Sam Farber

2025-Present: Product @ UE Labs, UserEvidence

2024-2025: CEO & Co-Founder, Zealot (Acquired by UserEvidence)

Founded Zealot at 23 off a simple insight: traditional channels like paid ads, SEO, cold emails & calls weren't working anymore. Everyone's getting bombarded with interrupting messages, but buyers only listen to people they trust.

I believed that if you properly motivate and organize your customers...they'll outperform your entire team at selling, marketing, product, everything. But no one had built the infrastructure for it yet.

So I built one of the first B2B Customer Advocacy Platforms. Now we help companies like Cisco, Airtable, ClickUp, and Carta eliminate buyer skepticism at every stage using their advocates.

Started with $45 in a Butler Business School class, sneaking down to work on it during my JPMorgan shift in 2023. Initially built a DTC Shopify plugin for e-commerce brands doing $1-3K/year. Sold the first Figma prototype for $499/mo (had to skip Econ to close the deal, though I never went anyway) with Srikar Chave & Brandon Jakobson. Spring 2024, pivoted to B2B. Raised from Ripple Ventures. Scaled ACV from $1K to $50K, eventually closing $1M+ deals with Fortune 50s and fast-growing AI companies.

Fall 2025, led the M&A process with multiple inbound buyers. Took the company through diligence, legal, all of it. Scaled to an upper 7-figure acquisition by UserEvidence in 18 months total.

As CEO & Co-Founder, I wore every hat. Design, PM, outbound, AE, CS, product marketing. Always joked I'm T-shaped till the day I die.

Signing the LOI to get acquired (last image)

Fun stories from building this: the real story, early days, almost died

2024: Chief of Staff, Inevitable Outcomes

I was Shaan Puri's Chief of Staff, left to go full-time on Zealot.

Got the job after sending Shaan 50+ emails with ideas & helped with projects like launching Workstreet, 5 Tweet Tuesday, somewhere.com & My First Million.

Pregame to MFM recording (last image)

2023-2024: Technology & Disruptive Commerce Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Worked in even more spreadsheets.

2023: Generalist Intern, Gateway X

Helped launch Bootstrapped Giants, a fast-growing media company for founders. My job was to help start & scale multi-million dollar businesses. I wrote viral posts that reached millions and created Jesse Pujji's main headline: building a $1 billion venture studio. Check out the posts: here and here

2022-2023: Growth & Product, BoldVoice

Helped grow BoldVoice through ambassadors and customer advocacy, which was voted one of the best apps in the world by Google in 2021.

2022: Summer Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Worked in spreadsheets.

2021-2022: Growth & Product, Kunduz

One of inc.com's 50 World-changing startups.

2021: Summer Intern, Gallagher

Got coffee & bagels for people.

2020-2021: Co-Founder, Postgame

First tech startup where I tried to build the LinkedIn for sports professionals with an ex-NFL player.

2020: Went viral on TikTok

Got curious about how to go viral on TikTok when it was just coming out and grew the account to 5M views & 10K+ followers in a year-ish. @samuel.farber

2020-Present: Started the #1 Ranked Tweet Tapestry Store in the world

I wanted to learn how to do marketing for DTC products and Etsy seemed easier since buyers were already there vs Shopify. Figured out how to use Etsy SEO to get to top search results by leveraging a different name, using a tagging hack I found, etc. to become the #1 seller of stuff with tweets on them.

My Etsy store (TweetsOnThings) - still running!

2019-2022: Ex-D1 Athlete, Butler Football

No, this isn't an error. Never stepped on the field lol. Amidst a labrum injury and also not being good enough I guess.

My ESPN profile (complete with no stats)

2019-2020: Ran the #1 underground Madden gambling ring in the world

Connected the best Madden players in the world and took a hefty 50% cut on every game.

2018-2020: Delivery Driver, Domino's

Every Monday night I got to deliver 50 pizzas to a local high school. I got a $50 tip every time. It was awesome.

2016: Private Swim Lessons for Kids

Private swimming instructor. Helped teach kids how to swim. It also gave me one of my best "off-balance-sheet" wins: my high school only let seniors park, and you had to pay. Unless you were staff. So without asking, I just started parking in the staff lot - the best spot in a school with 5,000+ kids. I parked there for free until senior year, when a system update flagged me and I got reported to the dean.

2014: Tried to file a world record for the smallest pencil LOL

2013: Jailbreaking iPods for friends, flipping lifesavers for "pack paws" in middle school

2012: Washing dishes at my dad's restaurant

Learned I never wanted to trade time for money.

