Startup Fundraising Strategy & Pitch Practice Office Hours Replay! [VIDEO]
Our free Startup Fundraising Video Office Hours help early stage company founders raise money for their startups.
The fun, friendly live video Q&A sessions answer financing and strategy questions from entrepreneurs from all over the world with FREE expert startup advice.
The latest free lunchtime session hosted by our CEO, Scott Fox, was September 23.
To watch the new Startup Office Hours replay click here.
Startup Founder Discussion Questions This Month
Startup Office Hours Venture Capital Funding Advice for Startup Company Entrepreneurs welcomed angel investor and VC pitch practice from startup founders worldwide.
StartupCouncil.org CEO Scott Fox helped accelerate the startups fundraising process with friendly discussion and advice about raising money from angel investors and venture capital firms including:
Dominic from New Jersey asked how to find and raise money from venture capital firms
Nicolas from Quebec practiced his investor pitch for his AI agents startup
Sam from Brisbane tried repeatedly to join us and finally got his mic working on his 3rd (or 4th?) try! We offered feedback on his import of the Tea App from America to the Australian market.
Hojoon from Rowland Heights asked for advice on how to build smarter (not harder) and for entrepreneur support resources in the Los Angeles / Orange county area.
Ken from Brisbane shared the pitch for his international Artificial Intelligence AI educational opportunities marketplace.
Plus, Scott answered many questions from the live chat, too, as well as sharing the excellent input from other viewers who offered suggestions, feedback, and advice for each other.
And (as usual) everybody wanted to know the best resource to find early stage investors interested in their startups. Answer: Google + https://www.StartupInvestorsDirectory...
And much more, as usual!
Watch the free replay for startup founder pitches, and the expert investor feedback they got!
To watch this month’s Startup Office Hours replay click here.
And see a complete TRANSCRIPT BELOW.
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MasterMinds Startup Fundraising Office Hours TRANSCRIPT for September 23, 2025:
0:00
Thanks for joining me. It's time to discuss your dreams and visions about how you're going to change the world as
0:05
a startup entrepreneur. I'm Scott Fox and I'm here to help you figure out how you can get those ideas from out between
0:12
your ears out into the world, productize the innovations that you have in mind and build companies that can serve the
0:18
world and advance the human condition forward. I'm run the startup council.
0:23
Startupconsil.org is a resource for you and founders all over the world. We're a platform that connects community
0:29
resources so that founders can find investors and service providers and community organizations to support their
0:36
growth. Startupconsil.org is a new website. Uh we're just getting started. So if you haven't checked it out yet,
0:41
please go ahead and visit over there. And then for the next few minutes, we're going to be here live talking about
0:47
questions from the audience that have been sent in to me as the CEO of startupconsil.org. Who am I? Why do I
0:53
have the microphone? Well, I'm Scott Fox. I'm a serial internet entrepreneur. I've been doing this for a long time and
0:59
I've raised money and lost money and built companies and sold companies and
1:04
all the things in between uh to help uh create the internet revolution. I was
1:09
lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time as a graduate student at Stanford University many years ago and a
1:14
lot of us discovered the internet and commercialized it and I've been trying to help other people do that ever since.
1:20
You might have read some of my books. I've written three books so far with a fourth and fifth on the way. But the books are all about how to uh build
1:27
businesses that draw on your own passions and expertise to solve problems and make some money along the way. There
1:34
are many languages around the world. You can check them out on amazon.com in English of course, but also in Polish
1:40
and Russian and Vietnamese and Turkish and uh Vietname I said Vietnamese
1:45
several others too. So if that sounds useful to you, check it out. But more importantly, I have a new book coming uh
1:50
next year that's all about how to raise money, which I know is the most important topic and most popular questions that we get here during
1:57
startup office hours. So, if that sounds like you, go ahead and join us. I'm going to turn on the chat room here and see if there's anybody else here to uh
2:04
join us. I hope that you all are out there and that you can hear me. If you are uh and you can hear me, please uh
2:09
chime in. Let me know where you're from and uh what you'd like to talk about tonight. We're going to have a nice
2:15
interactive session here to help everybody learn more about what they're building and how to build it better and
2:21
faster and more cost-effectively. So, I'm not in my usual office tonight. Those of you who are regular viewers
2:27
probably recognize that this background is a little dull. I'm actually in a hotel. I'm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the
2:34
home of the UN famous University of Michigan. And uh I am uh is up. It's midnight here. So, I'm actually staying
2:41
up late just for you guys. So, if anybody has questions, go ahead and put them in the chat room. Or those of you
2:46
who RSVPd, you can come back uh and post on uh in backstage and we'll bring on
2:53
camera as well. So, great Dustin, thanks for letting me know you can hear me from Costa Mesa. That's out near where I
2:58
usually live. Hey, Cynthia, how are you? Nice to see you. And uh B Lima from Nigeria. Hey, Bimma or is Bimma?
3:06
Welcome. I'm not sure what that means. It looks like your name is Ago. So, welcome to you. I don't know that we've had anybody from Nigeria before. So, I'm
3:13
happy to have you here. And Babach, yes, this is live. So, looks like you're on LinkedIn, which is great to hear. We
3:18
often have trouble connecting on LinkedIn, so I'm glad to hear that's working. And um Cynthia's there, too.
3:24
And Chiego's on YouTube and Dustin over on Facebook. Great. So, we have all of our platforms. It sounds like it's
3:31
working. That's That's awesome. So, if you guys want to kick in some questions uh or topics, you can do that and um we
3:37
can discuss whatever you'd like. We had uh a few people RSVP to come on camera, but none of them have showed up yet. So,
3:44
let's put that link up in case any of you want to come backstage and come on camera with me. Let's see. Where is
3:50
that? Uh Cynthia, the primary platform is Reream. I'm doing this across
3:56
multiple platforms at once. So, um let's do this.
4:02
Trying to find the right link. Let's see. Well, you can like and subscribe if that sounds useful, but
4:09
that's not what I was looking for either. My recommendations.
4:14
Come on. Here. I have lots of uh All right. Here. It must be over here.
4:21
Here we go. Okay. So, if you'd like to come and join us,
4:28
uh it's over. Here we go. Okay. So, here's the link
4:34
for backstage. That's going to be tough to click on. Uh I don't know if you can click on that from YouTube. And a kind
4:39
of a drag to uh to um to type. Um
4:45
usually this works also. I try that. Um that may or may not work.
4:54
Okay. So, okay. So, let me do my disclaimers here and then we'll get into
5:00
uh we'll get into some of the content here. So this is not um up this is not
5:07
legal or professional advice. Okay? Uh every situation is different and I am I do have a lot of credentials and a lot
5:13
of experience but my expertise is from my own experience not yours. Right? So,
5:18
if you're going to get serious about this stuff, you need to engage your own legal counsel, your own uh tax counsel,
5:24
accountants, um experts at all the stuff that is important because the more money
5:30
is on the table, the riskier it gets, right? So, I'm happy to help as much as I can, but this is not qualified legal
5:35
or financial advice. You should consult your own professional advisors, please. I'm just some guy you met on the
5:41
internet. We're also recording this. It will be broadcast out on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, as you already know. Don't say anything stupid or anything
5:47
that's too confidential. Um, and we'll be sharing this with other people and it'll be archived. So, of course, we do
5:53
have um we're happy to have you there, but it's not uh uh something that uh we
6:00
have we're not going to edit this is I guess what I'm saying. Cynthia, I can't do a Billy Link. I'm busy broadcasting.
6:06
Um, okay. So, like I said, I'm Scott Fox and we're here to help. And, uh, Rita,
6:12
great to have you here with us. Um, where are you from? on the fundraising thing. Yes, timing. Yes. When is the
6:18
right time? Okay. Well, right time is a good one. And it looks like Ken just checked in from Brisbane. So, Ken, hang
6:24
on a minute. We'll bring you on camera. Um, right time to start raising. Yep. So, here is Rita's question.
6:33
Come on. Yep. And Sam as well. Good. Hi, guys.
6:40
Nice to meet you. Hang on. Let's answer Rita's question here because this is an important
6:45
one. I got to go over here.
