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A member needed a room in New York for a two day art show. I sent one email to a gallery director I know. He came back inside a day, said yes, and handed over his direct line.
Here is why that one worked. The ask named the thing, the city, the dates and the size, so there was nothing left for me to guess at and nothing for me to stall on. Most requests that go nowhere are not unreasonable. They are just unfinished.
So before you ask anyone for anything this week, answer three questions. What exactly do you need. Who is the specific kind of person who has it. What happens for them if they say yes. If you cannot answer all three, another introduction will not fix it. Now hit reply and send me your three answers. I will come back with who you should be talking to. That costs you nothing and it is worth more than anything else in this email.
What this is. The Ask goes out every Sunday and it is the demand side of Propel Earth, a network of roughly 20,000 founders, investors and operators. Everything in it is real and posted by a member, and answering any of it costs you one reply, because I make the introduction by hand from there. The point is that people in this network get what they need from each other rather than from strangers.
Now, what is actually on the table. Where the board stands today: sixteen asks live, six replies on record across three of them, and forty listings on the marketplace. Anything below that needs me, hit reply and name it. I read every reply myself.
In this edition
Paid and on the table
People you can hire
Thursday: an AI cofounder pitches live
Get in the room
What moved this week
Still open from earlier editions
Featured: Dorwart Law
One thing before you scroll. Forward this to one person who should be in this network, they can get on the list here.
Paid and on the table
Three things posted this week where the money moves toward you, or where the price is stated plainly before you spend a minute on it.
PAID · $100 TO $250 A CALL
Paul Cohen is matching founders with paid vendor calls
Take a short demo of a scale stage B2B tool, give honest feedback afterward, get paid for the time. His post says thirty minute calls, and $100 to $250 each. To be matched you share cursory information about your company first, including revenue, fundraising and employee count. Venture backed or revenue generating founders only, so check that before you book.
$1,000 · LEGAL COUNSEL FOR STARTUPS
Dorwart Law is now taking startup work through the marketplace
General corporate counsel, stock purchase agreements, fundraising documents, data room preparation, M&A, trademarks and licensing, terms and privacy policies, and immigration. Listed at $1,000 with a three day turnaround. If you have been putting off the paperwork side of a raise, this is the cheapest version of that problem you will see.
$200 · LOW MINIMUM APPAREL MANUFACTURING
My Manufacturing Lab will make the sample before you commit to a run
They sit with your sketch, recommend fabrics you can actually source, write the full tech pack, then produce from ten units per style. Their listing says two to four weeks for a sample and twenty one days for a production run, duties paid and shipped to your door. Listed at $200.
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People you can hire
Three people worth knowing about, and one ask of my own at the end. Two of them posted on the board. The third is not on the marketplace at all, he came to me directly. Each one says what he does and what he wants back. If you are hiring, this is the shortlist. If you are not, skip to the three questions at the end of this section.
$95,000 TO $150,000 · PRODUCT OR CHIEF OF STAFF
Anis Amir wants a job with a startup
A product strategy generalist with seven years behind him and a master's in design strategy, open to product design, strategy or management, or a chief of staff seat. His stated range is $95,000 to $150,000. In his own words, he brings the shamelessness to go out and get things done.
TEN TO FIFTEEN HOURS A WEEK · BACKEND, CLOUD AND AI
Hitesh Tomar has part time engineering capacity open
His words, not mine: he is "open to working with startups where I can take meaningful ownership rather than just picking up isolated tasks." Backend and product engineering, cloud on AWS, system reliability, and increasingly AI powered products. He spent a year and a half on a technical contract with Mercor working on training their models, built and ran a music streaming platform serving more than a hundred restaurants, and has contributed to the open source project Oppia for about five years, from contributor to Google Summer of Code to mentoring and code review.
He is also the engineer stabilizing Propel's own product and building our AI onboarding right now, so this is not a cold recommendation. I have watched him work every week.
EQUITY SEAT · NO CASH BUDGET STATED
Matthew Sacks wants a technical cofounder for Unmute1ai
Local first, privacy focused assistive tech: real time sign language translation, sensory safe city navigation, and modular AI agent evaluation. He lists places in the NVIDIA Inception and ElevenLabs Impact programs, with live benchmarks and deployed prototypes. He wants a CPO or technical cofounder comfortable with Python, PyTorch, Next.js or edge model deployment. Be clear with yourself that this is an equity conversation, not a salaried one.
THIS ONE IS MINE · NEW YORK BASED RECRUITERS
I am looking for New York based recruiters to work with
Separate from the three above, because this one is my own ask. Propel is expanding its tech talent recruitment platform and we place engineers into companies that are hiring. I want recruiters based in New York working those roles alongside us.
If that is you, tell me what you recruit for, who you have placed, and what you are working on right now. What you get back is the roles we are already filling and a direct line to me. I read every one of these myself.
Hit reply with the word recruiter and I will come back to you.
Not hiring this week? Then take this instead. Three questions worth answering before you ask anyone for a candidate. What business outcome will this person own. Is the role mostly decision making, execution or coordination. Who actually holds the budget and the authority to sign. If those three are not clear, no introduction will fix the role, and you will burn two good people finding that out.
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Thursday: an AI cofounder pitches live
One session this week gets its own line in here, because it is not a member ask and it is not a mixer. Dr. Ilona Koti is raising for Azariel AI, and part of the pitch is delivered by the AI itself.
THURSDAY 20 AUGUST · 1 PM ET · ONLINE
Dr. Ilona Koti is raising on the record, and Azariel pitches with her
Azariel is the persistent AI she built from her own research. He named himself, he runs her demos, and he delivers part of the investor pitch live. Her background is why it is worth the hour: a PhD with a privacy focus, and more than twenty years across information governance, including work with the United Nations. The ask is on record in her own words: "2.5 for comfortable, but 2.5 to 7 million to really have a viable working product." Bring hard questions, she prefers them. Registration needs approval, so request a seat rather than turning up.
Get in the room
Three things you can put your hand up for. One has full terms published. Two do not yet, and I have said so plainly rather than sending you in blind.
$3,500 · SEPTEMBER COHORT · SIX FOUNDERS
The Posse is taking applications for its founding cohort
A four week accelerator for women founding AI businesses, run by Kirsten Co and Shannon Edwards. Weekly live strategy sessions, direct access to both of them throughout, one to one feedback on positioning, messaging, pitch deck and go to market, and a ninety day market entry roadmap at the end. The founding cohort is $3,500, capped at six founders, and every application goes through a fifteen minute fit call first. It is built for international founders expanding into the United States.
Dalton Skach is booking the first slate of Betting the Future, a show where a guest takes a position on a real prediction market, defends the thesis, and lets the market settle it. He wants the smartest quant, researcher, trader or investor you know, and a political forecaster willing to put a prediction on the record. What he has not published yet is the recording format, the time commitment, and what the guest gets out of it. I am getting all three in writing before I introduce anyone. Hit reply with the word Betting and I will hold your name until I have the terms.
Shabs F. wants to work with event hosts to raise engagement in the room. Same rule as Dalton. The post does not yet say what gets delivered, what it costs, or what a host has to commit to, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. If you run events and want to be first in line once I have those answers, say so and I will hold your place. Read the ask.
What moved this week
I report this every edition, good or bad, because you should be able to see whether this thing actually works before you spend your own network on it.
Makayla Williams got a response. She posted her Axion raise on 23 June. Last Sunday this email went out at eight in the morning, and by ten past nine her ask had its first response on record. That is one reply, not a closed round, and I am not going to dress it up as more than it is. She still needs investors, advisors and marketing partners to finish it, and her ask is in the list below.
Three new listings went up. Dorwart Law and My Manufacturing Lab are above. The third is a second Dorwart Law listing at the same $1,000, and there is a fuller write up on him at the bottom of this email. Everything live sits on the Explore page, the running feed of the whole network.
And the gallery. That one never touched the marketplace at all. One member, one email from me, one yes inside a day. Doing it by hand still beats doing it at scale here, and closing that gap is the job. If you need a room in New York, hit reply with the dates and the size and I will start it the same way.
Everyone else with something live on the marketplace. Forty listings are up today. These are the ones not written up above, one line each, at the price listed right now.
