Getting millions back for startup founders | Tax Taker | Ari Salafia - Why We Strive Podcast #3

We came from very different backgrounds.

Be classy, be genuine, be grateful.

I wanted to help out and contribute and sort of give back to the people that had helped me.

Man, welcome to the intro. No need for introductions. All about the world and the world what we discussing. Where every single thought that we had came from something. So it's funny that we made it when we started here with nothing. Gotta open up your mind just to find out why. When you lost inside the dark, just gotta turn on the light.

And no matter what you do, you never run from Hi, I'm Corey McCain, CEO of WeStrive, the number one platform for personal trainers, gym owners, and coaches to both manage and scale their business. I'm your host for Why We Strive, where every Tuesday I sit down with some of the most incredible tech founders, investors, and creatives to find out how, when, where, and why they strive. Be sure you tune in every single Tuesday and check us out at whywestrive.com for more info. Now let's get to this week's episode. All right, let's get started.

Let's do it.

Uh, pumped to have you here. Uh, we met through the Google for Startups program about a year ago, like this month. So actually, so Bruno, Google Cloud actually might sponsor my happy hours and I'm talking with Bruno right now from the program. So after this, Bruno, shout out, shout out Bruno. So actually let's start with congrats on the new baby.

Thank you.

You are just like, you're just the founder, mother. Like what else do you do?

Yeah, I mean, that's about it.

That's about it.

It's enough for me right now. Yeah.

How old is your, is it a girl or boy?

It's a girl. Her name is Sailor.

Oh, that's a cute, how do you spell that?

S-A-Y-L-O-R. Oh damn, I'm such a mom too. I like even have it on my—

oh, that's cute. How old is she now?

She's gonna be 9 months this week.

Oh really? I guess you're crazy. I guess you did have your kid like in the wintertime-ish.

Yeah, it was really good timing. We, we joked like as a team, like honestly when I told my team, like they were very stoked for me. Yeah, but they were also like very relieved that she was born after tax season.

I was gonna say, because we did not plan that. Well, the people know it's TaxTaker, but yeah, that would have been terrible to have like a 1-month-old like At the height of tax season.

Yeah. Yeah. And as much as I would like to say that I did like enough things for me to be completely gone, I definitely didn't.

Yeah. How does that work as a— because obviously, like, you know, you have paid leave typically when you have a kid, when you're at a company. But how does that work when you are the company? Like when you are, you're like, I'm going to leave. Like if I had paid leave for a kid, like we would, we would do nothing. So like, how does that work for you?

Yeah, it's kind of kind of strange, right, when like you yourself are making policy. Um, and yeah, as much as I would love to have been a big company and giving myself all this time and paid leave, I just, I wasn't able to do that. Yeah. Um, just for the mere sake of— not because you couldn't have me being paid. Yeah, it was just mostly because it's just hard to step away from your other baby. Yeah, absolutely. So that was actually really one great thing, and One thing I'm really grateful for, for like having a child in 2021, that then, because so many people have paved the way for that to be an easier conversation, like women in the workplace. So our investors were incredibly supportive, our team was supportive, but like we're just not a big business, right? So like we, I don't, I don't have the luxury of taking 12 months or 6 months if you're working at like a Salesforce.

I couldn't even imagine, no matter what the scenario is, I couldn't imagine.

I can't imagine. And it's fine. Funny though, because most moms I've spoke with, like, like 3 months goes by really, really fast, but like also it's like, what are you gonna do? Like, yeah, you start to want adult time for sure.

Well, I mean, I don't have a kid so I can't speak on it, but I'm sure it's insanely stressful. But I'm sure there are many hours where you're like not doing anything also, like, like it's nap time, that kind of stuff. Like you probably want to take a nap yourself, but there's, you know, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're always like, you should sleep when the baby sleeps, but it's kind of laughable because like if they just like all of a sudden you'll be just like doing housework and they're like conk out. So what are you gonna do, like sleep when you're vacuuming? Um, but yeah, I did tell my guys, I was like, don't be weirded out if I like Slack message you at 3 in the morning. Yeah. And I'm the only one awake in the world, it seems like.

Well, that's what I love is that it's probably been within the last year, but Slack added the schedule message feature, which— do you use that?

No.

You didn't know that?

No, I did not know that. Well, my game changer.

Now I don't have to look like a weirdo at 4 in Well, no, my team's in Ukraine, so if I'm messaging them at 4 PM, it's like, you know, it's like 3 AM, 4 AM their time. It just makes no sense. So what I do is, so it's the little, the little button right next to the send.

Yeah.

And it just says, it's just like an email. Exactly. Yeah. So I'll schedule like, it's probably annoying. So I try and go like 1, uh, I try and go like 9 AM their time, 10 AM, 11 AM. So they have, they don't get like 12, but I'll have like 12. Slack messages across my team that all just go throughout the night and then I wake up to their responses. So, oh, it's well, so thoughtful, but also like, I feel like they wouldn't get back to me if it was just like 20, like 3:00 AM DMs.

Yeah. Cause like, I see you don't wanna say like not urgent to all of them. Cause you just want them to be answered.

You just wanna seem like, yeah. So when they added that, it literally changed my life. Like, cause I'm like, I would, I used to, I used to like wake up in the middle of the night and like send the message really quick and then like go back to bed. So anyways, shout out to Slack. If you've ever tried to use your laptop outside or on the move, you'll know that it's impossible to see your screen in direct sunlight, and laptops will overheat and shut down surprisingly quickly outside. Here in Austin, the team at SunShader have solved that problem. SunShader is the sunshade, heatshade, and privacy shade for your laptop so you can work efficiently from coffee shops, coworking spaces, or with your friends on campus. From the beach, the pool, your backyard or balcony, from airports, airplanes, and Airbnbs. I've got one. It is now part of my everyday work gear that fits easily into my backpack. Sunshader can also be co-branded with, with your company logo, your brand story for incredible and practical swag to give to your employees, customers, and partners. Check them out at sunshader.com and use code WHYWESTRIVE for 15% off. So very cool. So when, when, after you had your kid, like, let's, we'll say like month 1 and then we'll go month 6, like, how many hours are you spending like at the company per day, we'll say?

Yeah, so I mean, this is another like beauty of like remote-first kind of world, and also my business in particular is heavily project-based, so it's not that you have to be working in the confines of like 9 to 5 like some positions. I mean, so one of the great things is that, you know, I can plug in after she's asleep.

Yeah, exactly.

Now she's actually on a schedule. So month 1 through 4, it's all a blur. It's just a total— it's everything everyone tells you, like you feel like you're a human but you're just off. Yeah. Um, and, uh, but now that she's more in a schedule, it's like I, I'll work Fortunately, we have a situation that's really helpful. We have a nanny that comes during the workday. It's great because we also get that extra quality time with her because she's around, or the baby's around. But it's great because I can work for 6, 7 hours and I fit so much into those hours.

Probably more than you used to.

I'm more productive.

Yeah, exactly.

So I'm not telling anyone to go have a baby to be disciplined, But my goodness, when you really have to be, it's unbelievable what you can accomplish in little time. So I say yes to a lot less, and that's been a big challenge for me, you know, in the startup world too, because it's like half of it, right?

It also is just trying to string it.

It's event overload. And if you don't network, right, you feel like you might be missing out on other opportunities that wouldn't happen otherwise. But I have found, especially, you know, because I've done enough of it over the last few years, right? Um, relationships are maintained, you know, you, you don't have to say yes to everything, and it can actually benefit your business.

Oh, for sure.

So yeah, I'll work from like 8 or 9 to like 3-ish, take a couple-hour break— that's my quality time with her— um, and then she's, she sleeps, and then I'm back on my laptop, or, you know, very cool.

Well, no, it's funny 'cause I used to, when I was in LA, I was starting my company, I would like wait tables and then I would Uber also. And I swear I probably got more work done because I just didn't do any extracurriculars. And like any moment I had free, I would work. I would just work. Yeah, it's crazy.

There's kind of that like mantra or like that saying I've heard, if you want something done, ask a busy person.

Yeah, exactly.

Or ask a mom.

Yeah, well, and I hate it now 'cause I mean, I pay myself full time and like, not a lot, but like whatever. Better. We'll call it—

we're gonna change that.

