It's a wonderful time to be an Entrepreneur I think you guys are doing It at exactly the right time and um if You just obsess over your customers and You grow but 10% month over month which Would be adding one or two customers per Month I think for most of you it's Pretty doable right to add a customer Every three days they had a customer Every five days and so if you're growing At that rate you're going to get the Attention of seed funds and Seed Investors angel investors who can put in 25 to 250k which is really all you need At this point in time is you just need a Seed fund to put in 250k to a million Doll and you're off to the Races this weekend startups is brought To you by vanta compliance and security Shouldn't be a deal breaker for startups To win new business vanta makes it easy For companies to get a sock to report Fast twist listeners can get $1,000 off For limited time at V.com Twist te domains don't miss our jam with Jcal contest to apply and get more Details go to jamith jk. te brought to You byte domains and open phone create Business phone numbers for you and your Team that work through an app on your Smartphone or desktop twist listeners Can get an extra 20% off any plan for Your first six months at open phone.com
Twist hey everybody hey everybody Welcome back to this week in startups We've got a great show for you today I'm Going to have four of our startups UPS From our founder University program Pitch me they're going to pitch me uh Their startup and with me today is uh a Principal at our firm our firm is called Launch and you can visit us at launch. One of the programs we have is called Founder. University that's the URL Founder. University and uh the Incredible executive who runs founder University is Kelly shrier you've met Her before how you doing Kelly I'm Wonderful a little jealous of that Background Jason but very glad to be Here with these Founders today awesome And so just so everybody understands What we do at founder University our Firm gets upwards of 20,000 applications For funding a year we try to meet with a Hundred Founders per week with Introductory calls it's a lot of work And what we found over time was that a Large number of our Founders or people Who wanted to work with us they were Working on a project like a side hustle Maybe they weren't Incorporated but they Had two or three of their besties Together developers designers Business Development people marketers growth Hackers And they started working on something
But they weren't Incorporated they Didn't know if it was Venture ready so We created founder University as a way Over 12 weeks to have these teams Virtually work with us to build out Their product and then decide hey should I make this a company or not should I Incorporate should I get a lawyer and You know what we have done about 125k Investments in these extremely early Stage companies where we put in 25K the First investment in their company and Then sometimes we put 125k the standard Deal here in Silicon Valley for 7% like Tech Stars does and why combinator does And our accelerator does so we give them Two ways to win we have done eight Cohorts now we just wrapped up our Eighth cohort last week amazing and uh We'll be doing another one so if you Want to apply founder. University best Chance of getting in multiple Co-founders at least one developer on Your founding team correct yes Absolutely what else do we look for so We really like Builder founder teams as You mentioned outside of that you know There's a few things that we like here At launch we really love marketplaces we Love consumer subscription SAS and Fintech businesses but we will take a Look at whatever you're building and see If it's one that we would like to have Join us at founder University or one of
Our other programs um again we love when Founders can actually get something out Into the world right be a little bit Hacky so even if you're just getting Started you've got a weit list that Really speaks to us go ahead let us know Whatever that traction is even if it's The early days that gets us excited okay So we like Builders product velocity Develop all that great stuff so we're Going to give each of our uh companies Here from the eighth cohort 2 minutes to Pitch and then I will do a little jam Session with them where I ask him Questions and um Kelly shrier will get Involved as well I asking questions and Discussing you know how great these Firms are who's up first all right first Up we are going to have Pablo at Big Rentals all right you have two minutes On the clock 3 two go my name is Pablo And I'm the founder of big rentals where We make big equipment rental is easy Meet Jeff he's a small business owner Who rents out trailers in the Northeast Outside of Boston Jeff manages a fleet Of around 5 to 10 equipment and he Relies on pen and paper to run his Business Jeff has some big challenges His outdated website and manual Processes frustrate his customers Leading to me sales opportunities Because he just can't accept those Bookings he also spends an excessive
Amount of time managing his business With paper records and he just doesn't Have the budget to invest into Building Technology for his business just like Jeff the entire industry is fragmented And made up of small businesses that Generate a majority of those annual Sales this longtail is underserved and Doesn't have the tech to keep up with Big corporations so we decided to launch Our all-in-one software so owners could Manage their entire business in the Cloud from building a beautiful Web Store accepting bookings online payments And even operating their rentals with Our software just business has seen Remarkable improvements he has increased His bookings by 53% and generated over 13,000 in monthly Revenue to provide Even more value to our partners we Launch a Marketplace that helps rental Companies find new customers we plan to Deliver a perfect rental experience for Both owners and renters so far our Platform has gained meaningful traction Around 1,800 in recurring subscriptions 350,000 in payments process and 12 total Customers so you might be asking who are We we spent the past seven years Becoming experts at trailer rentals Scaling multiple locations across California and we realize just how tough Small rental companies have it without The tools or technology to build that
