Andess candidly how big can this Business get there's other tools like This out there you know we we don't have To worry ourselves too much with that at This stage as seed stage investors what We need to do is find a great founder Usually a great team with product Traction with clients that's Demonstrated they can build something Understands the customer base and find Good teams and back them this week in Startups is brought to you by EPO Experimentation is how generation Defining companies win accelerate your Experimentation velocity with EPO visit Geo.com Twist eight sleep good sleep is the Ultimate Game Changer now you can add The Pod cover to any mattress go to 8sleep.com Twist to check out the Pod cover and get $200 off the Pod Plus free shipping and Mercury 90% of startups fail just 10 out Of every 100 make it Mercury exists to Close that Gap helping companies succeed With Banking and credit cards engineered For the startup Journey join over 100,000 companies banking with Mercury At mercury.com all right everybody Welcome back to this weekend startups Today we're going to hear from three Startups I'm going to decide if I want To invest in them with me is PR denesh Kumar he's been with me since he was 18
Or 19 years old and he dropped out of School to come work for me is a true Story yeah PR this is true I turned 20 But yeah you turned 20 and then you Broke your mom's heart and dropped out Of school tell us tell the story yeah um Okay listen to the Pod this week in Startups thought you were smart didn't Like school um wanted to work for Someone doing interesting things and the First thing I did was yeah find Interesting people on Twitter and Different podcasts and so yeah reached Out to you and long story short you let Me help out at an event called launch Scale we let you um volunteer or we paid You you just said come out and I just Tried to help so you basically put Yourself out there you said hey I'll do Some free work see if I can impress this Guy correct yeah bit of a lesson there Isn't there yeah just like trying to Stand out like resume and stuff anything To you know beat the beat the noise is How I thought how I saw it yeah and you Know what you did you documented your Trip on social media with short videos And I said anybody who's this thoughtful And energetic I probably want on my team So just for folks out there if you're Just sending a resume in through the Front door that's okay that's like a six Out of 10 if you got a great if you got A good social media presence your
LinkedIn is tight your your your social Medias are tight okay get to a seven but When you start doing things actively you Know you add like 10 points so all of a Sudden you go from a six or seven you Know if you just listen to what the Guidance counselor says if you start Making videos writing blog posts doing Social media about a topic you care Deeply about or around the subjects and The people you want to associate Yourself with who you think are dope Intelligent driven smart whatever Criteria you're going for could be Artistic could be you know musical Talent could be filmmakers could be Actors whatever comedians uh once you do Something like that you go from like a Six or seven to like a 16 or 17 out of 10 in other words you're too good to Ignore and pre you in that category so Hopefully today we have three startups That are too good to ignore ignore they Come out of our founder University Program founder. University is the URL I Believe there's still time to accept Some people but I think we've accepted Most people in this program we call it a Pre- accelerator this is what comes Before Tech Stars before YC combinator Or before launch accelerator you don't Need to be incorporated you don't need To have your product finished you don't Need to have customers you just need to
Be two or three co-founders one of you Is highly technical at least um and you Have a great idea and you've been Building and tinkering it's a pre- Accelerator in other words we don't Invest on you in the way on the way in Typically we might do that once in a While um we tend to invest in the Companies during the 12we program it's a 12we program you pay 500 bucks if you Complete all 12 weeks by putting in a Monthly I'm sorry a weekly report on Mondays we give you the $500 back so Literally we hold your 500 bucks to make Sure you don't blow it off and then boom We give it back we're uh just fin Finished our seventh cohort eighth one Is starting uh press and Kelly run the Program it is one of the great joys of My life to get to meet people in year Zero I've personally made it my mission To be the first Investor on maybe a hundred startups cap Tables um in this fourth fund we're Doing we're deploying just over 50 Million I think in our fourth fund we're We're just closing it up now and um I'm Really excited to be the first investor On a lot of these cap tables not always So PR uh why don't you tell us about These three startups just give me one Sentence in plain English don't even Tell me the name of the company just Describe the first one what they do in
Plain English the second one in plain English and the third one in plain English and why you brought me these Three sure thing so first one is a SAS Tool to analyze your llm usage for AI Tools got it it is a piece of software For businesses That helps manage their spend on large Language models so that's what it is and Then I'll ask you the second question Why is that important to you to you Crush why do you think that is important Yeah so obviously bunch of AI companies Um that'll be like the next wave of Companies all using Ai and language Large language models sorry and So they're expensive and Founders Startups but also you know big Corporations will want to keep a tight Eye on spend um as you know company Scale great so the reason why it's Important is because these services are Expensive you can start spending wildly Your developers could be inefficient you Could forget you started up a job or Something and money is important what a Great summary okay let's keep going Number two tell me in plain English no Buzzword you put a couple buzzword you Put sass in there so give me even pler English brush It's important for investors to be able To talk to each other in plain English Okay the second one is a Marketplace for
Tabletop Gamers to buy and sell their Their pieces yeah got it so this is for Tabletop games Settlers of Katon Magic The Gathering there's a bunch of these Uh nerds dorks Geeks and really cool People um who are closeted Geeks and Dorks uh who love playing these games They spend thousands of dollars a year It's collectible you'll find it on eBay You'll find it in different places but Yeah there are a bunch of them so the Reason this is important I'll do that This is important is um because having a Dedicated Marketplace for them uh means 100% of the screen real estate Community Experience is tailored to their passion Um and uh it's a high margin High Velocity business people are buying and Trading these things you know very Frequently I would say probably monthly Or quarterly or maybe even some people Do it weekly okay who's our third one And then I'll say why I think it's Important I like that little back and Forth here we're doing here little Pickle ball okay all right cool so third One this is a software product we call It a business in a box and so it uh is a Suite of tools um that entrepreneurs Freelancers can use to operate their Business um so like operating system for Founders business in the box is still Kind of buzzworthy okay so business in a Box is buzzworthy when you said it's a
