Startup Fundraising Strategy & Pitch Practice Office Hours Replay! [VIDEO]

Our free Startup Fundraising Video Office Hours help early stage company founders learn how to 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 February 25.

To watch the new Startup Office Hours REPLAY VIDEO click here.

Startup Founder Discussion Questions This Month

StartupCouncil.org's latest Startup Fundraising Office Hours livestream YouTube Q&A session welcomed practice investor pitches and answered questions from Bangalore, Detroit, San Diego, New Zealand, Honolulu, Cape Town, Philippines, Delhi, and more!

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:

• A seed stage venture pitch for a gym membership management SAAS software platform (Jason from Michigan)
• A pre-seed investor pitch for an events app that helps event organizers and attendees better keep in touch with people they meet at events. (JC from Detroit)
• Explanation of "K-Factors" and viral coefficients that can help consumer apps GTM strategies with viral marketing tactics (Sean from Honolulu)
• Plus, application of viral co-efficients to B2B enterprise products (Rachana from Hyderabad India)
• An ambitious pitch for a new mobile phone operating system powered by AI (Jeffrey from Bengaluru)
• How crowdfunding platforms like Wefunder and StartEngine might be able to help a pioneering cancer diagnostic test raise money (Dr. Kim from San Diego)
• Another "Fox Reversal" discussion recommending to spend less time pitching and more time researching investors so you can get in the right room. (Hint: Try visiting https://www.StartupInvestorsDirectory...)
• What the limits and expectations are for size and valuation of seed round startup financing rounds (Cagatay from Orange County California)
•  The basic numbers and metrics that early stage angel investors need to see before becoming interested in a young startup company (Music from Auckland, NZ)
• And of course, the classic "Where do I find investors for my startup?" from Shiran in Delhi.

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.

Please don't forget to SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, and SHARE on YouTube if the show is helpful to you?

Visit https://www.StartupCouncil.org to join us for lots of FREE #startup resources, expertise, publicity opportunities, events, and much more - including 7 different FREE email newsletters - and discounts to list your startup in the https://NationalStartupsDirectory.com and find investors using https://StartupInvestorsDirectory.com's unique investor research tools.

Plus, get details on StartupCouncil.org's worldwide network of Meetup groups that can help promote YOUR events.

Great to see everyone and congratulations on progress you are making with your visions!   

JOIN STARTUP OFFICE HOURS LIVE NEXT TIME to WATCH & COMMENT:

The next Startup Office Hours livestream is Tuesday, March 18 at 900pm PT / Wednesday 1200am ET. Questions and practice investor pitches are hosted LIVE by Scott Fox, CEO of the Startup Council/Angel Investor/Serial Founder/Author/Startup Expert.

You can watch LIVE here later this month on March 18:

https://www.youtube.com/scottfox

https://www.facebook.com/clickmillionaire

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocstartupcouncil

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here! 

RSVP and submit your startup strategy questions or investor pitches for practice here: https://startup-office-hours.eventbrite.com

MasterMinds Startup Fundraising Office Hours TRANSCRIPT February 25, 2025:

0:00

hello and welcome it's time for startup fundraising office hours I'm Scott Fox from the startup council tonight we're

0:05

going to be talking about startups and raising money for startups and building businesses and making new friends with

0:11

investors and customers of course as well trying to take the ideas that are stuck between your ears out into the

0:16

world to make the world a better place and hopefully make you some money in the meantime as well I'm Scott Fox I'm the

0:22

CEO of the startup Council this is a worldwide community service organization that I started after a long career

0:27

myself as an internet entrepreneur and uh writing these books uh to help people

0:32

around the world learn how to become entrepreneurs these days I'm mostly an angel investor I'm an active angel investor based in Southern California

0:39

and I'm here tonight uh today for you in Asia and Australia and India to try to

0:45

help you accelerate your efforts to benefit from the information revolution that has benefited a lot of us here in

0:51

the states in Silicon Valley and trying to share some of that Knowledge from sort of behind the scenes out into the

0:56

world so that more people can participate so if that sounds like you you're in the right place thanks for joining us as we get started tonight

1:03

we're going to be talking through a bunch of questions and uh we have some investor pitches some folks want to practice and all that's done in a

1:09

friendly fun way here at least once a month on my YouTube channel and uh on LinkedIn live so hopefully uh those of

1:16

you who are backstage can you give me a thumbs up can you hear me and see me okay looks good okay thank you all right

1:21

so that's always a a hurdle we need to get over of course so um as we get going

1:26

here we're going to uh invite those folks on camera and have them join us for our show we'll be here for an hour

1:32

or so taking your questions and if you rsvped in advance as I know JC and Jason

1:37

and some of the other folks backstage did um they both want to practice their investor pitches so they were smart

1:43

enough to write in early so we're going to help them out uh top of the show and let's see who else is back here uh Jason

1:49

and David Jeffrey let's see Jeffrey I think you that rings a bell as well let's see here um let's see

1:58

Jeffrey I think you were one of our yeah from Bangalore Jeffrey is that you are

2:04

you going to are you uh Jeffrey you're going to need to turn on your camera if you want to play with us uh but we will get to your question as well it's an

2:11

investor pitch also okay so maybe we'll do three of those tonight all right so those of you in the wide world uh who

2:18

are watching us welcome and hopefully if uh this is your first time here you're welcome of course and if it's not welcome back this is a show that we do

2:25

to provide um well sort of The Insider tips that I've learned after years of being and internet entrepreneur and

2:32

angel investor and we're going to be here uh to help you out every month so if this is your first time then please

2:38

uh go to our YouTube channel and like And subscribe and all that kind of stuff so that we can help more people that is

2:43

the goal of this show and we're not going to sell anything tonight we're just trying to help you move forward I

2:49

do need to do a couple disclaimers and then we'll get to it and those involve of course trying to find them there we

2:55

go this is not qualified legal or financial advice I'm going to give you the benefits of my experience experience but that's all it is you get what you

3:01

pay for and this is free so please do consult your own qualified tax and legal counsel or experts in whatever field it

3:07

is that you're investigating and listen to them don't listen to me I'm just some guy that you met on the internet

3:13

similarly this is going to be recorded it's being recorded now it's live online on YouTube and Linkedin and Facebook so

3:19

don't say anything too confidential that you wouldn't want other people to hear and we hope that um this is a safe space

3:24

in terms of us supporting you but confidentiality is still a smart thing to do uh to protect yourself and the

3:30

brilliant ideas that I'm sure you all are bringing to the table tonight all right so let's get going here with some

3:36

um I guess we're going to do some investor pitches so let me bring on the folks who are backstage and just check in with them and if you are watching and

3:43

want to get on hold on let me um put that up as well oh let's turn on the chat room actually sorry let's put on

3:49

the chat room there okay so yeah there's a couple folks here uh from England and

3:54

New Zealand you guys can't see that can you hold on how do I let's put that on

3:59

there we we go all right so those will show up there we go so Julius from Brooklyn and Rana from India where in

4:05

India Rana and uh music from New Zealand and best from England cool nice to meet

4:11

all of you thanks for joining us tonight I'd love to hear where you're from you guys are already doing that you must have been on the show before um let me

4:17

know where you're from and also how you heard about this because we're always trying to uh adapt our Outreach so that

4:23

we can reach as many Founders as possible as many of you may have noticed for years I've done this show at lunchtime in California which which is

4:29

easy for me because that's when I'm having lunch but tonight we're doing it on West Coast nighttime to try to help

4:36

those of you who are in Australia and the Middle East and uh East Asia and India of course so hopefully that's

4:41

helpful to some of you like uh Liam Liam's checking in from Sydney and uh uh Omid is up late like me well not too

4:48

late because I know yeah like Julius in Brooklyn it's already after midnight right so you're a little later ran

4:53

Bangalore yeah I was in bengalore last month beautiful busy busy Place pretty impressive and there's another C from

4:59

India and Aloha from Hawaii Aloha uh is that Shan feni because Sean you uh you

5:05

sent in a question I think so you need to do the other link Sean you're in the public chat room you can do it here too but if you wanted to come on camera with

5:11

me then you would uh have to find that other link and I'm sorry I can't do it right now and then Hyderabad as well

5:17

excellent and Jason from Detroit my hometown nice to see you Jason so you're in a different chat room you're backstage Jason so they can't see that

5:23

but I'll pass along your good wishes all right so enough of the Preamble and I already gave you the disclaimers so let's bring on the guys who it looks

5:30

like all guys here uh like I said Jeffrey if you want to join us I need you to turn on your camera so at the

5:35

moment first we've got JC and Jason hi guys nice to meet hello let me just okay

5:43

so there we go and then uh so who's who sry I clicked on which one of you is

5:49

JC Hey JC okay nice to meet you JC and then uh and then Jason must be down

5:54

there hidden by the let me turn off that Banner Jason that's crowding your face isn't it there he is Jason okay there's

6:01

Jason all right and then that shows our names too awesome okay so as far as I know you guys both wanted to practice your pitches does that sound

6:07

right yep sounds good okay all right well let me let's uh either one of you want to go first or well let me explain

6:14

how we do this just for you and everybody else and then you can decide whether it's still a good idea it will be don't worry um so these are like two-