6:52
There we go. Um, okay. You're hearing some rattling,
6:58
Cynthia. Thank you for letting me know. I don't know. We'll try to It's probably this headset I'm wearing, but at least you can hear me at all, which is great
7:04
because the hotel room does not have great Wi-Fi. I'm talking running around all day trying to make sure you could
7:09
hear me at all. All right. So, let's talk, Rita. So, uh, Rita, while I'm talking, why don't you tell us where you're from and tell us a little more
7:15
about your um your venture? But in general, the right time to start raising
7:21
is yesterday. Relationships are what drive
7:27
fundraising. So, even if you don't think you're going to be raising tomorrow, you need to start yesterday because
7:33
investors like me, we're looking for people that we know and trust. It's just like sales, right? So, you want to be
7:38
out there building relationships, in fact, long before you want the money. So, if you think you're going to be raising money anytime in the near future
7:45
or ever, the sooner you start going to events and connecting with investors face to face, letting them get to know
7:51
you and hopefully demonstrating some sort of progress to them over time, that's how you raise money. So, it's
7:57
nice to think that you could just send out a bunch of emails uh to the inboxes of various venture capital firms and
8:03
they would reply with interest and then money. It's really not that easy. It's a relationship-based business and it's um
8:10
something that you need to start on sooner than later. The trouble with this, of course, is that um if you're
8:15
already desperate for money, that's going to be tough. So, get started even faster. Or if you're a person who doesn't necessarily like to do outreach,
8:22
this is maybe not your comfort zone. But this is one of the facts and I try to tell the truth. That's why I do these at
8:28
these office hours. If you're going to do this, um you've got to be ready to be in sales. Everybody's in sales in a
8:34
startup and especially the founder. you're going to be uh convincing people of everything. You're going to have to
8:40
convince team members. You're going to have to convince investors. And of course, you're going to have to convince clients, right? So, all of these are
8:46
things that you need to get good at. And the sooner you start, the better. The other reason to start sooner, of course,
8:51
is that you will get better. You can learn from the reactions that you get from uh various potential investors and
8:58
see what they want from you, right? Um you should also be talking to clients
9:03
early on earlier than a lot of founders want to do this because then they can give you feedback on your uh product and
9:08
you'll have a chance to pivot right um iterating in response to customers is what can give you the kind of traction
9:14
and validation that investors are looking for. So that's the other way to get investors. Of course you don't need
9:19
to um necessarily even pitch investors if you can build a
9:25
fantastic business that's generating a lot of revenue. Believe me, we'll come find you. But of course, it's easier if
9:31
you do some of both. Get some customer attraction going and then build start building relationships with c with the
9:36
investors as well. So, if uh I hope that's helpful, kind of a basic intro question, but hopefully that sets the
9:42
stage for everybody. Um this is the kind of things that we're going to talk about uh tonight. Well, tonight for me, and a
9:47
lot of you I know are in Asia, and I do these at night. Um they're 9:00 p.m. usually when I'm in California. Tonight,
9:53
it's midnight here on the East Coast. Um and um but we do them at this time
9:59
because I want to help those of you in Southeast Asia, uh and Australia and India. Uh and um I know that there's a
10:06
lot going on over there. In fact, I just got back from Malaysia myself um where the ecosystem is spinning up fast and I
10:12
hope that we can all together work together and make some impact. Speaking of that, let me put up my LinkedIn real
10:17
quick and if any of you want to say hello and connect, happy to do that. Uh the startup council has its own LinkedIn
10:22
of course and then there's mine. If either of those look interesting, come find them, say hi. Happy to uh be in
10:29
touch and um tell you more about the startup council because that's community service that we're building. Okay. So,
10:34
we've got a couple people who are SVP backstage and I'm going to see if we can bring them on um and uh then we'll get
10:41
back to the questions in the chat room as well. Okay. So, let's see. Ken, if you want to turn on your camera, please.
10:48
I'm going to bring you and um who was it? Sam over here and let's see what uh
10:54
see what you guys want to talk about. All right, so here is Ken.
11:02
Hi Ken. Hi Scott. How are you doing? Here is Sam. Hi guys. Nice to meet you.
11:08
Hey, nice to meet you. Excellent. So, okay. So, you both uh were the the smart guys who got ahead of
11:14
the game and RSVPed a little early. So, tell me, is this right? I think Ken, let's see. You're from Brisbane?
11:22
Yes, I am. All right. So far, I got the right guy then. Okay. So, Ken from Brisbane and you have an um international education
11:30
AI sort of uh business that you'd like to practice your pitch. Does that sound right? Sure.
11:35
Yeah. Wow. Look, I nailed it. I'm psychic. Okay. Now, that's the beauty of email. Okay. And Sam, you are from We got two
11:41
Aussies here. You're from Brisbane, right? And you wanted to pitch T app, the T app, something like that.
11:51
Uh, you're muted, Sam. Can you unmute?
12:02
No. I can see your lips moving, but
12:12
Okay. Well, I guess that means we'll start with Ken. Okay, Ken. So, um, I'll
12:18
come back to you, Sam, if you want to wrestle with it or reboot or something, we can we can still get you on. Okay.
12:23
So, it looks like me and Ken for the moment. So, um, okay, Ken, so you want to practice your pitch?
12:28
Sure. Okay. So, here's how we usually do this. I don't know if you've been on the show before, but for anybody else who wants
12:33
to pitch, we can do it as well. And Sam, this is for you, too. What we're doing, this is pretty casual, right? We're not writing any checks tonight, but we'll do
12:39
it like a one to two minute pitch. I'll I'll do it. I'll make a timer and um it's just verbal, no slides, and you
12:46
just say whatever you'd like, right? And then at the end, I'll try to give you what feedback I have to help you improve. What's more important and more
12:54
valuable though is the rest of you who are here watching can help Ken as well. So, we'd like this to be a group exercise because I certainly don't have
13:00
all the answers and I'd like to have you guys in the audience uh listen and offer what suggestions you can. So, we
13:06
probably don't have time to debate the business itself. But we can all say, "You talked too fast or you need a
13:13
better microphone or you left this out or I would have liked to hear more about that because I didn't understand this
13:19
part." That kind of stuff. That's the sort of critique. And if we can all do that to help Ken, that would be awesome. And then Sam, we can bring you on and do
13:25
the same thing. Okay. So, let me grab my timer. Uh, and uh, Ken, does that sound
13:30
reasonable to you? Sure. Okay. Great. All right. We're getting along great here. All right. So, let me
13:37
put two minutes on my clock. And you'll hear it ping. And this is an artificial amount of time. You won't be able to say
13:43
anything. You know, most pitches are longer or shorter. You never know. But this is just more practice. Okay. Okay.
13:49
So, I'm starting the clock. Go ahead and tell us about uh your AI u your AI app.
13:56
Okay. Thanks, Scott giving me the opportunity. and Ken. Uh 18 years ago I
14:01
work for Nvidia and Jensen Huang was my boss. However, one of my biggest regret
14:06
for life is when I left Nvidia, I saw all my shares and options and they are now worth 100 million. Uh fast forward,
14:14
I have lived in six countries. I study, work and live in six countries. But one
14:20
of the pain points like millions of people moving across the border is that the process of applying for visa or
14:27
university abroad has been costly, lengthy and complex. So what we are building is a migration and education on
14:36
demand just to um address that issue and and help people go through that painful
14:44
process. Uh so this is not just a gentic AI
14:49
is a auto acting like a agent a human lawyer uh helping a a users to go
14:57
through a visa process or applying for uh school or university award. Uh this
15:04
is also a marketplace to monetize all the services after they moving to a new
15:09
country. like the first thing after they land in a new country is they need to look for accommodation. Um they might
15:17
need to find a job uh if they have kids they need to look for schooling for the kids etc. So this platform is going to
15:24
monetize all the services after landing in a new country uh from premoving to
15:30
post moving. uh we we use AI to uh uh uh
15:37
recommend options uh for the users and help them to go through the entire process. But S and
15:44
then when they need a human support, they can always have the option to contact any migration lawyer or schools
15:52
online and we could also help them with the offline u application as well.