Collection of tools to help people Manage their business I understood that Uh pretty well and the only way to make That even better is it's a collection of Tools for Freelancers and small business Owners to manage their business Including I don't know if it has this Accounting Marketing and time sheets I don't know I Just made three things up so um that Would make it even tighter the reason That's important is um a lot of these Businesses are very unorganized and Chaotic and the software that you would Sell to a small Small business is probably to industrial Strength you know if you're going to use Some giant accounting software giant HR Software whatever it is it's probably Got 99 of the 100 features or 97 of the 100 features are not going to be used so A simpler way um and and a broad Collection of them means I don't have to Hire I don't have to buy 17 different Solutions I like that a lot I think That's one of the trends so we're going To meet them right now and then at the End I'll pick one of them to invest in So there's a lot of Stak here folks Let's have the first person present for But 2 minutes yes PR that's right two Minutes and then I'll ask them two or Three questions and then we will Zip Zip Zip through them because the audience is
Busy uh but really it's important for us To understand how good they are pitching Their idea are you tired of slow AB Testing do you have trouble trusting Your experiment results well get ready To 10 exra experiment velocity with EPO Epo's experimentation and feature Management platform transforms uncertain Launches into clearcut experiments EPO Is going to centralize your Experimentation workflows across your Entire organization including product Growth and machine learning teams this Means better coordination and faster Innovation their cloud-based system is All about empowerment easily run Experiments with powerful analysis tools And it all integrates seamlessly with Existing feature Flags or epos SDK if You didn't know stands for software Development kit EPO keeps you informed With automated updates and shared Reports and the best part about EPO is That it let you go deeper into Experiment results you can trust and Understand root causes so here's your Call to action experimentation is how Generation defining companies win Accelerate your experimentation velocity With EPO visit geo.com twist that's Geo.com twist let's invite our first Founder up I'm really excited to meet These three companies all right Peter From props AI hey brush hey Jason how
Are you Doing good how are you And well let's get to it three two go hi I'm Peter I'm the founder of props a Platform to help Monitor and monetize Your llm applications let me introduce You to one of our customers Riley who's Got an AI startup that's going viral but Today they get their bills from open Ai And it's thousands of dollars giving Them no actionable insight into how that Cost is broken down they don't know what Their unit level economics are they Don't know how to price their product Effectively and to set up a more complex Billing model like usage based billing Could be a lot of work they may assume That their cost is split evenly between All of their users but this is rarely The case often users will churn within The first uh time of using the product And the users that are actually paying Them may uh be costing them more than They Charge the solution to this is the AI Proxy realtime cost and usage tracking Enabling effortless usage based billing We give per user cost tracking in our Dashboards we integrate into stripe to Enable usage based billing and we Provide observability across errors and Latency it's all available and only Takes two lines of code to implement we Provide a free self-hosted version which
Is from our open- source uh product and We provide a cloud sass offering for $47 A month and then 50 Cent per billable User on the stripe Integration so far we've processed 80 Million tokens uh done 3,700 in revenue And we've just crossed 100 users in the Seven weeks since we launched on product Hunt we actually started before building The product by building our acquisition Strategy the AI job board which is now The second largest AI specific job board In the US generating 15,000 unique users A month and props takes the native ad Slot on that platform we've built the Proxy dashboard and continue to build Out our metrics and we've just launched Usage based billing into beta my Background is as a software engineer Working companies like IBM and Amazon And taking leadership positions over Engineering teams for the past 5 Years that's prop AI we help Monitor and Monetize llm applications all right Peter Kirkham you did a fantastic job Presenting let me ask you a series of Questions is this your first Startup um this is my first startup that I've got to the stage of incorporating I've had a few different businesses in The past with sort of Shopify stores and Okay so you had projects in the past yes Projects this is this would be the first St fantastic um number two are you
Technical Uh do you write code and are you writing The code for this startup yes so I've Written uh all of the code so far we Actually just brought on our first uh Additional software engineer this week As well fantastic nice tight answers I Like it and uh how many co-founders are There in the startup defined as only Over 10% okay you're a solo founder Okay um who designed uh your deck your Website who did the design the ux the Design I'm very fortunate uh my wife is A senior product designer fantastic I Want to make some notes Here PR you as Uh my associate in The Firm you're an Associate you got to make investment Decisions you got to say which ones we Should invest in I want to point out Some of the very strong things about This the design is exceptional this is Worldclass design um I think or or it's It's getting close to world- class Design and what I mean by that is shout Out to your wife um this really does Make a big difference at the early stage At the later stages anybody can pay a Decent Designer you know I would say for the Design you have right now low thousands Of dollars and get this outcome three Four $5,000 with a designer two three Revisions you're going to get to this Most startup Founders don't do it they