Scale our pricing is really simple we Charge 30% on our Marketplace and we Have several tiers available on our Software plans we believe we can capture A small part of the trailer Market Leading to our first 235 million in Annual revenue and while we're going to Start with trailers like car trailers Utility and even dump trailers after our First launch we plan to expand to more Equipment in the future we've got a Strong team and we're ready to make big Equipment rentals easy again okay very Want well done Pablo uh the site looks Great the name of the company is Big Randoms let me see if I understand how Your Marketplace works or your s product Works people come to Big rentals they See a bunch of trailers that you could Rent for business and those uh rentals Come from a range of individuals who own Them maybe somebody's got a store that Owns 50 maybe somebody's just an Individual with one like Airbnb am I Correct yeah some dealerships and then Entrepreneurs as well that are starting Businesses okay so you take it's a Marketplace or is it a SAS product or is It both I'm a little confused here yeah We have both so um the marketplace we See as a feature as an additional Benefit to the rental companies using Our software got it so big rentals People who buy your software to manage
The rental business can elect to put Their entire inventory or a portion of Their inventory on your platform am I Correct yeah absolutely how much do you Charge how do you charge how many paying Customers do you have today yeah we have 12 paying customers and we charge Anywhere from $100 a month to $300 a Month to manage your rental business and We charge 30% on the marketplace that's Split between 10% for a customer renting And 20% for the Partner okay so if you rent on big Rentals the customer pays a 10% premium So if they rent one of these for what Are they cost a 100 bucks a day 200 Bucks a day yeah $200 a day got it so They would pay 220 they would pay that Extra 10% to the platform and then you Would take 20% of the 200 so you make 40 Bucks a day every time and the person Who owns it gets 160 seems great uh for Them and then you charge between 100 and 500 bucks a month for the platform did I Hear that correct for the S 100 to 300 Right now 100 to 300 and in order to Make that work the person needs to do How many rentals a year um to make it Worthwhile to spend $1,200 to $3,600 on Your platform Yeah well right now we've seen uh Companies doing as little as you know 30 Rentals a month um but even you know a Couple like five or 10 rentals would be
Enough to pay the cost of the software Okay so if a person were to get 10 Rentals a year on your software uh for Two days each that's $400 I'm taking it The average ticket size is $400 $800 you Tell me $300 actually okay great I've Been in this business for a while so Sometimes I guess the numbers pretty Well so the average ticket size is 300 If they pay you 1,200 they need to get Four customers one a quarter to make it Break even to use your software uh and If they buy the highend one 3600 they Need to get one a month you know but 10 A year am or 12 a year am I correct yeah Exactly does this and then when you buy The SAS software do you pay a fee as Well um is there like an upcharge for Each deal so you get more than 3600 a Year oh we haven't experimented with That yet okay uh of those You said you had 10 customers right now Paying uh 12 customers uhhuh great tell Me about the one who's made the most Money how long have you been charging Customers yeah uh about uh five months Okay great tell me without the details Of the person but just give me a a look At the number one uh rental company on There as judged by the amount of Revenue They've generated how much are they Generating them on what type of business Is it what's the profile footprint of it Yeah absolutely um so the number number
One business right now we have multiple Actually one of my the old equipment Rental company is the number one but the Number two uh he's generating around $155,000 a month um and he's a small Business owner he owns about uh you know Five or six trailers and um you know He's been really successful so far where Are they based and then how did you Acquire them yeah so they're based Outside of Boston and actually a very Small town and we acquired them through Facebook groups Facebook groups very Interesting you went to a Facebook group And you just said said hey I've got the Software platform and it was a group of People renting Equipment yeah we've just been like Trying to join all the communities where You know business owners are talking About their Problems got it have you started your Own groups have you started your own Equipment rental group on Facebook LinkedIn and Reddit not yet but it's the Next step okay yeah this is a tried and True growth act which is you know Communities where you're giving great Advice and you know then maybe in your Sig or on your profile page people click Through to it and they see that what you Do you don't even have to go in there And spam them because that's really bad In a community but you can listen to
People and when you respond to them Great way to acquire the first 10 to 100 Customers well done Kelly any questions Here or anything you want to add about The spine company and their Performance yeah I would say during the Program at founder U Pablo and his team Had incredible product velocity and I Also really loved that they were really Dog fooding their own solution um you Know built this for themselves and Realized that it was very applicable to Other folks and so those are a few of The things that jumped out at us listen A strong sales team can make all the Difference for a B2B startup but if You're going to hire sharks you need to Let them hunt and you can't slow them Down with compliance hurdles like sock 2 What is sock 2 well any company that Stores customer data in the cloud needs To be sock to compliant if you don't Have your sock too tight your sales team Can't close major deals it's that simple But thankfully vanta makes makes it Really easy to get and renew your sock 2 Compliance on average vanta customers Are compliant in Just 2 to 4 weeks Without vanta it takes 3 to 5 months Vanta can save you hundreds of hours of Work and up to 85% on compliance costs And vanta does more than just sock 2 They also automate up to 90% compliance For gdpr Hippa and more so here's your
