Coffee Capitalist · Week 45: Espresso ☕
For jobseekers and founders who are tired of working hard to find a job or customers and would almost rather starve than network, Coffee Capitalist will make it easier to make real progress.
With only eight weeks until the end of the year, finish the 45th week of 2026 with energy for ideas you feel good about pursuing—and greater confidence in your next networking move.
“You need to make yourself a big target for luck.” — Paul Graham, How to Do Great Work
What you get
Coffee Capitalist is a week of easy access to useful networking resources so you don't have to keep doing hard things to make real progress:
easy access to people for ideas, perspective, and motivation who are:
available at the same time as you
in the same boat as you
a tool that tells you exactly what to do next to improve your prospects, so networking and raising your visibility is easier and less cringe
How it works
On Monday: you'll get access to Capitalist, a platform that helps with you invest your limited networking energy wisely. Capitalist is not a tool for every day, but for when the next step for improving your prospects isn't obvious and easy.
Tuesday through Friday: everyday at 10:00 Berlin time, an online 30-minute stand-up call you can join, so getting help from others is easy. Just show up, no prep needed. Attend as often as fits your schedule.
⚠️ You are not expected to attend the stand-up every day. It's not every day to be an obligation. It is every day so you have a regular easy option for support to keep moving forward.
In the stand-up, you can share what you're working on, talk about what's on your mind, and connect with other participants for sparring and co-working.
Throughout the week: use Capitalist when you’re not sure what to do next to improve your prospects OR you know what to do next, but it's hard.
Stuck? Buy someone a coffee ☕
When you need someone to talk through ideas or motivate you to get something done, and friends aren't available, reach out to another participant for:
30 minutes of strategic sparring
or an hour of co-working.
Just enough to get going.
If reaching out feels hard, use Capitalist to connect with people who are available to help.
As a thank-you for their time and attention, we ask you to pay them €6—about the price of a coffee. Gratitude for helping and a bit of money are game changers in terms of self-confidence and energy.
This is a direct, honor-system payment between participants, not a fee collected or enforced by Capitalist.
Why should you "buy someone a coffee" for trying to help you get past a hurdle to doing something important when you don't know them well and they are not a world-famous expert?
If you're wondering that, I ask you to think about all of the jobs, investors, etc. that passed on you because of your lack of experience/traction, if they even bothered to reply.
Did that seem right to you? The job probably wasn't rocket science and, even if it was, how much of being a rocket scientist these days really requires 10 years of experience in rocket science?
Now think about all of the times you've felt better after talking with a stranger at a bar or party about something challenging you. What made that person qualified, other than proximity and timing?
And if you're still thinking €6 is too much, Coffee Capitalist is not for you—you probably have other options that align better with your values and priorities.
Extra opportunities 🙌
Get your €25 back when you refer two friends—people you would vouch for. People can join at anytime throughout the week.
Join the next edition for free. This is an experiment—if we do it again, you're in at no extra cost.
Keep using Capitalist for a month. Your registration includes one month of platform access.
Receive a grant of up to €100 (because wouldn’t getting paid for the work of getting paid be nice?). At the end of the week, we'll award at least one cash grant, 10% of revenue up to €100, based on participation. We will also make a matching donation to Casa Kuà, a Berlin trans health community organization.
Why founders and jobseekers together?
You are working on the same problem: how to identify the most effective and least demanding way to ensure your financial security without the reliable infrastructure of an employer.
You have valuable complementary resources:
flexible schedules and
already actively collecting information about opportunities.
You might as well collaborate.
About Capitalist
Capitalist is an anti-capitalist tool that helps you land more opportunities with less effort.
You’re working too hard chasing opportunities from people who don’t care about you.
What counts as working too hard?
applications (cold or even with a referral)
cold outreach
getting an extra certification just to make yourself “competitive”
leveling up your language skills just to make yourself “competitive”
anytime you are reaching out to someone if doing so feels stressful
doing anything that substantiates the incorrect view that you aren’t already enough
If you aren’t having fun, if the opportunity isn’t guaranteed, or if between you and the opportunity, there isn’t someone the opportunity cares deeply about, you aren’t even really working, you’re gambling and you’re losing.
Capitalists work less and invest more.
Capitalist helps you invest your energy into your community, and reinvest in the community that shows up, so that opportunities are brought to you, and not the other way around.
That’s how you begin to own the means of your production, to live a life of meaning and choice.
That’s how we will all escape capitalism.
Capitalist: Stop playing the game. Start keeping score.
A story about toothpaste 😬
Stress and uncertainty limit your ability to correctly choose the path of least resistance.
I recently had brunch with a friend visiting Berlin from overseas, in the restaurant of the hotel where she was staying. She had just arrived the evening before.
As soon as I sat down at the table, she asked me: "Where do you buy toothpaste in Berlin on a Sunday???"
She had left her hotel earlier that morning and walked all around her neighborhood. She couldn't find an open pharmacy or grocery store. She did find an open convenience store, but the dental hygiene shelf was empty.
I told her that there is usually one pharmacy open in a neighborhood and major train stations have grocery stores that are open on Sundays. And then I asked, "But what about here? Usually hotels have supplies."
It had not occurred to her to ask at the front desk.
A seasoned traveler, she normally packs toothpaste with other essentials and keeps them near at hand. She was unaccustomed to having to solve this problem. But life has been hectic recently. Her mind was elsewhere when she packed for the trip.
Why didn't it occur to her to ask at the front desk?
We messaged in the morning—why didn't she ask me for help then?
Why did she wait until we were together to ask for my help?
After brunch, she went to the hotel's front desk. They had toothpaste. 😀
The moral of the story
Capitalism has programmed us to go for "low-stakes" impersonal solutions (like going to a shop or cold applications) when "high-stakes" personal solutions are more effective and, as a result, we overlook the effective personal solutions that are actually "low-stakes".
We overlook the people who've made it very clear that they are ready and willing to help in the ways we want to be helped.
Rejection sucks. Most of us super avoid it. And, consequently, we consistently disregard the people who've made it very clear that rejection is not on the table.
Coffee Capitalist is a new idea to try and fix that—to make progress easier by making it very clear who is ready and willing to help you in the ways you want to be helped, and that rejection is off the table.
Coffee Capitalist · Espresso Edition: 2-8 November
Get your networking percolating.
Morning stand-ups for scheduled support: Tuesday–Friday, 10:00–10:30 Berlin time (CET) · Online
Additional support on your schedule throughout the rest of the week.
€25. A week to accelerate your progress. Friends can join anytime.
This is an eras.fyi project. Have questions? Email: jason@eras.fyi.