Dispatch 1
Company Update #1 - March
Jeff Nyquist
Last Tuesday I signed incorporation documents for our new startup.
It was 6 a.m. First coffee poured. Robin, my co-founder, was already well into his work day in Germany, texting me about our next big release that would include most of the features we want for version 1.0. I love this time of the day, when everything is still possible and there is time to get clear on what the day should be.
We’ve been building this “project” for years. But last week it became a company. That reminded me of the quote from Jeff Bezos that progress is often invisible for a very long time. Because there is so much to learn before the learning is converted into something tangible.
I’ve been thinking about sharing our story for a long time. This moment felt like the right time to start.
If you’re reading this, you’re part of how we got here. A late-night call. An intro. A long time friend who understands the journey of a startup. A conversation that stuck with me longer than you knew.
So this is the first of what I hope becomes a habit: a dispatch from the field. What we’re building. What we’re learning. What’s breaking. What’s quietly working better than we expected.
And what might matter for your own life, too.
What we’re building (and what we’re really building)
On the surface, we’re building Sam: an AI-powered mentor for college athletes and the coaches who support them.
Sam lives on their phone. At 12:03 a.m. when anxiety spikes before an exam. On a bus ride home after a loss when no one feels like talking. In the five silent minutes before walking into a coach’s office.
Sam listens. It remembers. Over time, it helps athletes understand themselves, and find the words to connect and solve their problems.
There are over 500,000 NCAA student-athletes in the U.S. Nearly half report struggling daily. More than half say they’re uncomfortable seeking help.
Not because help doesn’t exist. Because from age seven onward, they’ve been taught one lesson over and over: perform. And whatever you do, don’t look weak.
We are solving access to resources that exist on campus but don’t get used. We are solving access to conversations they are not having. First with themselves, and then scaffolding this behavior to connect to the people around them.
Our latest study had 71% of participants improve their help seeking behavior. I’m convinced people want to connect. They just need the space to express their objections and concerns, work through them and get comfortable with HOW to connect.
Robin’s story (and the origin of Sam)
If you want to understand why this matters, you need to understand Robin.
Three minutes. That’s his entire college soccer career. Four years at Temple University. Three minutes of playing time.
He grew up in Germany and joined a professional soccer academy at fourteen. Every year, they cut players. Every year, your worth was evaluated. Performance equaled survival. He once told me, “You learn very early that struggling is something you hide.”
When he came to the U.S. for college, soccer was still the center of gravity. He started his senior year with some hope left, still believing things might change. By December, all hope was gone. He wasn’t injured. He wasn’t cut. He was invisible. A senior who wouldn’t even get subbed in on senior night.
He looked great in the senior photo. He Skyped his family in Germany and said everything was fine. He showed up to practice.
Inside, he had started believing that without playing time, he didn’t deserve anything. Not care. Not compassion. Not respect. On the worst days, not even to still be here.
“I didn’t know who I was without soccer,” he told me. “And I didn’t know how to say that out loud.”
He needed someone to remind him that his worth wasn’t his minutes. But shame is louder than logic. It took him months to finally walk into TUWell’s counseling chair at Temple and slowly start learning he was more than his athletic performance.
Right now, as I write this, Robin is in Germany building Sam’s memory system, the architecture that allows Sam to remember context, notice patterns, and surface the question no one else thinks to ask. He’s building it with Temple Athletics, the same people who helped him find his way back.
He’s building the thing he never had. In the exact place where he needed it most.
My why
My path here is different.
My mother lost four brothers, addiction, prison, suicide, because no one in the family knew how to talk about grief. Silence metastasized into isolation for each of the men in her life.
She went on to found America’s first hospice.
Growing up, I watched her sit at kitchen tables with families who didn’t know how to say the things that mattered most. She believed that what destroys people isn’t pain, it’s being alone in it.
Every feature decision we make runs through a quiet filter in my mind: would this have interrupted the kind of isolation that destroyed my Mom’s family?
If this resonates
If you want to talk with Sam yourself, we can send you a link to the beta app.
Also, we’re raising a seed round to accelerate development ahead of our NCAA national deployment in January 2027.
The NCAA signed a distribution agreement giving us access to all 1,100 member universities and more than 500,000 student-athletes. That opportunity has to be handled well. We need capital to build the product it demands, and the right people around the table.
If you’re someone who understands what’s at stake for this generation of young people navigating identity, pressure, and performance, I’d welcome a conversation.
And even if investing isn’t your lane, introductions have changed our trajectory before. If you know someone who should hear about Journai, please send them our way.
Thank you for being in this with us.
Jeff & Robin