Provide a short bio about yourself (200 words max)
I live by the quote in my Instagram bio: instagram.com/psycho.baller
“and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”
By me striving to reach my fullest potential, I inspire to bring out the best in the people around me. I am literally a beam of light. A cheerleader. Which is also what one of my mentors, Guy Lavesque (Director of Hunter Hub in UCalgary), describes himself as.
Everything that I do in life aligns with my purpose of helping everyone around me reach their full potential. More specifically, help people who are currently struggling with a thing that I managed to overcome (loneliness, social anxiety, communication skills, addiction, etc)
I give the absolute minimum amount of time to the things that don’t align with that purpose. Over the past two years, I’ve observed how I became more in alignment with my life purpose. And now I’ve reached a point where my mission is so strong that I can’t even get myself to apply for jobs as a safety net: substack.com/@ramimaalouf/p-170183153 It’s also a way for me to have no other choice but to go all in and bet on myself
Describe what entrepreneurship means to you and what inspires you to want to be an entrepreneur.
For me, being an entrepreneur means having a very strong vision that not a lot of people see or understand. You continue to refine and adapt this vision based on what you learn from the world (e.g. user interviews), with the end goal of creating something that actually solves the problem you intended to solve. In other words, you have a destination that nobody else has, and you are determined to reach it no matter what obstacles come your way by constantly pivoting, adapting, and innovating.
List your entrepreneurial experiences. For example, list businesses, clubs, or communities that you either started or played a leadership role in establishing.
The work that I’m doing right now can be split into three parts:
- Sharing everything I’ve learned from the hardships I overcame: youtube.com/@ramimaalouf | instagram.com/avoidingthetarpit
- Coaching/inspiring/enabling/supporting people who are at a point in life I have lived through: instagram.com/thechalantsociety
- Founder of The Chalant Society where I am basically a cheerleader. Every week, I go with 4 strangers into the lunch area of my university, and I do everything in my abilities to help them get outside their comfort zone while having fun and bringing out positive energy around campus
- Every day I go to class wearing a QR code on my shirt like this: photos.app.goo.gl/VfBXYZom5BF29jmM8
- I have been doing it for the past two months now. Ppl call me “QR code guy” or “The chalant guy”
- As long as something aligns with my mission, there’s absolutely nothing that could stop me (except my morals… so I won’t go naked, or gamble, drink, smoke, etc…). Other than that, I simply no longer get embarrassed even though just 5 years ago I was a master overthinker
- I’m part of ascendcalgary.ca (our own branch of Socratica
- Building things that align with my life mission of reducing friction to real human connection. I love the process of turning a very ambitious idea into something tangible and useful. No matter what role I end up having in the future (e.g. a CEO) I will forever continue to code because this is how I express my creativity) github.com/psycho-baller
Why are you interested in joining NEXT 36?
Basically what I share in the next question. But if I had to add something… I know it’s not directly related, but a feeling that I truly miss and I’ve only felt twice in my life is this: that team spirit where we all work together, not necessarily on the same problem, but on the same mission. We’re all in the same wavelength. We’re all walking in parallel towards the change we want to see in the world. I’ve got in the brim of that feeling. In my basketball team back in high school, where we were so hungry to win it for our school. That feeling you have mid-game where we all are pushing each other to bring out our all… I miss that feeling
I got a glimpse of that during my internship with IBM where our team operated like a startup.
It made me notice that this team spirit can also be achieved while working on your startup. Whether you are working with other people or just being part of a community that strives to make positive change in the world.
In order of priority, list the top 3 benefits you’re looking to receive from the NEXT 36 program
- Time is the only finite resource in the world. While of course failing is a necessary step to learn certain things, there’s still a big difference between failing at something that could have been avoided and failing at something that no one could have ever seen. In my first two years as an entrepreneur, I failed at things that now seem so obvious. I strongly believe that if I had the right mentorship back then, I could have been way ahead in my journey because I would have failed at harder problems. Looking back, I see how many opportunities I missed that I might have noticed if I’d been part of smthn like NEXT 36. Noble ideas surface naturally when you’re around people with shared values. I spent my first two years building alone. No community (until recently), no co-founder. I’d prefer if that was not the case. So please NEXT, open.spotify.com/track/5BckPAYcKEJuYs1eV1BHHe
- I want NEXT to help me fail at the right things, so I can learn what no one else has and share those lessons forward through my content. That’s literally how we evolve as a species. Either that, or I don’t fail at all but that’s kind of impossible for an entrepreneur paving his own path
- I want to inspire and be inspired. I wanna have SF’s energy right here in the north. I want to be surrounded by people who are just as optimistic about the future that we can create. I know this sounds cheesy, but this is the delusion that people have in SF that gets them to actually succeed in their venture
Share the venture name, a short description and traction to date
getaudora.app is an on-device speech reflection app that helps people become more intentional, articulate, and connected communicators. It offers real-time, personalized feedback on your clarity, tone, and everything in between to help you get 1% better after every social interaction. Before Audora, I launched and tested several consumer-social products under the Orbit ecosystem:
- rami-maalouf.tech/uc-orbit-vid
- heyember.me
- getexo.vercel.app
Each one explored different ways to deepen human connection through technology. While those projects didn’t find PMF, they helped me uncover a core insight: The root problem is not lack of opportunity to find the right people to talk to — especially in places like in universities. There are several ways you can meet up with new people. Campus is filled with events. The actual problem is people either:
- Don’t have the social confidence to put themselves in these situations, so they just stay home and not even bother.
- Or they don’t have the social skills and social intelligence to have good conversations with people that result in real, long-lasting connection
A lot of these require hundreds of hours of work on yourself. But what if we can make the path to mastery easier. More effortless and smoothly integrated into people’s day to day lives. Built an MVP website & mobile app in 3 days of nonstop coding and got some initial excitement and positive traction from friends Launching public beta on the 16th (check my linkedin post) This is the product demo: youtu.be/9ohV10h_e2Y
Tell us why we should select you to join the Next 36 program
https://youtube.com/shorts/vks52fdgpEk
Is there anything else you’d like to share for your application?
Given that this is my final year of university and I’m not applying for any jobs, in some way a reality check has struck me. If I can have a chance of succeeding in the space, I’m going to have to go all in https://open.spotify.com/track/5Z01UMMf7V1o0MzF86s6WJ
I actually met Janet over a year ago during Toronto tech week https://photos.app.goo.gl/GPo7t8A277mohjzH8
I ONLY used Generative AI to erase things for Qs I went over the character limit in
You can find the whole application inside my public journal/diary/2nd brain https://notes.rami-maalouf.tech/My-Outputs/My-Essays/Next-36