We'll call it Bruno. Where's Bruno? Where's Bruno? Bruno, we need you right now. Um, no, so it's funny because like, I mean, don't get me wrong, I still work like 10+ hours a day, but there's so many hours where I'm like not— I'll be like, I can watch— I can watch TV, it's fine, for like an hour or whatever. And I'm like, I would never have done that when I was working for Uber or waiting tables. Like, I would have never sat down and watched TV. So it's very healthy, but definitely you get comfortable though, which I hate. Yeah, absolutely. So let's go, let's go over the obvious. So what is TaxTaker?

Right, so TaxTaker helps startups get money, essentially. So we, yeah, startups, everyone out there, get you some money.

That's right, that's right. If you want money, you go to taxtaker.com.

TaxTaker.com, thank you.

That's a wrap, all right.

We out. So yeah, we leverage government tax credits for small businesses and startups. So the most popular one is the research and development tax credit. It's gained a lot of popularity in the last few years, especially because there's been more technology companies coming into this space and making it better. But there's other government, federal, and state programs that companies need to be leveraging. And I actually have an exciting announcement because this— I didn't even tell you this was coming. You didn't tell me what any of the questions were going to be today, but I didn't tell you.

I don't tell anyone the questions. I—

yeah, that's awesome. But it's gonna be a— you heard it first here tonight— we are finally going to be doing tax credit lending.

So very cool. Wait, so what? So where, like, I have like $30,000 in R&D credits and you pay me ahead of time?

Yes. Yes, because that's one of the biggest challenges with these programs, right? Like, I— we might be talking about last year Like we're still in 2021 in the tax world. Yeah. And it's August 2022. So that's just as weird, right? We're talking about last year's expenses. So a lot of times, you know, a company might have just gotten enough credit or maybe they weren't eligible last year, but they have a lot of qualified spend this year. Well, we can place a number on that and then start giving that to you.

Very cool. Is that like one big upfront payment or is it going to be installments or how does that work?

Yeah, we'll pretty much depending on, I mean there's certain parameters and certain underwriting criteria. We basically kind of have to put a score on your business, but we'll be able to advance some percentage of your estimated credit amount and then that'll be paid over monthly.

Very cool. Wait, why does the government do that? I mean, I don't know if you know that answer or not, but is it like they want to promote companies scaling and researching all that stuff? Like what is the purpose?

Yes. So the reason why tax credits really are— have even been in existence is to incentivize businesses to invest in innovation and development and create job growth here in the United States. So like the R&D tax credit actually dates back to Cold War times.

Gotcha.

So kind of context, right? They want to maintain global competitiveness in the market. So they basically said, hey, if you employ and you hire folks and invest in, you know, growing technology here in the US, we're gonna give you a percentage back on every dollar you spend. So typically it's about 10 cents on the dollar. Over time that's evolved and the program's become more robust, and the reason why we are helping startup companies is because a few years ago legislation improved to make it so that startup companies could better benefit. Up until a few years ago, you have to be paying taxes to get a tax credit, right?

So a lot of making any money—

yeah, and most companies, whether or not they want to admit it, you know, sometimes, you know, not making it or being in losses for some amount of time is intentional, but many times it's not, right? But you're still spending the money. So the government went ahead and said, hey, We know that for a few years, they're calling it 5, you know, you could, you know, be operating in losses, but we still want to reward you because you're doing the things we want you to be doing.

Yeah.

So they said you're employing people, you're creating job growth, so we're going to give this tax credit to you as a payroll tax offset. So that's a big thing for, you know, in running a business, like your operating capital is a huge expense. Right, or your human capital.

Yeah.

So, um, and a big reason why people don't, you know, convert the 1099s to a W-2 is taxes.

Yeah.

So they're basically making it, um, they're making it easier for you to make that person an employee because they're going to reduce that tax that you would owe.

Very cool. And are you like a big tax nerd prior to this, or like you're just like, this would be cool if we did this, or like what, what got you into like knowing everything there is to know about our—

Yeah, I smile because we say we're a bunch of tax nerds and I've certainly become one, but I didn't like enter the scene as a tax nerd at all. One of my biggest role models in my life has been my stepfather. He raised me with my mom and he has been an entrepreneur and in the tax space his whole life. And I admire him, but that's another reason why I was like, tax, like That's just not that exciting.

I have my accounting degree, I'm like, nope, thank you.

Hey, but you've got to leg up on folks, right? Because knowing your numbers is so huge, right? Like, it's a super strength that not a lot of people realize they have. If you know your numbers, you're so much further ahead than a lot of businesses. And so to make a long story short, I didn't think I would get near tax, was definitely more always kind of had the entrepreneur bug, but I joined his business really because I delayed law school, and he was like, you like working with startup companies, you know, we help startup companies all over the country. So I took a look at the business, which was a specialty tax practice, and I was like, you mean to tell me you get to speak with all these really cool business owners all day long and tell them they save money? Like, who wouldn't want to be a part of that? That seems awesome. And so I couldn't really think of another space besides venture capital, and I had like no reason or business at that time to be in that space, nor any connections or background.

I mean, granted, most people in VC have no business being there either.

That's true. That is true.

It's like, oh, I'm a VC. It's like, what have you done?

You're like, I went to an Ivy League, I should be in VC. Right, right, right. So yeah. So really that's how I got my start, just doing sales and marketing for a very traditional tax firm. Practice, and then moved to Austin, Texas, because, you know, that was the way to go.

Hook 'em!

You don't even go here.

Definitely don't go here. Go Eags.

I'm allowed to, to pump up UT because I didn't have a football team at my university. I went to Loyola Marymount, so we're still undefeated from like 1950.

Did we talk about this? I used to live in Playa Vista.

I don't know if we— I knew that.

I literally live like down the mountain or the hill from like— I've looked at LMU every day.

You like went to that farmers market on Saturday?

I was just there. I was literally— I took my girlfriend there, uh, 3 weeks ago when I was like, gosh, what'd you get? Oh, we got the little like— I don't know what they're called, but in SpongeBob they have the silly patties, you know what I'm talking about? Yes, the color patties. What are the desserts called that look— Mac? Macaroons? No, they're not macaroons.

Yeah, yeah.

Cool. There we go. They're really good. Good.

They've got so—

so Playa Vista is incredible. If you can live in the LA area, go to Playa Vista.

Go to Playa Vista.

It's heaven.

When I lived there, like, the farmers market was there and like a few apartment complexes, but it was not developed.

It's crazy. Google's there now, YouTube, uh, like 40 other companies. I don't even know.

Every tech company. Would have been really great to go to LMU now.

Yeah. Well, I literally lived, uh, Google bought the, the Spruce Goose hangar, which used to be like the biggest— you know, right there. And they, they painted it black. The whole giant-ass building is black now. And then they put their giant-ass company in there. It's so— and I lived like across the street. So cool. It's so cool.

You were like the coolest person if you got one of the very few internships at like Deutch PR. That was like the closest company there.

My My original, um, that's so funny you mentioned that. My, my, so when I started WeStrive, like week 1, like year, like 5+ years ago when I had, it was, it wasn't even called WeStrive. The first guy that I met that like knew anything about tech, cuz I'm from a tiny-ass town, he moved to LA and worked at Deutsche.

Wow.

That's crazy.

That is.

And I know that building because they filmed a bunch of like Silicon Valley and stuff like that. Yes. Yep.

Yep.

Yep. Anyway.

Yeah. LMU has a bunch of great cameos.

Yeah. It's true.

Dexter.

I mean, really? Okay, good to know. Good to know.

That's good.

All right.

So yeah, so started working with startup companies and really I could only work with heavily VC-backed companies because, or companies that were profitable. So more mature mid-market size companies because they were paying tax or they saw the benefits in banking the credit. So fast forward to a few years ago, really TaxTaker formed because I was in the space, legislation created a whole new market, and account— the accountant community that I was working with— this is back to, are you a tax nerd? Probably. They're like, how can you help these small businesses? And so when you work with specialty tax accountants and engineers and tax attorneys, these are highly skilled individuals with high hourly rates. Yeah, billable hourly rates, like, right? Most of them are not on value-based billing either. A lot of them are still still on hourly. And so a consulting fee of tens of thousands of dollars just doesn't add up for a company whose credit is tens of thousands of dollars. So we knew there had to be a way to put some technology to this space, and that's how Textaker was born.