15:59
Okay. You can probably Could you hear that timer? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. Well, that was very fluent and nicely done. And so that
16:06
was that was about two minutes. So I know you had a lot more to say. It's kind of an artificial time like I said, but it gives you the flavor, right?
16:12
Gives you the feeling of the make you nervous enough to pitch and give and then we can give you some feedback. So, okay. So, everybody who's listening who
16:19
heard that, uh, I know there's dozens of you out there. Go ahead and chime in in the chat room. what did you think he said that was smart or what did you
16:26
think was left out or what could have been said differently. Um, usually the the most important thing is what was
16:32
left out. And again, it's two minutes so we we're not picking on Ken or anybody else that pitches. This is artificial,
16:37
but you know, what are the key points? And usually people spend a lot of time warming up and they just really get
16:43
going at the two-minute mark. And that's a little bit what I think would happened to Ken. Um, so I'll start, but everybody
16:49
else I see Miguel has a a question or a suggestion, but let let me go first. So, um, so I thought it was very good and I
16:55
I'm I'm first of all, sorry about your Nvidia shares. That's kind of that sucks. Um, if it
17:02
helps at all, I was in Silicon Valley and easily could have joined uh Yahoo, Google, Facebook, any of those companies
17:09
at the time, but I went and started my own company, which failed. So, I might
17:14
be in the same boat as you, and it, you know, you just you move on, right? Anyway, okay. So, congratulations on
17:20
your new venture. That sounds like sounds exciting. Um I guess um I'm a little
17:26
So here's my questions, right? So you you gave me and in a lot of ways the strategy here of course is to get an investor interested to ask more
17:33
questions. So you don't want to say everything because then you know they'll decide yes or no and you wouldn't even
17:38
have fully explained the story. So um there were some things left out here, but here are some of the things that I
17:43
think were left out. Um on the positive side, you're clearly spoken, well spoken, confident. um all that you know
17:50
it came across well what I was missing was I want to know more and this is a
17:56
good thing I guess I want to know more about the AI everybody says they have AI these days and you mentioned the word aentic but and you can't answer all this
18:03
now this is more for next time okay because we got a lot of other people here too but but just for your notes for next time um what kind of AI are you you
18:12
know what LLM are you using are you is this proprietary data are you I mean you know and it depends a lot on who you're
18:18
talking to but I know enough about AI that I would want to know a lot more about that because everybody says AI and
18:24
if you are for real about this you you could at least drop six or eight more buzzwords and you know confirm to us
18:30
that you you really know what you're talking about here. The larger question I had was which markets are you talking
18:36
about? Because uh at least here in the states, if you're pitching US investors, we don't really have this problem,
18:41
right? So if you're going to pitch somebody like me, and I'm doing this during, you know, Australian Asian
18:48
business hours, so you don't have to presume you're talking Americans, but most Americans, we're not going to understand that problem as much because
18:54
we don't have the visas and a lot of the schools are here, right? So you probably have to unpack that a bit more. Um
19:00
because I believe you. I've spent a lot of time outside the US, but a lot more than most Americans, right? So I I
19:06
understand it, but I mean at some level um but that needs more detail also
19:11
because I don't the need you see is not going to be obvious to Americans the way you've lived it, right? So that you
19:17
probably need and here's my big point. The whole thing needs numbers. You
19:23
didn't hear any real numbers. How many million PE students? How many million
19:28
dollars? Um, and what we really need is um some equations, some unit economics,
19:35
like who's the customer? Like I heard I kind of understand it's marketplace, but who's paying, right? Where's the money
19:41
coming from? You didn't talk about money at all. And that's what we really need to see. So, I would everything you said
19:47
was cool. In the next five minutes, you probably would have covered all the things I've said, but I would kind of
19:53
put the numbers up front a lot quicker. There's 12.6 six million uh students in
19:58
Australia alone and 47% of them want to go study in the state and that means a
20:04
market of this size we're going to charge who we're going to charge the students no we're going to charge the university no we're going to charge the
20:10
lawyers I mean I don't know like I need to I need to know how the money flows uh
20:15
so that I can see it as a business otherwise it's just an idea and I sure you again I know you I'm sure you know
20:21
all that um so those would be my comments except for one more um is with
20:26
marketplaces. I have a lot of experience with marketplaces. So, I would love personally to hear more about both sides
20:33
because a marketplace only works obviously if you have buyers and sellers and I don't know enough about your market. But I've seen many marketplaces
20:41
fail because they have a lot of supply and no demand, right? Or vice versa,
20:46
right? and how you're going to go to market to attract people on both sides of that equation and yet still have one
20:52
of them pay you money that is more than you have to spend acquiring all those customers is a challenge and as a
20:59
marketplace operator myself I've lived that and that would be something I would just caution you for so that was a big
21:06
download I don't Was that helpful or useful yeah sort of good yeah okay good I hope so just trying to help
21:14
let's see if anybody said anything in the chat room here Let's see. I saw there was somebody a minute ago. Um,
21:20
let's see. Uh, Miguel said, "For our pitcher, what is
21:25
your MVP? What is your wedge and your edge?" Okay, those are fairly self-explanatory, but yeah, that's
21:31
right. We don't have you didn't give us a sense of how far along are you? Is this just an idea or is there a product
21:37
in the market? And if there is, how is that differentiated? Because there are a lot of different educational services. as you know, obviously you're in that
21:43
market, but and what's your edge and what's your what what's your wedge? I think those are good good questions. Um,
21:50
okay. I guess that was it. Okay, so next time audience, we got to give a little
21:55
more feedback here. This guy's went out. He's a brave guy to be first. Uh, and did a good job. So, thank you. Uh, nice
22:02
to meet you, Ken. I hope. And if if it was or it wasn't, you can watch on YouTube and you can leave a nasty
22:08
comment if you want or you can watch it again if it was helpful. I'll never grab the rest.
22:14
Thank you so much. All right. So, that's one. That was Ken from our first Australian caller from
22:21
Brisbane. We had two guys from Brisbane tonight. All right. So, the other one was, let's see, Hojan. And then we're
22:28
going to bring on Hi there, Hojun and Sam.
22:39
No, man. I can see your lips moving, but I don't know what's wrong.
22:45
Sorry about that, man. Um, you could put your question in the chat room. Oh, you
22:50
had a pitch, though. That's hard to do in a pitch in chat.
22:58
I heard something.
23:04
I think something's
23:11
come back and try again if you'd like. All right. Well, Hunan, I guess. What did you uh what would you like? Where
23:16
are you? I'm calling from California. How you doing? Oh, good. Okay. All right. You wrote in
23:22
as well. Good. Roland Heights. That's LA area roughly, right? Yeah, a little bit inland.
23:28
Inland. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. So, what was your What would you like to talk about? Go ahead.
23:34
Great. So, I've been um I've been pursuing entrepreneurship fresh out of college. Um I feel like I have really u
23:43
limited amount of resources in terms of network and I think that's also my fault. Uh I graduated around COVID. Um
23:50
I've studied a lot of books. I pursued businesses on my own, right, with some professors. And um as I grew older, I
23:58
feel like I'm starting to understand that I don't think I bet on the right people, right? I think I lacked the
24:03
mentorship. I think um having very limited budget, um you know, having to
24:09
develop a mobile application from overseas, the developers were highly unreliable,
24:15
um very much overpromising, underdelivering. And so, you know, now
24:20
um with the help of my parents, I've been able to put down some significant funding for this new effort for
24:27
development for this application that I'm pursuing. But um and I think out of
24:32
the the six, seven years that I've had experience in this space, I've had a lot of good insights and um hardships that
24:39
I've learned. But I really wanted to understand where I can really immerse myself um I guess besides Silicon
24:45
Valley. um here in Southern California where I could really meet with other investors, uh mentors, startup founders
24:54
just to get really good understanding of how to start myself up in a healthy way or maybe even connect with other um
25:01
co-founders potentially, right? Great. Well, that's a great question and and good for you for being so thoughtful
25:07
about it. Um where did you go to college? I went to Calp Poly Pomona.
