🎶 If You're Reading This It's Too Late

Hey Friends, Happy August to you and yours.

In case you're wondering, we don't drop Drake into our subject line for nothing. There's only a couple more hours until YEY applications close, so if you've been sleeping on this, get your name in by midnight. 🌙

Recent Harvard Research shows, 7/10 of you opening today's email are at the lake, boat, beach or sea to sky gondola. So with that in mind, we're keeping today's word count tighter and funnier to get you back to the patio. ☀️

NGL, it's gonna be tough: cuz the last couple weeks at LOI have been chef's kiss. But we'll do our best:

📰 The TL;DR

• 🎉 100s of you applied for the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award
• 🏐 We had an epic volleyball x fireworks beach bash QB'd by Anastasia from Reusables
• 🔒 Labs Batch 11 starts October 2nd and has had a RECORD-breaking number of applicants
• 🍫 We just locked in Jake Karls, founder of MidDaySquares, as a YEY judge (screenshot to prove it)

• ⛺️ LOI's Accelerator + VC team are meeting for a strategy retreat later this month (in case we're slow to email replies)
• 🤫 We may or may not be DM'ing with Josh Richards team about coming in for an AMA. Reply to the email if you'd show up to that.
• 💸 And Teferai Bailey from Hutsy Financial brought home the $100K Black Entrepreneurship Investment Prize at StartupFest

And that's just the half of it.

Let's get to the rest of our goods, shall we? 👇

Apply for the YEY Award by Midnight

• 🚀 Rocket Emoji for real: Ever wanted to team up with @spacex? LOI alumni @alyssiajovella is a cancer survivor, software engineer, and entrepreneur who just did by launching @abilliondreamsorg earlier this week. She also had support from Pavla and Aashni in the community.
• 🍷 Huge TY to Rippling: In case you didn't hear, we're buddying up with Rippling to offer 6 months of free product and potentially more parties in the near future. Email Manvir if you'd like to cop your free promo
• 🌲 Want more friends in Toronto? Join Liv and Eve at their next Sunday reset in Trinity Bellwoods park

• ❤️ Laptop Giveaway: Our deepest thanks goes to our partners @rbc and @esdc.gc for helping us surprise Basel, a Syrian refugee from Lebanon, with a laptop to start his new life in Canada. Read more about that story here  🇨🇦
• 💯 Team Plufl crushed their Kickstarter goal in 30mins: Plufl just launched their new product and hit their goal on Kickstarter in a few hours and are now at $120K of their $15K goal
• 📆 AI Interviewing Software: Meet @laurendesouzaa and @galensprout from @aceinterviewprep. These LOIsters recently closed a partnership with a talent ecosystem that serves tech talents in 18 countries across Africa.

• 🗽 "In New Yorkkkkkk": Anjali was chilling at Nasdaq HQ, and there's photos to prove it!
• 🎤 Summer AMAs: Thanks to Matthew Smith, the Truss Payments Founder, for carving out time to talk about raising a pre-seed/seed round in today's VC climate
• 👑 Princes Diana has entered the chat: Ghalia Aamer, founder of TalkMaze, was recognized with the 2023 Diana Award. Hit her up if you want to pass along a congrats!
• 🔥 More awesome LOIsters doing cool stuff: Divine from Edmonton, Shlesha from Ora3d, Djalil and Walid from OneTrip, Robin Ketch from Shero Hockey and more.
• 👏 Pitch Perfect: Marlena from the Indigenous Entrepreneurship Cohort is one finalist for Powow Pitch

Want to stay on top of future news happening at LOI? Hit that button below.

Follow LOI on IG

👏 Alumni Shoutouts:

We're getting in the flow of shouting out more awesome alumni in our community that you can link up for lunch with, ask questions to or jam on work ideas with. Click their stories below especially if they're in your city.

• ☕ ️Meet Sheen Sagalongos: she calls North Van home, works for GPS Capital Markets as a Corporate Dealer, and runs a furniture startup with her brother called @movadointeriors.
• ☕ Meet Tonner Jackson: he calls Manhattan, Santa Teresa, or Costa Rica home, Founded Course.Studio, and collabs with cool kids like Sophia Amoruso, Colin and Sami,  Dr Becky, Esther Perel and more.

• ☕️ Meet Nicole Oziel: she calls Toronto home, is a professional photographer/editor and recently edited a dystopian, sci-fi short film earlier this year that is currently being submitted to festival
• ☕️ Meet Michael Steele: he calls Vancouver home, founder of @thegoodstuffco_ and 2016 alumni). Ever heard of @lululemon@duerperformance or @bn3thapparel? He’s worked with all of them at his agency. Read more here.

Enough reading, let's get to the laughs of the week.

Tweets of the Week

P.S. If any of you know T-Swift, we'd love an intro to get her to do an fireside chat at our next founder meetup. #JustSaying

Don't forget: clock is ticking for the YEY award. Nominate yourself or another inspiring founder under 30 by midnight tonight.

Apply for the YEY Award

Thanks for scrolling, now get back to the sunshine.

Your startup bestie-boos,

💙 The LOI Fam