Bam! I love that. So wait, what do you have your degree in, if you don't mind me asking?

Political science.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, political science and communication studies. I doubled up.

Did you get— do you have any scholarships to LMU?

I did.

Okay. I was going to say I was like, because my buddy that works at Deutsche went to LMU and I know how much money he paid to go to.

But I still have to thank my parents. They championed a lot of it. But yeah, some of, some of those internships paid off. I think after I accepted, my dad was like, why didn't you go to UC school again?

Like, nice.

We live in California. It would have been like a deep discount. I was like, oh, I'm sorry.

Well, I hope it paid off.

Now.

Yeah, well, you're killing it with TaxTaker.

Thanks.

So when you first actually day one of TaxTaker, you decided you're going to do R&D tax credits. What were the first steps you took where you just bought a book on R&D tax credits or were you calling people? How do you even go from I want to work with startups to, okay, now I process my first R&D tax credit for a startup?

Sure. So I was already helping my dad's practice with this endeavor. So we— he is a shareholder in TaxTaker, and he— because he was like, if you're gonna make it better, like, I'm gonna be a part of it too. And if you don't, then, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's on you. I'm gonna keep my business, right? So, um, really the network that I had built there, where there was kind of folks that wanted to try kind of some new things, that's who I went in on first. So, you know, wasn't really ever competing with my dad's firm because he had such big clients and companies. So I immediately went to those CPAs that were like, we want this. And it was very much a different product in day one. So I had CPAs actually pre-fund me.

So the CPAs want it because they know the companies they would work with wouldn't hire them anyways? Is that kind of the—

Yeah, so they basically like, right, like everyone loves a good bundle.

Discount DoubleCheck.

Yeah.

Is that, is that, is that what it is? One of those two. Yeah.

No, it sounds right. Sounds right. I really like State Farm.

Yeah. State Farmer, Priceline, or no, it's Progressive. Yeah. I think it's Progressive. My bad. Sorry, Flo. I heard she's really rude.

Really?

I heard that on like a TikTok. This chick was like, she was the rudest. Anyways, doesn't matter if she's not rude. I'm sorry.

Okay. Well, I'll have to ask Jon Hamm because he's all over those two commercials.

He very much is.

So, yeah, so V1 of TaxTaker was a white label solution for accounting firms. These accounting firms, they see it as a way to attract new business. They also see how much money consultants are making with their clients. So they're like, we want a piece of this, or we want to have a competitive difference from the CPA firm across the street. So let's bring this in-house, or how do we do that? But realistically, building a team of R&D tax practitioners is time-consuming, it's expensive. Again, these are specialists, like it's not cheap. So they were looking at us like, okay, if you really can simplify this process and we can, you know, sell this out to our clients to make it easier, then, you know, we look like the hero.

Yeah.

And we get to offer it and make money along the way.

Yeah.

And so, so that was the first start.

Okay.

And so we had about 6 CPA firms across the country that I had that made, you know, small deposits. And then I, I kind of ran it as a, you know, rev share kind of split.

Gotcha. Very cool.

Yeah.

Are you still working with any of those firms?

I am.

Very cool. Nice.

I'm working with one. From that original set.

Okay, very cool. Nice. Is it still like a rev share model, or how does that work?

It is, yeah. Nice.

Okay, very cool.

Yeah.

So then when do you pivot to, okay, now we're gonna focus on working with like startups themselves, and then kind of like the rev share model is kind of gone at that point?

Sure. So truthfully, it was kind of a long, painful realization that if you wait for folks to specialize in what your true core offering is, it can just be really slow. And like startups, time is one of our biggest gifts, right? So, and if you don't have it because of runway, like you die. So I joke like accountants, they're great people. I'm around them every day, love my accountants, and I love accountants that have helped TaxTaker become the company that it is today. But in the early days, waiting I determined, I was like, if we wait around for accountants to sell this and we're just behind the scenes, like, we're gonna die.

Yeah.

And so it was a big shift. So 2019 was like our pilot year.

Okay.

We're just doing kind of things slowly, testing things, building out the product. We get to 2020 and we're like, we're not getting enough velocity here with these accounting firms because they also have 1,000 other things to do. And right, this isn't their core offering and they have so so many other things to do. So basically we were like, we got to go direct to companies. And I was like, oh, I'm already in Austin, I know a place where I can start talking to companies.

What were you in Austin for?

I had moved to expand my dad's tax practice and help him set up an office here. And yeah, so I was kind of co-working with, with that crew.

In 20— like, when did you first move here?

2016. Oh, yeah. Right before the presidential election. It was wild times.

You're an OG in Austin.

I am now.

Seriously.

I am now. But I do remember the days like it was yesterday where I was like, I've been here for 2 weeks, 2 months. That was really fun. But yeah, even then they were throwing shade on California.

No, I'm sure they always will. Well, my license plate is a custom. It says W Strive and it's a custom California license plate. And whenever I'm in front of anyone, I've noticed people get real close to my bumper unnecessarily. And I'm like, I feel like I'm This other— this, this, this street employee flipped me off the other day. He was like— he was like cleaning the street and I drove by and he was like in the lane, so I moved over like a whole lane to let him by and he just like fucking flipped me. And I was like, what the fuck, dude? I think it's cuz I watched him look at my plate and then do it, so I was like, come on, man, like, my bad. So I'm probably going to change to Texas plates pretty soon. We're not all bad. We're not all bad.

We're not all bad.

Oh yeah, you're California too. Um, okay, so you move You start, you're in 2019. I kind of—

Yeah, so I was here for a few years.

Gotcha.

So still in the business, working with companies and accounting firms locally and nationally. I was kind of just on airplanes all the time because R&D credits know no bounds as long as you're in the United States. Nice, nice. And so yeah, fast forward to 2019, the business kind of gets up and running. And then 2020, we decide, okay, we're going to shift our go-to-market strategy, shift our product and the pandemic hits.

Okay.

And so never really has there also been a time where government funding really resonated with businesses across the country, right? And all of a sudden they needed it. So that was really interesting times, right? Because all the PPP started, um, and then we, we raised a seed round.

Were companies expecting you to understand all that stuff too?

Oh yeah.

Okay, I figured.

So I spent like 2 months probably like, I don't even know. I mean, that's That was another, probably on the same level of motherhood.

I'm basically not working.

March to May. I was like fundraising.

Yeah, nice.

And sort of also talking about PPP, which I had like no business doing. I was basically just making banking relationships at that point.

Nice, nice, nice.

Very cool. Yeah.

Wait, so when you're raising that first round, like what are you pitching? Like we're gonna change tax forever for startups? Like what was your kind of like motto or whatever you want to call it.

Yeah, so I mean, back then I was like, oh my gosh, AI and ML is going to change the game, right? Like I'm changing tax, like this is just the start. Then we're getting into probably the whole, probably every incentive and every tax return known to man, right? Like, but that's like the big thinking, right? But then, but then you spend time with your customers. And you're like, well, I could then go raise a lot more money and still maybe not make a dent or really make like it really that much better for the end customer. And that was a harsh pill to swallow.

Yeah.

So sure, a lot of technology can help with your taxes. It's being done. It's going to change things. You're But you'll always have some type of advisor and that's what you want. Accountants don't want, like other service professionals, they don't want to be doing every single task in a workbook or a process, right? But they want to be consulting you and advising you and you want that person to know that stuff too.

It's good to have someone that's like, you know, making sure you didn't put the wrong QuickBooks button.

Yeah, yeah, like it's like just like, Why would you want someone filling out a paper tax return? Like, it's just like, it goes back to like how simple that is. Like, we know we don't need people to be manually doing every single thing. It's a waste of time. But like, well, let's just use this space. And I don't know, maybe some of my competitors would disagree. It would be fun. But they also are asking what's in our tech and they've raised significant more money than me. So that's telling.

I wish we had drinks. Cheers to that.

Yeah. Cheers. Woo. Bubbly. It's a different kind of bubbly.

Topo Chico, that we're not sponsored by either.

Not sponsored by, but maybe, maybe next year, Coca-Cola.

Does Coca-Cola own them too?

Yeah, they do. It changed.

It changed.

Topo was like— I was like Bud Light when I moved here. Like, it was just everywhere.

Drink or no Topo?

It is. I mean, I think it's just like a Texas thing. It was South Texas. Like, you could get a Topo anywhere for free. And now they're like $5.

