"Let's teach nerds how to party"

Sup memelords,

Slow Ventures wrote us a $1.5M check at memelord.com.

So it shouldn’t be too surprising Slow are masters of meme marketing as well.

A lot of people think that VC firms need to be stuck up and boring, but Slow Ventures goes completely against that (and they’ve invested like $1B 🤯).

In the last 2 months alone, Slow has:

• taught tech nerds how to eat caviar

• dropped a funny book for toilet-reading

• started using memes in their newsletter (I may have had something to do with this 😉)

• rented out a movie theater in NYC just to watch a banger movie to the boys

I’m gonna break down how Slow Ventures is out-marketing any other VC firm and how anyone can do the same even without millions. In fact, I’m gonna give you 3 actionable marketing ideas anyone can use even if you’ve only got $100 to your name.

Warning: you must be scrappy and silly!

Teaching nerds how to party and eat caviar:

This is our lead investor Sam looking dapper as ever.

And last month, he and the Slow team hosted an event teaching tech founders how to party and eat caviar. Why???

Because the average SF tech nerd can’t make eye contact and despite the internet, yes, it’s still important in business. Because in the age of everyone using AI chatbots, the real arbitrage is personal relationships and IRL events. Because if you’re going to be a billionaire, you better know how to fucking party.

And oh yeah, because it’s great marketing for Slow Ventures.

Yes, VC firms do need to market too.

I know this is shocking. This came as a huge surprise to me early in my startup career too, but VC firms need to get dealflow (why every VC and their brother has a podcast). And just like any marketing, it’s good to offend some people in order to find the right people. If you’re a VC firm for everyone, you’re a VC firm for no one.

This etiquette class perfectly nailed the strategy.

• The people who get it loved it. It went viral. Got a lot of press. And me and my team thought it was the coolest thing ever.

• The people who didn’t get it hated it. The class got a lot of flack especially from the stuck-up pretentious Y Combinator crowd who thought it was too unhinged. Uh, well most of them haven’t felt the touch of a woman since their mother.

I texted Jack Raines at Slow who helped orchestrate the class, and here’s what he said:

Some of you might even remember Jack was a viral memelord and writer featured in my book Memes Make Millions before he became a VC!!!

So what did Slow do when the class went viral?

They doubled the fuck down.

Writing a book about etiquette

In my 2023 book Memes Make Millions, I wrote about capitalizing on “The Current Thing”

When a topic is “The Current Thing” on the internet, you need to capitalize on it ASAP. Make content, yap, do whatever you gotta do. Because when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Ever notice how there’s more new memes per day than the early 2010s? The Current Thing is switching faster than ever and if you don’t capitalize on it fast, you’re fucked. (This is what led me to build the Google Trends for memes memelord.com).

This is crucial for any marketer to understand.

And it’s doubly crucial when you yourself are the current thing.

When you become “The Current Thing” you need to capitalize on it HARD because it’ll be gone fast. Sacrifice sleep. Drink coffee. Do whatever you need to. I did this during my raise and all the hit pieces. I tweeted about it non-stop, I didn’t sleep, I met the mayor, and I brought in a couple milli in a week for the business.

When you are “The Current Thing” you need to capitalize on it fast. Because it’ll be gone by next week. Sam and Slow nailed this perfectly.

Within a few weeks of the viral etiquette class and press, they dropped a quick guidebook Modern Etiquette in Technology, Finance, Society, and at Home: A Slow Ventures Handbook. It’s a quick fun 1-hour read about why tech nerds should get their shit together and learn how to act at parties. I bought it, read it, and immediately took my girl out for oysters and caviar to practice. 10/10 recommend.

Memes in a VC newsletter???

The rumors are true.

I’ve been personally cooking up some memes for Slow’s newsletter Snail Mail 1x/mo.

So why is a serious VC fund posting memes in their newsletter????

Besides the fact they invested in memelord.com and it looks pretty good to have our logo in there, there’s 3 big reasons:

1. Memes drive up open rates and click-through rates for newsletters. Slow's marketing team saw that including memes drove up their click-through rate and open rate. It's the same reason why I include a "Memes of the Week" section at the end of this newsletter for 3 years straight. And why the newspapers always have a funny section!! People read to get to the funny! Post the newest trending memes from memelord.com in your newsletter and people will open it every week because you’ve got the newest funniest sauce.

2. Memes help you express complex ideas quickly. Pictures speak 1,000 words, memes speak 1 million. Or in the words of Elon, “memes are the most information-dense form of communication”. Got a complex new startup idea? Trying to explain a movement going on in your industry? Put it in a meme so simple anyone can understand.

3. Their reader-base (VCs, investors, and billionaires) like memes too. It's not just 14-year-olds. Often, the smarter you are, the more unhinged your humor. Laughter is just part of human nature. If you think you're too smart for memes, I'm afraid it's probably the opposite.

And speaking of unhinged high finance billionaires….

Slow rented out a movie theater for the fuck of it

On Wednesday night, I went to see Margin Call at a private showing by Slow.

They literally rented out a movie theater just to show a dope finance movie because they think it’s a good movie about decision-making.

How do you attract like-minded founders you might want to invest in?

Show a movie that you think encapsulates your belief system. Boom. Again, the goal here is to find the people like you and purposely isolate those who aren’t (I know that sounds harsh but that’s the reality of marketing).

Anyone can do this (even without renting out a movie theater).

3 ways anyone can market like Slow:

1. Throw events. Look not everyone can rent out a place to eat caviar and watch high finance movies. But anyone can throw an event. Hell, I hosted a fundraiser at Chipotle for free when I was 15 in high school and had 50 people show up! Anyone can do this. Start small. 10 people at your place or a coffee shop. Small is better than nothing. Have 5 friends over to talk investing. Be the connector and host. I wrote a piece about this 3 years ago in a piece called Party Marketing for Startups and I think given AI, it’s even more important. Expect more events from Memelord in 2026 (I already rented out spot for first one).

2. Post memes in your newsletter. Start a newsletter on a platform like beehiiv. Post memes around your niche at the end of the newsletter so people read all the way. If you can’t think of memes, use our magic AI meme generator and it’ll cook you up dank memes. Anyone can do this. How do you get readers in the first place? Uh obviously post memes. I did a whole seminar on this for beehiiv too.

3. Be more controversial. Post your hot takes and beliefs even when they piss people off. If you think that tech nerds need to get laid, then say it. You’ll find the right people who agree with you. This is completely free. Just write bangers. Yap bitches yap!! It may change your life (it did for me) The world is a big place. Some people might hate you, but who cares. I mean look at memelord.com. Yes we have a lot of enemies, but a TikTok just went viral about us with 100k+ bookmarks alone. The internet is a big place. When you’re genuinely yourself online, you find your people. Fuck everyone else.

Thanks for reading memelords.

Create some cool shit this week.

Jason “The Memelord” Levin

Founder of Memelord.com