A Relai Newsletter // June 2026

A lot of the work this quarter was about building better habits around the parts of the company that do not always look like “building.” More consistent marketing. More active storytelling. More intentional updates. More community. More reps explaining what Exchange Zones are, how people use them, and why we believe asynchronous access to physical items needs better infrastructure.

That work matters because our sales motion has stayed healthy. The challenge now is making sure our marketing, product education, and community presence are strong enough to match it.

Not every update below is positive. That is on purpose.

The real version of building Relai includes wins, weird platform issues, hard calls, stalled opportunities, better habits, personal milestones, and a lot of learning in public. Sharing all of that feels more honest than pretending every quarter fits neatly into a highlight reel. To be more candid, this issue is written in first person.

Thanks for following along 💚

Cheers,
Miles

Marketing: We got louder 🗣️
Relai has become much more active across socials this quarter. That has meant more posts, more behind-the-scenes content, more videos, more founder-led updates, and a lot more reps trying to explain the category we're building. We’re also now on TikTok: @relai.us.

This is still early, but the muscle is starting to form. Relai has always had a lot happening under the hood. The goal now is to get better at showing the work while it is happening, not only after something launches.

Product: Android is now live 🤖
All EZ apps are now available for Android. That is a big step for access. Relai is not very useful if people cannot actually download the apps they need, and expanding beyond iOS helps us support more users, hosts, and Relai 3 partners. This moves us closer to the standard we want for the platform: wherever Exchange Zones are active, people should have a simple way to access them.

Bakery Square: Slow start, better trend 🙌
The Bakery Square Exchange Zone has been active for almost 90 days.

The start was slower than we wanted, which is always humbling when you are trying to build new behavior around a physical location. But activity is now trending up, and that matters.

One of the biggest lessons with Exchange Zones is that location-based infrastructure takes time to become familiar. People need to see it. Understand it. Remember it exists. Try it once. Then, eventually, build it into their own routines.

Bakery Square still feels like the right kind of place for Relai. Now, the work is helping more people incorporate Exchange Zones into more of their everyday routines.

Q2 had a few non-product moments too 💁🏿‍♀️
Had a chance to speak to a sales course at the Rowland School of Business at Point Park University, which was a fun full-circle opportunity to talk through early sales, category creation, and what it actually looks like to sell something people do not already have a mental model for.

I also finished my fellowship at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute. During the program, I joined the SHRED Lab. There, I was able to really challenge all engineering assumptions made when we brought our mvp to market and iterate for Relai’s next product set with great mentorship. The experience has been critical for growing hardware engineering skills and owning more of our supply chains, specifically here in Pittsburgh. #BuiltInPGH

No summer interns this time around 😔
This was our first summer without interns, which has made the team feel small at times; we’re still moving, just with fewer hands. The primary reason was that given how busy 2026 has been we weren’t able to plan meaningful projects for interns to do. We believe a good internship hits a balance of substantive work, learning, and industry exposure. This year we didn’t organize soon enough to facilitate that, so we’d rather not underserve good talent.

Lowlight: Why We Passed on the World Cup Vendor Opportunity ⚠️⚽️
One of the harder calls this quarter was choosing to decline becoming a World Cup vendor in Georgia and Texas host cities. That was not the original plan.

Large events can be exciting for Relai. They create urgency, foot traffic, operational complexity, and the kind of real-world environment where Exchange Zones can shine. In theory, the opportunity made a lot of sense. In practice, the terms did not.

The revenue share expectations became increasingly difficult to justify. Branding guidelines were unreasonably strict. Invoicing terms stretched beyond 100 days. Once we mapped everything out, it became clear that accommodating every request would likely mean operating the tournament at a loss.

At the core, I (Miles) had to make the call that the adjacent sales collateral and potential case study were not worth the squeeze.

That is not a fun decision. Saying no to recognizable opportunities can feel strange when you’re still building credibility. But discipline matters, especially when hardware, operations, labor, inventory, and cash cycles are all part of the equation. The process was long so we wanted it to work out, but you know the saying: “if it smells bad, then…” In turn, the felt lesson here is a big logo is not automatically a good deal.

Dev Hurdle of the Quarter: Apple Compliance Review 😬
The most frustrating platform issue this quarter came from our Apple developer account.

Our account was flagged for a “random” compliance check, which made all of our iOS apps unavailable or undiscoverable until the review is complete. (Good thing, we had android figured out before the outage 😅) Existing iOS users can still use the apps, but new downloads have been frozen.

That distinction matters. We are fortunate that Relai is not 100% dependent on new user growth. Existing user activity can still carry the platform during moments like this.

Still, it has been a good gut check.

As opens increase, app discovery cannot remain a bottleneck. If someone finds an Exchange Zone, understands the use case, and wants to try it, the download path needs to work. This is one of the platform dependencies we are actively working to reduce as Relai grows. Resolution is expected before July 4.

(1) How should Relai handle last-minute event interest?
There’s been more inbound interest from events and event planners, which is a good signal.

The challenge is that a lot of it comes less than two weeks before the event. Given our inventory and deployment process, that timeline is hard to fulfill. The obvious answer is to implement a kind of “rush order fee”, but I’m not convinced that’s the right default.

If you have experience with event logistics, or venue operations, I would love advice here. How do you create urgency around proper lead times without making the customer feel punished or blowing a budget?

(2) How should Relai handle last-minute event interest?
Historically, Relai 3 partners have been sourced only through inbound leads.

Now, we want to intentionally expand that top of funnel. We're looking for introductions to people and teams who want to use Exchange Zones for their own custom workflows. That could mean:

Relai is not just trying to set up Exchange Zones in more places. We want more people building useful systems on top of them.

Here is what we are focused on heading into Q3: