Couldn't Sleep Last Night

Was in the sauna this morning debating if I send this or not. But it’s 2026, you’re all friends, so we’re gonna go with our gut and say it out loud.

I lost quite a few hours of sleep last night.

You’re probably wondering why.

I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that some of you are reading this email and:

• a) haven’t even applied to YEYawards.com or

• b) haven’t nominated a founder working their tail off

And it’s ridiculous. I’mma be honest. Get a hold of yourselves. 

Founders are out there, day after day, busting their tail, building an incredible startup, and you don’t believe in the startup enough to nominate them for an award?

What kind of lies are you listening to?

You’re a legend. You’re a homie. You’re a one-of-a-kind specimen and you won’t spend 120 seconds writing your story down so our amazing judges can name you as one of the top founders in the nation?

Wake up, fam. Slurp up a couple cortados.

Sept 13th is going to be the most important day in the country for young entrepreneurs, and we need everyone reading this email’s help to make it happen.

Don’t wanna call anyone out, but hey, we’re already getting vulnerable so I’m gonna let loose. Some startup communities our team would love to see more nominations from:

• TKS

• DMZ

• Techstars

• OneEleven

• Platform Calgary 

• YCombinator

• Plug and Play 

• Next Canada 

• Bold Beginnings

If you know someone in that community, please forward them this email. We wanna see more of their founders in the nomination forms.

We wanna see more stories of founders under 30 crushing it. Don’t you?

We wanna fly you out and party with you in Whistler. Is that too big of an ask? 

If you want that too, get to writing amigo: YEYAwards.com 

About to go for a sea wall jog and grab a cortado. Be right back.

I hope to see your nomination in our inbox by the end of the day.

Can I count on you? 

Your chess move, fam.