6:21

minute pitches we're just going to do a verbal pitch so we you know if we try to get involved with Powerpoints and everything it often crashes the system

6:27

so just just talking so I'd like to help you uh me and everybody in the chat room also is going to be offering critique

6:35

right so hopefully constructive feedback of course um just so you can spell out in like two minutes or less you know the

6:40

business model and your ask and that sort of stuff and we'll just try to help you get the vibe and hopefully I can help you with some helpful feedback in terms of what as an investor what I

6:48

liked or didn't like and hopefully help you improve for next time so nobody's writing checks tonight this is just practice but it should be useful for you

6:54

I hope it usually is and everybody in the chat room please um offer them some critique as well right so who wants to

7:00

go first anybody uh volunteer JC or Jason I can go first okay good for you

7:06

JC okay so let me turn off JC we'll bring him back in a minute and there's

7:12

Jason all right Jason so we're gonna give you a couple minutes and um that's kind of it I mean I kind of know you you

7:18

emailed me a little bit already which sounds cool but why don't you tell everybody else and let's see what the feedback is yeah so uh thanks for having

7:26

me my name is Jason David uh I actually was uh on your show a couple years ago

7:31

before we had a co-founder customers Revenue all that stuff and then I found out uh just from Snoop and online you're

7:38

actually from um Metro Detroit uh University of Michigan so as I kind of

7:43

built or started to become a part of the startup Community I I put two and two together and I just thought hey I saw

7:49

the email so I figured i' I'd do this but um I am the founder and CEO of gym

7:55

Force we are a platform Marketplace uh connecting independently owned gym with

8:00

uh small businesses in the community um starting in southeast Michigan and then

8:05

eventually expanding uh globally right we're gonna we're thinking big so we have uh we had to create the um the

8:14

supply side of the network from the ground up so we have 15 gyms in uh Southeast Michigan and Grand Rapids that

8:20

pay us a monthly subscription uh we advertise for them and we are on boarding uh currently the first demand

8:26

side customers uh that will offer the their employees uh the option or the

8:33

opportunity to join uh from our network of gyms and we are going to subsidize uh

8:39

that part of our network with a little bit of a cash incentive uh our our small business customers pay a fee as well of

8:46

99 bucks a month so a little bit more than the gems um and over time as we

8:52

learn from from the employees as they join uh that's how we'll use that's what

8:57

we'll use to develop our app ad features stuff like that so we're still pretty early we raised about 60,000 or $70,000

9:05

in safe notes uh and we're now moving from uh friends and family to more of

9:11

the institutional investors uh in southeast Michigan and a few in Silicon Valley so I don't know if that's about

9:17

two minutes but that's yeah sure that's about right as quick as I can do it good well nice nice work okay well great

9:22

congratulations first of all sounds he like everybody give Jason a hand if we were here we would you actually raise money and you actually have customers so

9:29

little bit yeah yeah right well that's how it starts right it's you know you got to start somewhere so that's very cool um congratulations on that so um

9:37

Everybody in the chat room what did you think so chime in and we've got a bunch of folks here let me just recognize Benjamin from Newport Beach and Romano

9:43

from Cape Town South Africa and um Sean from Honolulu and Jonathan from Columbus

9:49

Ohio and jabz from Singapore so I guess this is really cool to do this at night my time because then we get this really

9:54

unique Global crowd so welcome to all of you so if you have suggestions on how Jason could improve his pitch or JC will

10:00

be up next please go ahead and put those in the chat room okay so um so how my feedback on that would be um interesting

10:08

um there's a lot of competition in that space so I think you would sooner need to get to how you're going to handle

10:15

competition um the biggest thing though is you you you point out a Marketplace

10:21

has two sides which is great because a lot of people have a great idea they think but they focus on either this one

10:26

side or the other right and a Marketplace is by definition two sided there's got to be supply and demand and a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck because

10:34

they think you know I found this problem and I know a whole bunch of people that need this um but they don't know anybody

10:40

that wants to buy it right so so having that the recognition that the two-sided Marketplace is critical right that's a

10:46

that's a a minimum requirement to even have a business in in a space like yours right

10:51

so that was great to hear that you have that and you sounds like you're making progress on both sides because it's pretty iterative when you do that I've

10:57

been I've built a number of um Marketplace businesses right you need some Supply and then some demand there some more Supply then some more demand

11:03

and it takes time so good for you and sounds like you're making progress what I missed was exactly and you don't need

11:09

to answer me we don't have time to to get into a long discussion here but I think you need to be more specific who's

11:15

what is it like you didn't say till about three quarters the way through that it's an app like I kind of figured it was an app but you didn't say that so

11:22

I don't know unless you tell me right so we are an app we go you know how do I acquire customers it sounds like you're

11:27

going out the gyms and signing them up one by one I don't know but that's what we need to know like what is it how do

11:33

you acquire customers and what I'm really after is who is the customer because in a model like yours it could

11:39

have been the individual then I heard you talking about small businesses then you talk about the gyms and I'm are maybe you're charging on both sides I

11:45

don't know and that's what's most interested to me as an investor what's the engine that's going to produce the

11:50

money that repays my investment hopefully you know 50 times over right so that we call that unit economics like

11:57

for one unit in what does it take to produce and then hopefully it comes out you know if it's a dollar then it comes

12:02

out $3 or $50 that that's so that kind of equation um I'm working on a new book

12:08

uh to complement the ones behind me here um and is about fundraising and one of my slogans is going to be you heard it

12:15

here first is investors eat numbers so you need to give us numbers because if

12:20

you don't we'll starve so I would everything you said was good I would just triple the numbers basically um you

12:28

mean the amount of times I said numbers yeah is adding any kind of numbers you have I think you said we have 15 clients

12:34

or something but I didn't hear much about like cost of goods or a cost of customer acquisition or um you could

12:41

probably do some growth numbers you know because that's what we're only had two minutes so remember yeah yeah no totally

12:47

absolutely man no this is I know right I'm asking for the 15 minute version in two minutes right but the sooner you put

12:52

numbers in like as soon as any investor starts listening they're listening for cues right so I need to know what you're

12:59

doing and then I need some numbers we're trying to do spreadsheets in our head that's all we're doing right so the sooner you give me a couple numbers I'm

13:05

going to start doing calculations and that's what you want us to do right because you want that kind of Engagement

13:11

um so the company is not an app I'll just say that um the app is just the connection of the of the different sides

13:17

of the network the third side of the network which is also monetized once we figure it out will be the Arbitrage

13:23

between the gyms and the small businesses so I don't want to take up too much time but just clar that's good

13:29

so yeah hard to do in two minutes right but hopefully some of that points you in a Direction so when you have four

13:35

minutes you you can feel better yeah awesome okay well nice to see you again I'm glad you felt good like about coming

13:41

back I hope that's helpful and yes I'm very involved in Detroit at the University and and downtown as well um we're going to be doing some things NE

13:48

in the later this year and certainly next year um around the Detroit it's a growing it's a growing it's a growing

13:53

ecosystem they're doing great so yeah and overdue for the the Renaissance that we were promised back in the 80s right

14:00

right so cool well nice to see you thanks for coming we gon move on to who

14:07

else we got here that was our friend Jason okay and we've got JC and oh okay

14:13

let me just for a second here JC you can go next but let's bring on our friends um Sean and Jeffrey hi guys can you uh

14:22

aloha aloha nice you're in Honolulu was it yes W key okay so you're up late well

14:28

thanks for being here yeah thank you yeah you're welcome so um can you and

14:33

Jeffrey both just give me the quick version of what you want to talk about and then we can like develop a you know kind of an agenda

14:39

tonight okay sure um yeah Jeffrey please introduce yourself as well oh hi uh hi

14:47

hi Scot hi s and so I am Jeffrey so I'm

14:53

joining from Bangalore uh I'm going to talk about uh our phone which we are building so we have built a complete

14:59

phone with our own operating system wow so the phone that predicts what you need before you know you even need it and

15:05

this is a brand new operating system uh it basically learns the user Behavior

15:11

pattern of the user so this is about what I'm going to talk okay so and that's you want to practice an investor

15:17

pitch for that uh yeah yeah I wan to perfect great we'll come back

15:22

and okay and then Sean I I caught your name but I what you were oh you wanted to talk about marketing right

15:30

yes uh go about us the go to market strategy for my app it's a language

15:35

learning app and then just like how to get you know make those things go viral

15:41

and put incentives in the app to get people to share it things of that nature that's great okay so let's all three of

15:47

you um who's up the latest um Jeffrey Jeff Sean probably what time is it where

15:53

you are Sean well I'm two hours behind you Scott so it's you're behind me not ahead of me okay so you're okay so JC

15:59

goes next because it's 12:30 his time okay that sound fair um I was thinking

16:05

you were the other way so all right so let's do that okay JC you want to do a little pitch and then we'll come back to

16:10

Sean and Jeffrey we'll come back to you guys all right hang on a sec

16:16

so all right hey JC nice to see you hey

16:21

hey hey nice to see you as well got the little bit of Sniffles so excuse my voice if I say okay no worries

16:29

um all right so you want to do the two-minute pitch thing and we'll um offer you some feedback and by the way folks I want to um suggest to Jason who