Yeah, it says Milwaukee now. Well, this is where they're made.

Yeah, I don't know where they're from.

I don't know, someone will know when we watch.

Someone will know.

Well, Google it by then, I guess. Never mind. Yeah, um, cool.

But yeah, it was like so fun to drink Topo, and now it's like they can't even serve it at a bar because it's gonna be like your drink's gonna be double.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, here we go.

Uh, so what were you saying? Oh, so yeah, automation. I was like all about it. And yes, we still have lots of things that we're working on and things that make our client experience better, but truly, uh, we started actually— oh, we were just talking about, um, yeah, talking to customers. So yeah, yeah, um, okay, so beside— before we got sidetracked on Topo, the computer didn't like that we were saying that, uh, I was saying that we started— we, we've always talked to our customers, but even more so when we started working with startup companies because also, right, they're early adopters of things. They're willing to kind of talk about—

Exactly.

Talk about things. And also the relationships that we were building with these founders, like how you and I know each other, right? We have a different connection than maybe someone else you might sell to, right?

Exactly.

Or do business with because you're going through a lot of the same things. So you're more inclined to not just talk about maybe the transaction or value exchange in hand, but talking about all the other stuff you're going through.

Exactly.

So like, that's one of the really cool things about what we do. And not only do we get to learn about a bunch of different technologies and founder stories, but we get to hear about what's working, what's not working, if they're fundraising, like how certain things are going. And because of that, a bunch of founders are like, hey, TaxTaker, like all this like automation is like cool, but like, and your dashboard's really pretty and all that, but I don't really care how you do it, I just want the money.

Yeah, right, literally. Yeah, yeah.

And so I, you know, we've really listened to that and we've pulled back technology in certain areas because of it, because we found that, you know, to get to an answer faster, if that takes, uh, you know, scaling a kind of customer service process and that means that we're gonna talk to customers for 30 minutes instead them going through a 20 to 30-minute survey, we're gonna get the information we need faster and we're gonna get more quality and a much higher conversion rate, I'm sure. Much higher.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Much higher.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, because of that, no, we are not the AI guys in the space. And, uh, but we, we like to say we're kind of high-tech and high-touch, and we really think that's the winning approach to the space.

And I love that too, like it's, it's so funny how you think one thing is gonna be the way to do it, and like I'm, I've gone through our platform so many times and just like taken shit out and been like, nope, didn't need that. Good thing we spent 2 months building it.

Yeah, and then you start to think about the dollar signs too, or you know, you waiting to get paid.

Yeah.

And do you find with, you know, with your product too initially, right, like you have to get this feedback loop from fitness professionals, right? And I feel like it's really easy, probably like accountants, like these are particular people, right?

Yeah.

Disciplined people, probably you wouldn't probably think, oh, fitness and accountants would be like the same personality, but I would imagine that it would be easy to get into feature fatigue. Like I'll do this when I see this or this or this or this, but you have to kind of keep checking, is that important?

So you're saying like it'd be easy to just add a million things Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. And then all of a sudden you're 6 months down the road and you're like, okay, I have all these things, but did it move the needle?

And that's literally my number one problem as a CEO is like, I'm, I'm always adding shit, like constantly adding shit. And then like, but, but, and I always give myself a little like a little caveat here. I don't know, is that we are an all-in-one platform. And so when you call yourself that, if you're missing one thing or like, because sometimes we'll push a, push an update. And it'll be like 80, like it'll be done, but like a few things could have been added to it. And we'll just get DMs like, why does this not have this? And why isn't this working? And I was like, fuck dude, like we didn't even tell you we're gonna give you that feature. Like that's a bonus. And then you're like, okay. So I've learned that like if we're gonna ship something, it needs to have, even if we didn't say we were gonna do it, it needs to have like every little last detail. So like I do have feature fatigue. I'm still always adding features, but like I've gotten a lot better at— my biggest problem was having one person ask for something and then I'd be like, all right, stop what we're doing, we're going to build that.

And so was it actually urgent? And yeah, yeah.

And I've wasted so much. I've had people— I've built features for people that are like, you know, they're doing tons of sales and then like, I'll build it. And then they're like, oh, I'm going to go with someone else actually.

And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?

Look, that's—

yeah, no, I— hey, I'm with you. I, I— we joke like I've built R&D practices offices all across the country with, you know, you asked me how many accountants are still working with me from that first group. I just had one.

Yeah, exactly.

There's 5 others out there, right?

Exactly, exactly.

Doing something else.

Yeah, that's so annoying. I mean, it's part of it though. It's— we learned.

It is. And it's all on execution.

Yeah.

At the end of the day.

Yeah.

I know it's like kind of cliché, but it really is.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so what's the team looking like now? Like, you guys raised your round, um, Do you want to share how much you raised? Is that okay?

Yeah, no, that's totally fine. Yeah, we, and it's actually, I think it's kind of impressive because we've raised significantly less capital than our competitors.

Same, same.

Yeah, so, you know, it's a double-edged sword there, right? 'Cause you need more to get to certain milestones if done right, right? But I think the funniest part for me, We've raised $1 million all in all. And that's been over notes and our seed round. And so it's just, it's funny when you're first time, maybe a first time founder or first time fundraiser, or I don't know, for me, right? I'm in this category of like female founder, which is underrepresented. So statistically we raise less, but it's just wild, right? You go into the fundraising game and they're like, this is never going to be a big market. Like, I don't see it. And then you raise that money and you're so excited. And then like 6 months later, someone raises 5x, 20x, 60x what you raised and you're like, oh, what?

It's so— well, the guy used to share the pod— I mean, there's a million of those examples, but the guy used to share the podcast with, he used to run a barbershop like marketplace. Sorry, sorry. Haircut marketplace. I'm saying that wrong, but it was— it involved like getting haircuts, like promoting barbers and all that stuff.

Yeah.

And they were about to close like $1 or $1.5 million. They had it pretty closely done. And then their main competitor that was like super far along closed like $60 million like that week. And then they were all just like, we can't. They shut the company down. They're like, we literally can't.

I know what company you're talking about. Yeah.

Yeah. I love Faraj. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Awesome.

You know Faraj?

Yeah. I met him in Dallas. Through Copper Factory.

What? Okay, yeah, so Faraj and I— I used to live with Faraj in Oklahoma, actually.

No way!

So actually—

oh yeah, when he was doing Cana.

Yeah, so, so, so actually, so this is Pipe Dream. So, uh, Garrett's the CEO of Pipe Dream. So me, Faraj, Garrett, and 3 other guys became best friends in Oklahoma, just like randomly, within like 4 months.

Yeah, yeah, like just going to bars or like working?

Well, we're all, we're all in tech. I actually met— I met Faraj in Startups.

Uh, so that's like less than the Kevin Bacon 6 degrees.

There's like 2. Yeah, it's like, or 1.

Yeah, that's really it. So you all just met and became fast friends?

I met, I met Faraj at a conference in, um, uh, outside of Fort Worth, or no, in Fort Worth, uh, like 5 years ago. And then I moved in with him and then just met all 4 of those guys. Just were like, oh, we're— there's no one else here doing tech, so like, let's, let's do it.

I guess. Yeah, it's Yeah.

What was this? Oh yeah. So basically, like, I mean, that happens so often. They're like, are so cool. Well, thankfully our competitors, our two main competitors actually had an exit and they sold to like ancient companies, so they're not going to do anything.

Yeah, but it's a great reference point too.

Yeah, it feels good. But like, yeah, our pressure almost competitors are just like $40 million, $30 million. And so I'll get these texts every like 6 months. They're like, Hey, did you see Future raised $60 million? And I'm like, well, that doesn't affect me, but I don't like it. I'm not like happy about it. So I know what you're saying.

Yeah, no, it can be defeating, but it's also like, it's just really important too, right, as CEO to like make sure that, you know, your team knows that that is normal and competition, just spin it, right? Like competition for the most part is a good thing, right? When we met, it was CTSN? Canon.

Canon.

I was like, I know it's a cool name.

Very cool name.

Very cool name. You're like, oh, are you like Main Street? And I'm like, what did I say? I was like, yeah. And I mean, it's so refreshing to not have to say, I find government tax credits for small and mid-sized businesses every single time. Like having that, I like to think, already paved the way a little bit.