Call to action stop slowing your sales Team down and use vanta get $1,000 off At v.com twist that's v.com twist for $11,000 off your sock to okay next let's Keep the trains moving here we have we To Wheel okay two minutes on the clock 32 Go all right today I'm going to Introduce you to we wheel I'm Britney my Husband and David and I founded we wheel As we are part of the 36 million Americans that like to go off-roading And we drive vehicles like these we've Been operating in this space since 2014 Through we.com which is a crowdsourced Trail database that's helped over a Million offroaders search for places to Go off-roading what we discovered is There's a huge lack of Supply especially On the East half of the us as you can See here every orange pin represents Someone looking for Wheeling so to recap Huge demand nowhere to go the solution Is where to offro Parks which is a Two-sided marketplace with private land Owners on one side and off-roaders on The other we've been MVP this the past 18 months we have five land owners with Three in the pipeline have served over 700 customers AC cost 2200 transactions With a gmv of a little over $58,000 our IPS are rural land owners With 10 plus acres on one side and Jeep And truck off-roaders on the other which
Is about one in 10 Americans how this Works off-roaders come and they buy Tickets we split those sales 50/50 with The land owners our go to market Strategies basically been road to mouth And referrals on the landowner side and On the off-roader side we've been Leveraging our large social media Presence as well as Word of Mouth this Is what we're using to build our Tam but If we focus on that ACV of 183 times the 36 million off-roaders in the US we have A tam of a little over 6.5 billion Currently we're in Virginia North Carolina and our path to 100 million is Going to be based on geographical growth Focused on the E Coast first to hit that 100 million we'd have to capture about 3% of the US off-road Market the we team Comprises of seasoned entrepreneurs and Builders that have been in business for A while including a CTO and a sales Specialist we do believe there's a blue Ocean here and to hit that take of a Billion we'd have to capture 30% of the US off-road Market thanks for listening Again I'm Britney founder of weird wheel Let's go Wheeling okay if I understand The business correct there are people With land there are people with 4x4s the People with land are or renting the land Out to 4×4 uh enthusiasts to go off-roading When they want to get out there in
Nature correct uh most of them are not Renting it yet we're helping them get Access to the off-roaders and we're Basically we have a large platform of Social media and audience so we're Connecting to land owners with the Off-roaders and setting up those events And helping them conect land owners Aren't already doing this you're finding Land owners and saying hey here's a way For you to make money would you mind if People come on to your land and rip it Up with their Jeep Wrangler correct got It and somebody who's got a bunch of Land um is making zero dollars on it so They think hey if I let people come on The land um for what amount per day H How much do you advise a land owner in Colorado Atlanta Georgia whatever Texas To how much can they charge how much do They charge per day yep so kind of we Have um it is per vehicle so they each Have a spot and it depends on what the Land wants to do if they want something Easy like just a trail ride it's close To like a $40 or $50 ticket per vehicle Or if they have more obstacles or mud Pit they can do 65 so right now we have A range of a 40 to 125 per ticket Depending on what they offer and what They want to charge so I'm going to take It the average of $60 uh per day per Ticket 5390 okay 5390 this is great whenever
You're asking a Founder questions if They give you an exact number your Confidence in that founder way up Because it means hey they're on top of The numbers and they know how to answer Questions two great things uh for Founders to be able to do with investors Okay so how many uh tell me about the Supply side how long has this existed And then how many uh pieces of land are There in the network that have had at Least you know one person go for a ride On it yep so right now we've been MVP The last 18 months the first couple Months we had one of our partners land As we were testing the model um but we Have five pieces of land currently three In the pipeline one should be converting Tomorrow okay so you have five that have Been used yes several times got it okay So and where are they all located did You pick like one geography to get this Right and have concentration yeah so We're in Hampton rhs Virginia we have a Severe lack of Supply here so we started Here we have two in suff like one in Wyville and then we have um some in North Carolina as well got it so like Airbnb a bunch of people who own these Extra rooms Cottages adus Apartments Whatever it happens to be they don't Know how to do it uh so you have to Train them a bit and tell them like There's some how to do this kind of
Process yes it kind of depends on the Landowner a lot of these ones you know They have farming they have equipment a Lot of them have Trails already some of Them are into off-roading or Motorsport So some land owners require a little More training up front others are just Kind of TurnKey ready to go got it okay And So um you have this very interesting Business there is anybody else doing This yet like can you find this Inventory on Airbnb or there was like a Camping website that did this where you Could rent to land for camping hunting I Know there's a lot of different folks we Have an investment in a company called Giger that lets you rent a location for A photo shoot or for a party or to rent The pool or the pickle ball clart as it Were so that you can rent a bunch of Different things anybody doing this yet No not for offer awesome um tell me About insurance do you provide Insurance Do you have overall Insurance do you do It per ticket or do land owners already Have the insurance yep so there's a Couple factors there for insurance so we Have our own liability insurance if our Vehicles are out there through our Company um we do have patrons sign Electronic waivers acknowledgement of Risk that are pretty airtight in Virginia and then there's also a piece
Called AGR tourism which is pretty much The same in almost every state it to Help land owners make money and it Provides them a Basically a liability insurance where Basically you can't if you're coming on For aggr tourism you can't sue the land Owner so we Loop them in through that as Long as they have something worth Farming on their land it can be anything Like a chicken or trees then they can Get the AGR tourism protection got it Okay so there's some built-in protection There if you have AGR tourism fantastic And then uh how many full-time people do You have at the company right now how Many Founders tell me about the founders Yep so we have a team of five four of Those are founders our CTO owns about 9% So he's right under that founder part um All of us have owned businesses yeah all Of us have owned businesses before Successful um sell motorcycle one of our Founders is a Land Management Guru and He's helping connect with the land Owners um and two of them have been in The off-road industry since they're like 15 16 fantastic Kelly anything to add Here anything you want to add Kell that I missed yeah absolutely I will add in a Couple things that we like during the Program is every time we talked to Britney and we would have you know a Question about to your point insurance
And things like that we would just get a Very concise but wealth of knowledge Back for her which gives us a lot of uh You know security that that she knows This world but I also really love that She's got the community that they've Built online and that they've been Working in this space for quite a while Now all right so no BS uh tight story And a CEO who's in charge I like it very Well done let's meet our next company Two s companies I love good marketplaces I love good SAS companies I mean we're Off to a strong start here these are Very promising Companies all right everybody I just had An amazing jam session with Anna from Rome r m she's not only building a Really super cool startup but she's Using one of those awesome dotech domain Names and those domain names tell Investors and users that you're serious About technology and so the jam with Jcal contest is in full swing right now And I can't wait to chat with you about Your startup and using a tech domain Name we're still hunting for our final Two winners all you have to do to Qualify is have under 2 million in Funding this is for early stage startups Of course and uh just have a te domain Name which you need anyway so head to Jamith jcal te Jam wi TJC l. te and tell me what you're
Building then you come on the podcast Like Anna from Rome did you pitch me Your startup and then we Jam right we go Back and forth and talk about your Startup what's going well what you're Struggling with and we try to help you Make progress with your startup and hey You get to be on this program and you Get to get a bunch of inbound interest For your startup from investors and Customers and employees it's not just Rome using a tech domain name rabbit. 1x. and so many others so apply today With yourte domain name and you will Come jam with jcal Jam jl. teac picking The final winner soon next up is my lens All right so my lens. you have two Minutes on the clock uh please describe What we're seeing obviously three two go Hi everyone it's Aron cofund myland we Are creating an AI that simplifies Complex information with clear Visualizations meet Alex Alex is a Biology High School teacher who has a Challenge of engaging Learners with Complex topics but for every session he Needs to do three hard things updating His knowledge simplifying complex Concepts and engaging Learners Alex can Come to myland and simply ask about any Complex things so imagine like asking About genetics and DNA and with just one Click or AI can simplifies all the key Insides and the Beautiful visuals keep
Exploring part with what is the feature Alex loves the most because our AI can Suggest deeper topics simplify them with The new visuals and lastly Slide by Slide helping Alex to create an engaging And insightful presentation you're using SAS subscription for business model we Have a premium version with daily Limitation Pro Plan 20 bucks per month For just individuals and team plan 4 40 Bucks per member per month for Organizations and teams M has a great Traction in just eight months we have More than 55k users who created more Than 250k visuals we have more than 140 Paid customer 13 uh 100,000 Mr and 80 Percentage monly active users growth but All of our growth has been organic and We got a lot of great feedback and Engagement from the community especially On social media we got an integration Offer from both the can and adab express Team and we are in the process of Integrating myland to both of these Platforms to get access to the larger Communities of Educators and Freelancers Our ideal customer profile is people in Education teachers the students Researchers and content creators who Comprises 60% of our customers and the Second secondary segments is consultant And Freelancers mes AI unlike the Competitors can uniquely combine the Power of AI to simplify and analyze the
Information and data and creating Engaging contents just with one click Your team of four two co-founders years In the the data visualizations and Building AI platforms thank you so much We are mland we simplify complex Information visually with AI okay Arin Great job it seems like you have two Very strong customer bases you have Teachers academics their students who Are building presentations I would Assume for a class or a lecture or for a Paper uh or just to get smart while They're in school and have visuals that Help them learn and then you have high Pric Consultants from McKenzie or Boston Consulting Group or inside of a Corporation or a senior executive who Wants to wow their boss with data Visualizations those two groups of People are willing to pay for this Product Currently got it if you could only pick One group which one would you pick Educators okay now this seems crazy to Me because would have picked the other Group I would think Educators have less Money and they graduate and they're off For the summer and they're cheap and Resource constrained and then Consultants consult forever and if they Can do something that's better they can Charge for it and they make hundreds of Dollars an hour or at least A1 $200 an
Hour as a consultant so therefore your Product helps them make more money and In academics it just is a cost line item There's no additional funding being made Why are you right and why am I wrong No it's a it's a great point so we Choose education because right now in The early stage that we are they are Highly engaged the retention is high the Average of time they spend on the Platform is high because they can build And present both at the time they can Bring it to the class as well but after This we definitely go to the other one Because we see like the potential in Definitely both of them okay so your Reason for going after education is Because they don't churn as Much they yeah they don't churn that Much and they engage a lot okay so They're great for getting feedback even If they're not the most deep pocketed Customers okay that's interesting I like Your answer so you feel you can learn From that group and they will give you a Hard time about your product and you'll Get smarter because of it the other Consulting Group maybe they're a little Bit harder to find or get them to engage Because they're too Busy or they turn through products and Don't give feedback no actually because We didn't work and everything was Organic we just product grow focus on
The of the people who work with our Product first got it and hopefully yeah Consultant is the next one of the paid Users how many paid users you have and How long has paid been Available 140 and they started paying Like in the past few Months okay so you started the paid Program three months ago four months ago Yes four months okay great awesome Specific answers always better than Generic answers as you know as we train You in founder University in the launch Accelerator okay so in four months you Get 140 or so paid customers they're Paying 20 30 bucks a month each on Average so you're making like 50,000 40 $50,000 a year already in subscriptions Yes but half of our customers paying the Yearly plan okay great awesome so they Pay in advance uh and the yearly plan Plan is how much 199 it comes with 40 Percentage off so 199 bucks or something 145 145 okay Bargain Basement price Probably too cheap but okay um awesome And I guess the question is Always Um will is this getting built into the Language models is chat CHP I chat GPT Was doing some tables I know I always Ask for things in tables so I know they Do tables but are they starting to do Visualizations or is this something Where you have to write the code for
This and you're building this layer on Top of I assume chat gpts or opening Eyes product or you building on top of Llama who are you building on top of uh J 40 Okay but uh and one of the the Competitors can be just considered as The dolly in ch jpt okay but the Difference is that they're creating a Static pages and we are building Interactive plots that people can Interact with so you're a layer on top Of it that makes all these attractive Charts and interactive timelines Etc and You believe you'll always be ahead of The base language model in building These type of refinements correct Exactly and we will be happy if GPT pop Five will be out okay now um assuming You can swap out any language model Anytime without too much work pretty Simple got it okay so what do you think Is gonna win do you think the um open AI Model which is closed paradoxically so You think closed AI is going to win or Do you think Zuckerberg is going to win With lamba what is your gut tell you Who's going to have a better model year From now two years from now five years I Think it's hard to tell but I love to Seeing more open source llm we be out Okay awesome all right Kelly anything I Missed here any questions from you yes I Will say as somebody who has even
Recently use this tool it is such a Delightful experience which is another Thing that we love to see right when Somebody even in the early days goes on And you know every startup is going to Have some bugs but you know the outcome Of what I was looking to do was Incredibly better than I could have ever Imagined with just a very simple prompt I literally put in one question and it Gave me exactly what I wanted and it was Beautifully done Awesome this is fantastic I hope we get Some new customers for you by going to My lens. who do we have next Kelly Prosperous AI all right prosperous AI Lots of AI going on here lots of Marketplace sass all the good stuff Prosperous AI you have two minutes on The clock three two go hi my name is Mariano abadaka founder and CEO of Prosperous AI I'd like you to meet our Customer Steve he's current reliant on Google search to find new suppliers his Teams are siloed across analysts and Decision makers and his data is Scattered across Erp systems financial Data sets and Excel files and worst of All his costs are up 30% leaving him and Shambles and his gross margins Non-existent until he found Pi Pi first Allowed him to search a database of 65 Million different contacts and companies To find what was most relevant to his
Business using semantic search he then Was able to unify all of his data Sources and ask simple questions such as What is my budget to cost over the past 12 months what vendors are hurting my Gross Marg the most he then set the Qualifications for his materials and the Best part the AI carried out the Negotiations for him making it simple to Sort through hundreds of different Hundreds of different suppliers our Pricing is simple $49 a month for our bi Analytics $249 a month for full access To the procurement platform and as we Integrate into their data sources we Have a $220,000 onboarding fee with two Options for a 2-year contract in the Since April of 24 we have $225,000 in gmv across five companies 20 000 from one onboard a client and $800 In Mr in the first year we'll focus on land And expanding into our accounts right Now we only service 2% of the total of Their spend giving us a direct path to $10 million in ARR as we expand the Manufacturer distributor and supplier Networks of these of these companies our Team has been working together for 10 Years and has come together to build This prosperous AI analytics Amplified Sourcing simplified okay well done I Like the team by the way looks like you Got a team that's worked together at