Just push design down the road but Design does say something about you just Like uh you know your haircut your Breath uh dandruff body odor uh Something your teeth um being overweight Like I was for a long time and I'm going To tell it to you straight As I always Do people judge books by their cover I Hate to break the news to the audience Brush but the don't judge a book by its Cover is a classic saying because people Do judge a book by their cover far too Often but when you judge a startup and Judging it by its ux and design there Has a real rationale to it and the Rationale brush is what why is really Crisp clean design especially for a Piece of business software like this why Is that important in the marketplace not With Investors yeah so it's going to come Down to your customer and how they Interact with products so if You' got a Good good design customer wants to use a Product um then you know that's Beneficial press you've learned so much Working with me over the Years and startups you know if your Customers see something that's really Tight and beautiful um they can trust You that's why banking software all Looks very similar and clean and perfect That's why Uber and Airbnb feels similar And clean and solid and
Trustworthy um if Uber and Robin Hood And Airbnb and Mercury bank or wealth front Didn't feel as tight as they do people Wouldn't trust them as much okay also You're a technical founder love that You're a solo founder don't love that um And it's your first startup but you get Some projects so that kind of puts you In between you know having scar tissue And yeah just having a little bit of Experience on the product side so Overall uh this is absolutely fantastic Well done I don't have any questions for You Except if I put a gun to your head and Said you must pick one business props And monitoring of llm usage or the AI Job board and I'll give you $100,000 to Pursue it which one would you pick Pros Okay great awesome because I did see That job board and I want to make sure That you're not hedging your bets and You're thinking sometimes Founders do This that hey that primary business I'm Putting all my time into isn't working You're doing that strictly as a cheap Quick way to provide a free service People come for that free service and They stay for the tool and most people Say you come for the tool you stay for The marketplace here you're coming for Tool and getting free advertising for Your tool so absolutely fabulous job pre
Do you have any questions no questions I Like it okay well done Peter that's a Really good presentation we're off to a Strong start here and press candidly how Big can this business get there's other Tools like this out there you know we we Don't have to worry ourselves too much With that at this stage as seed stage Investors what we need to do is find a Great founder usually a great team with Product traction with clients that's Demonstrated they can build something Understands the customer Base um and find good teams and back Them so it does feel like we found Something here now I don't know how big This can get but we do have a coral There are companies that we've seen that Do this kind of monitoring for your Other web hosting so those would be Competitors but this is solely for llms And I think this is unique enough that It could give you other options and say Hey you're using chat gp4 you you might Want to downgrade to 3.5 this is what You would spent or you could have used You know an open source product with Hosting for this price so just being Able to compare and contrast what you're Spending and give you the other options And then have those other options have Uh either a cost per click or an Affiliate program attached to them so if You do choose to use Claude you know uh
Gemini or you know some open- Source One You would get a vig and then if it also Had you know this list of people who are Using this man there's so many ways to Upsell them so I think we get figure That out later we know this could become Low millions of dollars pretty quickly And we know it could become you know $10 Million and you know when we invest at The seed stage uh for low single digits You know upwards to $8 million typically That's what seed rounds are um you know You feel pretty comfortable taking a Little bit of a bet And they'll figure it out later okay any Questions for me about that sort of Prush no I also I think it like makes Sense as a third party tool to be doing This because you'll get like open AI or Different model have like let's say Their own analytics but they're going to Prioritize you know usage of their Product right and they may push you to a More expensive one right yeah yeah so I Think it's interesting like as a Separate party they're optimizing for You and you just pay for that product Objectivity it's great yeah Y and if you Could bid out the software you know you Could have like for VIP clients like big You know people spending a million Dollars a month you just have some Cony Urge there who says hey we bided you we Bid your workout um we can save you 15%
If we do that we want to take five Points of the 15 you'll save 10 are you Interested in that service click here And you click there and you sign an Agreement and then they go shop your Jobs so to speak Elite performers have a Secret and it helps them stand out in Their fields you want to know what that Secret is I can tell you it's sleep Whether you're an athlete an Entrepreneur or are you just a Career-driven professional like the People who listen to this podcast Quality sleep is the fuel that powers Your success well how do you get deep Restful sleep very simple you do what I Do eight sleep I got two eight sleep Mattresses I never miss a night on my Eight sleep and they're selling more Than just mattresses right now you can Sleep like a champion with the eight Sleep pod cover that's right you don't Have to get rid of your existing Mattress you put the cover on slips Right on top of your bed and instantly Transforms your sleep game we're talking About Dual Zone Heating and Cooling so If you have a partner and you're both in The same bed you know one might sleep Hot one might sleep cold I like it a Little Chilly Willy and this smart Temperature adjustment keeps you in your Ideal zone for a deeper uninterrupted Rest in other words you set how you like
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Kuwait yeah yep Kuwait specifically Actually wow okay there you go um well That was good work uh let's and a Decisive Victory by our amazing Personnel and capabilities so absolutely Fantastic job on that one um and again Thank you for your service we love Military uh vets because they have the Discipline to do really good um now they Might not be rule Breakers and Rebels so There is That a scout platoon leader so I do Break quite a few rules well I mean Sometimes you got a freestyle out there In the field you know when I did my two Imaginary tours uh in the CIA um people Always ask me if I'm in the CIA that's Ridiculous um so let's get to It um show us your product you got two Minutes on the clock here we go three Two go welcome to secondhand geek the First place to go to buy sell and trade Your tabletop games millions of tabletop Gamers worldwide waste hours searching Through dozens of websites forums and Trade groups to find products and Services to enjoy their hobby meet Henry He wants a new 40K Army for his next Tournament and wants to sell his old Army and get a new Army and get it all Painted at secondhand geek he can sell His old army buy a new Army and then Find a painter before the next Tournament all on one site our
