Greeting Pioneers,

Here’s a little pregame snack for you on feast week:

Jokester launches. Meets demo day criteria. Bottle Episodes Launches. Meets demo day criteria. Leapfrog locks in a sales strategy and delivers 3K in 3 days. Meets demo criteria.

Velocity is a gauntlet – we never expected everyone in the cohort to make it through the 3 month sprint to the other side with 3x revenue but here we are. 5/6 have arrived. Lit AF.

Final 3 Companies Clear Velocity Bar

Jokester launched their platform Wednesday night. Six comedic sets streamed in 4K to laptops, phones, TVs across 30+ paying customers.

Most startups launch with duct tape and prayers, but Jokester launched with a product that worked well - almost too well. In the words of headliner, Corey Miller: "Look at this shit. This is a serious business venture."

He's right. Dawson & Brandon proved the concept. Time to sell the thing.

LeapFrog 3X'd revenue in three days with a calculated gamble. Felipe did the math: customer lifetime value was $37.50. So he launched a lifetime pass at $46.78 (249 Brazilian reais).

$3000 in 72 hours, including a sale from someone who told him they'd "never pay for a membership." Felipe's response: "revenue unlocked."

Felipe proved you don't need months to validate pricing strategy. You need a weekend, some testable data, and the guts to ask for money.

Bottle Episodes released their first playable episode. Maya built the demo mod "Deadlines" – a real-time office horror game for 3-8 players - and released it on itch.io Saturday at midnight.

By Sunday, Bottle Episodes had raked in it’s first $100 across 20 customers. Sometimes all that’s standing in the way of you and revenue is a public declaration of: here it is. please try it.

That's five Velocity companies now qualified for Demo Day on December 4th.

When we said 12 weeks to 3x customers or revenue, people doubted whether Louisville founders could execute under that kind of pressure. Turns out they can. They just needed the structure, the accountability, and a room full of people doing the same thing.

Demo Day is December 4th at Solyco Capital just before the LOUIES. Come watch these companies present what they built when the clock was ticking.

The LOUIES: 48 Hours Left to Nominate

The LOUIES are Louisville's startup awards where we celebrate the founders and supporters who shipped, sold, failed publicly, or helped someone else win.

We're looking for nominations in categories like Louisville’s Favorite Angel Investor, MVP Award, Best Marketing Award, RIP Award (we celebrate good failures), Community MVP, and more.

If someone in Louisville's startup scene crushed it this year, made a gutsy move, or spectacularly flamed out and learned something—nominate them. If someone helped you when they didn't have to, nominate them too.

Nominations close Tuesday at 11:59 PM. Takes two minutes.

Nominate here

The ceremony is December 4th at Solyco Capital. We'll celebrate the wins, the losses, and everyone who showed up with food and drinks. Night’s gonna be a banger.

Note’s on The Distill’s co-EICs: Jack Crowdis & Rachel Edenfield

Jack runs the newsletter, helps run KYX. He’s a career startup kid, past founder, and current operator. Weekly contributor. Always editor.

Rachel’s the Founder/CEO of venture-backed Swell, and a driver of KYX. Routinely delivers the city’s sharpest long-form startup advice. Always re-edits Jack’s edits (including this bio).

Know someone who should read this? Forward it, or send them this link.

That’s a wrap 🎬
Keep showing up 👊 
Keep shipping 🚢 
Peace, Pioneers ✌️