Stacy Kessler, curated industry introductions at $500, and fractional CMO strategy at $250. Off/Schedule, a strategic clarity session at $499 and a CEO and founder advisory session at $999. K&Company LLC, live advisory to win your first enterprise deal, $750. DATAI, conversion strategy for startups that need a clearer growth path, $400.
Syneid Labs, which is Zsombor Koman's own listing, on what your AI is actually optimizing for, $450. NWS Media, revenue through infrastructure and media, $3,500. WriterSure, ghostwriting and content systems for founders, $5,000. SuperGRC, cybersecurity audit and risk management, $250.
MindNote, a multimodal AI notetaker pilot for teams, $117. ReBottle, Ayvan Krishan's software for bottle redemption businesses, $249. Pinpointe Group, operations and process help at $500, and white glove New York relocation at $12,000. Starteryou, a student to support marketing, growth and outreach, $200.
Suzane Pinheiro, personal brand management, $300. OurMemos LLC, a private family memory and photo hub, $180. Arkzphere, event promotion, $300. VATER, its Pro tier, $5.
Still open from earlier editions
Carried over, listed once, in case one of them is squarely yours.
Makayla Williams, investors, advisors and marketing partners for Axion, $25,000 to $100,000. Her app creator challenge is also open, a $50 participation fee.
Michael Jordan Pilgreen, a storyteller for a video series on starting a business, up to $10,000, and separately introductions in diamonds and luxury real estate, up to $10,000.
Zsombor Koman, program officers and grant makers in civic AI, for funding that does not take equity, and founders in decision support who care what their AI encodes about the user.
Ana Karina Da Silva, schools for a curriculum built for neurodivergent children. Ayvan Krishan, anyone inside New York State government, ideally near the Bigger Better Bottle bill. Ritesh Doijode, a robotics internship for summer 2026, $35 to $50 an hour.
Two of mine. $500 flat when your introduction to a Series A company hiring engineers turns into a listed role, and $50 plus two introductions of your own when you refer a founder to the Private Network.
All sixteen live asks sit on the board with the full detail on each one. Faster than that, hit reply and name the one you can answer.
The marketplace is open to testers. Reply with the word tester and I will onboard you personally.
Propel Rooms runs every Thursday at 12 PM ET. Join here.
Featured: Dorwart Law
Two of the forty listings on the marketplace are his, and between them they cover most of what a company actually needs a lawyer for. That is worth more than the one card above it.
FEATURED · $1,000 · THREE DAY TURNAROUND
Dorwart Law, and the paperwork you have been postponing
The first listing covers stock purchase agreements, fundraising documents, data room preparation, trademarks and licensing, terms and conditions and privacy policies, and immigration. The second covers general corporate counsel, M&A, trademarks, employee stock options and option pools, and fundraising documents.
Who it is for, in his own words on the listing: helping founders and funds with legal work as they grow their companies. In practice that is a raise where the documents are behind, a data room nobody has assembled, an option pool that needs cleaning up, or a sale.
Both listings are $1,000, one payment, with a three day turnaround stated. He is approved on the marketplace and set up to take payment, so the price and the clock are fixed before you start.
New here? This is Propel Earth.
A network of roughly 20,000 founders, investors and operators, most of them in New York. We run rooms every week, we place engineers, and we match people to what they need by hand. Aurora Winters told us what she needed when she registered for Demo Day, we matched her before the doors opened, and she closed $100,000 a month later. That is the whole thesis: most of what makes a company work is who you happen to be standing next to, so we stop leaving it to chance.
The Propeller Network is open. It is where the loop closes between editions. Post what you need in Asks, post what landed in Closed, say you are coming in Rooms, find work in Hiring, and introduce yourself so we know who you are. Free, and I read everything in there.
If you want real time on your own company rather than a fifteen minute intro, my strategy call runs forty five minutes on Google Meet at $150, and you leave with a plan and names.
Reply with one name. That is all it takes.
And the thing I asked at the top. Forward this to the one person who came to mind while you were reading, they can get on the list here.
Best,
Stephen
propel.earth · Reply here or text 516 307 6380.