Marketplace charges a 5% fee for all Products and services sold over the last 90 days we have converted 194 people to Our Marketplace who have listed over $8,000 inventory and items we are using Our dedicated Facebook groups gaming Stores and manae podcast to go to market Over the past 10 years our dedicated Facebook groups have grown to over 16,000 members who have traded over $5 Million annually with over 200,000 Listings the average gaming store Purchas is about $40 and eBay does about 312 million transactions a year so our Tam is about $12 billion to earn $10 Million we are going to use our over 50 Years of experience in the industry our Relationship and knowledge of gaming Stores and running local Regional and National events along with our manae Podcast for $100 million we are going to Consolidate the tabletop Gamers and Companies from ebays and the Etsy with Better margins and targeted marketing Results utilizing things like YouTube Tik Tok and twitch and our Facebook Trade group our leadership team has been There since the beginning of the Tabletop gaming industry we have owned Stores run events hosted gaming Conventions and promoted the industry it Started with Dungeons and Dragons and Now with trading card games and Miniatures it has grown into a $25
Billion a year industry we are the Perfect team to make this change thank You for seeing second an geek all right Well done uh so when did this product Launch this Marketplace when when did You launch it I know you have the Facebook group podcast going for November last year okay great so it's It's very nice and you got six months of Data yep well tell me honestly what have You learned about running a Marketplace What what are the top lessons two or Three lessons you've learned so far Getting this product into the market you Have to have a balance between both Sides of the marketplace both the Products and services provided and the Customers to consume the product that You have got it and there seem to be Stores that do this yeah there's still a Lot of stores out there that go there Are roughly 45,000 stores in the US that Have a brick-and mortar location yeah And these are typically comic book Stores that have this section No actually there are five things in the Industry there's Miniatures trading C Games role playing games and board games Sometimes a lot of the comic book shops Are just Standalone comic book shops got It okay and so what other the lessons Have you learned here um in running the Marketplace um that the having a lot of Pictures and a lot of descriptions um
Will push somebody to do a sale online Versus going into into a store to pick Something up got it okay so you learn Supply and demand matter both sides Matter you got to have buyers you got to Have sellers corre second thing you uh Learned here is that the descriptions And the landing page really matter yes Okay how many listings uh have been uh Added to the system to date in the six Months you've been operating uh to date We have $12,900 worth of listings okay so you're Giving me the dollars which I always uh 351 items okay so great Um what happens with Founders and you Know uh you are using the Jedi mind Trick doesn't work on Sith Lords we invented it um so that's not g To work on a Jedi fellow Jedi so when You give me the number the value of it I Immediately say oh there's somebody put A $10,000 thing in there this number is Going to be low hundreds and I was right So um this seems to be your biggest Challenge what is your solution if I Asked you right now to come up with on The spot how you get 10,000 items In this Marketplace in the next 30 days how do You do it we have created an upload System with share tribe that allows Gaming stores to upload their entire Inventory that they have in their store
Instead of going to Amazon or Ebay and Sell on our platform and only give up 5% Instead of 15% of their margin okay so Number one you're not going to win them By the margin necessarily um the margin Isn't what matters finding a great buyer At the right price is what matters when You talk to your customers that's what They're going to care about most is like Getting the best price they're happy to Pay 10 15 5 even 20 probably if you get Them a buyer um quickly and so um I Think what you need to think about here Is finding a way to have either offshore Individuals who get paid a dollar or $2 Dollar an hour uh or software or both to Make uh this Marketplace have a dramatic Number of listings which will do Extraordinary things for your SEO Because you have a long tail here There's some you know character in some Card game that somebody looks for you Know that 10 people look for and there's Not that many pages of it so um on a Software basis there's a very simple Tool you could build which is export Your eBay listing and post it here so a Bulk Editor to export that could be a Toolbar whatever you know and you can Probably build that very simply where The toolbar goes in and moves it over or You do something even a little more Sneaky and this is where sneaky well It's a little bit gray hat a little bit
Freestyle you know like when you and I Were were were in the field you know What I'm saying yeah you you were you Were on the front line I was behind the Scenes you know CIA stuff um you Sometimes we got to Freestyle sometimes There's people who can do things for us You know and we can uh you know Grease The wheels so to speak you you know what I'm saying we don't talk about this Stuff uh in public you know this is the Job so um imagine there was a third Party company in Manila that you could Pay and you could say hey this person is The best seller on eBay I want you to go To their eBay bank and take their 20 Listings and move them over to ours and Then you as the founder say saw your Great listings we're building this Startup um you know and hey we really Love what you're doing took the liberty Of showing you how much better Our Land Pages are by moving your inventory over Here if it's okay with you I'd like to Give you zero commission for your first 10 Sales and we have a team that will Automatically move your inventory over Here and you don't have to lift a finger We'll just camp out on your you know who Rec cognizant you know how we do this Put up put up a bird you know we watch It snipe it fresh this is stuff that's Like just don't ask questions just enjoy
The peace and prosperity that you get to Live in the Free World So stuff Allan and I do or I'm sorry Allan does and I'm not involved anyway Now you just took the 10 best sellers And you took their 20 best items and you Did them a solid you did something Really gracious from them and you're a Founder they a found you say hey I want To get you the best price we're really Trying to own this specific category I'll make it super easy for you if you Just give me your email address and Phone number stripe account whatever I'll put it into the account for you but Now you just hire somebody in Manilla For a dollar an hour $2 an hour and they Do it overnight and you just tell them Move these into here and then find the Seller and then you as a buyer could Then go buy something from them put it Into your house inventory so now you're Selling it so now that you're a buyer You have their contact info so this is Like a really interesting thing um I had A friend who was trying to figure out How to sell a piece of um uh they were Struggling they were trying to sell a Button that you could put on a table It's very popular in Asia where you Press a button and the server comes to You when you press the button in the Back room this is 25 years ago in the Back room it um puts a number there now
