The following are active advisors lending their talents, time and good names to our success:

Ian Bassin - Founder & Executive Director of Protect Democracy

Joyce Batcheller - Executive Nurse Advisor and former system Chief Nursing Officer

Adam Berrey - Leadership Coach & serial entrepreneur with 4 successful exits

Katie Boston-Leary - Senior Vice President at the American Nurses Association

Kit Colbert - former CTO of VMWare

Dan Erstad - Chief Operating Officer at Monument Health

David Fairman - Senior Mediator at Consensus Building Institute

Megan Friedman - VP of Business Development at CCA focused on Healthcare wellbeing

Theo Peterson - Chief Information Security Officer at ImagineX

Rosanne Raso - former Chief Nursing Officer at Weill Cornell, board member at AONL

We have signed MOUs with:

We are also grateful to:‍

Once we have reached $1M in monthly recurring revenue for 3 consecutive months, the “trigger” is activated. At that point, we notify all investors that they have up to a year to decide whether they want to participate in the revenue sharing or stay with the SAFE/equity.  It is an either/or choice, and we want to make sure everyone makes an informed decision, which is why we’ve made that “election window” a full year.

For the investors opt into revenue sharing, we establish a “revenue share pool” that is 5% of all top-line revenue. That pool is disbursed to participants quarterly beginning 3 months after the trigger is reached. The total potential returns for investors has a “return cap.” All investors in this round will have a return cap of 5x, so their total “entitlement” would be 5x their original investment.  Each investor’s portion of the quarterly disbursement is calculated based on the ratio of their outstanding entitlement/the total outstanding entitlements. Those payments would continue for each participant until their cap is reached.

To put that in terms of expected timelines and IRR, it’s important to remind ourselves of the quote:  “All models are wrong. Some are useful.”  So it most certainly will differ from this, but according to our current model, the payments would begin in Q4 of 2027 and the cap would be reached by the end of 2033 resulting in an IRR of just over 30%. That’s assuming all investors opt to participate in the pool. If some don’t, it would get paid out faster, resulting in a higher IRR.

The structures and accounting practices of most institutional venture mean they can’t provide the financial returns they’ve promised to their Limited Partners unless their portfolio companies exit. We see sustainable growth as a potential path forward and they have to use whatever leverage they have to ensure their portfolio companies don’t pursue that if they want to serve their Limited Partners.  In those cases, we’re just not a fit and shouldn’t waste time figuring that out.

Some venture firms have more flexibility either due to an impact orientation or a different LP structure and we’ll explore where we see a good potential fit.

It's hard, of course, to predict how AI will affect various markets. One thing seems clear, however: the cost of building very complex software solutions is plummeting. The productivity of our tech team has skyrocketed. Moreover, a lot of work that used to be the exclusive domain of expensive professional services can increasingly be automated.

We believe that a new crop of AI-native companies will leverage these developments to become wildly profitable with much less upfront capital. We are well positioned to be one of them.

The level of distrust frontline nurses have for those seeking to profit off of healthcare today cannot be overstated. The vast majority of nurses chose the profession because they derive meaning from caring for others. They are swimming in a world of venture-backed products designed to “optimize” them and are intimately aware of how different financial incentives can limit or undermine patient care.

So they are increasingly sophisticated in their understanding of those incentives. Even if they don’t know how different venture LP structures affect priorities, they have good noses. If a new product doesn’t smell right, they simply won’t use it. They don’t have a lot of power in decision-making but they do have de-facto veto power when it comes to new products. All executives understand this and so “Will my nurses trust you?” is a huge factor in purchasing decisions.

We are very proud of the success we have had cultivating trust with nurses on a short-timeline. That trust is critical, fragile and can’t be faked. Making that mission-aligned financing part of our narrative will help reinforce that trust and establish a robust competitive differentiator.

Yes, it does create additional complexity. Revenue based financing is not that common yet, but it’s growing in popularity primarily for the reasons we’re using it. And yes, with complexity come risks.