Yeah, well, no, and when I met you and you told me what you did, I didn't need like another explanation because I was like, oh, it's a ministry. Yeah, they paved the market. They probably had to go through a lot before them. Like, what is an R&D tax credit in the startup world?

Oh, they did not— well, yeah, they did not pave the market.

But they did pave, sorry. Well, actually—

No, I've seen they— so they've helped pave the market for startups.

That's what I was trying to say.

Yes, 100%. But I have heard that they pioneered the industry, and I was like, well, that's just not true because they started 2 years ago and this is from 1981, so that's just bad.

I meant specifically for startups. And what I was gonna ask is, what is like, do you guys have like, what are the other differences between you guys? Like, are you guys going after different types of startups? How does that work?

Yeah, so they have an interesting kind of, they're doing a few things at the same time right now, and I would say that we like them for the sense of like, I know that there's some good folks over there, and we share a lot of the same, you know, mission of like wanting to help businesses and like fuel their innovation and growth. I think that raising the size of round that they did and going kind of like blitzscaling, like, you know, things, bad things can happen along the way. And I put them into a category with some of our other sort of competitors in the sense of where they rely, they're way more like relying on tech, which it backfires because they underqualify companies and they overqualify companies at the same time. Both, both are not good things, right? You don't want to tell a, you don't want to tell a company that they qualify for something that they don't.

Yeah, exactly.

And they've done that. And And then they've overqualified companies too that shouldn't be getting the amount of credits that they're getting. So, so that's where we differentiate that we've been in this space. We really have. We came into this space from being practitioners versus, oh, I heard about this. Maybe I've taken tax credits myself. I'm going to go form a company around it. I honestly don't know the founder's story that well, but that's kind of what it sounded like it was. And yeah, and then, you know, they, they, you, they're just one of many, right, that are going through these massive layoffs where they're laying like 40% of their staff. So, you know, things happen when you go big and you send, you know, that's tough.

I mean, are you guys full send?

Hey, I'm all about full send, but yeah.

Are you guys kind of like a white glove approach to R&D for startups?

Definitely. Definitely.

You heard that here first.

Yeah, you heard that here first. No, like, we, because of us knowing the space so well, that's our biggest differentiator. So like, I could talk to you in 5, 10 minutes, a little less than, and I can tell you how you qualify, what you're going to qualify for, and what you're going to qualify for next year, right?

Yeah.

Versus, you know, someone who hasn't been in this space, that's going to take a much longer. And that's what you get. That's when those like little human moments matter. So like we do that a lot on the initial kind of screening, because why would you want to sign up for something, spend any amount of time on it, and then just to find out that you didn't qualify in the first place? That happens. It happens all the time in this space.

It happened with them actually. It happened with me. Yeah, it was really— well, I spent like weeks trying to get them— they wouldn't— they could not connect to my QuickBooks for some reason, and I spent weeks and weeks and email after email. And then finally it was like, you don't qualify. And I was like, I'm going to fucking— I was so pissed.

Right. So they've done such— and it's not just them. It's like—

we don't want to talk trash. We're not trying to talk trash.

Yeah, AINTRIP, if you're out there, hey, we love you for helping pave the way. Like, seriously, like, it means a lot. But yeah, it's just frustrating. And if anyone's going to come out and make a claim that, like, you're probably going to get this money, get some money, like especially for founders that need it.

Yeah, yeah.

Right? It's gonna be like, let's try to manage expectations a little bit.

Yeah, well, what you were just mentioning, like, I mean, I said the white glove approach, which TaxTaker.com is gonna have a big white glove on it when you go there.

Yeah, like a creepy Michael Jackson glove.

Like a little floaty, like floating hand. So, okay, you're the CEO, you know all this stuff, but it's not just you. So how do you go, when you're hiring these people that are, more people doing sales calls than just you are. So like, when you're hiring these people, are you hiring people that also have experience in R&D? Are you hiring random people and then they're being like, here's everything I know?

Yeah, so it's been a mix. Truthfully, at the beginning, like, I couldn't afford the people that knew the space except for the actual practitioners. Like, my first hire had to be an R&D tax credit guru. Like, had to be. He had to be employee number one, right? Because if If you don't have him, you know, you can't create a backstop for things, right? And you have to be able to build the modules and the trainings and everything. So that's like absolutely fundamentals. You can't, you shouldn't be in the accounting tax business without true, a true accountant on staff, right? But then from there, yeah, I mean, it's been a mix of folks. So most have been trained. Like, um, like engineers are great, like, like even out of school, like my, my number 2 was an intern, um, turned— he was actually a biomedical engineer out of UT that could speak to engineers about their projects. So he would follow like a guide of interview type questions for these tax-related programs, but he knew the principles of engineering so he could speak speak the same language and get to certain answers a lot faster than maybe just a typical customer service person.

As in when he's talking to like the CTO of a company and like walking them— okay, cool. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.

Um, so like, so you don't have to come from the space, but certain kind of backgrounds do help, right? So being comfortable around numbers, right? That's why we are going to be more inclined hire someone that has some type of accounting finance background if they're going to be on the delivery team or have at least been around it, not afraid of certain number words. From a sales side, we've found that's actually been our biggest challenge, and I heard that's a big challenge for people, like especially if that's a founder strength, that it ends up being just not the business's strength. Like we've done well with sales, but it's, you know, for a long time it's very founder led sales. So now our team has experience selling into our target market.

Very cool. And so who is your target market? Like startups that are—

Yeah, you. If you spent money in the United States besides you.

Well, what's like the— is there like a specific spend or like revenue or like what are you looking for?

So that's one actually big differentiator between us and from like a lot of our competitors is that we can work with a company that has 1 or 2 employees on up. Gotcha. And so that was really important to us. Like we want to get in the first year they qualify. But typically our clients are, you know, obviously co-sku things on amount of fundraise. We've established that. But our typical profile is a VC-backed startup. SaaS business seed stage.

Gotcha, very cool.

Yeah, so usually has at least 5 technical people and they're getting a $50,000 credit the first year they work with us.

Very cool.

Yeah.

Well, I'll introduce you to Pipe Dream downstairs. Hopefully they'll, uh, yeah, hopefully they haven't signed up with anyone else.

It is about to be tax season on extension.

There we go, there we go. Uh, do you guys do your own R&D tax credit? Like, who on your team does You do?

We drink our own Kool-Aid. And you have to, right?

I was gonna say, I was like, we use Main Street.

Yes. Oh my gosh. There was one year it was tempting, you know, just to be like, okay, just calculate, right? And not go through it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, we pay ourselves to do it.

Nice. Very cool. Okay. Well, I'm actually upset with myself because I was gonna start the podcast off with who are you and who do you take taxes from? You're called TaxTaker.

Oh, I know, that's a good one.

It would've been a good question.

I like that you went backwards though instead of just the formal like.

Well, I just wish I had asked it that way instead of being like, what do you guys do?

Oh yeah, who do you take taxes from? So that's been kind of a confusing word. And honestly, like when I was forming the company, I was just like on GoDaddy, like tax, tax spring, like I don't even know how many things were there. And so it is kind of a double-charged word, but we take your taxes away. We don't actually take your taxes. We take them away.

And so speaking of that, what is your revenue model? Is it like percentage of what you get back for companies?

Percentage of savings. Yep, all day long. That's worked really, really well for our startup companies because a lot of times when they meet us, they're like, they don't know if this is too good to be true. So it's low risk.

They don't have to pay anything technically. In reality, like, you know.

Yeah, in reality they have to pay us for, you know, a fee. But yeah, it hasn't been upfront. We've been playing around with shifting that model because that also, as other businesses that are on, you know, a percentage split or like kind of zero upfront, that it's a tough business model because you're basically fronting capital and your expenses a lot of the year and your revenue is really choppy.

Yeah, I was gonna ask you, what's that window? Is it like, I file, like does it matter 'cause it's tax season? Is that, they're typically all gonna be like in March, April-ish time, they're not gonna have fiscal, so like what if you file, what if you do mine in like May?

Yeah.

Do you have to wait until literally next March to get paid or?

It just depends on when you file your taxes. So tax season is actually 10 months and some change long every year. Most businesses, like we all think because of personal taxes, like, oh, April 15th, right? So businesses can file in March and April. However, most businesses in the United States, they file an extension.

That's definitely what I do every year.