16:36

just pitched um there's a bunch of feedback in the chat room for you about your pitch as well so you might make sure you want to check that out and

16:43

everybody else as JC tells us about uh scope Focus you can offer him some tips as well okay go ahead

16:51

JC um so I'm JC uh co-founder of scope focus and um we're Community uh host

16:58

we're community host struggle to monetizing uh their engagement and keep their members active uh traditional

17:05

platforms focus on uh connections but fail to create real economic value um

17:12

after their events uh engagement drops connections fade and um they really

17:18

don't have much metrics to go off of to create future programming uh that's where we come in so basically we're in

17:25

that that uh automates introductions uh pre and during the event uh we track

17:30

engagement and we turn networking into structured hiring and uh project execution um we keep communities engaged

17:38

long after the events are over and we provide hosts with real monetization strategies um we're going to generate

17:45

Revenue through a 35% tape rate of event ticket sales uh 35% of job board and

17:53

subscription fees from the recruiters and um usage based pricing on project

17:58

management tools uh we have three communities right now that are validating scope focus and

18:04

they've each been able to increase uh their membership retention uh post event

18:11

by 30% um this is about a$2 billion Market uh of we estimated around a 100,000

18:19

professional and online communities that are looking for this type of Engagement these type of metrics and uh these type

18:25

of monetization uh Comm uh Solutions um so you have like LinkedIn and other

18:30

event platforms um they do a little bit of this type of functionality but they

18:36

don't they don't basically offer like the um the the again the post event and

18:43

and the post uh introduction data of the semantics on how their Community are actually engaging uh offering more

18:50

surface type metrics that's what really separates us uh we just launched last

18:56

week uh I'm from Detroit as well um think we about that was two minutes

19:01

go ahead and wrap up just no that was it we just launched last week and um by Q4

19:06

2026 we'll be able to have all of our functionality in store and at that point

19:12

we'll be able to pursue that billion doll opportunity so pretty much it all

19:18

right excellent well that that sounds interesting I I run a lot of events myself or in partnership with people and

19:23

I totally hear you about the lack of Engagement like you get all these people together for you know a day or a weekend

19:30

or whatever and then they all disappear all that work you know it's like gez

19:35

I've so many so many times I've I've been frustrated by that so um I guess

19:40

the trick is the competition because a lot of people have tried to do that so I didn't hear much about competition so

19:46

and again this is two minutes it's a very artificial constraint right but if you actually get into a conversation with an investor I think you probably

19:52

want to head that off because a lot of people have tried different angles on this um and it sounds like you're kind

19:58

of sitting between a number of other businesses like uh LinkedIn and an Eventbrite and a this guy and a that guy

20:05

which also kind of means you got to be clear about what's unique about yours like is there some proprietary Advantage

20:13

you have some I don't know patent or some AI tool or something you know what why you guys why now is a little bit

20:21

what I'm left wondering and I I'm sorry we don't have time to to debate it because I'm sure you have good answers to that um but that that's kind of what

20:28

I thinking about that because we I've heard pitches like this um what I liked was you know you you got specific about

20:35

the take you know 35% on tickets and this and this and this is the what I was asking about Jason about like who's the

20:40

customer how much do you make like this is a business right this is not some this may be your dream but for us

20:45

investors this is a business so we want to know numbers um so even more numbers would be great specific examples would

20:52

be even better because I'm still a little foggy on what that engagement

20:58

looks like like are you talk I mean I honestly don't know because I don't think you said my apologies because I'm doing a couple things at once here but

21:04

like some some specifics would be even better you know like after an event we I don't know what it is but you know we

21:09

post on Instagram three times and we see a 36% clickthrough or you know like like some couple little line items of like oh

21:17

okay because I don't I don't know what platforms you're operating on with what you said it sounds like you're in

21:23

between a bunch of them but where where are you if you're you're not just on yourself you're this is some social

21:29

hooks right so that it's a little foggy to me right um I hope that makes sense

21:36

um and folks in the chat room please give him some suggestions if you have them as well um the other thing I guess

21:42

it would be real interesting to hear since it sounds like your pre-revenue where you're going to start like is there I don't know you know like Detroit

21:48

is it you're gonna do the auto show you know or is it you know I don't know your church or I don't know the Boy Scouts

21:54

like you have is there some angle you have and why why are you going to be the guys to win because you have this angle

22:01

like some what VC's really want is some kind of unfair Advantage right like you know like my you know my dad is the

22:08

pastor of the biggest church in Detroit okay that's interesting you know he and he has a network of other pastors around

22:14

the country okay that's cool right or you know my cousin's an NBA player same

22:19

thing right like what's what kind of angle do you have would be differentiating would be helpful is that

22:25

useful stuff yeah yeah absolutely okay Co okay good what's the chat room saying

22:30

anybody uh uh let's see good job framing the problem yeah I think I agree with

22:35

that um this that was from Jason the guy that just pitched before you um I'm having trouble seeing the chat there we

22:42

go um let's see what else we got here uh let's

22:48

see yep yep okay yeah and then uh somebody suggest a simple script um I

22:54

think that's a good one this is also going to be in my new book one of the things you want to do and this is for for everybody when you pitch I think of

23:01

a pitch like a life story um if you're sitting down for lunch with somebody and you have a half an hour you'll tell them

23:06

the whole thing right but you know it so well that you can compress it into 30

23:11

seconds if you just meet somebody in an elevator and they said oh you know what's your story oh well I grew up and

23:16

you can just compress it immediately because you just know it so well right and that's kind of what you want to do with your pitch as well with an emphasis

23:22

on numbers and and business metrics so that investors can get excited about it um and then the last thing I would just

23:28

suggest is and again you didn't have a lot of time so no no shame um but think about what your ask is you know what I'm

23:34

curious what are you looking for are you looking for um friends and family money or you think you're ready for VC or

23:41

what's your thought on that um we're definitely ready for Angel money we are pre-revenue um but that's

23:49

only because we're we launch with free communities our ideal avat uh customer

23:55

Avatar is going to be paid communities so um obviously if we're doing a take

24:01

rate then they're going to have to sell something as well right so uh right now this is more um you have like uh a group

24:08

called Compass that's uh located in Detroit where they're kind of like a conglomerate of different communities

24:13

you have black Tech Saturdays which operates out a new lab right Johnny turn yeah yeah exactly exactly so we're we're

24:20

having these type of different groups beta testing with us right now just so that we can get the functionality

24:26

working um but once we have all of that really uh solidified and then we have

24:31

something that's packaged where it really looks sellable um we have a pretty good idea who we want to go after

24:37

and then you know not taking up too much time but I know our differentiation factor is this automated networking that

24:43

we do so basically you build a profile and then you can click a break the ice button and rather than that first five

24:50

minutes of a conversation in person that's you have with someone going through the semantics introduction it'll

24:55

go through that for you and tell you hey here's ways that JC and Scott can collaborate based on what your profile

25:01

says and you know kind of get to the nitty-gritty of things and help you build out a project yep cool all right

25:07

yeah well it sounds like You' yeah so I figured you had the answers you just didn't have the time to say it well okay right on well that sounds good I hope to

25:14

meet you sometime when I'm in Detroit and in the meantime hope we'll see you here again I hope that was helpful and and watch the chat room again anybody

25:20

that has suggestions for um for JC please let him know um that's why we're here to help you thanks for having me go

25:26

cast day that's right did you go go a cast too yes sir oh no kidding all right

25:31

well there you go well we'll catch up one of these days nice to see you that's awesome we went to the same High School

25:37

how often does that happen all right um so he mentioned connecting with people and that reminded me that we're very

25:43

active on LinkedIn a lot of you tonight are watching on LinkedIn I think is there anybody here from LinkedIn hopefully that's working they are kind

25:49

of wonky their Tech doesn't always work and I can't check it at the same time but I hope somebody hope some of you are

25:55

on LinkedIn tonight um but anyway uh so yes you can come and follow us the

26:01

startup Council this the organization that I run and you can follow me personally as well or connect happy to

26:06

just put in a line about who you are so that I know I get lots and lots of requests so but happy to connect with folks who are into the same things right

26:14

that's what this is all about is helping each other and um and really finding people with similar values and and

26:19

passions right because then we can help each other that's really that's kind of my whole thing and that's why I do this I wanted to point out also we have a

26:26

couple private LinkedIn groups which I always forget to talk about but since I'm talking about LinkedIn yeah here we

26:31

go if you go to this and I know that's not a real pretty URL but linkedin.com

26:37

groups4 30941 that's a page that has several different groups that we have we have

26:42

one for entrepreneurs one for investors one for ecosystem Builders now all that kind of stuff um and we'd be happy to

26:48

you know have you join in there and um meet more of each other right that's really what makes us work uh Rising tide

26:55

lifts all the boats and hopefully the uh Interac there can be valuable to you and it's free so all right so that's that

27:03

let's see and yeah I'm not seeing anybody on LinkedIn gosh that is that are they not

27:09

working again I hate to interrupt but um okay well anyway I guess I'll focus

27:16

on those of you who are here so all right so next up we were going to talk to a couple more folks backstage we had