2007: Unlimited money glitch

Didn't have enough money to buy the new DS, and my parents said, "You have to find a way to make money." So, like any kid would, I started feeding dollar bills into our printer while they were at work, not realizing it used literal printer paper. Mom was not happy when she saw.

2026

2025

2024

2023

2026: Complete a sprint triathlon in 1 hour & 30 minutes (Pending)

750m swim, 20km bike ride, and 5km run. August 25.

Goal: 90 mins total

15min swim (2:00/100m pace) → 3min transition → 40min bike (30km/h ride) → 2min transition → 30min run (6min/km)

2025: Run a marathon (failed)

Mile 22 out of 26. I passed out.

Next thing I knew I was waking up to the medics restarting my heart on the way to the ER. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my fiancé trying to get in, but they wouldn't let her. Later found out she rode up front.

All I remember in that ambulance was asking the medics if I was going to die. They just wouldn't answer me. So I kept getting more and more scared.

I kept thinking this was it. My life was over. I thought about all the things I still wanted to do.

Then I got to the hospital and don't remember anything else.

Later found out I got a rare disease called rhabdomyolysis. They took my CK levels in the ER. Normal level is like 500... mine was 50K+. I was in the hospital for almost a week on IV flush. (Hospital food is surprisingly good haha)

The doctor said I was lucky I came in and got found so fast or I would have been dead. Apparently happens in 1 out of 10 cases. It hits and gets serious FAST!

But yeah honestly kind of learned from this that you never know what will happen when you stare death in the eyes.

I was on so many drugs in this

2024: Start a VC backed startup (success)

When I was a student, Butler didn't let you start a business as a class. But with only 3 credit hours left in picking my classes I thought to myself why not start a business instead of taking another stupid elective.

So I just started cold emailing professors, pitching my genius idea to boycott their class and start a business instead. I reached out to everyone at the business school I could find. Only one guy responded and decided to meet up for coffee. After a few hours of exchanging stories and pitching him on the idea and future of entrepreneurship at Butler, it worked - I'd gotten a sponsor to start this thing.

Now I needed to pick what to start. I'd noticed a growing trend in the way people buy products. Specifically channels I call "interruption marketing" like outbound, ads, and SEO weren't really working anymore. Companies trying to use their employees to tell prospects how good they are just wasn't cutting it.

Instead, a different approach of a company using its happy customers as an extension of its sales team was way more trusted. Advocacy is up next.

So Zealot was created to help companies give buyers the proof they need to feel safe saying yes. We'd sit in Lacy School of Business for a few hours a week working on Zealot, helping companies build external validation with prospects using references, referrals, and proof from their customers.

This whole thing taught me one of my favorite life secrets: The "rules" aren't always real. Most people think the world is set in stone but it's actually way more bendable than it looks. You can bend the world in whatever direction you need. Even if it's as simple as speedrunning an 8 week approval process in 24 hours.

Now there's a legit program at Butler and 100+ businesses started as a result. Pretty cool!

Longer Ones

What "The Mom" Test Got Wrong

Stop asking for problems. Ask what they're trying to get done.

Entrepreneurship is like an onion

Most people stay on the outside. The real problems are at the core.

How I closed a million-dollar deal with a stranger's charger

Three minutes left. No charger. Started running.

Why gamification fails (and how to fix it)

Points and badges don't work. Here's what does.

Strong Beliefs, Loosely Held :)

• Success is being excited to go to work and being excited to come home.

• What product has a better moat than the QWERTY keyboard...

• Every action humans take can be traced back to an incentive.

• Figure out how to turn yourself into an API, where you give others something and they give you things in return.

• People take 1k steps per day, doom-scroll, eat like shit, and then complain about being sad or feeling shitty.

• Asking good questions is way more important than having the right answer.

• Most people just want to seem cool and unique to others. What can help them with that?

• Once you understand the incentives behind mainstream media, it becomes truly unwatchable.

• 4,000 Weeks is by far the most insane framing for how short life is.

• Your brain will find a problem to focus on. Choose your problems wisely.

• Great founders have the shortest memory and are ignorant about the past.

• Everything is negotiable besides death and taxes.

• Toilets are made wrong.

• Great performance in school is not correlated to success.

• How fun are inside jokes? Like, so funny.

• Industry lingo or buzzwords are a moat in itself, making it harder to break in or understand what's going on, which makes those ppl more valuable, especially in fucking finance. I never knew what they were saying & I doubt they did either.

• Most of the entrepreneurial or business advice you hear / read on social media is the leftovers. The good ideas & true alpha aren't getting blasted online unfortunately.

