Build/Boost

I Want You to Build

ad astra per aspera

We must Reindustrialize

DMs open

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

I WANT YOU TO BUILD

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@the_leifu Indeed

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

My experience with VCs is that I didnt properly figure out the game until it was too late to keep playing.

And anything negative I might say is bupkis bc I didnt seize the bird in the hand.

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

I was once pitching in a board room at a top 3 VC firm for a $15M Series A.

12 people in the meeting. One of the GPs fully fell asleep. Out cold for 30+ minutes. Nobody acknowledged it. Everyone just kept going.

I kept presenting my Series A slides to an unconscious man in a Herman Miller chair and somehow that was considered normal. That's venture capital.

You might fly across the country to perform for people who may or may not be conscious.

It's a dance.

And sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow and sometimes your partner is unconscious.

If you're raising right now, just know: every founder has a story like this. The process is weird. The power dynamic is weird. You're not crazy for thinking it's weird.

No one talks about it because they want to continue raising. But I'm happy to stick my neck out there.

It is weird.

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

huh

[weisser @julianweisser]

Just heard about a VC that offered a founder $50k for 10%.

In SF.

In 2026.

Absurd.

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

Patriots in control. Congrats to the Antares team for a huge milestone

[Jordan Bramble @jordanbramble]

Antares Mark-0 has achieved initial criticality! ⚛️

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@BackwoodsEnginr Happens

[T @walterwhitepill]

When I was 11/12 my dad got a job in Mendoza, Argentina and my family moved down there. I was put in Spanish school, and we tried to do the whole expat family thing. This was 2007.

When the global economy crashed it whiplashed poorly managed countries like Argentina which was already struggling with inflation. There was a significant amount of blame placed on America as a country and gringos living in country as its representatives. Of the seven other American families in our suburb, five of them had armed or violent robberies and rapes happen in 2008. I recently learned from @Lady_Astor that the gringo blame was strongly encouraged by Argentina's (Cristina) Kirchner government. My family had a gunman incident and basically fled the country. The police, who we'd already bribed to come if we called (this was standard) wouldn't protect us.

Many of the other American families had been there longer and were better established than us. It didn't matter.

The experience has led me to be strongly against doing the international expat thing. Assuming that your native neighbors in New Zealand or Argentina will not see you as the most viable possible target should any shocks to the system occur is a potentially fatal mistake. It doesn't matter how much money you have or how well set up you are, when things get even moderately bad, you are an outsider. Never forget this.

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

I figured out how to get a clean answer on price from Dessault and the answer may surprise you

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@_baldtires @broblas Lmk https://t.co/EhIEMRHZlM do some testing

Or we have a cmm we can talk if you want to collaborate on this

If I could build more medium sized composite tooling on egg crate it would be huge

Though steel > al

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@_baldtires @broblas What kind of profile tolerance

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@Dylan_Morri No, do it, talk some some spacex guys to get ideas

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@adilmania No, he was a fraud lol

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@emm0sh you can't stop until it's fully constrained

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@aphysicist @kylekuzma "[They] cant; [they] dont know how"

[Russell Varone @Russell_MFG_USA]

People are the hardest thing about manufacturing and you’re all missing it.

Metal and plastics and wood don’t have feelings, family, mood swings, allergies, sick parents.

Machines don’t get insulted.

If you wanna be really good at manufacturing, you have to be great at people.

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@gak_pdx Hey Greg, much respect for you & your work. Value your input on this. I may not be incredibly humble but I am enough to admit I could be wrong on that front. Thanks.

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

Ridge has been drop shipping wallets at 75% margin (conservatively) for a decade. Its a handful of simple cheap parts with basic assembly they charge $70 for.

Someone with facts and real numbers at hand can tell me Im wrong. I've been too busy raising my newborn and designing/manufacturing missile components for our military to go run the numbers myself.

Sean is far and away not "the only guy" writing checks for US manufacturing. Please. Dont insult our intelligence.

With all due respect Siqi you build and invest in SaaS.

Suggesting that going to the US would cost 3x for a "worse made part" is insulting to the US vendors that have quoted Ridge, and is just factually incorrect in at least one way. We can make flat-cut sheet wallets here just fine, thank you.

But sure, screenshot me rather than quote me, and defend the millionaire investor/wallet guy from the defense engineer building in the US for the last decade, cause I'm totally punching down in this exchange.

I am truly glad Sean is showing interest in investing in US manufacturing. We need more of that. Glad to hear he's trying to onshore more of his product. We need more of that too.

I hope this investees benefit from their investor and everyone makes out the better amd richer for it.

The idea that writing a few angel checks should protect you from questions or criticism about your actual commitment to US manufacturing/onshoring? Be serious. I'm not "shaming" Sean. Im asking questions and trying to understand motivations.

If you feel shamed by simple pointed questions maybe then maybe its because the answers are uncomfortable.

[Const 🇺🇸🏭 @c0nst]

the reshoring crowd spent the week shaming the one guy writing checks.

sean frank pledged $125k into US manufacturing startups. his crime: ridge wallets are made in shenzhen.

he also bought 30% of a US watchmaker and a factory building.

you earn the US factory by first building a company that can afford one.

buy locally when it make financial sense and won’t kill your budget (both family or business)

my full take on this and related issues: https://t.co/bDacWdJRku

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

If there is an interest in reshoring more of Ridge's manufacthring I bet that Jim Belosic's contract manufacturing ops can do it cost-effectively. Hope theyre chatting about it.

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@MaxWithNanos Apparently not

[Build/Boost @BuildBoost]

@Xaraphim Really big bolts and it's fine