And there's no penalties in doing so, honestly, it can actually benefit your business if you do, because if you haven't taken advantage of certain tax credits, you still have time to get them in. So you really, as, but don't wait because we can't help you on October 10th or 11th. But the last day to file your taxes as a C-Corp is October 15th. So we're helping businesses all year round, but sure, there could be the situation where you're like, oh, I already filed in April.

How soon are you guys getting Is it when they get their tax return or like, is it like you did this, you're right up front? Like, how does that work?

Yeah, so we just, yeah, we charge when we deliver their tax credits. Sure, like if, because we're working with startups, right, we offer payment plans. We actually just recently partnered with a really cool company called Alternative and it's kind of the buy now, excuse me, pay later for B2B. B payments. So yeah, such that a startup needs just more time to pay or wants to pay over time, we've always offered kind of payment plans for, you know, just so they can start to see some upside, but we also have to get paid, so we want to, you know, be good custodians of what we're serving. So typically though, a startup is going to be benefiting very soon after we finish our work. So most times like the R&D credit is going to be one of the final pieces of what gets included in a tax return. So like we see clients filing all summer long just because, just because their CPAs, you know, had certain projects or filings to do in the spring. They're going to want to do some in the summer and some in the fall because it just is, you know, impossible to get every one done at one time of year. So because most of these companies are startups, we're going to give them their credit. They're going to file their return usually like we're talking days, weeks after, and then we're loading those up in their payroll system and they're starting to get their benefit. You know, if they're on like a Gusto or something, they could get their benefit the next pay period.

Very cool.

If they're on a popular PO like a TriNet or the like, it's typically the quarter after they file.

And I just realized, because we were mentioning earlier, like you had your baby and like it was best time. I wasn't even thinking about business tax season. I was thinking about just personal. So basically like you had it like right after business ended and you were able to take care of your kid for like 5 months before tax season even really started, or like 4 months, 3, 3 or 4.

I mean, I took 3 weeks off, but yeah, 5 months. Well, but yeah, maybe the 3, the 3 months you had them, you were like, didn't have a lot of work So like typically, so yeah, so with our business, it's sort of strange because yeah, it's, it, you definitely, it's really easy to look at our business and be like, they only work 2 months out of the year. Um, I wish I'm working, I'm working to get to that point.

Yeah.

Um, do the hard things now so you have the freedom to do less later.

Right.

Uh, but yeah, so tax season really starts January 1st. Like, because financials should be done, right?

Exactly.

So tax time is January through April, then there's a small break, and then people file in the summer, and then extension filers. When we get to Q4 as a business, we're like thinking about year-end planning, and we're helping— we're getting back in touch with companies, and we're mapping out, like, because we know what their spend's going to be.

Yeah, exactly.

There's only a few weeks left of the year, right? So we're kind planning those things. And after a company works with us, we already know their business is gonna be even faster next year. So like, if you work with us, we're like, January 1st, or you know, maybe the 21st when W-2s are actually finalized, like, we're here to help. So we really do kind of work all year long.

I didn't even think about that being like a recurring business, which obviously it is.

Very cool. Yeah, so it's like, it's for the life of, life of your business, such that you continue to improve.

So cool. Yeah, upon your products, and you keep making more money because, well, I mean, ideally these companies are growing.

Yeah.

So hopefully, well, you either make no money or you make more.

Exactly. It's like zero or more.

Yeah.

And, and, and our— we've hedged that bet, and we've seen the companies that we've been intentional with around our targeting and And they do grow and it's really, it's exciting. It's exciting to see a group of girls or guys that were 2 or 3 people and, you know, getting a $30,000 credit. Now I'm looking, I'm like, they got $170,000 this year?

Yeah.

That's amazing.

That's really cool.

It's amazing because then I know, I know exactly why. Yeah, they're growing their teams, they're growing their products. And so you really do start to see some of these hockey logistics happen, and it's really fun.

So what's a company that you guys would partner with? Is it like a VC fund that would give you all of their startups? Is it like an accelerator? Like, who are you like, oh, this would be so cool, like kind of partnership?

Yeah, so I mean, anyone that has an interest in seeing, you know, one of their own investments, like that's a great That's a great lead for us, right? So like, that's why VCs and accelerators have been great partners for us historically, because they want to see their, their portfolio companies be capital efficient and leverage things that are out there. So anyone that has a stake in kind of the startup world, like, is a great kind of referral source for us. VCs and accelerators spot-on, right? So they have a vested interest in their portfolio company's success, so they want to see those companies taking advantage of government programs because why not have another, you know, $50,000, $100,000, you know, back to the company. So that's been a great, great way for us to grow. And then, you know, the traditional route was the accountants and CFOs, people that know those those companies' numbers, because then we can go in like confidently and be like, all right, not only do we think you qualify, we actually know.

You know for a fact.

We really know. Yeah, yeah.

And it's so cool because you guys are just basically giving them free money because they wouldn't have done this on their own. So you're like, you can be kind of pushy and be like, no, seriously, like, what are you— why would you not?

Yeah, it's surprising though, like there's—

I'm sure, I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah. So many people are like, gosh, you have such a no-brainer business. But we're also working in a space where it's just these— everyone has so many priorities.

Exactly.

Because tax time, they're like, oh yeah, that's not till 10 months from now. All of a sudden it's here and they're like, shoot, like, what was that?

What was that girl?

'Who's that tax girl? Like, who's she? I know she was bugging me.' But yeah, and then all of a sudden they're like, 'Oh, I forgot.' And it happens all the time.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Happens all the time.

Wait, so do you guys ever provide like discounts to anyone or anything like that? Like, how does that— like, how does that work? Like, do they— can you get a discount? Like, what does that mean?

Like a discount on like our fee?

Or like, how much do you guys ever do that? Like, what is that?

Yeah, sure. Like, so like we'll try to, to encourage good behavior, you know, sometimes we'll just provide some kind of discounts if a company starts early with us, um, or yeah, very cool, kind of a different option. Um, yeah, we just like accounting firms, we want to try to even out our project load so that we're not doing all of our work in September.

Well, so we don't have to air this, but like if I have a sponsors page for the podcast. Would there be something that we could, like a code or something like that for people that tune in?

Oh sure, yeah.

What would the— what should the code be? We'll make it up right now. Like, we get— we'll add this in like 2 weeks.

So do you have— so I feel like with your podcast, like you should try to just have like a, a, um, like a code that you kind of try to use consistently, you know?

Like always have like STRIVE, like why we strive, and something, but people have the other companies like AWS and Brex have like added random numbers at the end. So I just don't have like a, oh yeah.

I mean, if you just say like, if you mentioned why we strive, like they'll give you like $500 off or 50% off.

We'll figure it out.

Okay.

And I'll do, let's, uh, what should we do that right now? So this is all like, I'll just delete this whole part. Should we do that right now? They'll be like, oh, just by the way, if you guys do this, cause then I'll have it in the show notes. I'll have it on our sponsors page and then I can also do it live right now. So what would you, what do you want me to say?

I love it. Um, yeah, just be like, we'll give you 15% off.

Cool.

Our fee.

Yeah, 15% off the fee. Okay, cool. And use code, let's say WhyWeStrive.

Yeah, if you mention the Why We Strive podcast, because we're not— we've done referral code stuff and it's like people forget to enter them and yeah, it's a whole thing because we're not e-com, like, you know, it's not as easy.

Yeah, yeah.

And then people are like, I've I didn't submit it, you know. So just the same way, mention it. Yeah.

All right, guys, so if you mention the Why We Strive podcast when you're going on TaxTaker.com, you will get 15% off of your fees. Yeah, there we go.

Get that money.

Get that money. So we'll take a pause from TaxTaker really quick. So you are a part of the Austin Venture Association here in Austin.

Yes.

Are you one? You're a part of it. You're one of the founders. Um, and actually before you even launched that, it's so funny. I was at, um, not Radio. I haven't been there in a long time. The, the other one, Rizz Radio and Cosmic. I was at Cosmic. Yeah. If you're ever in Austin, check out Cosmic. It's great. It's just too hot. I can't go right now.

It's too hot right now.

It's gross.

There's not enough inside space for this time of year.