• Web3 was/is just being able to invest in private companies w/ less friction.

• Most people aren't ok with not having an answer key or external validation on what they're doing, which is why 9-5 is so popular - it's easy to measure yourself & have your life pre-decided for you.

• Wearing the same clothes every day isn't that big of a deal.

• Ppl will believe anything they see.

• Very few ppl have the power to decide what ppl see.

• Burnout is fake - it just means they want to quit or they don't like what they're doing.

• The constant stream of others' successes ("look at my life, look where I am") makes younger people feel worse by comparison & is likely one of the causes of rising anxiety / depression rates in Gen Z.

• Gen Z has a recall problem.

• Most times in life, the real strategy is simply: we're gonna figure it out. But most people judge this as a moment in time or think the decision is final.

• Most people borrow their desires from others.

• News, sports, media are mostly about mining your attention for ad revenue, and they're very good at it. Don't get too trapped in this or else you'll become the product :0

The Two Things That Matter

I've simplified my entire fitness routine down to 2 things. If I do these, I'm good:

1. Morning workout - Usually swimming around 1,000 yards

2. Don't eat foods from aisles - Perimeter shopping only.

Annual Check-ins

Blood panel - I paste my results into Claude and ask what I'm deficient in, then buy supplements to fix them. Helps me see what needs bolstering.

Full body scan through Ezra - Annual preventative screening.

Daily Habits I Try to Hit

• Get sunlight right when I wake up

• Green tea in the morning from Japanese Tea Studio 108

• Just fruit till lunch

• Night walk

• Sauna before bed

Itineraries I've Collected (not all mine)

• NYC

• Jackson Hole

• Barcelona

• Hong Kong

• Greece/Croatia

• Scandinavia (Tromso, Stockholm, Copenhagen)

Personal Care & Health

• Never shave again - lotion/cream that removes hair in bulk, no more cutting yourself

• Water activated makeup wipe removers - no more micellar water or bad makeup wipes

• Never have bad breath again - competitor to gum (lasts 10 mins) and Listerine (chemicals and gross) that you pop in after dinner

• Some kind of mouth wash that makes brushing teeth totally unnecessary. Can't believe we're still using hundred-year old technology to manually scrub our teeth

• A true solution to combat baldness

• Natural hair removal products - some type of natural cream that removes all hair (better for you than nair)

• Low testosterone drink for men with low T

• Sleep rituals - small nightly kit and routine that reliably flips your body into sleep mode

• Flip pillow - stays cool and keeps your neck aligned

• Personalized "magic pills" - I have to take 10 different pills daily. What if there was just one magic pill based on tests you take

• Ginger gummies - ginger shots burn and are messy, gummies deliver benefits in portable form

Home & Living

• Modern bathroom redesign - toilet is too high (bodies designed to squat), sink too low, shower is a deathtrap. We fill this room with toxic chemicals. We can't afford to do it this way

• Home water quality is getting worse, fix it!

• Opposite of a microwave - cool/freeze things in seconds

• Never use another garbage can again - trash cans that disintegrate your trash in seconds

• Sustainable glass containers - storing food in micro-plastic containers is so bad

• The only luxury furniture brand that never comes with screws... pieces that click into place!

• A button on your TV that makes your remote control sound an alarm so you can find it

• RESET - whole home refresh that cleans air, textiles, and clutter so space feels new again

• Glass keepers - durable glass that actually nests well for leftovers

• Alarm clocks - stop waking up to stress. We've used loud noises for 100 years to start our day with cortisol

Food & Beverage

• Remake the ranch close label for their bottle

• DTC mayonnaise brand - high-quality modern mayo delivered to your doorstep

• Modern car air fresheners DTC brand - fuck those small green trees

• Fast health food - fast food is quick but unhealthy. Personalize bowls to your goals without slowing service

• Food as software - planning what to eat wastes time and money. Service that plans and delivers daily meals tuned to your schedule

• Taste test co. - spices feel the same. A seasoning brand built around 'can you taste the difference' challenge

• Zero cal ice - cold, flavorful snack without calories. Organic flavored ice with great texture

• Wine club OS - modern CRM, shipping, and compliance for winery memberships

• Wine robots - pick, sort, and move grapes and bottles without damage

Finance & Money

• Disrupt Experian, TransUnion, and credit bureaus

• Stake your money like overlord.app but over iMessage. If you do the task, you get it back. Holds you accountable with money

• Found money - states hold billions in unclaimed funds people never check. Background watcher alerts you when money is found

• Seized assets marketplace - government auctions undersell because sites are clunky