If you go to any Chinese restaurant or You go to China Hong Kong every table Has a bell on it you ever been to Asia And seen these bells no okay so if you Want your waiter like just press the Button and then 17 happens the person Races to your table this is before Smartphones and ordering through you Know ordering services and QR codes and They couldn't figure out a s I said it's Very simple you go to the bar you talk To the manager you order a drink chat up The bartender give him a nice tip so can I ask a question who's the manager here Um you know um to wanted to leave my Card and and and this little bell for Them and it would be real solid for me Um if you could do that um this is a Crazy idea but it really increases tips Because people get better service and Hey you're you're the bartender you Understand how important that is if they Can't find you if they can't find the Waiter right you probably can't find the Waiter sometimes you've already made the Drinks and the iceis meled so I just Gave him that script he went out and did It but it worked now why did it work Because you bought a drink and you gave A tip so for 30 or 40 bucks he would go Into a restaurant bar or whatever have a Little snack you had to eat anyway and You know he had done reciprocity he had Done something nice for them which then
Meant they wanted to reciprocate it's Very powerful device so anyway you got To start thinking about acquisition you Got to start thinking about really Building up the inventory I gave you a Couple strategies here but you you you You you can't go to market without this Being 10,000 20,000 you got to come up With a really great system so it could Be done with software could be done with You know um humans um that are just Going to be faster to be totally honest Than you know getting the software out There and trying to explain to people How to use it and um you know pick a Beach head where you think it's over Under service is there you mentioned so Many of these things which one do you Think you can Crush uh eBay and other Places on that's under service that's High velocity high margin whatever is it The figurines is it the card games Warhammer Games Workshop they are the Number one seller at $312 million a year Um I have a Facebook group over the last 10 years that um has a lot of margin There so critically important you own That category every item possible is in There the top sellers are in there and Then you go find the buyers which you Seem to have done because of your Facebook groups which is also a Brilliant strategy people are also Hanging out on Discord but you know the
The two other growth hacks are like Having a podcast having a Discord slf Facebook groups and Facebook groups are Brilliant at this so I just love Everything about what you're doing great Job I'm really interested in your Business so great Job good start oh by the way let me ask A couple questions you have a developer On staff or how are you doing it you Have a fulltime developer you a contract How many co Founders you got we have Four all together perfect so four people Own over 10% of the business each Correct something in that range okay Great 20 20% we keep 20% for an equity Pool for employees for okay so it's Chopped up five ways got it love it That's perfect so we love having Multiple co-founders as you know you Know spent a little time in the field Many have a squad got to have my squad You know you're only as good as the the Weakest link in the chain and uh you Know they you got to trust they got your Six right y ABS I'm talking about yeah This you don't you translate this later Press but you got the guy whoever's got Your six this is an important Thing W he's a great guy yep exactly and You have his six by the way so Absolutely all the time this is uh you Know you get if if something happens you Know they they got to protect your back
You got to protect theirs so that's Great we love having multiple Co-founders you have deep expertise and Passion for the space this is like Normally as a business you'd be like why Would you do this what I love about your Business is you understand how much Money is at stake you understand the Customer base really well um and now you Just got to understand how marketplaces Work we've invested in a couple we have One that matched drivers of cars Passengers of cars it did well we had One that did service providers with Homeowners Thumbtack we have one meowtel Meowtel matches people who own cats and Cat sitters we have another one called Gigster it matches spaces where you Could go rent a pool a tennis court or a Location shoot um by the hour for a Photo shoot or a movie they're crushing It with people who want to rent a peck Court or who want to you know make a Movie or television commercial or social Media influence stuff uh we've got Another one that takes diamonds from all Different sources puts them into a Marketplace called Stone algo we love a Good Marketplace we've got the Playbook We're your partners one of the things we Try to do is is um introduce you to People maybe who are 1 2 3 4 5 years Ahead of you in deploying these Marketplace strategies and who are
Non-competitive and let's face It it's not like there's GNA be 20 of These startups coming to our accelerator Next year this is true all right good Luck with it thank you sir being a Founder can be overwhelming don't I know It you know I get those phone calls on The weekend sometimes people are a Little overwhelmed they need to talk to Jcal they got my phone number I know the Reason why there's a hundred different Things you're responsible for you got to Take care of your office space or remote Workers HR software raising money Product customers it never ends and I Know you just want to focus on your Product and your customers well Fortunately Mercury is here to help Simplify your Banking and finance Operations complete any banking task in Just a few clicks streamline your Operations with real-time data from your Bank account and they've got an amazing Interactive demo right on their website That lets you explore all the tools and How it works with Mercury you're going To pay bills faster you're going to stay In control of company spend and you're Going to speed up reconciliation the end Result is the Precision control and Focus your startup needs to transform How you operate join over 100,000 Startups that trust Mercury for Financial Excellence growth and of
Course the community Mercury the art of Simplified finances apply in minutes Mercury.com and start transforming your Startups Journey today let's have our Next founder man two strong companies PR Can make my life hard if I can only pick One of them all right next up Alex from Zie let's keep this train moving hi Jason how are you I'm well three two go Hi I'm Alex Anna founder and CEO of zie We help you run an awesome business by Giving you all the tools you need in one Place meet Emily Emily's two-person Consulting firm is bogged down by Overpriced complicated software with Scattered data running a business takes Many tools only only starts with one and The cost just adds up connecting them Together also costs more This really cross integrates tools like Tasks emails Presentations CRM and much More we launch March 2024 and have six Customers with over 4,000 in AR and five Products and more on the Way we offer bundling with savings for Three or more subscriptions products Range from $15 to $100 a month and Without fees for seats so these Customers end up saving an average of 50 To 80% based on competitor poster Pricing we target Freelancers small Business owners and startup Founders Using LinkedIn and Word of Mouth for
