Fundraising the pre-seed in January in Poland — cold, getting "a lot of nose back to back," and up against a deadline from his parents that he'd have to go back to school if nothing happened. Nam says as a founder "you sign up to get punched in the gut every single day."
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Nam says he could answer simply by saying every day is hard. The one that stands out: when they first began fundraising their pre-seed, "it was like January in Poland." It was cold, fundraising outside San Francisco "is just not ideal," and they were "getting a lot of nose back to back." He was close to a deadline — his parents had said that if nothing happened by then, he'd have to go back to school. To get through it he relied on three abstractions he gave himself: whether the work aligned with his core values, the fact that he genuinely enjoys solving hard problems, and that he got to solve them with his co-founder, someone he really enjoyed working with.