• Modern lottery - paper tickets and murky odds turn off modern players. Mobile tickets, clear odds, instant payouts

• Points scout - points and miles feel like a puzzle. Search in plain language and auto-convert to book best option

• One smart card - one card routes spend to best rewards program behind the scenes

• People markets - people need flexible financing tied to future earnings

• Derivatives ledger - trillions in contracts sit in spreadsheets. Real ledger tracks positions with audit

Travel & Transportation

• Never get denied for a Visa again - competitor to VFS global, AI powered

• Visabot - find and book appointments, competitor to VFS global

• Apple Pro real estate tours - why travel to different houses when you can see 10+ in VR

• Marketplace for bucket list items - tell them what you want to do, easily book end to end

• Travi - trip planning eats weekends. Planner learns your taste and returns bookable itineraries

• Travel VAT wallet - travelers abandon refunds because forms are painful. Wallet captures receipts and sends refund automatically

• Calm flights - turbulence feels scary. Offline guide for your exact route explains bumps

• Smart brake lights - lights that brighten with pedal pressure give drivers behind more time

Social & Entertainment

• AI powered social network - always on listening/watching through meta glasses. Uses AI to auto create social posts you approve

• iMessage app - never have a dead group chat again. Sends random prompts for what you're up to

• VC firm that only invests in movies

• Family game night - browser games that make everyone look clever in minutes

• SingAnywhere - portable mic and app turn any room into a singalong

• Euchre deck - purpose-built deck for Euchre players

• Open poker - open source poker platform with modern payments builds trust

B2B Software & Services

• AI native IT solutions provider / MSP for Fortune 50 like SFDC, Microsoft, Oracle

• "Virtual DPO/Security Officer as a Service" - fractional DPO service for startups. Handle questionnaires, DPAs, compliance

• Agency to help companies build amazing help/support docs for customers

• Software to help refactor legacy code

• Never worry about bugging your Eng team to spin up a sandbox with good data. Easily create sandboxes with dummy data

• Become MCP-Compliant without the headaches in seconds

• Rebuild slack with Superhuman UI, Slack as infra so people don't lose access

• Superhuman for apple notes

• Teams to Slack connection for CS support - can't connect with customers who use teams in slack

• Snoop - competitor research is manual. Daily Slack feed summarizes launches, pricing, hiring

• See your stack - agentless discovery and live dependency map give one accurate source of truth

• AutoContent hub - calls, docs, threads contain unused gold. Pipeline turns them into weekly posts, clips, blogs

• Cookie jar - cookie banners are ugly and non-compliant. One-click setup for Framer sites

• Glue - secrets leak through docs and chat. Simple vault with automatic redaction

• Bank 270 - automation handles commercial banking onboarding, underwriting inside tools banks use

• Board brief - board updates eat weekends. Living packet assembles metrics, risks, wins automatically

• Slack back office - HR, payroll, compliance, purchasing run inside chat

• Screen helper - on-screen helper recognizes patterns and offers fix before ticket is filed

• Salesforce cleanup - cleaner fixes CRM records at scale and keeps them fresh

• Bookie OS - software manages ledgers, risk, and payouts for independent bookies

Healthcare & Medical

• Autism paid newsletter for parents with interviews, advice etc

• Trial finder - clinical trials stall because recruiting takes months. Structured screening fills studies faster

• Clarity - speech therapy is expensive. Bite-size sessions and game loops deliver progress at home

• Organ forge - invest in growth and scaffolds that move organ replacement closer to reality

• Body simulator - virtual models test drug compounds before human trials

• ADHD neuro-feedback facility

E-commerce & Retail

• Buy/roll up women's beauty centers

• Buy the neighborhood tobacco and liquor centers

• Buy all beer distributors in one area

• Own the veneer market w/ influencers. Document all celebs in veneers, own the lab manufacturing them

• Acid reflux brand

• ADA compliance eCom app - ensure your online store meets ADA standards and doesn't get sued

• Shuffle dust - bars want shuffleboard to feel perfect. Consistent powder delivered on subscription

Education & Career

• Communication boot camp - body language, charisma, flirting, learn to tell stories, use voice like instrument

• Duolingo for learning Excel - fun courses sold B2B to finance firms, schools

• Study abroad management software - saw counselor using spreadsheets, looks painful

• Career consulting for college students - resume, interview prep, networking (I actually started this and it worked)

Media & Content

• PE fund for acquiring licensing rights to make AI version of celebrities so they don't have to fly to LA to shoot commercials