Growth to hit $10 million in AR we need 4,167 smbs at 200 Mr I'm a two-time technical founder with John a marketing expert and Ashi a Business consultant on my founding team We arey and we help you run an awesome Business by giving you all the tools you Need in one place Great Well Done have You raised Venture Capital before on my Last one yes private but private Equity Not VC oh private Equity got it have you Had a successful exit defined as selling A company to another company and Returning Capital to the investors or Equity in the next company no not on Last one get how many co-founders do you Have on this one a three uh two other Ones yeah two other ones uh how many of The three are technical in writing code For this product or otherwise doing the Ux design and uh yeah I'm the only one Like I'm doing okay what are the two Other people's expertise in the world What are they exceptional About one of them is business uh Development and sales and the other one Is marketing social media marketing um Got a perfect grow Okay so you got a growth person you got A sales person you got a tech person Nice Trio uh which customer just tell me A description of the customer who's Getting the most value who's the most Addicted who's giving you the most great
Feedback out of these five or six Customers you got just Describe yeah we have a I had a customer About two weeks ago who just sent a Referral video like recommendation and He was like uh he loves the customer Support from me like that's what number One that's what he loves what does he Love about the product and what is his Business describe what he does for a Business so he's a sales director for a Company called becoming Institute they Offer therapy to universities colleges And he's using CRM he was using Excel Spreadsheet and he's using CRM to keep Track of all his leads got it so you Think your Beach Head Market is people Who have service businesses perhaps who Have customers who have to be managed And then everything that's Downstream of That and the current collection of CRM Like Salesforce is awesome everybody Loves Salesforce there a bunch of other Contemporaries in that space of course There HubSpot and other uh tools uh but You think you can carve a niche because You will be cheaper and better am I Correct yeah yes U not necessarily Cheaper but uh all these other companies Don't have that founder lead support but Also um they're very bloated that's what We're hearing um people just don't want All the belts and whistles got it so you Want to build a tighter collection of
Software modules that are easier to use Exactly so Simplicity is really Important here zenes was one of those Companies that tried to simplify all Right well done Alex thank you that's All my questions for you press um we saw Three great companies here um all three Of them have their product in Market all Three of them have a couple of customers Kind of our sweet spot if I'm being Honest um rank these three in order of How much Money and the likelihood of um the Likelihood they could be 100x so if We're investing in them in our Accelerator whatever uh making some Small bets and the bger bets let's Assume we invest in them which one has The most likely chance to return 100 Times our money which is what our LPS Are entrusting us to do is to find in Every 25 or 50 companies a company that Will return 100x that's the MTH of what We do I think I'll pick props AI um to Return yeah okay great and then who's Second oh uh second I'll go with zie and Third secondhand geek okay um and I can Only pick one of these companies to Invest in that's the hard part here for Me and all three of them are worthy of Investing oh wait a second I can do Whatever I Want I can in all three if I want To all right press you know what get
These guys the paperwork I'll invest in All three that's my decision I feel like All three of these companies are worthy Of investment so let's get going let's Figure out um you know where in our Program they want to go to uh let's get The diligence done we got to due Diligence all this is pending due Diligence I'd like to place a bet on Each one small bet grow because they're Very early stage and and let's see if They can hit a series of Milestones Let's bring our three founders back for A second here and I will let them ask me One tight question each one tight Question each about startups uh and Being a Founder so take a moment to Think it through raise your hand when You've got your question locked and Loaded okay Alex your question keep it Concise yeah you've had Al uh other Companies before so how do you navigate Shifts and strategy while staying true To your vision considering all the Constant changes that may occur daily Okay mission strategy tactics okay the Mission for your firm is to help small Businesses operate more efficiently Whatever it is to help your uh Businesses become profitable you have to Figure out what that Northstar mission Is so let's just say we want to help Small businesses grow faster and Profitably well that leaves any piece of
Software you can build or service you Can create on the table and that gives You permission with the mission with Your team to say hey we're here to help People hit profitability and to help Them run a more efficient business that Grows fast so we're going to help you Run your business more efficiently grow Faster and grow profit specifically so If you set that mission well then Strategy becomes pretty easy because you Just make a list of here are all the Different products people told us they Want and we did customer interviews with A dozen people and this is what those Dozen people told us was important to Them and then we did second meetings With those 12 people doesn't have to be A ton of customer interviews who used Our product and Man four of them said You know CRM was really important but Sequencing tools and prospecting and Finding the next lead were like their Really acute problem so we built a Software and uh Human Service that Allowed us to help them get more leads And tell them these are the 10 people They should go after next whatever it is Um and then you can just move things up And down the strategy pole and just Watch engagement and and do that now Tactics they're going to change Frequently so Mission doesn't change if You change the mission it's like well