25:12
Okay. That's why I'm asking because that's your university is usually a good
25:17
uh location. Do they have an incubator or an entrepreneurship program or anything like that there? We did and uh
25:24
you know I actually ended up pursuing it with um someone who is a faculty member
25:32
right I have a lot of respect for him and so I don't want to put him in any bad light but um he or she is the person
25:40
that I feel like I really bet on but was um felt really uh how should I say um
25:48
I feel like I bet on the wrong person essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. We don't we don't need to dig into that. I can tell that's sensitive and
25:54
understandably. Um okay. So that's too bad because I kind of soured you on the university situation probably. Right.
26:01
A little bit. Yeah. Um okay. Well, okay. So then um well
26:07
here's a couple thoughts I guess while three and we'll see how much farther we go. And actually this is a great
26:12
opportunity. Anybody that's listening I know some people out there like Cynthia or others who are from Southern California might have resource
26:18
suggestions for Hojun Hojun. Is that how you say it? Hojun. Yeah, for Hojun as well. U put those in the
26:25
chat room would be great. So here's a few. Um one is as as you may know and
26:30
you might get our emails already, but in Southern California, I run a group called the OC Startup Council, Orange County Startup Council,
26:36
ocstartupconsil.org. And we publish the only newsletter that I'm aware of that focuses exclusively on
26:44
Southern California and specifically Orange County, but you're close enough. Um resources for early stage founders.
26:50
So, I would subscribe to that. It's free. And uh I would start going to all the events that we list because we list
26:57
everybody's events. It's kind of a community service, right? We collect all the events into one calendar. So, that's
27:02
a great resource. And I started that specifically be to help people like you, right, who are kind of new but want to
27:08
get going and they and you don't have to sign up for 15 different emails this way or even find 15 different services,
27:13
right? We try to aggregate everything. So, that's that's one. Second is uh the
27:18
SBDC, small business development corporation. SBDC is a um government
27:25
funded your your and my tax dollars uh at work. And the SBDC's are nationwide.
27:30
This is true all across the United States. And they offer free consulting for early stage businesses. So this
27:35
would be more if you already had an idea and you were going to kind of look for some mentoring. Um, not all of the
27:42
mentors are 100% fluent in tech as I'm presuming. Is are you a techie guy or
27:47
what kind of entrepreneurship are you? Yeah, it's it's AI in the mental wellness space. Okay. Yeah. Right. Okay. So, I'm not
27:54
sure they would all be totally up for that, but it's worth a shot and it's free, right? Um, there's one called
27:59
SCORE service core of retired executives. Score. And those are just what it sounds like, retired executives
28:06
who want to help. And again, they may not be up on the latest AI, but they may be able to help you with uh business
28:11
structure or co-founders or management, you know, kind of more general topics. And all of that is free. So, those are
28:18
good resources. U my friend Cynthia chimed in, which is a great one. Chapman University is open to the public. Their
28:25
incubator there is run by Cynthia, another Cynthia, Cynthia West, Dr. Cynthia West at Chapman, um which is in
28:30
Orange and again, not too far from you. uh and they have they have the only I I
28:36
don't know every incubator everywhere but they are one of the few if not the only one in the area that is open to non- studentents. So a lot of the
28:43
services at universities of course are dedicated to their own students or at least alumni or donor you know people
28:48
that are connected to the university but Chapman's is open to kind of to the public. So and they have a bunch of
28:54
events there. Uh we try to list as many as we can but they have more than we even publish. Um so that would be a good
28:59
one. Um, yeah. Well, that's a pretty good start anyway. That's three or four or five. Um,
29:06
uh, John in the chat room says, "Get in touch with university alumni networks." Yeah, I that's where I started too,
29:11
John. And YC co-founder communities. Yeah, Y Combinator does have co-founder communities. I'm sure there's groups on
29:17
Reddit as well. Um, the Y Combinator co-founder program doesn't work as well
29:22
as it used to, unfortunately. I've been on that list for years. Um, and I keep keep getting this same one lonely guy
29:29
from LA who's trying to find a co-founder. He's the only one ever in the newsletter. So, I'm not sure that
29:35
works as well as it used to. U, but they have a lot of resources. I would also look at uh Tech Stars. Tech Stars is
29:42
another um well- reggarded uh incubator accelerator sort of program. Um there's
29:48
just a lot of them out there. What's the university geographically closest to you? I'm not clear where we're
29:55
right. So I think um CalPoly Pomona is very close. Uh Chapman I think actually is very close as well. It should be
30:01
within about 20 minutes and so Okay. Well, great. Well, that's that's a good option. Yeah. And thank you Cynthia and John.
30:07
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, I hope that's helpful and and I would love to meet you. We have a lot of
30:13
events in Orange County. Like I said, I'm in Michigan right now, but I'll be back and there's going to be an event on
30:18
November Well, re read our newsletters. I'll be I'll be hosting a conference in Garden
30:25
Grove. Um I can't I think it's November 3rd or something like that. But anyway,
30:32
um and be happy to meet you in person. We're doing pitch competitions and stuff like that in Garden Grove which we do every this will be the fifth one we call
30:38
the series Startup Game Changer. So that'll be on coming up soon. And we do Irvine Tech Week. There's a lot of stuff
30:43
we do in Orange County. Um and oh actually another one get me going. This is you hit my sweet spot. Um, LA Tech
30:50
Week is coming up in like three weeks. It's I think it's roughly the around October 10th and which means all of Los
30:57
Angeles is going to be there's going to be like a hundred events over a week or two like more events. You can't even
31:03
possibly go to them all, right? But that's one I go look at LA Tech Week. Um, just Google it. It's not
31:09
latteweek.com. I always always do that. Some other URL, but you can find it. Um, and just get on their mailing list and
31:15
there's all kinds of stuff going on. Uh then you could that way you could narrow in a little bit on AI for example or
31:21
mental health and wellness, you know, your sectors because the more specific the better, of course. So, okay. Well, I
31:28
hope that was helpful. Yeah, it certainly was. Thank you so much. And I'll connect you on LinkedIn and I'll definitely keep a look at your
31:34
newsletter. Excellent. Nice to meet you, See you next time. Okay, cool. All
31:40
right, we've got a couple more. Let's see. What do we got? Let's just see what's going on backstage here for a
31:46
second or in the chat room. I've been talking a lot. What time is it? Oh, we're like halfway through already.
31:52
Okay, well that's good, I guess. Um, I said I would answer some questions from the chat room as well. Let's see. Uh,
32:00
Deston says, "What are your experiences with capital for podcasters?" Um, I've
32:06
been podcasting since about 2008, so I guess I'm as qualified as anybody. Uh
32:12
well, I'm not Joe Rogan, but you know, or some huge podcaster, but I've been doing it a long time. And uh I did radio
32:18
before that. So, I've been broadcasting since I was in high school. But um I don't have a lot of experience with
32:24
capital because I guess it's not really seen as a capital opportunity. And the
32:29
reason for that, I think, is that it doesn't require much capital. Um you and
32:35
a microphone. And these days with free internet distribution, I I'm not sure what capital you would need. So you can
32:41
clarify that question a little if you'd like. Um Dustin um but uh it's not
32:46
generally a venture capital backed sector as far as I know. There might be situations where you already are a
32:51
celebrity of some sort and then you know like if I don't know Barack Obama wanted to do a podcast I'm sure the money would
32:58
show up, right? But that's not quite the same thing uh as uh as me or you. Well,
33:03
maybe you're famous. I don't I don't know. Uh but um I don't I don't have a a
33:08
good answer for you there because it it's generally the sort of thing you can fund yourself and if you get bigger then hopefully the sponsors show up and and
33:15
start paying for stuff for you. Okay, let's try this one. Py or Push says,
33:20
"How to find the right VC to invest with?" Um do you mean with Py? You mean
33:26
like you're a limited partner and you want to put money into a venture capital fund? I'm guessing you meant more like
33:32
the right VC to invest in your company. That's usually what this show is about. I can talk about either one because I am
33:37
an LP in several funds, but I'm going to take this as how to find the right investor to fund your company. That's
33:44
what usually. Um uh okay. Oh, Dustin says that actually answers my question.
