself rather than routing it through a committee. His full ask is here.

Comment here and I make the intro.

First one of these. I want to start naming people in here instead of only posting announcements.

Dalton Skach joined and did the thing nobody else had done yet. He posted, three times, with real asks instead of a hello.

He hosts Betting the Future, a show where a guest takes a position on a real prediction market, defends the thesis, and lets the market settle who was right. He is booking the first slate now.

He needs two people. A quant, someone who forms views from data and will say the view out loud. And a political forecaster with a strong read on an upcoming election who is willing to put it on the record.

Both asks have been sitting in Asks since 13 August with nothing under them. That is the part I want to fix today. If you know either person, put the name in the comments or send Dalton straight to them.

If you want the next one of these to be about you, post what you are working on. There is no selection process. I write about whoever is actually in here.

The next edition is about the two rooms we are in before the month ends, and about how one of them got full.

Hamptons Fashion Week on August 22 is at 329 registered. The VIP pairs are gone, the Manhattan bus is gone, and seven general admission tickets were left this morning. We did not buy that audience. Dee Rivera produces the event through DCG Media Group and already owned Southampton, so we co-hosted instead of renting, and brought the one thing she did not have.

The Shelter Island Conference is August 26 to 28 at the Rams Head Inn. One hundred guests, two days, one table, in the building where a circle of physicists spent three days in 1947 and came out having reorganised the field. Ron Paul opens by video, Russell Brand keynotes and leads Thursday's roundtable, Patrick Byrne speaks, Scott Page of Pink Floyd plays through dinner. Thursday day passes start at $250 and the VIP tiers let you name who you sit beside.

If you are coming to Shelter Island, say so here or reply to the email with the word island and tell me who you want to be next to. I will do what I can with the seating before the doors open.

The Ask went out Sunday. It is the edition where people in this network say what they actually need, and the whole point is that you can answer one from your phone in under a minute.

Two things I have learned running these. The asks that get answered have a budget and a named target. And responding has to cost zero clicks, so every ask in there has a reply keyword instead of a form.

Read it, find the one you can actually help with, and hit reply. If nothing fits, post your own in Asks and I will work it by hand.

I’m looking to meet a quant, quantitative researcher, trader, or investor who loves using data to form views about what happens next.

I host Betting the Future, a show where guests take a position on a real prediction market, explain the thesis behind it, and let the market ultimately settle the score.

The ideal person is intellectually curious, great at explaining how they think, and willing to make a prediction publicly rather than just analyze it after the fact.

If someone immediately comes to mind, drop their name below or make an intro. I appreciate your help 🙏

I’m looking to meet a political forecaster, analyst, researcher, or strategist with a strong view on an upcoming election or political event.

I host Betting the Future, a show where guests make a prediction, defend their thesis, and let a real prediction market settle the score.

The ideal person is deeply informed, has a view that differs from consensus or is backed by especially strong reasoning, and is comfortable putting that view on the record.

If someone comes to mind, please drop their name below or make an intro. I appreciate your help 🙏

I host Betting the Future, a show where great minds make predictions, defend their thesis, and let prediction markets settle the score.

Right now, I’m booking the first slate of investors, quants, political analysts, scientists, researchers, traders, founders, and other experts willing to put a prediction on the record.

The one person I want to meet this quarter is Michael Axman, founder of The Nucleus Network, because I’d love to have him come on the show and put one of his views on the future to the test.

Hamptons Fashion Week is the one we spent the most of this summer building, and the part people keep missing is that it is not only a runway. There is a business showcase attached to it, which is the reason it is in this feed and not just on the calendar.

Designers show, founders show, and the room is the same room. That mix is the whole idea. Fashion people meet the operators and investors who normally never end up in a fashion room, and everybody leaves with someone they would not have met otherwise.

Details and tickets are in the post attached. If you are coming, say so in Rooms so I know to find you.

Spent Thursday at The Wilson for Coworking 2.0, our second run of this one with Wayo Club. Ten to four, coffee, wifi, and a room of people actually building instead of standing around with a drink making small talk.

I will be straight with you, a coworking day does not make for a big story the way a dinner does. Nobody stood up and pitched anyone. That is sort of the point, a quiet room to get real work done next to people who are also building something.

Coworking 3.0 is already booked, Thursday the 13th, same room, same hours, coffee and lunch included. If a Thursday where you actually get things done sounds useful, come sit with us.

Started something new this week. The Showcase, five founders from the cohort, every Wednesday.

Leading it off: Aurora Winters, who we matched at Demo Day and closed a $100,000 check a month later, and Jackson Greene, who is closing in on 40,000 users. Three more below them, one from each sector.