27:21

JC just went and Shawn was going to be next I believe so here's our friend Sean hey Sean nice to see you

27:28

as you said all right question yes and one one thing I wanted to point out is I

27:35

am viewing it on LinkedIn as well it does seem to be working there's nine people okay so EXC yeah thank you yeah

27:42

and there's a couple more just chimed in ISU akalanka said yes and someone else LinkedIn user excellent thank you guys

27:49

okay all right so let me actually people are asking looks like we've got room for a couple more people backstage let me just put up the URL if uh you're

27:56

supposed to submit in advance like like Sean and Jason and JC did and

28:02

um did we lose Jeffrey the Bangalore guy okay that's too bad we'll have to come

28:07

back here but I want to put up the link for you can join us sorry one second here where did that

28:20

go there it is jeez sorry okay oh there you are Jeffrey okay hang on Jeffrey we'll get to you in a minute okay so the

28:27

rest of you if you want to try to join us um backstage um with a question or a pitch something specific and um you can

28:34

do that and then you can take Sean's place here when he and Jeffrey are finished okay Sean the floor is

28:40

yours thank you Scott this has been the very interesting my first time uh on the show so this is uh really valuable so

28:47

far great thank you and yeah so a brief uh background on my uh my startup and

28:54

and I I definitely am interested in learning uh on the marketing side but

28:59

the startup is a language learning app which is currently in beta on as a web

29:06

app exclusively and it is it provides an AI personal tutor that engages you in

29:13

natural conversations to get you comfortable speaking in a foreign language so that basically came from

29:20

like my background I I actually went to high school in Capistrano so not maybe not too far from you that's right so uh

29:25

I never never had been overseas before I wanted to travel I followed a lot of influencers and the ones who could speak the foreign languages like had such a

29:32

better experience overseas so it got me interested in studying languages I wanted to learn them all I ended up

29:38

picking one of the hardest for an English speaker which is Japanese that brought me out to Hawaii they have a great program here and then I did lived

29:44

in Japan for a couple years on Exchange and so I was getting really good at that language but then I came back to Hawaii

29:50

and the pandemic hit so I couldn't go back to class I couldn't go back to Japan for immersion and that's when I looked at online resources to help me so

29:57

I was trying those you know popular apps like dualingo Rosetta Stone Babble and I felt that although they were gamified

30:03

and helping in in terms of uh you know flash cards and and things of that nature they weren't helping me with the main thing I needed which was getting

30:09

comfortable speaking and understanding natural language spoken to me so I saw there was a gap there that was they were

30:15

using you know wrote old school wrote flashcard script memorization methods so I basically started working on a project

30:21

to help myself and my partner and who's a CTO and then basically chat GPT came out we realized the Gen could actually

30:28

make a you know this Vision could could could work where we could take these proven Linguistics methodologies that were only available to people through

30:36

private one-on-one tutoring and provide that to the world with AI at scale in in

30:41

providing you know even more benefits in terms of you know no anxiety and it it's personalized to your level and it can

30:46

know exactly where you're at and and respond and help you progressively improve in the foreign language so at

30:51

that that's where that's where we're at and we have the beta out now with some people using it and uh your

30:59

the question is uh with with the stage that we're at now we have different approaches we could take where uh we

31:04

could Market this directly to consumers or partner with um schools and institutions and part and tutoring uh

31:10

centers but I think what what we're what we are most fascinated by is the

31:16

directed consumer approach and if we were able to do that those are that's that's what most of the biggest players

31:22

players here do and if we were able to do that then what can we do to incentivize people who are using it to

31:29

to share the app with their friends and to uh you know start to spread the word

31:34

organically so without having to raise a lot of money for marketing and and you know those kind of uh other funnels to

31:40

bring people in yeah yeah yeah I hear you so I think you're you're observing

31:46

something which would rhyme with my first piece of advice which is as an investor we've seen lots and lots of

31:53

people with edte Solutions I I know that's not specifically what you're doing but in a general you're not an

31:58

aerospace company you're not a dating app right it's kind of edtech um and so many of them try and die when they try

32:05

to sell to schools because schools are just bureaucratic nightmares and they take forever to make decisions and

32:11

they're political and the budgets get cut right so I think you're wise to maybe try the direct consumer route just

32:17

because it's one to one right as opposed to all this process so um I don't know if you knew that or not but that's a

32:23

classic investor take is when people come to us and say you know we're going to sell this we have this great thing we sell all the schools investors go oh no

32:31

not schools not that we don't want to help the schools I mean but we all know the schools need help but it's just it's Quagmire right so um so that uh I'm I'm

32:40

with you on that okay so um so then uh you're asking about a k factor or as

32:46

people also call it a viral coefficient so for those who don't know when you are selling something the way Sean is that

32:52

especially if it's consumer adoption but it's also true for B2B but the classic cases with consumers you want to to like

32:58

I want to sell something to Shawn and then hopefully he'll tell his friends so that if I sell it to him once I'll end

33:03

up with more than one because new customer because then he tells his friends right it's the old uh remember

33:09

the shampoo uh commercial decades ago you know she told two friends and she told two friends that that's the viral

33:15

coefficient or a k Factor um is that fair Sean did I cover that correctly yeah that sounds what I like what I've

33:22

heard yeah okay okay cool so the idea is that you want your viral coefficient or your K factor to be more than one

33:27

because it means if I sell sea and he buys it and then we're done then that's

33:32

kind of I have one customer right you want it to expand and keep growing or shrinking right you don't want it shrinking because but you have to count

33:39

for churn because what we're really talking about is a SAS business software as a subscription recurring subscription

33:45

like Netflix right you're paying every month and Netflix hopes that it has more new subscribers than people that cancel

33:51

and that's a viral or that's a positive churn coefficient I guess you'd call it

33:57

but ideally you can put it out there and people are so excited they all tell their friends and it goes viral by itself like a good Tik Tok video right

34:03

that's what that's that's what Sean's asking about all that wasn't even the the answer that was just helping everybody understand what we were

34:08

talking about because I saw a complaint earlier that we're getting too technical so okay so if we're on the same page so

34:15

how what we do about that so first of all everybody in the audience I don't have all the answers um there's a bunch of you online if you have suggestions

34:21

about how you how Shawn can take his app and make people want to use it and spread the word for him essentially free

34:27

he'd love to hear him that's why he's here so my ideas would be um a couple um I'm a good talker so we

34:36

can talk for a long time but we'll have to keep it within time limits so I two things occur to me one is a lesson I

34:41

learned maybe 10 years ago there are a lot more people who are firste Spanish

34:46

students than there are fifth year Spanish students right so Target the onboarding that is where there's going

34:53

to just the market is going to be five to 50 times larger than the advanced students even though the advanced

34:58

students might really be into it not most people are going to like move to Hawaii to study Japanese like you did right they're going to be casual users

35:05

so you need to make it easy to attract as many of those as possible that would be one and then the other of course and

35:10

I think you know this but the trick with viral marketing is to give people

35:16

something that they value and it's even better if they value it enough that they want to share it so is there some

35:22

incentive that you can pass that I can give you a discount but then you can pass a discount along and here here's

35:28

the key to it it's best if the viral thing makes both of us look cool I know

35:35

that sounds weird it's hard to quantify but like it's like a party right or a new nightclub a new nightclub's opens

35:41

right and I get an invitation because I'm on the VIP list and then I give you I I can get you in we both win because

35:47

you think High more highly of me I can think more highly of myself and then we both get to go to a party right it's like that kind of like one plus one

35:54

equals three is really the idea and that all comes from I'm looking sorry I'm looking down here in my bookshelf I

36:00

don't see it there's a book this comes from yeah here it

36:06

is this comes Seth Goden wrote a book 25 years ago and this is literally a paper

36:11

print out of it because I don't know that he ever actually published it as a book but this is where the term viral

36:16

marketing comes from it comes from this book and he invented the concept of you know you sneeze and they calls them

36:23

sneezers like you sneeze and give somebody else the virus and then they tell their friends that's that's from here like literally W yeah um so anyway

36:32

that I don't know if that wasn't very specific and I because I don't know your Market very well um but I would be thinking about things something

36:39

exclusive something that's fun that doesn't just do them a favor but me

36:44

makes me look good too right like that's the key because then I look good by giving it not just as a generous gesture

36:50

but it's kind of exclusive like a nightclub invitation and maybe you can noodle with that especially if you're I

36:56

I guess I would also suggest the um kind of like what I was saying to JC a few minutes ago what's

37:03

your Beach Head Market like maybe if you're doing Japanese as your first language maybe there's something interesting in Japanese culture right

37:09

because Japanese love to give gifts right and they wrap things really well or you know maybe there's some virtual version of that that you could kind of

37:16

ride on um to make your your Vibe or your brand viral right you know like du

37:22

lingo has that owl but you know maybe you've got something um that that's sharing is exciting to both the giver

37:29

and the recipient so I don't know is that helpful absolutely Scott yeah no

37:34

thank you for for that that's give me a lot of Frameworks to think about okay and if you ever have a chance to you

37:39

know release that Seth Goden paper that'd be amazing yeah I don't you could

37:45

you could Google it I mean this is I seriously I printed this out I don't even know when but it's called the bootstrappers Bible um and I wrote it

37:52

there on the spine as I printed it out many years ago you could probably find it because I I'm I'm an myself I don't

37:58

rip off books this was available free for free at some point so maybe it's still out but Seth has a whole bunch of

38:04

great books I don't know if anybody I'd give Seth Goden a g o d i n fabulous author um who but he's written many

38:12

books so you'd have to find the right one awesome thank you so much Scott I

38:17

really appreciate your time nice to meet you hope to see you again tell your friends that was our friend Sean from

38:24

Honolulu and now we're gonna go over to Jeffrey who is in Bangalore and then I know a bunch of you are talking in the

38:30

chat room we're going to um I'll go back through the chat questions as well I see something about uh crowdfunding for

38:37

example or um Tik Tok videos we can talk through a bunch of those things but I would suggest also by the way you know I

38:43

put up my uh LinkedIn and you're all like I said welcome to uh put you you're

38:48

welcome to click on mine but go ahead and put your your own in um like you can connect with each other I'm not trying

38:54

to I'm not doing any gatekeeping here the whole point of the show is no gatekeeping keeping I'm trying to help you all help each other right because

39:00

there's only one of me so yes go ahead and connect exchange your email addresses or you know business plans or

39:05

whatever it is um you know all that stuff help help each other uh Rising tide lift all the boates right and if by

39:12

the way if you think later and you have a question something occurs to you you can come back to the YouTube channel and

39:20

put your questions in the comments and we'll try to follow up there as well because that leads to the ongoing

39:26

dialogue right because we're really just trying to uh just trying to help with everybody uh help everybody I should say

39:32

and I should put in a quick plug startup Council this is our organization come over here if you're not on our lists yet

39:37

like if you heard about this through Meetup or LinkedIn or something like that we have all kinds of services that we built uh most of which are free or at

39:43

Cost trying to help early stage Founders so um if that sounds like you come on over we'll try try to help you and we're

39:49

about to launch a big new one I can't even talk about yet but I'm pretty excited about it so you want to be on the email list trust me we're going to

39:56

help everybody uh worldwide if we can okay so that was uh Sean and now we're

40:02

going to talk to Jeffrey and he is in Bangalore and uh has a new phone I think

40:09

so he was gonna try to want to jump right into a pitch there Jeffrey how do you want to proceed yeah hi hi Scott hi

40:15

everyone uh I'm I'm Jeffrey from Bangalore south of India so now actually

40:22

about I want to say about two businesses what we are running so one is already profitable from past 5 years uh which is

40:30

developing mobile apps and now we started AI services for Indian markets we have several Indian customers now we

40:36

are looking for a partner and investor to enter into US market where we are

40:42

targeting especially llm models like AI services for businesses in US market so

40:48

that's the first pitch and and about that numbers like we are already making

40:53

around $95,000 as revenue and we raed the first round in this business uh

40:59

$330,000 now we are raising the second round $100,000 for the US market so

41:06

that's about the first and second is uh which is a pre-revenue business we are

41:11

developing our own phone with our own operating system the phone that predicts what you need before you know you even

41:17

need it so how how does it work basically it uh learns the user

41:22

behavioral pattern and based on it it searches the right tools and

41:27

applications from the internet directly bringing to the user in daily basis so

41:33

how does the user benefit by this phone by using this tools and applications he

41:39

he can Implement in his profession and career leading him to prosperity and

41:45

freedom so this is not done uh why why this phone is needed now because now the

41:51

phone doesn't has that future so in your phones you have to depend on the word of mouth application means which you got

41:58

referred by your friends so you are repeatedly using the same social media application again and again which is

42:04

leading the humanity to stagnant with Jelly's phone it's going to change they're going to discover the right

42:11

applications and Tool in daily basis to become the better version of themsel so

42:16

we wanted uh bold investors because it's a challenging project bold investors to

42:21

join us and and take the humanity forward so so that's that's what our

42:28

second one is cool well congratulations that's very ambitious good for you yeah

42:34

cool yeah that is that's cool are you a are you a hardware guy or an AI guy or why why why

42:41

you uh so actually I'm a software guide U so we have been we have the MVP

42:47

prototype of this phone and uh because I as you remember that I said we have

42:52

another business which is making Revenue we have a team member of 25 members in that they all are hardcore software

42:59

developers so with them we have made this operating system and now we want a bigger bigger team to finish this

43:07

project uh the phone project so that's why we are raising money for that 2.5 million and we are going out sourcing

43:13

Hardware to Taiwan company because we are not a hardware expertise but we have testers so you know we're going to send

43:20

the team to the hardware tyan partner and execute this phone so we looking for

43:26

investor for this to right so investors have basically two options so they can select already making Revenue business

43:32

which is profitable and we're giving dividends and second is the challenging Venture the phone Venture yeah okay well

43:40

so that's a lot so let let's talk about the phone one because that's more unique I think um

43:46

the you started to address my my big question there was going to be about let

43:53

me back up you gave the vision very nicely like I can see that's really interesting point like every time I get

43:58

a new phone I have to like figure out myself what am I going to download and like I might pick the wrong one or

44:04

something that was inse not secure right there's risks involved right and and it's far less than optimal and you're

44:10

right that makes sense the AI would do that um so that's interesting what I didn't hear though was the business so

44:17

if you want to talk to investors we need to know about the money side of it and you didn't say much about that and I know it's early stage and that's hard to

44:24

tell but you need to say something more than I want $2 million right because for what you know like um so that was why at

44:30

the end my ears perked up again you've mentioned you Taiwanese Hardware okay that kind of makes sense so you've gonna have Partners over there like it needs

44:37

to be less Vision more business I guess is is how I would think about it right so

44:44

what you said was very interesting like in an elevator you know if we only had two minutes together that would have been about right because it would have

44:50

been oh that's interesting well let's have lunch and talk about it which is what you want like with all these pitches the the main thing to remember

44:55

you're never going to get a check after after one pitch anyway right you're going to hopefully get another meeting

45:01

where you can unpack more so you need to hit the points that get to the next meeting and if that doesn't include

45:06

anything business fine because you got the next meeting you win but my advice is more like what what interest me as an

45:11

investor because I've heard so many of pitches is like okay I got the vision like figure out how you can you know

45:18

take the vision bit and make it like 15 seconds I oh that's interesting and then hit me with the business we need $2

45:24

million because we're going to contract with the Taiwan manufacturer and that's going to cost a million dollars and we

45:30

have 14 people doing this and 10 doing that and between those we have some patents over here and together we think

45:35

we can get to market for two million and then there'll be another round in three years of four million more and by then we'll and all of that leads to an exit

45:44

of this right like I was saying earlier you want to think of like an equation because investors I want numbers like

45:51

like how much for how long how often how many what kind of margin and when do I

45:56

get my money back right that that's all I'm really interested in not because it's not a cool idea but you're doing

46:02

your job is the idea my job is the money right and it's especially true for Venture Capital investors like I'm an

46:07

angel if I write a check it's like it's like a personal check right like I I do I invest in you or I I buy a new car

46:14

like it's personal money but for a VC they have been given their money by

46:19

other investors like insurance companies and universities and stuff like that so they have to invest only to make money

46:26

with within the parameters that they agreed to when accepting that money from their limited partners so they literally

46:32

can't even it's not even worth their time to talk to you unless they're certain you're going to make money right money is all that matters now they'll

46:39

have a thesis like this firm is into Aerospace and this firm is into medical devices and this firm is into Hardware

46:46

like they'll have some Specialties but it's got to be about the money it's not just they're greedy it's their job so if

46:51

you don't speak the language if you spend all your time talking about product and vision

46:57

left starving because we we need to talk about business that's why we're here right so is that helpful like just the

47:03

kind of mindset yeah yes uh yes Scot you're right you're absolutely right so I did I missed the business part of it

47:10

so uh so here we are raising the money 2.5 million uh $2.5 million for

47:15

completely the uh execution of the complete phone one is like with $1 million we're going to finish the phone

47:21

including uh around like 7,000 units and then the remaining 1.5 million complet

47:27

1.5 million is completely for marketing because in this business you need a ruthless marketing and we already have

47:33

the marketing plan execute ready for it so uh so with this we can uh we are

47:39

targeting around the sales around 7,000 units to be sold in the First Financial

47:45

year uh and once once we create the awareness then we have the opportunity to raise more funds to uh manufacture

47:53

more more products and also uh to partner with with multiple companies uh

47:58

for customization because this phone is focused on productivity now the two types of phone what we are holding is

48:04

completely focused on entertainment that's why we are not able to find the tools for you know our profession and

48:10

career so uh we are going to partner with the corporate corporate companies

48:16

to custom make for their employees which can make them more smarter and more productive so in this way we can make a

48:22

lot of money yeah oh that's that's an interesting angle okay yeah well we probably need to move on to some other

48:27

people but that it sounds interesting I the other piece I would you'd have to address is competition right because

48:33

obviously the big handset manufacturers are not looking for competition right you've got you know Samsung and Apple

48:39

and Google whoever um so how and we don't have time to talk about it now I presume you have a plan but you should

48:45

mention one one sentence can I can I add in that um big companies Samsung Oppo VI