33:49
Okay, you were in radio too. Okay. Yeah, good old days. Um okay, but back to
33:54
Push. How to find the right VC. Um, finding the right venture capital firm is a long process and I'm actually
34:00
writing a new book about this. My next book, like I said, I've written three already, but my new book is I have a
34:06
Chiron about that even here. It's going to be how to raise um how to raise startup financing, right? And if you go
34:13
to startupconsil.org, you can get on the list for um early releases and stuff like that. I'll be sharing with, you
34:20
know, with subscribers even before the book comes out. But the answer to your
34:26
question, I'm writing a whole book about. And a large part of the answer in is that um we need Okay, did I lose you
34:36
guys? No, it just was a hiccup there. I think you're still here. Hopefully. A
34:42
large part of the answer to finding the right investors is research. Uh and that's not what people like to hear. They want this to be easy. But the fact
34:49
is, uh a couple things. Investors are super important. of course because of the capital, but they also it's like a
34:57
marriage. You expect to be online. Sorry, not online. I'm getting distracted by the online. Um, you're
35:05
going to be in business with your investors for 5, 10, 15 years. It lasts longer than most marriages. So, finding
35:12
the right investors is important for your personal mental health in addition to the capital formation of your company. On top of that, there are
35:19
thousands of investors now, maybe millions. I mean, many, many more than there were when I raised my first venture round back in web 1.0. There are
35:26
so many investors or people that claim to be investors that you have to do a lot more research because a lot of them are fake or don't really have any money
35:34
um and they're really consultants or something else or and or there are
35:40
people that specialize in so many things that you want to find those that really
35:45
get what you're doing. Otherwise, you're in the wrong room. You're just wasting your time. So I would really recommend
35:51
whatever amount you are going to spend on research, I would triple that and
35:58
instead I would um spend it on I would spend less time on pitching and
36:04
more on research. If it helps, this is the most common question we get. So we built a website for it. Startupinves
36:09
investorsdirectory.com is exactly what it sounds like. It's uh 3,000 earlystage investors that you can it's a search
36:18
engine basically, right? and you can go and sign up there and search and find people in many many sectors. I think we
36:24
have 49 different categories that you can search on plus um the stage like
36:30
preede, seed, series A and the sectors. So you know biotech or aerospace or
36:35
software
36:43
those are and then there's these dozens of other categories that there is no other site on the internet
36:49
come on come on back connection I hope you guys are there
36:56
I'm in a hotel so anyway what I was saying is that I started professors
37:01
director.com we have search tools that I I don't think any other uh investor database has. So you can search on uh
37:09
every sector you know sustainability, green tech, health tech, whatever but also you can search on finding investors
37:17
who are interested in female founders or black founders or immigrant founders or rural founders or LGBTQ founders or
37:24
firsttime founders or veteran founders like all these personal characteristics so that you can drill down and find a
37:31
match because you are uh I don't know an LGBTQ Q female veteran who's doing clean
37:39
tech, right? Wouldn't it be great to find somebody like you? That's the idea. More research will get you into the
37:45
right room with somebody who's more likely to understand who you are and what you're doing, and that will get you to funding a lot faster. So, you hit one
37:53
of my hot buttons there, um, Pew. Uh, so I hope that was helpful, but that's
37:58
that's the trick to this. You can't just buy a list of a thousand VC email
38:04
addresses and send it out and think that money is going to show up. That's just not how it works. Research is what you
38:10
want to do. Can I please repeat the website for investors? It's on the screen right there, Rita. Startupinvestorsdirectory.com.
38:17
Uh, and hopefully that can be helpful to you. Startupinvestorsdirectory.com
38:24
for a discount on that right now. It's on it's on it's not free. We had we I
38:29
spent a lot of money building it. So,
38:35
and all right, I hope we're still here. Um, okay. Let's see. Uh,
38:44
right. VC. We did that one. Okay. Let's
38:50
try this.
39:11
Come on now. There we go. Okay. So, Rishab says, "Hi, Scott. We're a team of
39:17
process of building an MVP for a chip design software. Okay, deep tech. I'm in the dilemma to go bootstrap for now or
39:23
should I be looking for seed fund?" Well, it's, you know, the situ there's no one-sizefits all answer there,
39:31
Rashad. And congratulations to you and your team. Um, kip design is a hot area,
39:36
but it also is a long-term play, right? It's a long-term play in the sense of
39:42
the capital needs. You're going to tens of millions, maybe hundreds of
39:47
millions or license out your tech or something, right, to get the capital to
39:52
keep going. It's not like building a an app on your, you know, iPhone app that you can have up in two weeks or
39:58
something. So, um, if I'm looking to give you an answer,
40:04
which of course I am, I guess, you know, it's always a good idea to bootstrap as far as you can. If you can bootstrap,
40:10
the longer you can bootstrap, the better deal you'll get when you do raise money. So, the valuation will be better. You'll retain more control, you'll be diluted
40:17
less, and eventually, if you have a successful exit, you'll make a lot more money. But you need the capital along
40:22
the way to keep things right. So, um, there's no right answer. Um, but I would
40:30
um I would bootstrap as long as you can, but start building the relationships
40:36
now. Like I said at the top of the show to Rita, the sooner you meet investors, the sooner they can be relationships
40:42
where you trust each other and they would be interested in investing. And ideally, what happens with this process
40:48
and I say ideally, it's not this easy, but the theory is you go out and you meet a bunch of investors while you're
40:54
building. And then as you keep building, you are sharing with them your progress.
40:59
Over time, they get to know you better. They see your progress. They start to trust you. And eventually, ideally, they
41:06
even say to you, hey, Rashad, you know, why don't you take some of our money? I think you could go faster, right? And
41:12
then they're pitching you. And that's, you know, again, it's hard to make that happen. I certainly can't promise that,
41:17
but that that is what you want to aim for. So, the sooner the better. Um, I
41:22
don't think you want to necessarily raise money right now because bootstrapping is a better deal for you,
41:27
but I think you do want to start the fundraising process in terms of now.
41:33
All right. What is um let's see. Oh, here's a couple more
41:42
comments, Ken. There's a couple more comments in the chat that I missed because we were talking. Um, and uh,
41:50
yeah, like Cynthia wasn't clear on your value proposition. Um, and there's a
41:55
difference between an AI company in a company that is AI enabled. This is back. We're talking about for Ken's
42:01
pitch here. So, there's some good stuff um, in the in the chat room there. Ken, when you watch, I would check it on
42:07
YouTube and rewind that bit and I think you'll see some good notes there. Okay.
42:14
says, "It's great to meet you. As an investor,
42:20
as an investor, what green, yellow, and red flags do you look for in startups and in the team itself? If yellow, what
42:27
do you advise to mediate early?" Uh, okay.
42:37
It won't show up on the screen. Uh,
42:44
okay. Well, I'll read it again. John wants to know, uh, as an investor myself, what are the green, yellow, and
42:51
red flags I look for in startups and in the team? Well, it's a combination of things. John, the green is is fairly
42:57
well, I was going to say it's obvious, but it's not simple. obvious is wow, you
43:02
know, ideally, you know, a great founder or teams in a big market with some great
43:07
traction and growth momentum, uh, compounding every month with recurring revenues and ideally even adjacent
43:15
markets that they can expand to and a low cost of customer acquisition. I mean, the list goes on and on, right? Businesses are complicated. So, um,
43:23
let's talk more about the yellow and red flags. Um, I guess a yellow flag that we see a lot is people that won't listen.