Are we shutting the company down are we Getting permission from our investors You know to to to Pivot hard here that's A hard pivot changing the entire mission Of the company second piece strategy Well that's just something that would Change quarterly maybe every couple of Quarters tactics could change weekly hey You know we're we're going to try this Week um knocking on doors and physically Going to storefronts next week we're Going to try uh inviting people to a Webinar the week after we're going to Try cold calling the week after we're Going to do email sequences so you say Okay this month we're going to try four Different sales strategies we're going To push as hard as we can on each and Then we'll figure out which one works And then that moves into a strategy Right so you tried different tactics you Moved into a strategy so just keep that Framework that I talk about often MST MST mission strategy tactics um and You know your team can change the Tactics anytime they want you can Empower them just say Hey listen you can Try all kinds of different tactics you Want just don't do anything unethical Moral Etc leave that to guys and you Know CIA you know doing stuff we we have Some gray areas we can work operate in That you can't um and then strategy well You know we have to have a thought out
Meeting about that because that's a Quarterly you know making a big plan and Mission you're not touching that Obviously you know ranking file aren't Touching the mission okay great job Thank you uh Peter you got a question You don't have to yeah um keep it tight The at the early stage of a company when We're talking to customers every day and Building real relationships uh at our Stage where we're on boarding everyone Uh personally at the moment and having Regular conversations with them how when You when you also mentioned pivots how Do you um balance supporting those early Adopters and those initial customers That you build really deep relationships With with uh new opportunities that Arise to serve a wider audience of Customers Yeah you're going to have to figure out Who your ideal customer profile is great Question you'll figure that out over Time typically customers will they'll Fall into buckets right um and so we did That with startups there are startups at The early stage like yours that come to Found a university and they're trying to Figure out if there's a business here And how to get customers they may or may Not be incorporated we have the Accelerator you all are kind of Accelerator moving into the accelerator Phase hey I got five I got 10 I got you
Know 10 you know 3K a month 10K a month In Revenue I need to accelerate this I Need to get a proper seed round of a Million to $3 million done you know and Then there's like growth after that so Bucketing your customers and then Understanding those personas and this is You know stuff that's been going on in Sales for a long time and then figuring Out What um you know why they use your Product and what the sales pitches to Them so you know for you guys in founder University like you want to get to know Our team you might want help on growth You might want help with strategy Figuring out how the businesses work Asking qu hard questions getting some Knowled you know when you move into the Next phase you know in you're like a Seed Stage Company from this preed stage To seed stage you might be asking us hey Can I how do I how do I double my Revenue every month and how do I find a Great sales uh manager or first Salesperson you got a different set of Needs that are more operational and then You might have scaling needs from us you Might have fundraising needs from us so We can Craft products found University Launch accelerator or direct investing Or our Syndicate for each of those early Stage moments so you'll do the same There might be somebody who's a startup
With two people using your product and You're going to grow with them they're Not going to be hard to service they're Going to only have like a small number Of jobs running who knows then it might Be series a people who are already been Spending a million spending a million Dollars a year for the last two years They might take longer to make a Decision but they might make a bigger Decision they might want more white Glove service and then there's giant Companies that might be a three to six Month sales cycle so so you have to pick And learn about each of those different Customer segments right and then decide Which one you're going to focus on in Which order perfect example Uber went After Lincoln Town Cars the highest and Highest margin Elite service BC's CEO Showing up at the airport with the Person at you know baggage claim with Their name and they you know they walk Up and they get out of business class And they hand the person their bag and They get back on their phone and pound Out some messages got the earpiece in And you know they're not going after Like the family you know on a budget Spirit Airlines and Coach you know Looking to get a minivan and save money And you know that kind of thing right And they want to add three extra people Even though it could only fit five it
Was critically important for Uber to do That because those customers were Profitable from day one massively Profitable Uber X customers modestly Profitable Uber pool or lift line and Those kind of things not profitable so You have to make that decision who You're going to go after first the big Customers might take a long time and you Don't have the time to do that the Customers might not ring the register Enough and so maybe it's you know uh um You know um who was the porridge is too Hot too cold just Right Goldilocks Goldilocks you got to Find your goldilock customers boom okay Last question Allan um with all the Experience that you guys have with Marketplaces what you think is either The best piece of software um or Partnership to have in trying to create A scalable Marketplace I think you got to really You know and there's a group of people Who say you got to have the customers And then the supply you know the demand The supply side takes care of itself um The truth is in talking to Travis long Times about this you got to have a Certain amount of Supply um and in your Case is a long tail of Supply so I'd Really work on Supply once you get some Supply cranking you can fake demand how Do you fake demand you got 20 important
Customers putting stuff on there you Create 20 accounts with your friends Team whatever and you buy one item or Two items from them you know each month Now they're like oh wow people are Buying our stuff then you take it you Resell it on your own platform whatever You know and you just get them used to Oh my God they got a booking they got a Sale right and the way Uber did this Famously was they went to some midsize Cab companies when they opened in La my Understanding and they said hey we'll Pay you for 10 drivers on the road 24 Hours a day this amount of money all you Got to do is put these phones in your Cabs can we buy that from you now we'll Pay you up front and the cap was like Yeah dummy um we we'll take a guaranteed Payment and they just bought out the 10 Cars boom and then Venture money to do That so it's no big deal there's Equivalence here for you okay where I Explained it earlier right so I think It's really about getting the great Supply then you know you could always Buy ads so you could buy Google ads you Could buy you know make YouTube videos Of what's for sale and then amplify Those um you could do content marketing And you know say hey here are the five Coolest items on the marketplace this Week we think these ones are really good Value and have a great price we think
