Raffi Salama (#039)
You are responsible for the choice and not the outcome
Company: Passionfruit
Headcount: 7
Stage: Pre-Seed
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Tell us your story
There must be other people that do this, but when I find a new song that I like, I will listen to it on repeat. I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean literally I might listen to it 30+ times. Yes, for hours. In a row. Until I feel like I’ve mastered it. Usually, that feeling of mastery comes when the song sounds a lot slower. When I can pick apart each component of the track, isolate any given part in my mind and listen to it as if it’s the only thing coming through my earphones. Then I feel satisfied and stop.
While conscious that, in terms of a “warm intro”, this revelation might make me sound a little peculiar, I’m happy to risk it as it cuts to the point. When I come across something new, I get obsessed about understanding what’s really going on.
That trait has two implications. The first is that I’m drawn to people who go all in to whatever it is that they do; and conversely, I struggle when people aren’t fully committed. The second is that I ask a lot of questions.
It’s this second point which defines the journey I’ve been on so far. More often than not, asking lots of questions (so long as people think you’re being genuine) gets you into lots of conversations. Everything positive that I’ve been through has come from a crucible moment in the form of a conversation.
In fact, I can probably pin down five big conversations that have propelled me to this sofa in Camberwell from which I’m writing: one in a 17th century study in Cambridge, one in a boardroom in Green Park, one in a newspaper printing plant in Miami, one in a vegan restaurant off Broadway Market, and another in a corner booth in the little Itsu on Berkeley Square.
You always know when you’re in one of those big conversations: you can feel your heartbeat, you lose track of time and nothing else in the world seems to matter. I’m grateful for them all and excited for the next one, wherever and whenever that may come.
Tell us a story that has really resonated with you
Kyle Chayka wrote a piece during the height of the global BLM protests in 2020 that referenced another famous urban insurrection:
“During the 1968 student protests in Paris, a slogan was graffitied on city walls: “Under the paving stones, the beach.” An outgrowth of situationist philosophy, it was a reference to the sand that protesters found when they pulled up bricks from the street to throw them: when the illusion of normalcy is shattered, anything is possible, even radical or utopian change.”
Obviously it’s impossible for me to know first-hand what that moment in Paris felt like, but it seems like we’ve gone through a similar period where, in the last 18 months, at least for people I’ve spent time with and listened to, a lot of bricks are being pulled up and anything feels possible.
So much has been laid bare since the pandemic hit, and as the mist continues to rise. It’s stories of resistance in this “new normal” that are resonating with me.
It’s one small example, but just look at the trouble Goldman Sachs is having getting its young employees back to the office. The leverage they once enjoyed is no more. Put plainly, what does it mean if paying people a f*ck-load of money is not the incentive it used to be? What fills that void?
I don’t think the answer is known yet, but what we do know is that when Bryan Cranston starred in ‘Network’ at the National Theatre in London a few years back, he spoke for an ever-growing number of young people when he screamed: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.”
What can't you stop thinking about?
The most intelligent person I've met is Martin Crowley, my supervisor at university, whose mantra to me was always: “there is no other side, where everything at last will have fallen into place, but only our constant striving”.
At the time I thought it only applied to my consistent failure to write a half-decent essay on Apollinaire’s poetry, but I’ve come to realize that it applies to everything in my life.
It’s important to have high standards, but even more important to realize that a lot of the time - especially when you’re running a two sided marketplace start-up like Passionfruit - lots of things are going to go right and wrong. Often in the same day, hour or minute. And you’re going to feel a variety of emotions as a result.
What keeps popping up in my mind is that inch-perfect Rilke line which read “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
If I could tell you just one thing...
One of my earliest memories is watching Sol Campbell - a former defender for Arsenal - making a choice to pass the ball to his left, instead of to his right, and as a result giving away a goal. We went on to lose that game, and as I sat on the tube back home, I couldn’t shake this feeling of how (and yes I know it’s just football) the world would never be the same as a result of that pass.
I’m only 26, so I can’t claim to have too much life experience, but increasingly I notice moments where a choice presents itself; and that one ostensibly small choice causes a series of consequences which make the original choice look incredibly important, brilliant, stupid or anywhere in the middle of those.
Right now what I’m learning is that you are responsible for the choice and not the outcome, and that it works both ways. Sometimes you choose to do things which make everyone think you’re a genius, and at other times you look like a fool. The killer skill is learning to be comfortable with the choice you made originally, especially when the alternate reality that could’ve been had you chosen differently - however brilliant or awful - stares at you right in the face.
Anyone who knows me well knows that Kazuo Ishiguro is my favourite novelist and he has a famous line which goes: “There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.” There’s a lot of comfort to be found in those words, and maybe this is just a long-winded way of saying “no regrets”.
A little space for shout-outs
This feels like the book dedication moment! Maybe one day I’ll get to do that properly! For now, I’ve mentioned Martin already, and of course there’s my girlfriend, close friends and family. But I’ve been through thick and thin with my brother Sam, and he’s simply the best.
If you could get a warm intro to anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
Alyssa Ravasio, Founder of Hipcamp. I’ve listened to her on podcasts and there are few people (maybe only Sarah Tavel) I’ve heard talk so fluently about marketplaces, especially on the acquisition of exclusive new supply; which is of course the backbone of any iconic marketplace start-up.