Hey folks,
I’ve been meaning to start conveying a somewhat historical review of the work we’re doing at Pearmill as a way to document the work, but also as a way to seek advice, get your opinion, and generally be more open about what goes on inside our heads, and the company as an extension.
I’ve unsolicitedly added you to this email–in great irony given how GDPR has come to effect this past month–because I trust your judgement and you’ve been helpful to me, Karim, Mirna or others we’ve worked with in the past. If you’d like to be removed, let me know.
The structure will be simple:
A short story of where we are.
A glimpse of what we’re thinking of doing next.
Any specific items we may need help with.
Recap
This past quarter, we decided to jump in and help Alec Ross with his campaign to run for Governor of Maryland. It’s been an internal goal of ours to get a taste for politics in the U.S. and we’ve certainly gone through some interesting highs and lows with it.
It’s taken up the vast majority of our time and we’ve absolutely neglected growing the business, which we started focusing on again a couple of weeks ago.
We had a loss in revenue (down to $20-25k / mo) because of it, though we’re starting to rebound (going to book $40k in June).
We’ve never thought of the ad agency as the best way to generate wealth, or even the most productive way to spend our time – but it’s been a great learning experience that’s about to help us open the next chapter of the company.
In other news (though, some of you probably have heard), Karim and I acquired Rey.AI’s assets this month. We think it’s an interesting asset that can help us build communities, and it’s going to be helpful for what’s next.
What’s next?
With the help of Shawn Basak (the reason we’re part of Alec’s campaign!), we’re working towards building a product in the marketing creative space.
We’ve run plenty of experiments, one of which is currently operational, but generally believe we have a firm understanding of what will work. Shawn is helping us go through a couple of important steps in the next few months to shift the company’s focus:
Test out some of our ideas through discovery calls with paid marketers from SMBs all the way to Enterprises to help with a strong go-to market plan, as well as validate our assumptions.
We’re going to start fundraising for a seed round (in the near future) to help us explore the products we have in mind.
How can you help?
In the short-term, we’re looking to speak to marketers that are running paid programs. Any introductions would be absolutely helpful – we’re just looking to get on a short discovery call with them and poke at the problems they face on a day to day basis.
Below is a blurb you can use and cc karim@pearmill.com. We’ll all owe you a cocktail if you do :)
Hey ___,
I’d like to introduce you to Karim, founder of Pearmill. His team is doing light research on products they’re building for paid marketers, and wanted to ask you a few questions about your day-to-day work.
It’ll be a quick 15-20 minute call and they’d really appreciate your time!
Thanks for reading.
❤️,
Nima
Note: The rest of the team helped write this, but I pressed send so I get to sign the letter and leave them all out.