We’re lucky to have the legal team we do at Orrick who has extensive experience with both revenue based financing and conventional venture financing.  We’ve looked closely with them at the common risks and would be happy to discuss those further.

One critical factor for us was to ensure we take a “back to the fundamentals” approach. We recognize that exits have been the norm for tech-based investment over the last 20 years, but we’re living in a time of substantial change. Who knows? Maybe the power law breaks down and the whole venture model gets disrupted. Regardless, we think its prudent to ensure our investors get their due however we grow.

So the bottom line is we recognize the risks but feel confident they are manageable and the benefits outweigh the costs.

Healthcare provides an ideal starting point for impact assessment because the industry inherently prioritizes measurable outcomes, and the leading indicators associated with the bottom-line pain we’re addressing are closely aligned with our mission. For example:

• Nurse Retention & Burnout: Leading indicators include nurses’ self-reported strength of interpersonal connections and perceived peer support, measured through standardized engagement surveys (and precisely aligned with our goal of strengthening interpersonal connections.)
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• Patient Care:  Reduced hospital-acquired infections and lower patient readmission rates are strongly associated with nurses’ reported psychological safety and perceptions of being genuinely heard by leadership (which are also good indicators of deliberative, solutions-oriented discourse being safely amplified.)
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• Labor Relations: Internal HR complaints and compliance with policies are regularly measured (and generally indicate a lack of alignment with leadership.)

We are also exploring how we can integrate the Digital Trust Score (DTS) into our work to assess shifts in trust amongst participants. It’s important to note that our product is an incredibly powerful analysis and assessment engine and we are developing custom assessment tools that will both provide value to our customers and help us measure intended outcomes more effectively.

Nurses already want to use Slow Talk outside of work and we do have conviction that the product meets a much more pervasive craving in the public.  However….

We are repeat founders who recognize how critical focus is. It’s essential we stay exclusively focused within healthcare at least until we have built a robust financial foundation and delivered on the core promise of Slow Talk. That core promise is to work within large health systems to help ensure:

• their people feel more connected to each other and heard by leadership
• their leaders can communicate more authentically, responsively and efficiently with all their people; and
• they as an institution can collectively set and achieve ambitious goals

Helping restore the vitality of our critical institutions would be a profound contribution to our democracy in its own right. And there would be substantial costs, operational challenges and risks of competing priorities if we chose to expand into the public square. So we acknowledge it’s not inevitable that expansion will make sense and we would only make that leap if and when we feel confident it would not jeopardize the work within institutions.

If we stay focused and deliver on that promise, then we will have options. We do see plausible paths to do both well, which we’d be happy to discuss further, but we’ll have to wait and see. Our goal now is to get the right people on the bus with the right incentives so that we can together make the right decision once we get there.

Building out the platform in a market with substantial demand is critical to generating product usage and revenue.  That enables us to refine the product and drive our unit costs down so that it can be commercially viable more broadly.

We see current tech and media products like cigarettes in the 90’s.  Yes, they're  highly addictive and effective at generating engagement—with all kinds of negative consequences. There are a few reasons why we have conviction that Slow Talk generates the necessary engagement for our envisioned impact without exploiting that dopamine addiction.