48:51

all these are using only one operating system that is Android so basically you pick any type of the phone they have the

48:57

Android 14 version so there is no difference except the cameras right and the other type of the phone is Apple so

49:03

you have only two types of phones so it's just two people in the market right so you would be a third is that what

49:09

you're saying yes because we are a new operating system that so that and I I

49:14

don't know that market but that sounds scary to me like that's wow that's ambitious it' be really cool if you

49:20

could do it but so you must have some secret sauce or you're you have some relationships or something that

49:26

differentiation thing I think you got to pull that up to the front because anybody that says they're going to try to compete with apple like wow okay good

49:32

luck right that's it's amb but it's um and also because you're in Bangalore like maybe there are things that are

49:38

different about the Indian market right because you could launch it just in yeah we we are launching not in India we are

49:44

launching only in Us in the inell start yeah so I have been in talks with some of the US investor okay so they have lot

49:51

of tie ups with T-Mobile Verizon AT&T so they are interested in this so maybe if

49:57

everything goes well you know we'll we'll launch it excellent all right well that's exciting that's that's one of the

50:02

more ambitious projects I've heard lately awesome I'm glad you're here I moved I moved the uh time I was in

50:08

Bangalore last month and I hadn't been there in a long time and everything is like bigger it's like I'm so busy now

50:15

and uh I thought well I need to do some of these at night to help more of my Indian friends so I'm glad you're here thanks for coming yeah next time when

50:21

you're when you're here just let me know I'll take care of you know we can have some

50:27

Valencia nice to meet you Jeffrey excellent so hope I'm wishing them the best for sure that's an exciting thing

50:33

right pretty ambitious love that right take on Apple and uh and Google with their Android good good stuff okay so

50:40

let's um what time is it wow we're almost an hour already well I'm going to run back through the chat here so folks

50:45

if you have uh some things clever things or complaints in the chat let's just uh

50:50

Buzz through those and see what we can do to help each other a little more and thank you all again for being here of

50:56

course uh from all over the place Hyderabad and Sydney and Newport Beach and Cape Town and uh San Diego and okay

51:05

so there's some nice feedback here um for the various pitches yes yes yes um

51:13

okay I thought I saw some questions here let's see I know there

51:18

were okay yeah Dr Kim Vander Lindon yeah Kim says with crowdfunding

51:26

or gofund m capital raises be appropriate for a new cancer screening test if so any advice on how to use

51:32

social media to expose our technology um yeah so it's a yes the

51:39

crowdfunding world is fascinating and growing and I think very exciting both for investors and especially for

51:46

Founders because you can go directly to your customers right uh I am literally an investor in uh we funder and start

51:53

engine U two of the big platforms because I think such a great opportunity to help everybody get a piece of the the

52:00

pie right and um I think that yes crowdfunding can be used in lots of

52:06

great ways I particularly like the way we funder coined the term a couple of years ago now called a community Round

52:12

And if you have a community of your own like you have a pizzeria you know a restaurant and you need to I don't know

52:18

redecorate or whatever you need some money you can ask all your customers you know to take a little equity in your

52:23

business and help you fund your expansion I I think that's that's just lovely right I mean that's the way the world should work of course for a bigger

52:29

company it gets more complex and more Regulatory and so forth but I think the key there Kim is the community side of

52:36

it crowdfunding is an excellent vehicle for raising actual money for sure but it

52:41

does presume you have a bit of a community of your own already so I think that's what I think you know that which

52:47

is why you're asking this in this way so your first question would crowdfunding Capital raise be appropriate for new

52:53

cancer screening tests and I would say absolutely yes I think it could be appropriate for almost anything that is

52:59

legal um because yeah it can allow people to get involved and that's a good thing right customers more customer

53:05

engagement is a win generally speaking the second question though is really your question right if so any advice on

53:10

how to use social media to expose our technology and that is the key to this right a a a uh crowdfunding campaign

53:17

only works if a bunch of people show up and want to invest so that means that you have a mailing list of your own a

53:22

community of your own hopefully that's already interested Etc the platforms like we funder start engine Republic um

53:28

dealmaker so forth they're great uh administrators but they're not really

53:33

marketers right they don't their offer is not that they're going to bring you investors their offering is that they're

53:40

going to run the investment process for you if you bring your own investors so anyone that's listening to this who's

53:45

curious about crowdfunding don't kid yourself that if you sign up with one of those companies that suddenly they're

53:51

going to raise the money for you that's not really how it works the great people there and I can make introductions there actually they some um links I should put

53:58

this up there are some links on my site um that because I'm involved with

54:04

several of those platforms that you can save there's some incentives I think you can list with them for free or or

54:10

something um here we go startup funding recommendations uh this page has lists

54:16

of several of the Angel groups that I'm involved in as well as the um uh Community round uh crowdfunding sort of

54:24

services and there might be some savings for you if you go through those links right so um so Kim's real question is

54:33

how does she build an audience that's really I think what you're asking Kim and I think a lot of people in this audience could probably in the chat room

54:39

offer her suggestions if it's a cancer screening tool which sounds great um and

54:44

I saw your email too bad you didn't come into the chat room I think you were one of the people that RSVP yeah Kim's thing

54:50

can screen for lung breast colon and prostate they have 10,000 patients

54:56

that's where it's working and they only need a million dollars there's 20 published peer-reviewed clinical trial

55:01

studies already I mean pretty impressive metrics here um and you're in San Diego okay well let

55:09

me come back to San Diego Kim because that's actually a great place to be for this but for social media it's really about building an audience and that that

55:15

is a much longer discussion you could read my uh my SEC second book this one EES 2.0 that's about building social

55:22

media audiences uh in plain English um

55:28

it's really about offering value or entertainment or information I would think that you probably have I guess

55:34

where I would start is looking for communities of cancer survivors or cancer victims that are probably out

55:41

there already you know like Reddit I'm sure has cancer groups and there are probably private ones supporters and um

55:47

things like that and probably the associations which raise money the charities for each of those you know for

55:53

lung and breast each of those have their own big Charities and associations and conferences I would try to get out

55:59

involved with those as a volunteer or a board member or a sponsor let people know you exist uh and try to build

56:07

traffic that way another good angle is podcasts you can get out on podcasts and and Blow Your Horn about what you're

56:13

doing or even host your own podcast that's a under um an under appreciated

56:19

um angle to build an audience uh so all of those things are are worth doing um I

56:25

I probably more detailed than we have time but um there's folks in the um um

56:31

in the chat room oh okay she has a followup here I thought crowdfunding may be appropriate because of the emotional

56:37

impact of finding cancer early for sure but again that the platforms aren't going to

56:43

do that for you you got to who who is it emotionally impacting right youve got to find those people yourself it's a it's a

56:49

bob sort of situation B Yi I guess for investors bring your own investors um

56:55

and if you are a doctor I guess with your title uh this may not be your wheelhouse there are agencies certainly

57:02

that you can pay to drum this up for you as well that depends I don't know what your cash flow situation is um but you

57:09

can pay um I would I'm really roughly guessing like $10,000 to $100,000 and

57:15

hireing an agency to Make Some Noise for you um I yeah that's probably all I've

57:22

got on that unfortunately because it's a great question but I want to come back to San Diego real quick I was in San Diego a couple weeks ago for the techcon

57:29

techcon soccal I was speaking there on a panel again um which I do every year in San Diego and I'm always impressed by

57:36

the huge Life Sciences Community that's in San Diego so if you haven't already I mean if you're a doctor in San Diego I

57:41

presume you know some of this but there are lots of organizations in and around San Diego that help startups and um I

57:49

would talk to new fund which is Nu Fu new fund which is the former Tech Coast

57:54

Angels um I'm part of tech Coast angels here in Orange County in Los Angeles U but new fund is our former TCA chapter

58:01

in San Diego and they spun off on their own new fund um and I'm not a life scientist guy so I don't know quite as

58:07

many but there's a lot going on in San Diego so if you haven't already engaged with the startup scene there I would um

58:12

go find some meetups and sign up for some mailing lists and um you can definitely engage and I would think find

58:20

some support for what you're doing it sounds great so sorry that couldn't be more specific there that was that's a

58:25

whole book itself like I said oh yeah e riches to sorry guys I see your yes so this is this is my second book this is

58:33

um this is from 2009 though so it's it's not totally up to date anymore obviously

58:39

um but it's a um it's a a real step-by-step guide like how to uh use

58:44

YouTube how to start a podcast that kind of stuff in plain English back when this stuff was new it's not new anymore right

58:50

so they certainly could write new books about it but um that's a pretty good one uh in term if you're if you're new to

58:56

this kind of world it might be a useful book still just in terms of the strategy of how to think about it even if the

59:02

tools have somewhat changed right okay let's move a little faster here I'm gonna I'm gonna turn into a pumpkin here

59:08

uh gets much later so um okay uh he is here hey there how are you um hi Scott

59:16

is there no that's not how I do it hold on let put you up on the screen

59:21

there um

59:27

oh that's a good one hold on I'm G to put this up there uh Rana says how does the K Factor work for B2B so the K

59:33

factor or it's the viral coefficient we talked about a couple minutes ago with Sean feni from mahaulu and it's the same

