We made up the fund. Not the excuses.
We have heard the objections behind these rejection memos with our own ears. Fortunately, they were not always directed at us. Sometimes they were directed at other founders, other products and other businesses.
“It’s just an app.” “Where is the communications person?” “The voice isn’t perfectly human.” “Someone could build it in an afternoon.” These are real reasons people have given for dismissing what a founder was building.
We put that reasoning into a fictional investment committee and imagined what it would have made of Google, Amazon, Uber and Facebook. The applications, meetings and rejection letters are invented. We are not claiming those companies actually pitched NQL8R, or that these were their historical rejection stories.
The memos are satirical retellings, not transcripts. The objections are familiar because we have actually heard them.
About the name.
NQL8R is an Italian phonetic joke. Say it aloud and it evokes inculatore: crudely, someone who screws you. It sounds just close enough to the world of incubators and accelerators to belong on a very polished pitch deck.
An incubator that screws you.
The English equivalent? F*KBTR. Short for Fuckubator. The same concept, with international branding and a discreetly censored vowel.
Recognize the meeting?
If you have your own story of innovation by committee, we would like to hear it. The impossible requirement. The tenth introductory call. The expert who explained why your working product could not work.
Tell us what happened, and whether you would want your story shared anonymously or under your name.
nql8r@gmail.comThis is a satire project, not an investment offer. Sending a story does not automatically publish it.