If you want the same shot, the application for the next cohort is in there too.

Curious what is actually in your way right now. Hiring, funding, a warm intro you cannot find on your own, something else entirely.

Say it in the comments. If it is specific enough, post it as an ask on the marketplace so the room can actually work on it instead of just relating to it.

This morning's edition is in your inbox. The short version: last week 276 of you opened an ask and five answered one. Nine asks got nothing at all.

New rule this week. Do not leave your inbox. Hit reply on the email, or comment right here, and name the ask you can help with. One line. I make the introduction by hand, usually the same day.

Still open: Ana Karina needs one school contact for an education contract. Makayla is raising for Axion. My engineer intro bounty is unclaimed and I pay cash.

One more thing. We are opening the marketplace to testers this month. Use it, break it, tell me what was confusing and what was missing. Comment the word tester below and I will onboard you personally. Or start now: post an ask, make your profile, and list what you sell.

Opening this up to the room before it goes wide.

The Catalyst Fundraising Cohort is back on the calendar with a new start date: Monday, August 17. Five Mondays, one path from a first draft to a pitch that survives a real data room, ending in a live Showcase on September 14.

• Week 1, Aug 17 — Fundraising 101: The Taxonomy of Capital

• Week 2, Aug 24 — Lead Generation and Outreach: The Hunt and the Hook

• Week 3, Aug 31 — Investor-Ready Data Rooms: The Transparency Engine

• Week 4, Sep 7 — Financial Infrastructure and Equity: The Hard Stuff

• Showcase, Sep 14 — Pitch and Demo Day

Weekly over Google Meet, 12 to 1 Eastern. Registration is by approval — tell us what you're raising when you apply.

Apply for a seat

Best,
Stephen

I pulled the numbers on The Ask this morning and they are worth being honest about.

276 people opened an ask on the marketplace. Five people answered one. Nine of the eleven have had nothing at all. Ana Karina's has been viewed fifty times and has never once been answered.

That is on me, not you. To respond you had to leave the email, find the page, work out where the button was, and write into a box. Four steps too many.

So here is the easier version. Comment on this post with the name and one line. "I know someone for Ana Karina." That is enough. I read every one and I make the introduction by hand, usually same day.

Still open, ordered by how many people looked without answering:

• Ana Karina Da Silva — connections to schools for an education contract. 50 views, zero replies.

• Makayla Williams — funding and growth for Axion, $25,000 to $100,000. 39 views, zero replies.

• Stephen Michael — Series A companies hiring software engineers. $500 to $2,000 cash for an intro that becomes a hire. 38 views, zero replies.

• Ritesh Doijode — robotics internship, $35 to $50 an hour.

• Ayvan Krishan — an introduction to the NY DEC.

• Zsombor Koman — civic AI funders, and founders wrestling with what their AI encodes.

• Makayla Williams — app development mentorship.

The two that did work were Michael Jordan Pilgreen's. Three replies on the storyteller ask, two on diamonds and luxury real estate. Both had a budget attached and a specific person in mind. That is the entire lesson. Put a number on it and name who you want.

New Thursday room at noon if you would rather say it out loud: meet.google.com/zhs-yjfs-jpp

Newsletter just went out to the full list.

On Saturday 22 August we are co-hosting Hamptons Fashion Week 2026 with DCG Media Group at the Southampton Inn. Doors at noon. Runway, red carpet, Fashion Art Experience, after party.

Headlined by Jeffrey Banks — Coty winner, CFDA winner, trained under Ralph Lauren then Calvin Klein. Live book signing, and every ticket includes a personal photo with him.

The part I actually care about: there is a round trip coach from Manhattan for $125. Five hours in a bus with founders and investors is a better conversation than any two hour mixer we have ever run. The runway is the excuse.

Tickets from $150, fifty spots at general admission. luma.com/hamptonsfashionweek

If you are coming, say so here so I know who to seat near who.

I am starting something small and I want the people in here first.

Propel Rooms. Every Thursday, 12 PM ET, online. First one is this Thursday, 6 August.

Here is the whole format. Everyone gets two minutes to say what they are working on and what they need. I make introductions live in the room, and I follow up by email the same day with the ones that need a warm handoff.

No panel. No slides. No recording. Nobody is selling you anything.

Bring one specific ask. "I need an intro to a Series A CTO who has hired offshore" beats "I would love to connect" every single time. The specific ones get closed. I have the data on this now and it is not close.

Link: meet.google.com/zhs-yjfs-jpp

It recurs weekly on the same link, so save it. If you cannot make Thursday, post your ask in the Asks channel and I will work it anyway.

See you at noon.