59:40

idea you try to sell a customer and hopefully they do some more selling for

59:47

you essentially that's really what it amounts to so you give them some kind of incentive and like I talked about um the

59:54

uh uh with Sean is you know a framework I talked about some Frameworks and you can by the way you know these sessions

1:00:01

are recorded if I said something smart if I accidentally said something smart you can rewind and watch it again or

1:00:08

watch it at Double speed right if you want to find something um and I think you can get a transcript off of YouTube pretty easily these days as well so you

1:00:14

could review that but the viral the whole idea of viral marketing is that it's like unfortunately as we all know

1:00:21

like covid right like one person sneezes and another person gets it and then they infect to other people each of those two

1:00:26

people affects two people and you know that kind of thing so for B2B it's very similar um but the product is different

1:00:34

because it's fulfilling business needs not consumer needs right so it's probably more something uh you know

1:00:40

about the process of the way their Enterprise works or some um supply chain

1:00:45

thing or manufacturing you know somehow you're helping them and giving them some

1:00:51

incentive to spread the word about your business and essentially recruit more customers for that that's the

1:00:58

concept okay um yeah and here's

1:01:03

uh Jason was suggesting kind of what I did there exactly getting meetups and events yeah cancer because you're right

1:01:10

um as Jason's saying here Dr Kim you're on to something clearly right everybody knows somebody that's been affected by

1:01:16

cancer and not positively right there's a huge demand for what you're doing um

1:01:22

it sounds like you just kind of need to get out into the world and let other people know um and find uh some life

1:01:29

science investors and like I said at new fund there's a bunch of them um and I'm sure there are others especially in San

1:01:35

Diego okay um let's see well that's interesting I

1:01:41

didn't know Seth had a new book this is strategy okay Jason thank you Jason you're a multiple contributor tonight

1:01:47

thank you yes and he's a big blogger for sure all right let's get to another question

1:01:54

um what would be the best approach to property investors to help with financing flip projects or renovate

1:02:00

to rented out opportunities hi Romano nice to meet you the I don't have a good

1:02:07

answer for that because I don't I mean I do some property stuff privately but I don't know about property investors this

1:02:13

show is mostly about tech investors or um high growth Ventures at least things

1:02:19

that might go public and you know kind of the Facebook and Uber sort of vibe um

1:02:25

so I don't know specifically um but I think a lot of the things I said earlier about how to pitch

1:02:31

would apply uh you don't talk entrepreneurs always want to talk about the product and their vision and

1:02:37

investors we want to hear about the business we want to hear the numbers so if you have some numbers that are impressive that's where I would start

1:02:44

and the more impressive they are the easier it will be to to get the meeting um and uh Romano is uh looking for

1:02:52

contacts so if anyone has suggestions for him um please chime

1:02:57

in okay um scrolling through the chat

1:03:03

here okay good I'm glad to see you guys all talking to each other here this is good

1:03:12

um where do I find investors okay well shiron that's a pretty big

1:03:17

question um depends a lot on there's no one answer to that so a quick one quick

1:03:24

answer and then I and then om let's do yours because it's more about investor timing but um shiron there there are

1:03:30

many different kinds of investors so the first step is to realize that not all

1:03:35

money is the same if you want as you just heard me say there's life science investors and then there's property

1:03:41

investors and then there's Tech investors um I literally just said that right and all three of those are going to have different criteria of who they

1:03:48

want to talk to and what they want to talk about how much money they're going to invest and for how long and on what terms so you need to figure figure out

1:03:56

what kind of money you're looking for and then who has it and then your job is

1:04:01

to go make friends with them and that's a key point is that you want to build the relationships before you need the money because by the time you need the

1:04:07

money you want them to already know and like you and trust you enough that they believe you otherwise you're walking in

1:04:12

cold with a business idea and just asking for money and that's and that might work at the bank like if you have

1:04:18

a you know good pay stub and a good credit score and say I want $50,000 to buy that Mercedes that might work at a

1:04:25

bank it will not work with Venture investors this is a personal business and um you need to

1:04:31

build those relationships over time which is fully admittedly um unfair to

1:04:38

people who are not from certain backgrounds and it's more fair to people that look like me you know who went to Stanford like I did uh but that's why I

1:04:45

do this to try to help other folks so uh I would shiron narrow down your question

1:04:51

like be more specific think more strategically or I guess more tactically what kind of how much for how long you

1:04:57

know what kind of business is it and then work backwards from that because there are probably in almost any field there are people that invest in that

1:05:04

specialty and even if there aren't here's another Insight from my next book

1:05:09

there are people that will if you ask them right and that is people that have made money in that industry before so

1:05:15

they may not have even think of themselves as investors but let's say uh you're opening you want to open some dry

1:05:21

cleaners well go find guys who made money in dry cleaning right they get it they will give you the benefit of the

1:05:28

doubt even if they don't know you because they already understand the business probably better than you do

1:05:33

right so that's a little shortcut that might be helpful all right so Omid says when is a good time to start

1:05:40

reaching out to Angel Investors or VCS we've almost finished 60% of the minimum viable product which is an aid driven

1:05:46

crossplatform app okay very interesting so Omid um the answer is yesterday get

1:05:54

on with it absolutely because of what I just said you need to have those relationships um in place

1:06:01

right they're not investors are not just sitting around with a checkbook waiting for somebody to walk in they're doing

1:06:08

their own research they're building relationships they target different markets so that they become experts in

1:06:14

those Industries and they want to know everybody in that market so that they can beat the competition meaning other

1:06:21

investors to the punch so they're already looking for you essentially so

1:06:27

you should be out at events and on calls like this uh talking about your uh

1:06:33

product go ahead put the URL if you're ready into the chat room let people see I mean hey everybody omid's got an AI

1:06:39

driven crossplatform app okay who anybody here interested right I that's how you do it like get it out there the

1:06:46

world is a big place and the sooner you start making noise the better so I would get out there and I would start

1:06:51

yesterday absolutely and you're not starting right away just asking for money you build a relationship first

1:06:57

right it's that classic people say there was even a song about it I think uh you ask for money you get advice but if you

1:07:05

ask for advice you might get money so go make friends ask for advice and you know

1:07:11

three months six months nine months from now when you're really really really ready and you need the money well hopefully you're six months into a good

1:07:16

relationship and they're willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and um you know send you some

1:07:23

money okay music says what are the business values as an investor you would

1:07:28

like to see in a pitch uh I'm not sure what you mean by values music um do you

1:07:34

mean ethics like you want people to not cheat and to be honest and have integrity I guess that's a given I guess

1:07:41

you must mean more like numbers um well it depends on the stage of the

1:07:46

business the the bottom line is that you want to see every dollar that goes in

1:07:53

come out multiplied in a reason amount of time and it's often a surprise to

1:07:58

early stage Founders that for example like tripling my money is not that

1:08:04

exciting because if it takes 10 years well I can triple my money just in the

1:08:09

stock market right so why would I do something as risky as to invest in a startup which is most likely going to

1:08:14

fail so it depends a lot on your time Horizon and of course it also depends on how much you're asking for you know if

1:08:20

you're asking for 50 bucks no problem if you're asking for 5 million that's a different discussion right

1:08:26

so um I think a lot of it is about again researching the investors a little bit

1:08:32

and figuring out what kind of return are they looking for most Angel Investors I would say just very roughly speaking are

1:08:38

looking for um I don't know maybe five or

1:08:45

10x over five years I mean I'm really really making this up so any other

1:08:51

people in the chat room probably have a better idea but I said that because that contrasts with VC's uh math the math for

1:08:57

Venture capitalists is very different they need like 10x or even 100x on their

1:09:03

money because they invest in a whole bunch of companies and most of them fail and they need one or two in each fund

1:09:10

that they raise to pay back all the others and then some and repay all their investors and leave some money on the

1:09:15

table for them to get rich too so they're really looking for home runs so it's the media does all of you a

1:09:23

disservice by emphasizing Venture Capital so much because most Venture Capital firms are really only interested

1:09:30

in like Facebook meta you know or Google type moonshot stuff like they want

1:09:37

billion doll companies and if you can you can have a really good company that can make you very wealthy that only does

1:09:44

20 million a year right but if you keep 10 million of that after 10 or 20 years you're doing great right but that's not

1:09:49

a VC business so you got to be a little bit careful I hope that's helpful there'll be there's a lot about this in

1:09:55

my new book basically coming up okay now last time I saw you you told me

1:10:03

how to pronounce your name and I know I'm butchering it's not KAG it's like Sate or something so you next time I see

1:10:10

you have to teach me again he's from turkey and his name is beautiful but hard for me to pronounce okay so anyway

1:10:16

hey Scott is there a maximum valuation for preed fundraising even though you calculate your valuation is $10 million

1:10:22

from your traction and competitors

1:10:27

um preedee

1:10:32

fundraising I guess not I mean maximum ever right I mean because

1:10:39

you've got these AI companies right if you've got a couple people who are certified Geniuses and already did a

1:10:45

bunch of cool stuff at open Ai and they haven't built anything but they've got this track record and they say you know

1:10:52

our company's worth you know $500 million pre season that still might work which is crazy but