43:31
And it's not so much that as angel investors that we are lecturing. It's
43:36
just that we want to know that you're smart enough to adapt to new circumstances. If you think you have all the answers already, uh, I think you're
43:43
going to be sorely mistaken as an entrepreneur. Um, one of my favorite quotes, I I use this in a presentation I
43:50
did last week in Malaysia and I got a big laugh is a famous quote from Mike Tyson. you know, the heavyweight boxer,
43:56
he says, "Everybody's got a plan until I punch him in the mouth." That's Mike
44:02
said that and I think it's true. So, if you're a founder or a team that has all the answers and won't listen to people
44:08
with experience in the in that domain, um that's a that's a red flag and you
44:13
won't be getting money from my friends or my friends. Um because we want people that are adaptable. Um, other yellow
44:21
flags would be that you've raised a lot of money and haven't made much progress or even
44:29
different people
44:38
inflated valuation. So, don't raise too much money too early and especially at too high a valuation. You'll dilute
44:44
yourself. You'll find it harder to raise from other people. Like Ivywood Records says, uh, you've been warmed. Bootstrap
44:50
or lose your soul. I think that sums it up. Um, you need to be careful about that. Be judicious about the money
44:57
you're raising and the price at which you're selling the equity. Um Um, yeah,
45:02
that's um Yeah, sorry, John. I I that's Hopefully
45:07
it'll be in the replay. Um, lots of money but little progress. Yeah. Okay. So, um, I'm gonna have to keep moving
45:14
here, though. Um, I think it will be in the replay on YouTube. Um, you could go
45:20
check that out. And let's see here. What else we got here? Where can we find,
45:27
what does this one say? The historian. Where can we find investors for a young entrepreneur like me without a MVP?
45:35
Well, um, historian, I think that's a common question. Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to like my answer.
45:42
Well, I have two answers.
45:48
for listings of investors. There's places like Pitchbook, for example,
45:57
$15 a year subscription, which is bull, right, for founders. That's why we built
46:03
startup investors directory.com. I'm not here trying to pitch that service, but that's literally why I built it because so many founders can't afford the other
46:10
services. So, um, I would go and look at startupinves investors directory.com, poke around. But the real answer is I
46:18
don't think you're going to find one. I think by using the research tools that I talked about earlier at
46:23
startupinvestorsdirectory.com, you can get closer because you could find people in your sector at your stage
46:28
with similar characteristics and interests that can get you way down the track faster to find investors.
46:36
But if you're a young entrepreneur who has no MVP, I'm it sounds like all you
46:42
have is an idea. And these days, people don't invest on ideas. I mean, I don't um anything's possible, right? If you
46:50
have no track record, and I'm just exaggerating for a fact here, but you're a young entrepreneur, so I think you
46:55
haven't built previous companies. It sounds like um you may not have a track
47:00
record and you don't have an MVP. All you have is an idea. I don't think anybody's going to invest in it. You can
47:06
do all the research you want. Um, I take that back. Your mom, friends, or family
47:12
might invest and that that's a legitimate way to start. Your credit cards, that's also a legitimate way to start. If you are so confident you can
47:19
pull those resources and get going, that is allowed, right? You're an adult. You are the CEO. You can do what you want.
47:25
But in terms of real investors, like professional investors, most investors these days are looking
47:31
for some sort of traction, which means customer validation. ideally in the form of sales. If you don't even have a
47:37
minimum viable product yet, then you are far from having the kind of traction and validation that investors want. So, I
47:44
think um you're you're probably not going to find an investor. I'm sorry to say that because I'm here to be
47:49
encouraging, but I'm also here to help you use your time and resources wisely. I would suggest to you and also to um to
47:56
Hojun earlier I don't know if you're still watching Hojun but the other thing to do when you're in your situation
48:02
Hojun or here the historian situation is go work in a startup right you can get
48:08
paid like it's like a scholarship right go work in somebody else's startup even
48:13
if it's only for six months or a year you will learn so much about everything
48:19
really right you don't have to be the boss right from the start. Um,
48:25
you know, the the media romanticizes early 20some and college dropout
48:30
founders, but studies show that most successful and the most successful uh
48:37
entrepreneurs are in their 30s and 40s, right? Because they have some experience. They're they're reacting to industry needs that they've seen in
48:44
their real life, right? Not just kind of dreaming stuff up from their college dorm room. Um, I mean it does happen
48:51
obviously, but uh there's no shame in in going and working for somebody else for
48:56
a while and learning what you're doing because most startups fail anyway. Even if you were really right and really got
49:02
funded, nine out of nine ten times you're going to fail anyway. So why not go work for somebody else for a while,
49:08
learn the ropes, figure out, you know, a lot of things on their dime and then hopefully build something um, you know,
49:15
a little later on your own time. All right. Um,
49:24
okay. Sam, are you still here? I turn on your camera. I don't see you. Um,
49:31
who do we got back here? Hojun is still here. Okay, Sam. All right, I'm gonna try. This is the third try. Sam, let's
49:37
see if we can. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, there we go.
49:44
Hello. Nice to meet you. Okay, great. Oh, made it in the end.
49:49
Yes. All right. So, you wanted a pitch, right? So,
49:55
yep. Okay. Why don't you go ahead and we'll we'll all do our best and let me remind everybody watching when Sam finally he's
50:02
here. He's tried really hard to be here. So, when he's here and pitching, please think and listen and give him some
50:08
feedback in the chat room. Okay. Excellent. Okay. Go ahead, Sam.
50:15
Yeah. Thanks Scott for giving the opportunity. Uh all righty. So uh what
50:20
I'll be pitching so is the T app. Uh so
50:25
72% of Australian women on dating apps face harassment or violence. So the T
50:33
app solves this in America. 4.6 million women uh downloaded the app. It's number
50:40
two on the app store uh when it was at big trending. now I think number seven on the app store and at the moment
50:47
Australia has zero competition in this space right now and so we're bringing dating safety to Australian women. So
50:56
the problem that exists right now is three out of four women experience dating app violence and current apps
51:04
like Tinder, Bumble don't prioritize the safety. So women want background checks,
51:11
community warning and verification. And what
51:16
I'm bringing here as a solution phone which is a proven to work model from the United States anonymous community of
51:24
verified women on the app and where women can post warnings and um
51:31
experiences that they've had uh dating men and share that with their fellow um
51:37
other women. So the app is built ready to be
51:44
launched. At the moment it's under review by the app store. So I'm going back and forth with them. So hopefully
51:50
it'll be released publicly in the next week or so. Uh the market opportunity.
51:57
So the Australian dating market is worth 58 million and 3.4 million Australians using dating
52:04
apps and no local safety focus app.
52:10
And the go to market strategy is uh Tik Tok and Instagram influencer strategy.
52:16
So we're targeting small to medium Australian creators and then we'll have a model that's pay up front and then
52:23
commission based on amount of downloads we get from their videos.
52:28
So there's a lot of viral potential in um because safety messages resonates a lot um on social media
52:37
and in terms of my credentials. So I've built two successful apps already um
52:43
chat rewind and char. So one of them is profitable chat rewind. You can look it up on the app store. It's doing about
52:50
20k um annual recurring revenue at the moment. Um I'm 22 years old. I also have
52:56
a AI software company. So what I'm asking is I'm seeking about
53:03
10 to 20k um funding for marketing and I'm offering equity or profit share in
53:10
exchange of that and uh 100% of all that money will go towards um the influence on campaigns.
53:20
Um I project in the next few months Okay, that's
53:25
that's you're well over two minutes there, Sam. Um, okay.
53:30
No, no worries. It's it's it's not easy. No worries. Um, all right. So, everybody
53:36
who was listening to that, yeah, we're having trouble hearing you. So, even with the mic fixed, you probably need to
53:41
invest in a a real microphone or something more than those AirPods that you're using. Um because the studies
53:49
show that actually people think you're 19% smarter if they can hear you better.
53:54
I swear to God that that's that's a that's a fact. Um so I would buy a real microphone.
