Thinking out loud, in your direction, about the company we are building
Sol, the easiest part of writing this is the part where I tell you I love you and I want to do this with you. Everything else flows from there. This letter is me thinking out loud, in your direction, about what it actually looks like to bring you into Affirmology as a real co-founder. The analysis document next to this one shows the math. This one is the heart.
Before any of the structure talk, I want to name what you actually bring, because I think sometimes the numbers get talked about before the human gets seen.
You are the audience archetype for this company. Spiritual, beautiful, magnetic, plugged into the exact community we are trying to reach. You have built audiences from scratch before, you know how content travels in this world, and you have an instinct for what lands and what does not that I genuinely lack. The Miami spiritual community accepts you in a way that opens doors I cannot open alone. The Faena stage we are about to share in September is partially yours because of the years of relationship-capital you built with the woman who runs it. You also bring me into rooms with people I would not naturally meet, and you bring a kind of grounded magic to whatever space we walk into together. None of that is negotiable. All of it is real.
You also bring access to three potential investors who genuinely want to see you succeed (your sister Gabby, her partner, and your benefactor friend). That is not nothing. That is real capital and real validation.
I am writing this knowing what you bring. The percentage we land on is not me valuing you less than half. It is me trying to build a structure that actually works long-term for both of us.
I want to tell you about the 50/50 question because I think you should know I asked it. I sat with it for real. The part of me that loves you wanted to make it equal because that is what love wants to do.
Sitting with it longer, I realized 50/50 actually carries risks for both of us that an unequal split with strong protections does not. The shortest version: 50/50 creates decision deadlock, makes investors discount us enough that we both end up with less in absolute dollars, and turns small business disagreements into relationship negotiations. I have lived a version of that already in a prior partnership, and it did not end well for anyone. I do not want us to live that.
The analysis doc spells out the four specific reasons in detail if you want them. The bigger point is that I am proposing something that is asymmetric in percentage but symmetric in protection. Same vesting, same leaver provisions, same behavioral covenants, same drag and tag rights, same termination acceleration. Different number, same dignity.
20% base equity for you, vesting over 4 years with a 1-year cliff. Plus up to 10% additional earnable through company revenue milestones (2.5% at each of $1M, $5M, $10M, and $25M cumulative revenue). So your range lands somewhere between 20 and 30%, depending on how this thing actually plays out and how much you want to lean in.
What that means in real-life dollars:
This is set-up-for-life money. It is not a token. The percentage may sound smaller than 50%, but the absolute dollars at the kind of outcomes this product can hit are substantial in a way that changes both our lives.
The number alone never tells the full story. What matters in the day-to-day is the package around it:
The operating agreement we sign will include a clause stating explicitly: if our relationship ever ends, your equity stays yours. Your title stays yours. Your role does not get stripped. Your vesting continues. The relationship ending and the company are kept legally separate.
Good leaver and bad leaver provisions apply to both of us equally. Non-disparagement, non-solicitation, non-compete are mutual. If we ever mutually decide you are stepping back into a passive role, there is a termination-without-cause clause that accelerates 50% of your unvested equity as the soft landing. You do not get stuck in either direction.
In real practical terms, the operating agreement protects you more than it protects me. That is the design, not a coincidence. You are the partner entering later with less day-to-day control over direction, and the structure should reflect that.
The additional 10% is tied to company revenue milestones, not Instagram follower counts. So if you bring the energy I think you want to bring and the company hits real revenue, your stake grows naturally. You and I are aligned to the same outcome. There is no vanity-metric pressure on you.
If the company does not hit those numbers, the equity stays available and rolls back to the pool. Either way, fair to both of us.
We are targeting somewhere between $150K and $250K in seed capital depending on which investors come in at what size. That gives me 6 to 9 months of full focus on building, both of us a modest founder salary, the tech engineer hire we need, ad testing budget, content production, and the team activators (Randy Green as project assistant, Glo and Suey for booth events).
The structure is direct LLC ownership rather than the typical Silicon Valley SAFE setup. Investors purchase actual membership units in Affirmology LLC (Wyoming) and become real owners the day they sign. They get distribution rights from day one, voting on Major Decisions, and pro-rata participation in everything the company pays out over time. This is the cleaner structure for a company designed to operate profitably and distribute earnings to owners (which is what Affirmology is built to do). It is the same structure I used at Oria.
Colin is a likely anchor at the original deck terms ($30K for 10% of the company, preserved from the deck). Josh Parini, who I am meeting with Sunday, has $800K coming in and is interested at potentially a much larger check. Gabby, her partner, and the benefactor are obvious follow-on participants at the standard tier. The round can be sized to fit who actually shows up.
6 to 9 month goal: 1,000+ active monthly users, profitable ad loop, Faena conference completed with real on-stage demos and booth conversions. From there: either we raise a follow-on round at a much higher valuation, or we run profitably from revenue and start distributing earnings to all members (including you).
I built the first proof-of-concept demo this week. Ran my own birth data through the manual pipeline. The output is a video with synchronized visuals showing how the cosmic blueprint becomes the affirmation script. On a private YouTube link, ready to show. Not the greatest ever yet, but it works and the results can be tweaked into usable arcs. Within the next week I will have an agent flow that lets anyone enter their own birth data and get a personalized audio back. I am putting Affirmology at the center of my focus. Omaha gets used to find more capital. I will be on the Faena stage with you in September with audios that change the way people in that room think about what their charts could become for them.
I am doing this because I believe in the product. I am also doing it because the wealth this can build, the email list, the doors that open, are the financial fuel for everything else we want to do. The book funnel, your brand, the retreat centers, the men's non-profit, the broader transformation work. Whatever shape our partnership takes long-term, Affirmology is the engine that funds the rest.
Read this. Read the analysis if you want the full math, or skip it if you want to talk first. Sit with it for whatever time you need. If something feels wrong, please tell me. If something needs to change to feel right, please tell me that too. We land this together, or we do not sign anything.
If after reading and reflecting it feels right or close to right, we have the conversation, make any adjustments that need making, and sign the operating agreement before I leave for Omaha. If you need more time, we take it.
You are my partner. In this relationship, in the business I am now formalizing, and in the long arc of the life we are building. Whatever shape our partnership takes over the years, the work we are doing together has value that outlasts the question of our relational form.
I love you. I am proud to be doing this with you. Let's go build something real.