Yesterday I learned why Elon Musk says starting a company is like chewing glass

“Running a start-up is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends”. -Elon Musk

Yesterday I received the note every entrepreneur dreads, coming from a great potential lead investor after three weeks of due diligence:

we really like you, we love your mission, but have questions re: the model and early days status, so we’re not over the hump. Let’s keep talking in the next couple of months, and we’ll do everything we can to help you along the way.

(This last part is why they are great investors)

I immediately sat down at my computer and applied for a 0% interest credit card. Then I put on my board shorts, headed up the elevator to the rooftop of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, and did a cannonball into the deep end of the pool. The 10,000 SPG Points I’d spent on the room suddenly seemed very well spent — a hard-earned luxury, since tomorrow it’s back to friends’ couches for this still-bootstrapping entrepreneur.

I’m the founder of SlingShot. We’re a technology company working night and day to disrupt the messy, broken frequent flyer travel system, making it less complicated for Jane on Main St. to travel for free. We help people see more places by showing how responsible credit use can open the door to destinations around the globe. Our mission? Nothing short of world peace.

Here’s what that looks like, coming from a woman who plans to use her SlingShot Plan and the miles she earns to travel to Syria to do good work:

And an example of how we’re spreading stories of connection, inclusion, and peace via the SlingShot Emissary Project:

and finally, what our hypothesis looks like, via emoji:

The message is resonating, but we have to keep our head above water, first and foremost. And if building a company to create peace seems like a lofty, perhaps unattainable goal, you’re right, because building any company is really freaking tough.

Here’s an example: after a couple of months working 14 hours every single day (weekends included), on Saturday, April 30th at 2:30 in the morning, I was swaying back and forth in a New Orleans bar, drunk on whiskey and high on the adrenaline of a successful launch at Collision Conference (full disclosure: helping with marketing for #lppitch at Collision was my last consulting gig before going full time on SlingShot). I felt my phone vibrate, pulled it out of my pocket, and read an email from my Harvard MBA cofounder, who had left the conference the day before all smiles, now saying: “I’m leaving the business”. Your squad quitting on you during NOLA Jazz Fest? Ouch.

So, in context, yesterday’s “not yet” is a minor speed bump on the highway to success. I’m not down; I’m invigorated. I woke up this morning, did 100 push ups, 200 jumping jacks, and then I sat down to share this story with you, for a purpose.

Angel investor, software engineer looking for your next challenge, or intrepid traveler searching for your next adventure: if you are aligned with our deeply held conviction that fixing the broken reward travel system will expand the travel pie to help more people see more places, and you believe the world desperately needs more peace, please reach out: Dan@slingshot.flights.

And Elon Musk (not Bored Elon Musk, though he’s free to comment too): if you somehow read this … thank you for your advice, the blood tastes great.

Thanks to Sarah Judd Welch for editing.