54:00
Um and I I'm here here I am not using a real microphone myself, but I'm traveling. I have a real microphone at
54:05
home. Um okay. So uh everybody else what let us know what you thought of Sam's uh
54:10
pitch. I would say it sounded like you were reading. So, I would memorize that stuff so you can just sound more
54:18
natural, right? Um, but that that's practice. You can obviously do that. Um,
54:23
the thing I found most interesting you you're buried, which is you've done this twice already. So, you should put that
54:29
up front, man. That's because the major question of course is if you're bringing something from America that works, why
54:35
isn't everybody else going to do the same thing? Right? So, your competition question, you say there's no
54:40
competition. And I'm like, okay, well, maybe that's true. Maybe it's not, but if you've actually done a couple times, that's a big deal. Uh, and it gives
54:47
credibility to your claim that there's no competition also, right? So, I would promote that in sooner in your talk. Um,
54:54
because credibility is key here. You also used more numbers uh than some of our other folks tonight. So, that's
54:59
good. Numbers are are great. What I didn't hear was much about the money, right? Again, um that was a lot about
55:06
the problem, but I think everybody gets that. You don't need to spend all that time explaining that women are not
55:11
having a great time on dating apps. I mean, anybody I I'm not even on dating app and I know that, right? It's like um
55:18
although the I think you said 72% have experienced violence or something like that. That was that was attention
55:23
getting. So maybe that's a good one to keep. But anyway, you could slim that down a lot and focus instead on how
55:28
you're making money because investors that's what we want to know, right? So, um I I would dig in a little more to um
55:35
the competition first of all, but then also the if influencer strategy is what you're going to do, your go to market is
55:42
based on that, then we want to hear numbers about I don't know if you know these phrases, but CAC and LTV and like
55:49
CAC is a customer acquisition cost and then LTV lifetime value of a of a customer. So, if you you want to do an
55:56
equation for me, something like going to spend a$110 on average to acquire new customers and then a typical customer
56:02
will be then be worth $4.16 over three years or something like that, right? So, so that you can see this much goes a
56:09
dollar goes in and $28 comes out. That's what investors want to hear. That kind of thing. So, if you can present it in
56:15
an equation, you'll get a lot farther faster. Um, the biggest question I have
56:20
for you, I guess, and then we'll look at the chat room, is do you only need 10 or $20,000? Is that what you're saying?
56:29
Um, yeah. So like at the moment uh I think well it costs
56:36
about um maybe probably a K to pay influencer up front and then from there
56:42
it's sort of like commission based and then we pay them based on like views and downloads that we get from the app based
56:48
on the video. So that will get me started with about um six to eight um influencers.
56:57
Um, so yes, the answer is yes. Will be enough, right? Um, yeah.
57:02
Yeah. Okay. So, that's an odd situation from an investor's point of view because
57:08
the funny thing about investors is that we have money. So, we forget that other people don't have money. I don't because
57:13
I I grew up without much money, so I understand. But most investors will not have a meeting with you for $20,000.
57:20
That's that's not enough for an investor to care about. Um, in most cases,
57:26
investors will expect you to put that on your own credit cards or something or just handle it, right? Investors, if
57:32
you're not starting at at least $100,000, it's not even that's not an investment. That's like a favor, right? So, um,
57:41
if you want to talk to venture capital or angel investors, I would raise the
57:47
amount of money you want to raise. Um, but then you of course you have to have a better model as to what you're going to do with it, right? And if it's not
57:54
that, then well then you just got to talk to your friends and family. Uh,
57:59
maybe you don't have friends and family like that, but that's what they're going to expect. Uh, rich people have rich family, so
58:04
they think everybody else has a rich family. And I don't know you, maybe you do, maybe you don't. Um, but 10 or 20k
58:10
is not the kind of money that is talked about by investors. That's that's like a business trip, you know. Um, so I'm not
58:18
sure in Brisbane what who else is around, but I know, you know, like on the Gold Coast and stuff there's there's
58:23
quite a startup scene. I would think that there's people there. Um, I can't think of anybody off hand, but um I would get out in the in the
58:32
startup event scene or on the pitch circuit and just try to make some friends and and see, you know, just more
58:38
casually because a venture capital firm isn't going to take the call if that's all you're raising. So, all right. So,
58:45
um, Let's see what the um let's see what the audience says. Uh John says get to the point sooner. Yeah. Well, that's
58:52
kind of what I said. He said he got to the point faster than I did. That's right. Um let's see. As far uh the hook
59:00
can improve, says Francisco. Yeah, I think you've got a I think that's right. There's a you've got something really
59:06
interesting here. You need to come up with like an anchor phrase, you know, like whatever you know the Uber for dogs
59:12
or you know, like something like what is this tea app? Like you obviously know what it is, but like Oh yeah, I did have one which is um Yelp
59:20
for dating. Yelp for dating. Okay. Yeah, that's something like that, right? I mean, I get it now, right? Immediately, right?
59:25
So, I hit that a little harder. And if you can make it even sexier, like, you know, go ahead and spin it up a little
59:31
more um so that it's memorable. That's good. Um and then Eric says, "Good to
59:36
Hey, Eric. Nice to see you. It's been a while." Um and what's this last one? Okay.
59:44
Yeah. Okay. Well, that that that's some to chew on anyway. Um I hope that's helpful. It sounds like an interesting opportunity, though. Uh and if you've
59:51
done this before, thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Stick with it, man. All
59:56
right. Well, nice to meet you. Yeah. Thanks a lot. That was very helpful. Nice to meet you, too. Good. All right. Well, hope to see you
1:00:02
again. That was our friend Sam. It's early day, early in the day there in Australia. Good day to all my Australian
1:00:09
friends. Um, okay. So, I think we're about out of time here. So, let's just
1:00:14
run through the chat room again and see if there's any more cleanup we can do here. Um, okay.
1:00:23
Let's see. Wealthy scientist says, "As far as validation
1:00:30
goes, I have a lot of demo signups. Can that be used as validation and be accepted into the contest?" Yes. Great.
1:00:36
I love this wealthy sign. Exactly right. My new book is going to actually I'm introducing a new concept. I think it
1:00:43
sounds like people know what MVP is, minimum viable product. I think that came from Eric Reese's lean startup
1:00:48
book. This has been a tremendously helpful idea to get people to think about launching the least thing just to
1:00:54
get it going and see what you can make of it. Right. Totally valuable these days. Even before that though I'm
1:01:01
is another threshold that investors want to see and I'm introducing in my new book a new concept called MVT
1:01:09
traction minimum viable traction because investors these days it's not enough to have an idea and it may not even be
1:01:16
enough to have a a product u in market like an MVP what you need to show is
1:01:22
customer validation so minimum viable traction is what I'm suggesting we call the idea that you do just what you're
1:01:28
saying there wealthy science this I you have a lot of demo signups and you've been accepted into contests. What that
1:01:35
is is not the the dream, you know, the the ideal traction because ideal
1:01:40
traction is like, you know, a million dollars recurring revenue monthly growing double, you know, blah blah blah, you know, all kinds of money
1:01:46
raining down. But that's rare, right? The reality is you've got to start to
1:01:52
walk before you run. and walking with minimum viable traction is any
1:01:57
demonstration that someone other than you or your mom cares, right? Far too
1:02:04
many entrepreneurs get wrapped up in their own thing and they're so thrilled that they're solving this problem and they never talk to any customers and you
1:02:10
know and that's one of the reasons by the way that investors that we like people to have co-founders because it shows that you or or our team at least
1:02:18
because it shows that you convince some other people, right? We want to know that somebody other than you gives a
1:02:23
damn. So, minimum viable traction. I think wealthy scientist is giving some great examples. Demo signups. So, she or
1:02:30
he has a had people sign up. They want demos and they've been accepted into pitch competitions. I'm guessing that's
1:02:36
what he means she means by contests, right? That means other people think this might have some potential and
1:02:43
that's what minimum viable traction is to me. All right,
1:02:49
that's real minimum viable traction. Yes. Um,
1:02:54
okay, cool. Good. I like that. That was a good example. Thank you. And then, uh, do, uh, startups from India have Yes, of
1:03:03
course, Shellini. Absolutely. That's why I do this. It's midnight. It's It's 1:00 in the morning for me. I do this
1:03:08
precisely because I'm happy to hear from you folks from India. Unfortunately, you're a little late. Uh, and and we're
1:03:13
going to wrap up for tonight, but I'll do this again next month. And uh I spend as much time as I can in India these
1:03:19
days. Happy to help Indian entrepreneurs. Please uh go and join our email lists at the uh startup council or
1:03:26
register your company. All of you um what this startup council is is a directory and you can list your company
1:03:33
there. Uh and it's $20 or $25. We we have to charge something, right?