• AI agency to help famous people sell their AI rights to companies for ads

• Full-time content creator recruitment agency - find in-house content creators for businesses

• Pitch a government & go make content for them on TikTok to increase GDP

• Plane ads - in-cabin screens capture attention for hours. Marketplace sells space by route

• Raised by Reddit - weekly email with one standout question and five useful answers

Real Estate & Property

• Open bath houses in the US

• Buy local dog day cares - business that will never go away

• CRM for landlords - their workflows seem like a total mess

• Window bots - skyscraper windows are risky to clean. Robots do it on schedule

Family & Memory

• TimelessTales - preserves family stories before they fade. Interview family members, create book or movie. Charge rich people $50k

• 8teen - text pics/videos to a number that stores memories of kids growing up. They get access when they're 18

• Yearbook - parents have thousands of phone photos. Text them in and get auto-made yearbook of your child's life

• Tape to cloud - family videos sit on degrading tapes. Mail a box, get private cloud library

Consumer Tech & Apps

• Anti-spam call blocker - blocks annoying spam calls, only get important ones

• Eye tracking technology for bars - Amazon Go store tech but for bars. Scan card when you walk in

• Temp iPhone + Android phones for app testing - test apps on hundreds of devices without needing 100s of devices

• Sarcasm font

• Highlight to help - press one key anywhere to shorten, fix, or format selected text

• Keyless you - drop-in biometric and device login makes sign-in instant

• Universal receipts - one wallet stores proof of purchase for returns, warranties, loyalty

Infrastructure & Big Bets

• Reinvent the aviation black box

• Reinvent lint rollers to remove friction and not waste paper

• Aviation software for registering parts with FAA

• Ticket queue mgmt system for big events

• New type of certification for future - AI audit certification or AI bias certification

• Airfield robots - baggage handling is dangerous and slow. Robots load/unload to reduce injuries

• Carwash link - standard lets self-driving car find, queue, and pay for wash on its own

• ATC assist - decision support for air traffic controllers surfaces conflicts earlier

• SkyFi - airline Wi-Fi rarely lets you work or stream. Smarter routing makes it feel normal

• Airline catering 2.0 - local kitchens and smarter distribution improve plane food

• City pipe fix - new materials and robotics replace old water/sewer pipes with less digging

• Next batteries - safer, denser batteries change EVs, phones, home storage, grid

• Port OS - digital bills, faster clearance, container tracking keep ships moving

• Cold chain OS - sensors and live dashboards keep goods cold and predict demand to cut waste

Compliance & Legal

• $500T lost everyday for scams. Always on system to monitor your life. We'll cover your scam cost if you ever get scammed

• Annual bias check - independent yearly reviews produce simple scorecards companies can share

• Friendly home security - clear pricing, strong privacy defaults, helpful app

• VAT rails - small sellers struggle with VAT math across borders. One login calculates tax and files on time

• Deal coach - flat-fee templates, redlines, scripts to win price and terms in hours

• Startup counsel - founders hate surprise legal bills. Flat-fee packages with clear scope

• Gov navigator - helper completes government filings with you and tracks deadlines

• Fair prison connect - prison calls and commissary overcharge families. App with honest pricing

• Bail tools - risk scoring, reminders, digital funds reduce cost and missed court appearances

• Gen Z insurance - mobile-first policies with clear coverage and fast claims

Marketplace & Discovery

• Global lost and found - one tag and shared database so airports, hotels, stadiums can return things

• Boredom cinema - dark, silent rooms booked for 20-60 minutes deliver paid detox experience

• Smart courts - sensors track tennis scores and usage, bookings free up instantly

• Elder connect - one feed accepts texted photos, voice notes, check-ins, prints best into monthly books

• Only the best - search results only from sources and people you choose

• Captcha plus - site-specific puzzles double as tiny polls or sponsor questions

• Fresh seats - shared seating materials absorb and neutralize smells

Compliance & Regulatory Arbitrage

• POTS replacement for elevator & pool phones - buildings pay $150-$300/month for emergency landlines by law. Switch them to cellular gateway for $20/month, charge $80/month. Pure arbitrage.

• DOT consortium for trucking drug testing - trucking companies legally required to join random testing pool. You're just the admin managing compliance, they pay or trucks get taken off road.

• Backflow preventer compliance coordinator - cities mandate annual inspections for commercial buildings. You don't do the plumbing, just handle scheduling and paperwork. City does your sales by sending threatening letters.

• Mock surveyor / accreditation consultant for nursing homes - they're terrified of surprise state inspections. Sell quarterly "audit prep" visits with checklists. You're selling peace of mind against being shut down.