Exactly. Yeah. So, um, I show up there when you were, oh, this was probably like October cuz you were very pregnant when I was I saw you, you were very pregnant. And, uh, I was like the 9 months in, not the 9 months out. Yeah, it was end of tax season for businesses. Um, and so I saw you there and you were like, yeah, we're gonna start this thing. And I was like, oh cool, you know, I didn't know what you're talking about. And that was really cool. Like, it's a— I've been to a couple of your guys's events. I've worked with CS a few times on some things. So like, what, what is that? You're one of the 3 people that started it, right?

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, originally, um, it was Carl Grant, Chris, and he was at Cooley. Now he's got Connexa Partners. Chris Schunk from ATX Ventures, who's such an Austin OG, and myself. And we realized there was no formal venture association in a burgeoning VC-backed kind of tech hub. And based upon some of, you know, each of our experiences being kind of service providers, founders ourselves, and investors, we're like, this needs to happen, especially at a time where the whole like tech and venture scene has just changed immensely, mostly because we've had this huge great migration. Yeah, right before 2020, we had a few, couple dozen VCs, and now we have hundreds. So we were like, there's so many amazing community builders and groups but not everyone knows like where to come to when they first get here from an investor standpoint, right? So we're like, we've got to create it. And so, and then yeah, we joined up with CS. She was starting a venture club and it just, it made sense. And we kind of, you know, it's our mission is just to promote the greater startup and venture landscape here. And we're starting kind of slow to go fast. You know, some key events. And, and, um, you know, it's great to know folks like you that are like— I mean, you may as well just take over because you— how many hundreds of people are you getting at your beer pong tournaments?

I had a tech beer pong tournament with 500 people at it. It was pretty crazy.

It's pretty amazing.

A tech beer pong. I— so I've decided— I turned 30 in April, and I've decided that in March before South by, it'll be my last beer pong tournament because I'm like even though they're tech and I don't even play in them because I'm too busy hosting it. I just don't want to be that 30-year-old.

Oh my gosh, no, 30.

Well, no, no, 30 is fine, but like to play in it— like people, I have people like in their 60s playing my tournaments, but it's like I don't want to be the 30-year-old beer pong host. At the host, but it's the host part, so I'm gonna—

yeah, I keep telling— I've said this to you before though, I feel like you need to just create like a digital guide for you.

I know I need to. I need to.

And like just cash flow that thing.

Well, no, I have a full, uh, 'cause you have so much plan.

The planning is unbelievable.

It's insane. Like, and the fact that the last one didn't come— well, there was like 12 times where it should have gone to complete shit and just like everything around me broke and I was just like sprinting. It somehow worked and everyone had the time of their life and it was so cool. Like amazing reviews from everybody. But it was stressful. It was so insane. Like, in retrospect, I don't know how I did that by myself. I mean, I had people that helped that day, but like, anyways, so much.

I just, I just don't believe you that you're going to completely get out of the beer pong biz. I mean, this podcast is going to get so huge that it's going to be sponsoring, you know, beer pong.

We already have our tequila sponsor, Tequila 512. Yeah. Over there.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, well, I mean, I host happy hours every month, so we just do those now. So we'll stick with those.

Those are manageable.

Those are very manageable. So with AVA, what's your time commitment and role like on a weekly basis now?

I mean, on a weekly basis, because we have an executive director, right, really just kind of on a, you know, as-needed basis for anything we need to support depending on, you know, it's going to be maybe a couple of hours a week if it's, you know, we actually have an event coming along. And also it was really a natural thing for me to do based upon the folks that I already network with and do business with. And I've always just been a big believer of like, you know, the more value you create, like the better. And like you'll get some back in return, maybe not immediately, but you know, someday. Like, and I love seeing people make connections. Like, that's just like one of my favorite things. Like, if I can— actually, I know someone who said, um, give actually one of our ABA sponsors, Tim Donahue, a shout out. CBRE. Um, if you are looking for office space, Tim Donahue. Um, no, but he, he's a super connector just like Carl, uh, Grant too. And, um, he was like, if I make a connection between two people and you start hanging out without me, I've done my job. Like, right? Like, I don't want to be the center of everyone. I just want to have good people meet good people. And I think it's such a natural place for that to happen in Austin. Like, I don't know, when you moved here, did you know anyone when you moved here?

I knew, I knew the, I knew a couple people.

Yeah. Well, it's like no, like best friends.

Like I had, well, here's the thing. It was really weird. My tiny hometown in Washington State, We have like 12 alumni here that are like my age. It makes no sense. Like, it makes no sense. But they're all— I don't see them ever. Like, they're just doing their own shit. Like, one of my childhood best friends lives here. I never see her. But like, I had a good buddy, Jake O'Shea, who, you know, she's gonna—

I always say that. Jake is an old buddy?

Yes. No, no. So not old, I guess. So I met Jake like 2 months before I moved here at a founder retreat outside of Denver. And then I was living in Oklahoma City. I did not like living there. And I was like, well, I want to move to a bigger city. So Jake was my intro to Capital Factory, which just kind of blew things up. But to your point about Austin being such a cool, uh, city, like, I did the same happy hours in LA, and I was like, it was— I was on LinkedIn, like, please show up to this event. And that my events were cool, but it was so hard.

And here now, I think we've talked about that with LA being a bit shallow in that way, or like superficial. Like, people won't hang out with you again.

Yeah. So, uh, Definitely more than here. I think the biggest issue with LA was that like the founder community wasn't like central like this. Like you didn't know other founders very like I did, but like not a lot. And then the main thing was that it's such a spread out city that like spread out when I host in Santa Monica, like people, oh yeah, I keep forgetting you're from LA. We just talked about this.

Yeah.

So when we host in Santa Monica, people are like, well, I live in Long Beach, so I can't make it. Or like, or they have to drive an hour.

Geographically it's difficult for sure. And this is the smallest big city ever.

I was at happy hour. I literally, at the point—

you walk like anywhere.

Yeah. I privately invite people now. Cause like if I, if I put up an event link, I haven't done an event link since my first event, because if I put an event link, I'd have 5,000 people.

Yeah. You have too many.

It's just like, no.

So that's the same thing with Austin Venture Association. We have, we will put things, but we'll have to say request an invite.

Exactly.

Because you have to at this point gate things. And like, we want to be as inclusive as possible, but we also want it to feel like a very intentional, curated kind of the right people or their experience.

Exactly.

So yeah, so I love community building. I think Austin's been so good to me. It's been such a supportive city for me to build this business. And so I've looked at the AVA like, one, I'm already talking to founders, investors all day long. It's like pretty much the main people I talk to. Um, so why wouldn't I? Um, and, and I just, I want to see this community continue to just foster really, really cool people and companies. And if I can do that in a really, really tiny way, then do it through the ABA.

Hey, I'm pumped for the hotel. Uh, that's gonna be cool. That's gonna be cool. Y'all can't get there because it's gonna—

this is gonna post in 2 weeks, but yeah, sorry, it's gonna be too late.

But, uh, very excited.

Yeah, but if Yeah, we're gonna have Ferraris there.

What should I dress like? I left all my dress pants back in Washington.

That's the coolest thing about Austin, and it's too hot to wear like dress dress pants. Okay, true, but it is gonna be a little bit nice.

That's what I'm saying.

I have no idea.

Can I wear these? Is this with like a nice shirt?

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Yeah, yeah, I'll keep asking.

No, wear those with like a button-down.

Yes, that's what I was gonna do. Yeah, okay, thank God.

Because yeah, and as long You have like—

just bought brand new pants and brand new shoes. Yeah, yeah. I think I'm gonna buy a new pair of these because they're a little—

yeah, yeah, they're nice looking. They're fine, they're fine.

Amazon.

But got— really? They look really—

I love— I buy a new pair of these every 3 months.

I know, I just got some new ones too. I'm excited about them.

I'm obsessed with white shorts.

But yeah, shorts have made like an entry for men in Austin. Yeah, yeah, you're allowed to wear shorts.

We're not in New York, we're in full business suit in the summer. That's disgusting. I sweat. I sweat. That's why I wear black shirts now all the time. What do you wear?

Black shirts? I mean, yeah. I thought this was the dress code. Actually, someone on my team saw me in pastel the other day and they're like, this is the first time I've seen you in color. I was like, yep.

Nice.

The founder uniform. You don't have to think about anything else.