1:03:38
Otherwise people abuse it. But uh it's it's basically at cost and you can get yourself in the directory and then you
1:03:44
can publish articles. You can post your events, you can find co-founders. We built all this into one hub at
1:03:50
startupconsil.org. And we'd love to have more Indian members, Shellini. So, come on over there and and come back here. Uh
1:03:57
get on the mailing list and join me again next month and I'll be happy to hear your pitch. Absolutely. Uh okay. I
1:04:04
thought I saw another one. Where was that? Oh, yeah, there was.
1:04:14
Oh, let me do this one first. Well, no, that's fine. Whatever. Okay, these are our last two. Okay, guys, because I have
1:04:20
to go to bed. Uh, Erdie says, "Do you have a good example of a founder who takes advice?" Well, specifically, how
1:04:25
did you measure that in a practical sense? That's great, Erie. I like your vibe there. You're trying to think about
1:04:31
quantifying things and that that is a completely legitimate impulse. Um,
1:04:37
an example of a founder takes advice. Yeah, I mean, I've seen it so many
1:04:43
times. I can't really quote anything to you. It's kind It's just what I was saying earlier, though. If people have
1:04:49
expertise and are trying to help you, you need to listen to them. Um, and and even if you disagree, it's okay. But
1:04:55
it's you want to have reasons for that. And we just see a lot of founders who
1:05:01
come in and I've seen thousands of startup pitches, right? And every now and then you'll get somebody the pitch
1:05:07
may be great but when we when I say we it's usually like a group of us investors right when um when we start
1:05:17
asking questions instead of listening and responding they get defensive or
1:05:22
even angry right like how could we question them and and that's just not you know it's not anything special to
1:05:28
startups nobody wants to work with a person like that right especially for five or 10 or 15 years and you're that
1:05:36
person's using our money, you know. So, um yeah, I don't think that's a a good vibe and to measure that in a practical
1:05:43
sense, I I can't really measure it because it's so in situation specific, but I guess you know the number of
1:05:48
founders like that that get funded is zero. I mean, that's a measurement for you. Zero funding. Um so, yeah, kind of
1:05:56
a squishy answer, but um I mean, if you're even asking that question, I think you're probably okay, right?
1:06:02
because these are people who tend to have not much self-awareness. They also I guess there is a confluence with um
1:06:09
people that are older and consider themselves experts in their field and especially if they have a lot of
1:06:15
education like a doctor um you know or an engineer or some brilliant you know
1:06:22
professor uh who invented the tech or something like how could they it's that kind of I think they call it the halo
1:06:28
effect right they're really good at this specific thing which means they feel like they should are good at everything
1:06:34
and that's just not the case, right? Being good at um engineering or medical devices or physics or something does not
1:06:40
mean that you're also a good business person and no accounting and no marketing and no graphic design and no
1:06:46
AI, right? They're just different things. So, um people that can understand their limits is important. Um
1:06:55
okay. Uh oh, Shellini. Okay, let me just hit this with Shellini again. I think the uh
1:07:02
answer Shelini I already gave you but I want to support entrepreneurs in India. IT great uh Karagapur I'm actually
1:07:09
working with the IIT alumni association the IIT global conference is going to be
1:07:15
in Southern California I think in April in I think in Long Beach or somewhere
1:07:21
south of Los Angeles near where I live. Um and um so I I'm very much interested
1:07:26
in IIT and happy to help um how to build it up with you for our startups. Uh I
1:07:32
I'm traveling right now, but I would um um go to startupconsil.org
1:07:39
and use the contact form and send us a message and I'll try to get back to you and we'll figure something out. Happy to
1:07:46
try to support um IIT entrepreneurs for sure. I mean I do it already. So happy
1:07:52
to do more of that and we'd be happy to collaborate on things with you um uh there in India or virtually or both. So
1:08:00
and I'm and I would bet we have some mutual friends. Okay. Erdie says I got my answer. Good. Okay. Good. That was a
1:08:07
valid answer. Good. I thank you. I appreciate that. Um and then there was
1:08:12
one more. Sorry. Where is it? No, not that one.
1:08:18
There we go. Okay, so this is our last one and I'm going to bed. Dance Industry with Alex Zel says, "I have a working
1:08:25
prototype, but I do everything by myself. What do investors usually think about solo founders? Is it harder to get funding without a team?" Yes.
1:08:34
You want some more detail, though? I'll give you some more detail. It is harder to get funding without a team. I was
1:08:40
pretty much a solo founder myself in my first company, and that was a lot of arrogance on my part. Um,
1:08:48
and as I built a team that things got better in some ways and
1:08:54
that company still failed, but um, I didn't understand for a long time why
1:09:00
investors want to see a team and why it's often a
1:09:05
requirement when you apply to an accelerator or an incubator that you have at least two or three people
1:09:11
involved. But I've come to realize that it's a lot about validation and about the minimum
1:09:19
viable traction I was talking about a minute ago. If you are all by yourself, even if you are a genius, you are
1:09:27
Einstein plus LeBron James plus I don't know Elon Musk or whatever your dream
1:09:33
team is. Um, and you really can play all those positions,
1:09:39
that's still a problem because it might save money, but it means that there are
1:09:45
no differences of opinion or perspective and that uh the company is not going to
1:09:54
iterate and adapt as fast as it could because you don't have a a a
1:10:01
kind of mix of of perspectives. And then even more importantly, it means
1:10:07
that you have not gone to the trouble of convincing other people that you are
1:10:12
going to build a real business. Investors don't want to invest in one-man shows because a one-man
1:10:20
business, well, at least until AI came along, was not likely to be able to generate more than pick a number, a
1:10:27
million dollars, $10 million a year. And venture capital investing is all about
1:10:32
finding outliers like Uber or Facebook or you know pick your uh or uh Tesla,
1:10:38
you know, some company that's going to go from zero to a zillion. So if you
1:10:44
don't have the ability to recruit people and convince people to join your team so
1:10:49
that you have a team, um we don't believe you're going to be able to scale a business that is large enough for us
1:10:56
to be interested in. That's what it boils down to. So, if you can do everything by yourself and you can make
1:11:03
a couple million dollars a year by yourself, then I would just do that.
1:11:09
You're not going to do much better. If you have full control and you can do it all yourself or and you can maybe hire
1:11:15
some lower cost people with all the revenue you're making, don't raise money. You don't need the validation
1:11:20
from some venture capitalist to say that your business works when you're making real money on your own and keeping it
1:11:26
all. That's the dream, man. Um, don't don't confuse yourself because the media
1:11:32
just loves to cover venture capital stories, right? That venture capital is not a goal in and of itself. Raising
1:11:38
money is not a goal. That's just a a stop along the road to eventually raising more money and then raising more
1:11:44
money and then raising more money, deliluding yourself, working for years, and then hopefully having a huge payday,
1:11:50
right? If you can just get paid all along the way, I would do that. So, um,
1:11:55
without a demonstration that you can work well with others and recruit other people to
1:12:02
your point of view and adapt to their input to improve your products, yeah,
1:12:09
investors are going to be skeptical. So, sorry for the bad news. I've been there myself, but I think that's the truth.
1:12:16
So, I hope that's helpful to everybody. I hope you all have enjoyed this. Um, we
1:12:21
uh I know we had some audio and video difficulties. Sorry about that. The uh the Wi-Fi here is not as reliable as I
1:12:28
had hoped, but at least I think we got through much of this and hopefully we answered a bunch of questions that were
1:12:33
helpful to you. I do this every month as part of startup councsil.org's free services. We try to um we try to
1:12:41
help everybody around the world, especially underrepresented and first-time founders. So, if that's interesting to you, you can um please
1:12:48
come and join us. um at startupconsil.org and list your company or at least sign up for the newsletters.
1:12:53
We have uh seven or 10 or 11 newsletters now I think from different parts of the world and different specialties. So
1:12:59
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1:13:05
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1:13:18
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1:13:24
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1:13:30
Even if we never see you again, we although I'd like to um hope you'll tell your friends and uh and then we'll see