Previous companies yes so we all work Together at large companies like HP and Microsoft before starting this Venture Great so one of the criteria we have When we're looking at teams we have 13 Criteria at this point in 2024 might Grow or might reduce it but one of the Signals we look for is teams that have Collaborated and worked together before Why because they hit the ground running They've got that common language they're Going to grind it out Kelly and I worked At inside now she works here I don't Have to worry about Kelly I know how she Works I know her work ethic I know we Can finish each other sentences so That's great good job on the team side Okay so there are people who procure Stuff and they have to do negotiations And they have to do sourcing and your Concept is that AI is going to help them Do that faster yes absolutely so right Now we're working with large scale Commodity purchasers within building Materials and this network currently Operates off of a reference basis right Now we're giving them access further Than a Google search or a reference We're one giving them a database and Then we're also carrying out those Negotiations for them so they don't have To vet thousand suppliers through a due Diligence process so an example of a Commodity they're buying is 2x4s Lumber
Lumber at Large Scale we're talking $20 Million in Lumber a year got it so Instead of getting on the phone with Somebody and saying hey tell me about Your Lumber tell me about the quality of It tell me about when I can get it how Much you got and AI does all that Correct so you set all of the parameters That you're looking for like the Qualification the type of material the Size And the AI is then able to go negotiate On your behalf and we're communicating With on chat or something through Through whatever email or chat that the Supplier is utilizing or they can join Prosperous so that creates Network Effects got it okay how many procurers Do you have on the platform so far yes So we have five major companies and one That's onboarded where we're connecting Into their data sources that's the buy Side five major buyers uh yes five major Buyers okay how do you get the supply Side on there how does that work work Yeah so we scraped the web for a Database from government Registries to Build this database of potential Companies they could work with Okay so The people who sell lumber in Canada in The United States and Mexico they have To file some regulatory or legal Paperwork and they're in some database Somewhere uh yeah they actually don't
Have to as long as they operate in the United States we were able to extract That from the web and then they can go Search to it they're using semantic Search so you would say hey I need Lumber suppliers with $10 million in Revenue for the diligence period and We'll give you a list of about 100 and Then you'll carry out the due diligence But the AI is maintaining those Conversations with the basic questions Okay so there are platforms out there I Assume that are stas platforms for Managing procurement there must be many Of them yes there are who's the number One procurement platform in the world You know for just like the SAS solution Part of this yeah Upti yeah the upand cominging SAS Portion right now is probably zip and You probably heard a lot about them but Then you also got netsuite Oracle and Companies like Jagger so they're all Doing SAS models you're doing an AI Model and specifically focusing on the Negotiation correct correct we're Focusing on being AI native with all of Our features so would they be would you Be replacing some of those Solutions or You would just be a a new feature a new Product that would then flow into Nets Suite or these other products great Question yeah so we would be an additive With our negotiations and our generative
Analytics and we may potentially as We're building up features come into a Replacement for some of those softwares Got it so it's potentially possible you Could overlap with them but generally You're going to just focus like a laser On that negotiation procurement piece Correct great awesome Kelly anything I Missed Here no I think the only thing here is Mariano and his team had incredibly High Product velocity and we also really love Just how you know these are really high Ticket prices so on the marketplace you Don't have to have as many trans actions When you're dealing with very large Numbers awesome okay well done Maryano from prosperous AI if you use multiple devices and apps To run your business you need open phone Open phone simplifies your Communications with one simple app an Open phone has rethought what a modern Business phone can be what's magical About open phone is that it works Through a simple elegant app right on Your existing phone or you can even use It on your desktop I know because we use It here at launch and our sales team Loves it and you know what those phone Numbers those discussions all those text Messages we need those to be on launch Phone numbers we don't want those on People's personal phones where if they
Leave the company it's distracting it's Annoying to your sales team as but one Example and we love having a shared Number for customer support as well we Do a little round robin where different People can pick up the one phone number So customers have one number but we can Have that phone call go to multiple People on the team so we you know can Just have somebody pick up the phone Quicker it's that simple answering the Phone quickly is a best practice and it Makes people love your product or Service open phone is already super Affordable at just $13 a month my Lord That's affordable but twist listeners Can get an extra 20% off for any plan The first 6 months that's incredibly Generous just head over to open Phone.com Twist and what if you have an Existing number with another service That you hate will open phone will Port Them over at no extra cost easy peasy Lemon squeezy so head over to open Phone.com Twist and get a free trial and Get 20% off four great companies um I Would like to invest today because I'm Feeling a little Frisky so gosh if you could only pick One who would be the one you'd pick Kellen all right if I could only pick One I think my Top Choice today would Have to be big rentals I was doing some Research into this market and I didn't
