Today, we're launching Season 0 of our membership. Our mission is to unite and nurture the next generation of DaVincis through building Libraries of the Future in every city. What are libraries of the future? How can we empower the misfits of our generation?👇

I don't go to WashU. On Sunday I hosted a dinner there anyway, for people I'd never met before last week. Here's how that happened: I do growth for @vercinyc, and we just launched our first Student Fellowship. I was going to be in St. Louis for a week to surprise my gf for her birthday, so I figured I might as well meet people building things at WashU. One problem. I didn't really know many people there. So I put my agents to work. Skandalaris competition results, hackathon rosters, Devpost, the student paper. I ended up with over 120 names of students who had shipped or done something cool, and I cold DMed about 30 of them. Then school buried me, and I had to stop reaching out for a few days. It got to the point where I was contemplating putting off the dinner. But 4 people had already RSVP'd. I wasn't gonna just fade them. Still, the whole week I had no real way of knowing who would actually show. People say yes to a free dinner and then don't pull up. 6 came. Jose has been making content since 2018 and has scaled @ libraries on Instagram to 883K followers. Ben is building Proximity, an AI leasing brokerage for student housing. Bad landlord experiences stay between friends, so the next group signs the same lease anyway. Proximity makes those reviews public and uses them to match students to housing. Lydia is co-president of WashUX, the campus design club, and designs for early-stage startups through the Skandalaris agency. At one point it was around five at once. Grace runs GDG on Campus WashU, 900+ members, and has raised $60K+ for events. Christien ran DevFest with her and co-founded 180 Degrees Consulting and Wash U Wash. Krishna built SmartSheet, an AI tool that makes personalized worksheets for teachers. Her team demoed it at the Endgame Expo and won. Then the thing I couldn't have planned happened. Ben started talking about Proximity, and Lydia pointed out who was sitting at that table: Ben had the president of the design club AND the president of the Google dev club right next to him. Turns out WashUX already runs Proximity as their partner project, so Lydia's side was covered. Grace filled in the other half and offered Ben 5 or 6 devs from her club whenever he needed help building. They go to the same school. They'd just never all been in the same room. Thanks to Verci for covering it, and to everyone who came out on a Sunday to sit down with a stranger from Michigan. I'm going to keep doing these at other schools. If you're building something and want to be at the next one, dm me.

deadlines if you're building something: • yc w2027 - nov 2 • techstars nyc - nov 18, $220k • soros fellowship - oct 29, up to $90k • thiel fellowship - year-round ;) $100k • z fellows - rolling, $10k for one week • emergent ventures - rolling, no equity, open to anyone 13+ • 1517 medici - rolling/informal, $1k+ no-equity grants for young builders yc also has early decision for students, you apply while enrolled and do the batch after you graduate. barely anyone knows abt it reply "deadlines" and i'll send the doc with links, check sizes, and what each one is looking for

here's why your city closes at 9, in numbers. a cafe staying open until 1am is looking at maybe six people buying $5 coffees, so about $30 an hour, against a barista at $22 plus rent plus the insurance rider you need after midnight. put a liquor license in that same room and those six people are drinking $14 cocktails, two rounds each, and you're at $170 an hour. only one of those covers a night shift

it's 2:34am and there are people in our building someones editing, someones on a deadline, someones probably napping in the corner, someone who thinks much better at this hour every coffee shop within a mile closed five hours ago this is the entire reason we built this place

it's friday. what did you fr ship this week reply with the thing, doesn't matter how small. we read every one of these and we'll follow the good ones

apply to the verci fellowship see you soon.

we just launched the @vercinyc fellowship more details below

new york city currently offers nightlife businesses and workers, often for free: • legal help with commercial leases for eligible small businesses • free mediation between venues/neighbors over noise and quality-of-life disputes • mental health and wellness resources for nightlife workers • free narcan, overdose-prevention resources, and training for venues • free nightlife business, safety, and harm-reduction classes we run a space in this city and found these resources through members. reply “nightlife” and we'll send you the official links + who each program is for, what you can get, and how to access it

in 1996 you could buy groceries at 3am in a mid-sized town in indiana. in 2026 you can't even get a coffee and a chair at 3am in manhattan.

being a creative in new york is easy, you've just got to master: • rent • the day job that pays for the real work • the real work the day job leaves no time for • showing someone the unfinished version anyway • finding a room with other people making things • that room being affordable • that room being open when you actually work • finishing something nobody asked for • posting it • doing it again three weeks later

Verci is launching its first Student Fellowship tomorrow. Free, and open to students at any school. Reply "link" and I'll send you the application early, before applications open publicly tomorrow. When I started building, there was no structured path to follow. I kept making things, breaking them, and eventually things clicked. I also shot my shot everywhere while I was building because I wanted to increase my surface area for luck. A lot of those cold emails and DMs went nowhere. Some turned into real relationships, and a few turned into mentorship that changed a lot for me. Getting into Kappa Theta Pi first semester and @V1Michigan second semester came out of that habit, and this heavily accelerated my growth. Upperclassmen and alums answered my questions and pushed me to build harder projects. I don't think I'd be where I am now without those rooms. Every school has some version of that. They're just hard to find as a freshman. So we're building one that anyone can apply to, no matter where they go to school. Even if you're a dropout, fresh out of school, or even a super ambitious high schooler with big dreams. @vercinyc itself is a community for builders and creatives with spaces in NYC and LA. The fellowship is the student version of it. One semester, 20 students from different schools. You get: - a mentor - a mastermind group of 4 to 5 people - a retreat in the Catskills - workshops on building an audience, fundraising, anything you're stuck on - ambitious people to talk to about what you're building - access to the NYC and brand-new LA Verci spaces Regular applications open tomorrow. But if you wanna be early, reply "link" and I'll send you the application before it opens. And if you're building something, I'd love to connect. One last thing: Just throw an application in. You never know where it takes you.

moving to new york is easy, you've just got to master: • the first two weeks where you know nobody • saying yes to the thing you don't want to go to • going to it alone • the friend who said they'd come and didn't • accepting your coworkers are not going to become your friends • having somewhere to suggest that isn't a bar • suggesting it a second time • the october where everyone you met in september goes quiet • finding the one thing that happens every single week • still going in november