These ones maybe you want to put an Offer in for 10% less so you you can Juice the marketplace but it all starts With in your case a decent amount of Supply that people can peruse right does That make sense yep no perfect sense but I'm happy to be on the adventure with You and put you in touch with some of These great uh Marketplace Founders um Who might be able to give you some tips And you know I I really think when you Got to set like an Unrealistic you know I want 10,000 items In this Marketplace by May 1st and then You get to May or I'm sorry June 1st yep And then on June 1 say your team Hey Listen we we got to 7,000 we didn't get To 10 we got to seven now I want to get To 25 based on our lessons here and this Is just you know unrealistic sometimes You know when you were in the and bleep That out in Kuwait sometimes somebody Gave you an order that you know two guys In the squad were like that's not Possible and your job as a leader to say Yeah okay on the surface perhaps not Let's get creative right come give me Some ideas here folks no's not an option We got to take a shot at this the odds Are long there's a certain amount of Risk involved here let's get creative Let's figure out if we can we can figure It out right and so I always like to set Those unrealistic goals I told my team I
Want a hundred first P I want a hundred Meetings introductory meetings per week I got so how much push back did I get PR a lot yeah how many did we do lastek Week 60 5050 60 yeah 60 okay so we're Almost there we got 60 when I tell LPS We did we're doing we're on Pace to do 3,000 meetings a year and put them in Our database people are like whoa that's A lot of meetings and I say yeah and you Know the denominator is 20,000 Applications and so I keep pushing and Pushing and we're going to hit 100 Meetings in the next couple of weeks I Think we have a we have three more Researchers coming on board so if if two Of them click and do a good job we will Hit my goal of 100 now I set that goal a Year ago but here we are and mission Accomplished and so it's going to be Great to be in business with all of you Hope we can work all these details out If you are a founder and you're Listening we are passionate about Helping Founders like Peter like Alex Like Allan we're passionate about Rolling up our sleeves at launch at Founder. University at the launch Accelerator we and this week in startups Of course we want to help you succeed Most startups fail we know this going in We don't mind we're okay with failure we Just want to work really hard alongside Driven people who are accountable and
Set really great goals if that's you Apply if you want a bunch of money you Want a handout you don't have any skill Please go to apply. ycombinator Docomo tears.com apply if you're Hardcore like PR and I are and the Founder start today and you really want To win and you want to work hard and You're willing to work 60 70 hours a Week if you're checking your email and Pushing code on the weekends and at 1:00 Am you're waking up getting out of bed To write that extra email and hire that Extra person and you want to win if You're part of the 1% of Founders um That really pushes hard and we invest in One out of 200 so it's really 50 bips uh One in 200 we invest in you can apply at Launch. Capp launch. apppp that is our Global application correct press that's The one place we send people to yep um You can go to founder. university to Learn more about the program uh you can Go to launch. C to learn more about our Firm we also have a Syndicate the Syndicate.com 11,000 members over 4,000 Of them have made an investment in a Startup so far uh on average they invest These high net worth individuals $7,000 Each on average uh they put in 500 to 750k into startups so we offer our Startups if they're hitting certain Goals and there a quality company uh to Syndicate to The Syndicate after our
Fund has made their investment decision It's separate entities so we we really Work hard for our Founders and you'll See them many times uh on this week in Startups we love what we do we're Looking for passionate hardworking People with skills if that's you you Know what to do we'll see you all next Time on this week startups bye-bye okay Everybody I want to tell you about Founder Fridays what are founder Fridays This is an opportunity for you if you're A Founder to get together with a half Dozen a dozen other Founders on a Friday The first Friday of every month why is This important well if you meet with Other Founders you can talk about the Things that are working at your startup And the things you're struggling with Everything else in between and then you Can trade notes and you can make friends It's really hard to be a Founder isn't It you're alone all the time you've got To solve all these problems and other Founders are having the same experience You're having it's isolating it can be Scary it can be thrilling and people Don't understand what you're going Through if you go to a dinner party and There's one founder in seven other People you feel like a mutant you feel Like somebody who doesn't belong there Nobody understands why you're doing your Startup why you're taking this risk the
Problems you're facing right they're NPCs this is a Non-npc event every first Friday of the Month we do founder Fridays we're doing Them now in 71 different cities and if This sounds appealing to you well you're A founder and you want to hang out with Maybe seven other Founders around a Round table you can have breakfast you Can have lunch you can have dinner you Can have coffee you can co-work dinner However you want to do it and it's free We've been doing this for a couple of Months now we've had 71 meetups around The world and 929 Founders have joined I Want you to join and I want you to come To the next one it's Friday May 3rd now If your City's not on the list what are You going to do you're going to apply to Run your city with two or three other Founders again for Founders by Founders From the number one podcast for Founders This week in startups comes founder Fridays. Tech go to founder Friday fr. Tech to sign up and you're going to meet All these great Founders and we give Like a little uh prompt and this founder Friday taking place on May 3rd we want You to bring two things with you your Most significant Challenge and one thing You wish you'd learned earlier we're Going to go around the table and each Person is going to do that and then You'll get feedback from your peers it's
Incredible it's magical and we don't Want this to get big we want to keep it Small so if you plan on going and you're Interested and it sounds appealing to You just go to founder fridays. te te Right great domain name founder fridays. Tech and please take pictures and then Share those pictures on Twitter mention Us Twi startups Jason and it doesn't Matter you could be in San Francisco New York Chicago La Paris Tokyo Dubai these Things are happening all over the world Again 71 cities let's get it to 100 Cities we've got over 900 members let's Get it past 1,000 go ahead and sign up And you'll be in touch with my team and We'll see you there once again founder Fridays. Tech