Know this Home Depot alone does over $2 Billion a year Just in that equipment rentals that they Do and they they don't rent everything Right and so you think about how big This can actually get I think that this Is the team to do it they've lived in This world and product velocity is high I love it yeah and it feels like there's Some expansion room there I think if you Want to be on big rentals I think just Checking that box could be like an Upsell feature or something but you know They could also be buying uh they could Probably figure out how to buy traffic Send it to Big rent To specific landing pages eventually you Know like some other companies like Thumbtack or if you ever see like I Don't know wire cutter might or you know PC Magazine Tom's Hardware when they do A hardware Roundup of the best Microphones or something or best Microwaves you'll see sometimes they'll Pay you know a dollar or two dollars to From a Google uh search to send people To that page you say well why would they Do that well then they get the affiliate Fees on those and if they convert one Out of a hundred and they make more than $100 Then they're in the they're in the black And they're profitable so there could be Some equivalent here where they start
Buying people searching in Alabama for Flat beds and they've got more than 50 Flat beds in Alabama they show an ad Right and then you know that could Actually get that flywheel going where If you didn't buy the SAS software well Maybe you just can't be part of it so I Do think there's like some business Model here where maybe they give the SAS Away for free and then make more money On the marketplace or the marketplace Takes even more uh of a take rate it's Got a pretty juicy one at 30% right now So maybe they don't have to but maybe They could have enough juice there to do It so very good um you know all the four Of these companies U had great teams With modest traction with great ideas in Big markets and they all had product Velocity and they all had Builder teams Right so they all had the criteria I'm Looking for as an investor I like the Product velocity I like the Builder team So let's just go ahead and give all four Of them some money uh if we could do That Kelly of course if you say so yeah Let's give them each four uh and let's Bring them back here one more time uh It's great to be in business with all of You uh we got everybody to agree ahead Of time that they would take our money So if we gave it to them and they're all Taking our money we want you all to pull Through and uh get that seed round done
If you're a seed investor or seed firm Uh you can always email Kelly launch. to Meet any of these companies and she'll Set it up for you we have a a network we Call the whisper Network inside of our Organization where each of our 10 or 11 Investment professionals have 50 Contacts each and those 50 contacts in The Venture industry are their favorite Investors and they will take companies Like these as we're investing in them Getting to know them um and just whisper Them in your ear you don't have to Invest they don't have to be raising Money we just let you know about them so If you want to be part of the whisper Network for your Venture firm for your Seed fund or as a high net worth Individual you can just email Kelly Launch. and she will add you to the Whisper network if you want to meet Incredible Founders like these four I am So impressed uh Britney Pablo Mariano And AR Delon you did great today I'm Very Excited uh this isn't the Oscars or Anything so you don't have to give a Speech but um you know I have a very Important advice that I always tell Kelly that I'm going to tell you work Harder hard work pays off uh people who Work harder than other people are more Successful than those people so work Harder work smarter and uh just keep at
It you can't go wrong talking to your Customers and spending time with them There is no amount of time with Customers that is wasted so I just want You all you know as we get off this call And you plan next week just promise me Next week you're going to talk to all Your customers get on get them into a WhatsApp group you know Etc I have time For one Q&A maybe to anybody have a Question for me about their business or Life in general or startups in general Anybody have a question for me raise Your hand anybody okay go ahead Mariana Yeah Jason I would love to hear about What you look for for companies that are Returning your fund and are most Attractive in your Investments yeah we hope that every Company we invest in has an opportunity To return the entire fund so at a $50 Million fund size and our average Ownership being let's call it 7% to 10% In the winners uh and then maybe even 10 To 15% in what we call definitive Winners winners who have gotten a price Round in a series a so let's just put The number at 10% at 10% of um you know Uh 500 million as an exit is 50 million If any of you were to build a $500 Million company and we own 10% of it at Some point just after we've made three Investments maybe in your company if we Got to that point that would return our
Entire fund and then our investors are Happy with us and if they're happy with Us then we can raise the next fund so Once we return their money and then we Start returning on top of their money And we get to two three four times Returned you can be in business as a Venture fund and and uh you know Venture Returns basically you know two and a Half times two times uh the money put Into it early stage seed three to four Times hopefully and that's why people Love early stage now early stage has a Lot more uh fatalities as it were you Know if you're investing in a series a You expect half your companies to go to Zero or return less than you put into Them when you're in seed stage or Precede like we are you know pound University we expect nine out of 10 Companies to return 0 so you really do In this job when we meet you so early we Get to be part of how exciting it is for Your first 10 customers whereas the seed Funds might wait for you to hit 100 Customers and the series a people might Wait for you to have a thousand or 10,000 and two or three million in Revenue we like to get in early we like To work with you early it means our Funds take longer to mature uh but it Also means that we could potentially if We do our job correctly have a higher Multiple so it's a great question and