Exactly. I want to get back to one thing though. You mentioned Obviously women do make a much smaller percent of the fundraising percentage. So like, why don't you know how to ask it? Like, what's your experience been fundraising? Have you felt like, I mean, did you like, I don't want to say I'll word this correctly, not get lucky in the sense of like you're lucky to raise, but like, did you get lucky by getting people that invested in you that like weren't sexist or like, you know, kind of like, like what was that situation like?

Yeah, definitely. So I mean, And again, like, right, backdrop, first-time founder, have real— no real experience with venture capital except for like talking with a few accelerators and angel investors.

Literally same.

Yeah, right. So like, and knowing people who have invested in companies that, you know, like that was really it. So like network is a huge thing and then not really have it. Yeah. Those connections, right? Disadvantage. One. Two, don't have a team that has prior, like, exits or big company experience. So again, it's kind of this network. Yeah. The theme here is kind of network, but I would say that tapping into places like the Capital Factory and certain other kind of groups, it's pretty incredible, like, how much ground you can cover and, like, start to to make some of those connections and one kind of opportunity leads to the next. So I will say that I never felt like a ton of doors were closed on me because I was a woman. I just think initially it was sort of lack of experience. But then, but then I, I just, I knew what we had and the numbers don't add up, right? For the amount of investor conversations I had and I talked Bay Area VCs and New York VCs who ended up investing later on in some of our competitors, right?

Oh, just—

sorry, the way you worded that was not— oh no, yeah, it's the salesperson. I'm going to say it in a different way. Um, and so that's disheartening, right? Like, I, I still know— yeah, I mean, earlier we talked about like, oh, is tech going to be the winner? And I know there was a board member that I had deep conversations with that invested in one of my competitors. So like, that's disheartening, right? And so I don't know if that necessarily has to do with gender, maybe, but yeah, maybe it was because they're like, they wouldn't pull the same games on someone else. But I feel like though, for the most part, it was respectful. Like, I did what I was supposed to do. It wasn't like it took me 3 years to fundraise either. When I was committed to going on a fundraising journey, it was like February 2020, which is crazy. I went with Capital Factory to Chicago and New York City.

Very cool.

And then was already having some conversations with some Texas funds. That was what did it because got enough interest in those areas Started to have, really kind of get a snowball effect of interest, start to deliver on what I'm saying I'm doing, that government messaging resonates, all timing, and we closed in July of 2020. So pretty fast, you know, compared to, you know, a lot of female founders I think that I've looked at, but it's disheartening to see what's out there. And I work with a lot of female founders And for the statistics to still be like 3% of all venture capital, it just, it doesn't make sense. So, but we're seeing things change. And so, you know, we just got to fight the good fight, but I will give my investors a huge shout out. Like never did I ever feel like the gender thing was an issue. They looked at me like a capable individual. They were also family oriented. People, so maybe that had something to do with it. So then, you know, fast forward, I wasn't nervous to tell them I was getting married, then like another year later having a baby, like all the things that like probably in the back of my mind I would be like, you know, is she gonna leave? But they're incredibly supportive, so really, really thankful for them.

Very cool.

Yeah.

No, I love that. I mean, I think Austin's a very, very family-oriented female founder friendly city. Well, I didn't realize I was just back to back.

Yeah, female founder founded city.

Yeah, I was like so many things. So I think it's a great place to raise if you're a person of color or a female founder for sure. I mean, I don't know what that's like in other cities. I've just noticed in Austin it's very like, yeah.

Definitely, definitely. But I also think it just goes with the community that's here in Austin. In many ways, I think it's an easier city to build a business because of the network that you can build if you don't have one, right? And that's one of the bigger problems with female-founded companies or companies with that have, you know, persons of color is they typically just don't have that same access point of like, oh, I don't know some like rich angel investor to start. Woo, let the light in.

That happened last podcast episode too. 5 pieces of tape on.

No, it's— I think that's actually fine.

Oh no, it looks fine. It just scared me. There's 2 episodes in a row that I jumped. Last one I literally— because it fell to the ground.

Oh my gosh. Um, so yeah, so Austin's been, been great. The fun's here.

Yeah, very cool. And so I want to, I want to finish on one thing. So what is next for TaxTaker besides the very cool announcements that we've had on this podcast?

I mean That's one of the things, right? Like being able to deploy capital faster into these companies, we think will be extremely helpful for these businesses.

How much time is that going to save, you think, like versus how long it takes you? So are they getting the money instantly kind of a thing?

Yeah, it's like if they qualify, then we're talking like within business days.

Very cool.

We can start to fund those. And so that, hopeful, you know, that just makes, makes it even easier, you know, for companies to get excited about these programs and actually see money in their pockets to start, you know, growing.

Very cool marketing play.

Time value money. You get that money faster, like, what are you going to do with it?

Yeah, I can imagine, like, your, your hero text on your page too. Like, now you can change all that stuff now.

Yeah, I'm gonna ask you about that. I need some, some extra.

I'm happy to be happy to still do a lot of that stuff. I mean, me too. I mean, well, Well, I mean, I'm in so many groups and so many like, like I'll put my website on there. They're like, yeah, that looks like shit. And I'm like, okay, got it.

Cool. That's the best because I would much rather someone tell me that.

Oh no, no, I wasn't complaining.

Yeah. Right. No, that's like so great that you found that group. Cause don't you feel, feel like sometimes as a founder, like people will also be like, oh, like they just won't go, they won't say something that's not nice.

Oh, true. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, I love getting like the, well, I'm in a group called I'll add you to it. Well, you're not really a SaaS, but it's called SaaS Growth Hacks. There's like 20,000 people in the group. And so I'll post like, what do you guys think, A or B? And I'll get shit on for A, but they're like, B has two things, but I would do this. And they'll like reference a website and I'm like, yes, people just love. Oh, it's amazing.

Go ahead on that. I love that.

I'll add you to it.

Because literally when we did it, we did like a small refresh recently, but we're waiting on this. Be like kind of that final thing. I don't know, every company I talk to, they're like, my website's not done.

It'll never be done.

It's never— it's living, it's its own product basically. Um, but I, I literally was like, tell me the stuff you hate about it.

Exactly. I love— and I love— I, I give very cruel feedback. Like, that's not— cruel is a terrible—

unusual.

I've never said the word cruel in my life. I don't know why I just said that. It's unusual pun. Um, I give a very like honest feedback. I don't know why I said cruel. Sorry.

Yeah, it's edgy. We're wearing black. We're allowed to say cruel is cool.

Cruel is cool. Sorry, I interrupted you though. What were you finishing on? What are you guys adding next?

Oh yeah. So, I mean, so TaxTaker 2.0 really looks like more of an alternative financing space. So, you know, the R&D credits are bread and butter. We've been really knocking it out of the park with employee retention credits. That's been another program that came out of this big PPP CARES Act package, which been helping businesses with the lending. And then we just, we get asked what next all the time from our customers. And that was actually really challenging for a long time to be like, I have all these people that want to buy things that we don't have things to sell to them. So now we're looking at all different types of funding sources, whether that's grants, other incentives, kind of marketplace.

Very cool.

So I love that.

I'm excited. And I have an intro for you, remind me after this. A guy, one of my good buddies, Oklahoma buddy, part of the group, he— I don't know if it's relevant, but he had like a small exit to his like lending company. So maybe he'll like be able to just talk to you about that kind of stuff.

Love that.

Yeah. But cool. This was awesome. I can't wait wait. Again, TaxTaker.com. You're gonna type in why— are you gonna tell people that you're gonna tell them this? Why We Strive?

Yeah, just tell us. Yeah, I don't have to remind you.

No referral codes, don't worry about it. Awesome. Where can people reach you at?

Just TaxTaker.com, or if you want to email me—

that's what happened last time.

Well, it's Austin, it's like almost 8 PM and it's still summertime. I love it. Or, you know, shoot me an email if you are like, I need to get this money now. I have a really easy name. It's Ari, A-R-I, at TaxTaker. I still hand out my emails.

There we go.

Why not? Boom. Corey, this was so fun. Thank you so much.

It's a great episode. It's why we strive.

It's why we strive.

Boom. Sweet.

That was so fun.

That was good.

I loved that.

I wanted to thank you for watching this entire episode of Why We Strive. Be sure you head to whywestrive.com and subscribe so every Tuesday you can see incredible interviews with some of the best tech founders, investors, and creatives in the industry. Have an amazing day and don't forget to keep striving.