1. Dopamine is not the only neurotransmitter/hormone that we crave. Oxytocin is a fundamental neurotransmitter and hormone related to social bonding. Research consistently shows that humans possess a profound and innate need for meaningful social connection, crucial for both psychological and physical health. We have not put users in a lab yet to monitor their oxytocin levels while on Slow Talk, but the data we do have is encouraging. Users consistently describe Slow Talk as a more authentic, vulnerable space that enhances their sense of connection with their peers and helps them feel less alone. Slow Talk’s model also builds directly off work Lucas & Waidehi led at Soliya – an online dialogue platform between students in Western & Muslim societies -  which cognitive neuroscience researchers from MIT and UPenn did publish research on. That and other research found that the model Slow Talk is based upon substantially increased “self-other overlap” related to social bonding.
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2. There is now widespread awareness and acknowledgment of the problem. This is woefully insufficient on its own, but it is a critical precondition to crafting and executing effective remedies, just like it was with cigarettes. Most of us are still addicted to those dopamine hits, but at least we don't want to be now, and many of us are trying to battle that addiction.
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3. ‍There are substantial trends already underway towards a less dopamine-driven media experience. The axiom of 10 years ago that everything needs to be shorter and punchier to garner attention simply isn't borne out by the evidence anymore. The explosion in podcasting in recent years is Exhibit A—many of the most popular podcasts last hours. We believe there is something inherent to audio-based content that makes it conducive to more vulnerable, nuanced and substantive conversation. It seems likely that the podcast surge is fueled in part by the pervasive lack of social connection in our society. Slow Talk goes further, providing genuine social interaction with real people, and not just a fleeting semblance of connection based on passive consumption.
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4. ‍Once people get a taste of Slow Talk, they want more. Getting people in the door the first time is a challenge and we have not offered as many opportunities to participate as we plan. And yet, in spite of that, even though Slow Talk has at times been absent from their day-to-day for weeks at a time, the response and engagement when requested has been through the roof.
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We aim for Slow Talk to become something people crave more akin to water than sugar. There's such a thing as enough, and when you finish using it, you should feel better because you did, not worse.

Social audio platforms like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces have typically emphasized passive moderation, transient engagement, and broad, generalized audiences. Slow Talk, by contrast, employs proactive facilitation—actively structuring conversations to foster meaningful connections, generate insights, and amplify collective voices.

Slow Talk is intentionally designed around a clearly defined founding community: nurses. This deliberate, community-centered approach ensures highly relevant, impactful dialogue around specific, high-stakes professional issues in the near-term.  In the longer-term it provides us with a robust and trusted community of evangelists to expand.

The most important stuff is hard. Cultivating a healthier public square in which our democracy can work is one of the defining challenges for our generation. Unless we effect meaningful change in that domain, progress in so many other areas is in jeopardy.

There’s been no shortage of research or working groups tasked with making recommendations. The way we’re going to learn is by trying. We commit to being as transparent and collaborative as possible so long as it does not directly compromise our own pursuit of the mission. We recognize that we are part of a broader ecosystem of people and institutions all bringing considerable talents to this challenge. So  if when we stumble, we commit to contributing to that broader ecosystem’s collective learning.

It’s time to take some risks and empower inspired teams to confront the challenge directly.

We’re here and ready.

Right now, our CEO is the sole board member. We’re in the early phase of governance development — and doing it deliberately.

Over the next 18 months, we plan to form a full board. This year, we’re establishing the Slow Talk Circle, a mission-aligned advisory body described below. We plan to draw from that group — a “date before we marry” model — to select suitable board members. We believe it’s the most grounded, transparent way to grow and ultimately govern responsibly.

The Slow Talk Circle is a curated advisory group of approximately 30 exceptional individuals who care about the future of healthcare, democracy, technology, and human connection.

It includes our early investors, advisors, and invited thought-leaders in democracy, civic engagement, healthcare, conflict resolution, media and tech. This isn’t a formal board. It’s a space to participate in thoughtful conversations that shape our company’s direction while also exploring broader societal dynamics we aim to help address by:

• engaging directly with our platform: Experience what makes Slow Talk different by participating in structured, small-group discussions with fellow Circle members.
• being part of shaping something bigger: Help guide the development of a company redefining how people relate to each other and their institutions.
• connecting with brilliant peers: Join intimate conversations with a multidisciplinary community of leaders, practitioners, and builders.
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Participation includes:

• quarterly small-group dialogues hosted on the Slow Talk platform (virtual)
• optional in-person gatherings tied to mission-aligned events or milestones
• opportunities to contribute ideas to product, strategy, partnerships, and narrative
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The Slow Talk Circle is not just advisory — it’s a community of co-creators. Over the next 18 months, we expect to invite members from the Circle to join our formal board of directors. It’s a chance to get close to the work, help shape it, and potentially help steward its next phase.