It's really important Mar know for you To understand the other side of the Table and what motivates them because Hey you get to a certain point your Company is worth a billion dollars and That firm has already returned 3x to Their fund well maybe they just want you To go for it because they want to see How far they can push it or conversely Maybe that fund has had no winners and You know selling all their shares in Your company and your startup could Return one and a half times the fund and They're desperate to get some DPI They're desperate to get some Distributions of PID Capital there to um Their LPS their limited partners and They may want to sell those shares early So it's good to have that Frank Discussion and understand where people Are coming from uh very important okay One more question if anybody has it if Not we wrap go ahead Jason uh earlier You mentioned um that you would consider Giving the software away for free um so How would you grapple with the fact that We have the two different business Models and what might be more important For us to focus on yeah so H it's a good Question you know people do like to Charge for the software in order to uh Have some minimum payment so that you Cover your onboarding charges or you Could you know pay somebody to be out
There adding people and not have to wait And it also makes them more serious Right because they have to take out Their credit card so Etsy has some Minimum payment now I had the founder of Etsy on this podcast last week I think It was 50 bucks to no maybe it's $25 to Open an Etsy account as a seller and so It's just like a fee that makes sure It's not people putting in spam or Garbage right so you know there's There's an argument either way if you Can get this Marketplace cranking and You can make 30% on it you know and People are there's a point at which You're at $3600 a Year uh 30% of um $100,000 is $30,000 30% of $10,000 is 3,000 so you're 30% if Somebody does more than $10,000 you're Leaving money on the table So you know it's just going to be a math Thing and an acquisition thing if you Just charged you know $100 to open an Account or $100 a year to maintain an Account maybe that's the better model You know just so you have the ability to Pay an SDR and say hey every time you Get somebody to sign up and put their Inventory up we'll give you 50 bucks you Know and then every time they get their First rental will give you the next 50 Bucks so you could actually make an Incentive system for uh an outbound Sales team
And you could just use that $199 to sign Up for the service per year and say hey When they sign up we give you 50 bucks Or 100 bucks as our SDR and if they when They rent their first item you get Another 50 bucks so those are the Reasons to do it um and sometimes having Friction leads to higher quality so for Example if you required people from an Airbnb to have proper photography taken That's friction and you'd have less Inventory on the marketplace but you'd Have higher quality inventory and they Know that right so if you don't have Pictures like you can't rent an Airbnb and I think for Etsy it was like A similar thing you know we just don't Want people throwing up like socks they Bought on you know in bulk on all we Alibaba and then saying these are Handcrafted socks and you know creating 50 different accounts so they can play The search engine game if you have to Pay 25 bucks or 50 bucks you know you're Not going to create a 100 accounts and Pay $5,000 for the privilege of doing That so so you can think through all Those things and the great part about Being a young startup here is you can Test it you could say to somebody hey You know we're doing a sign up thing Right now it's typically $300 a month $3600 a year but we're willing to sign You up for a lifetime subscription for
$4.99 which would you prefer do you want To pay monthly 300 bucks a month or do You want to pay one time $4.99 and you Can just see how that cohort does right And you could do that with a different Landing page sending different money to It with an SDR team and and that's Really what you want to do is figure out How to cover your cost of getting people Onto the platform at 3600 a year or 1,200 a year you can't have a proper Sales team right it's not enough Revenue Because you're a lifetime customer if They're there for five years would only Generate $10,000 uh you know a serious sales Person is maybe a 75k base plus you know Another 75k you know or at least 25 50k So they can break 100K for a serious Sales person or they might become a yel Salesperson right for a 50 40 50k base With a 50k commission structure so you Just got to be thoughtful about that but You know the good news for all four of You is you're going into an economy Where a lot of people have been laid off And there's a lot of talent out there um And then you have a Global Talent base You know you guys know about the Investment I made in Athena go to Athena Wow.com to get uh I think you get a Month or something for free or some big Discount um if you get a virtual Assistant those virtual assistants are
36k so you know you could offload a lot Of your work to some Athena uh person uh executive or you Could use Ai and so you're going into This really great moment in time where Man there's going to be a lot of talent Available to you and there might not be As much Capital but you may not need as Much and so it's a wonderful time to be An entrepreneur I think you guys are Doing it at exactly the right time and Um if you just obsess over your Customers and you grow but 10% month Over month which are very small numbers Is easy to do but if you're growing 10 20% a month at these small numbers which Would be adding one or two customers per Month I think for most of you maybe 10 Customers for some of you it's pretty Doable right to add a customer every Three days to add a customer every five Days and so if you're growing at that Rate you're going to get the attention Of seed funds and Seed investors angel Investors who can put in 25 to 250k Which is really all you need at this Point in time is you just need a seed Fund to put in 250k to a million dollars And you're Off to the Races so Congratulations everybody and we will See you next time on this week in Startups if you want if you want to come To founder University go to founder. University come to the ninth
Cohort with your team yes please apply And Jason so thank you so much for Having us today awesome great job Everybody and we'll see you all next Time bye bye