1:10:59

it's true so realistically speaking yes that's not really your question but I'm answering what you asked so so if you

1:11:06

calculate your valuation is $10 million um yeah 10 million well it depends on

1:11:14

kind of how much you want to raise I mean these are all moving targets so I can't really answer your question um I

1:11:20

remember your business is about uh helping International college students find housing here in the states I think

1:11:27

or something like that um so you're talking about a software app that helps

1:11:32

right because a medical device may need a lot more money because it's needs all kinds of FDA clinical testing and FDA

1:11:39

clearance and that can take years or if you're talking about Hardware like our friend Jeffrey I guess this was a software play not a phone actual phone

1:11:45

but if you're talking actual phones or actual Hardware um that can be you know or like defense Tech right you're

1:11:51

building tanks or something right that can take millions and millions of dollars so yeah the valuation is different but yours is a software appb

1:11:58

based thing as as I I think I recall so um here's another way to look at it

1:12:05

investors don't want to a good investor doesn't want to take more of your

1:12:10

company than they should so you hear a lot of bad stories about Investors over like they're trying

1:12:17

to take control of course that's a bad investor right because why would you do that unless you're going to run the

1:12:23

company yourself which you obviously have the expertise to do because you're the investor you're not the founder right so any investor that's smart will

1:12:31

want you to dute yourself by say somewhere between 10 and

1:12:37

25% per funding round why because after two or three rounds they want to make

1:12:42

sure you still have at least 20% if not 40 or 50% of the company so that you

1:12:47

keep working right if I'm the investor I want you to be working your butt off I want you working killing it right because you're going to make yourself

1:12:53

rich and me too so I want you to own a big chunk of it you and your founding team together we don't want you to get

1:13:00

diluted too much like I was involved in a deal a few years ago where it was their second or third round I forget now

1:13:07

but the team had sold so much Equity that they were all together I think less than 10%

1:13:13

ownership so we had to recap the company meaning recapitalize the company we had to go back to all the previous investors

1:13:18

and say we want to put money in because we like this team we like the idea we like what they're doing but they don't

1:13:24

have enough stock in the company anymore to want to succeed why would they work real hard because they're have such a

1:13:31

small piece and those are hard conversations because we had to go back to the all the investors and say hey you

1:13:36

know what you uh you put in this much and now we're going to say it's worth half that we're gonna give your stock

1:13:41

you know that's a bunch of stock back to the founders um so that's a long way of saying if you have a $10 million

1:13:48

valuation um you're probably not going to sell more than $2 million right

1:13:54

because you're going to three or four rounds of this and you still need to leave 20% left so maybe that's a different way to think about it that

1:14:00

might be helpful all right um what else we got here think we're

1:14:06

getting near the end here okay music says they got their

1:14:12

answer Good Gregory says my parent

1:14:17

company generated 7 million in 202 digital marketing okay good self funded

1:14:23

good partners to move the company to hire returns okay well that's good news

1:14:28

Gregory uh I'm not sure that's a little non-specific though do you mean investors um that's that's a longer

1:14:36

discussion why don't you come back next time and we'll have you uh you can do a pitch uh and uh you can explain the

1:14:43

whole situation because that sounds exciting all right and what do we got

1:14:48

here Dr Kim says yes for with a little luck but why

1:14:54

give so much away yeah that's right that's right well that's that's the math right Kim is to

1:15:01

you know to tread that fine line um but yes angels and and VCS do think

1:15:07

differently so uh it's good to make sure you're aligned on those things before you get into term sheet negotiations and

1:15:14

also before you even Target your investors um a lot of my recommendations these days I've learned the hard way is

1:15:21

that investors sorry founders need to reverse their attention and I'm calling

1:15:28

this a fox reversal you heard it first this will be in my new book too one of the fox reversals is stop talking about

1:15:35

the product so much and talk about the business more and you heard that one already but one of the other ones is

1:15:42

stop pitching and do more research on investors because you're wasting your time so many Founders waste so much time

1:15:50

talking to the wrong investors because they didn't do enough research all investors are not the same and you need

1:15:56

to get out you need to get after it before you start emailing everybody so you don't waste your time or our time

1:16:02

people wonder why they don't hear back from from investors because you guys don't customize the pitch right I get

1:16:09

pitches all the time hey invest in my beauty salon or or my airplane company like I I don't do that at all you know

1:16:17

so delete right so yeah more uh more um

1:16:22

sorry more running out of steam here more what more research that's what it was okay so

1:16:29

I think we're going to wrap up here okay one more Jonathan says how much do what was that I saw

1:16:38

it how much do new administrations affect investor attitudes and behavior are you aware of types of opportunities

1:16:44

supported by the current Administration I think Administration you mean the federal government in the United States

1:16:49

John um I think you're you're trying not to say Mr Trump's name it sounds like

1:16:55

um so um yeah they certainly can absolutely um as you know everything's a

1:17:02

little bit chaotic in Washington this week so uh I don't have a great answer for that but you can you can certainly

1:17:07

see that things are changing rapidly um there have historically been major

1:17:14

initiatives well for example crowdfunding which we talked about earlier crowdfunding is an outgrowth of the jobs act which was passed under the

1:17:20

Obama Administration I think originally in 2013 or 2016 and that

1:17:27

um that opened up the doors for crowdfunding in general which is I think great right uh then you have programs

1:17:33

like the small business administration um the uh well the Department of Commerce has lots of trade functions of

1:17:38

course yeah there's lots of that I guess I don't have a good answer for you but they absolutely do on the in oh okay

1:17:44

sorry you said investors so on the investor side yeah yeah we have we have concerns for sure um mostly around tax

1:17:51

law or there are certain tax loophole loopholes that or not loopholes but

1:17:58

regulations that are very helpful to venture investors these are things like um qsbs qualified small business stock

1:18:05

exemptions or section 122 these are things that allow and the carried interest rules which I'm sure you've

1:18:12

heard about those are all things that matter a lot to how our portfolios are

1:18:17

structured and how we measure returns so they absolutely can affect um I'm not

1:18:22

aware of any so far uh things that uh the new Administration is doing to

1:18:29

change any of those but it could have you could change tomorrow right um especially with vice president Advance

1:18:36

they seem to be fairly sympathetic to the Venture industry so I'm hoping that that stays that way but um you know stay

1:18:42

tuned I don't have a crystal ball on that one for sure um okay so then music

1:18:48

says okay this um that's a good question how do I find your email please okay so

1:18:53

here's the problem mus and let's I got to be honest here um I can't answer

1:18:58

everybody's emails um so that's why I do these shows I try to help as many people

1:19:03

as I can I get tons and tons of inbound and I try to see as many people as I can

1:19:08

to help them if you really want to work with me I have to charge for my time I'm sorry I just can't keep up otherwise I

1:19:15

have a life and a family and businesses I'm running um but you can go to that page and that page talks about uh I do

1:19:21

set aside time for private calls with a few Founders each month I do do some Advisory board work I can do a video

1:19:27

review of your pitch deck the people really like those they're very handy um that kind of thing and it's all at this

1:19:33

page uh scottf fox.com it's my personal sitework withth Scott and those cost money right um real money so uh but

1:19:41

that's the only way I can control my schedule and they come with a money back guarantee and if we and the profits from

1:19:47

my books and stuff go to charity anyway so I'm honestly not trying to make money off you but I just need to manage my schedule and I'd like to uh work with

1:19:54

the people who are most serious right so if that's helpful happy to uh work with you too and you can find uh contact

1:20:01

forms on any of our websites startup counsil or the uh scotf fox.com and so

1:20:06

forth so I'm going to wrap up here with a big commercial for startup council.org this is the organization that I set up

1:20:12

to help you trying to very much um accelerate everybody right everybody deserves a shot at this and not

1:20:19

everybody has all the skills in one place right so you may be a brilliant doctor like Dr Kim right but you don't

1:20:25

know how to commercialize it that's totally legit or vice versa you might be a great BISD or a banker type Financial

1:20:32

person but you don't have a product you need a co-founder right this is all a team approach so I'm happy that you're

1:20:37

here and happy to help you all um you know find each other and connect with

1:20:42

each other and that's what startup council.org is all about like I said there are going to be some new announcements coming out soon I'm gonna

1:20:48

working on a new book as well hopefully this will be helpful to all of you and again if you're watching this on uh

1:20:54

please like and And subscribe so we can increase our reach and if you're watching this in the replay or you have

1:20:59

questions later after you sleep on this you can go to youtube.com scotf Fox and put something

1:21:05

in the comments and we'll be happy to try to help you out there so nice to meet all of you who are new here and of

1:21:10

course great to see all of you who are back and we'll be back I think about three weeks from tonight um four weeks

1:21:16

from tonight I'm traveling but we'll try to do it again uh in three weeks so watch your inboxes and if you're not already on the email list go over to

1:21:23

Startup count .org and we'll uh that's the place to be uh so that you can get all our newsletters and so forth and

1:21:30

updates on uh you all the cool things we're cooking up to help you so thanks for being here I'm Scott Fox you've been

1:21:36

listening to Startup fundraising office hours tell your friends and we'll see you again next time I hope thanks for

1:21:41

being here go get them