The Rising Stars of Cloud | Cloud 100 | Salesforce Ventures

Hi, I'm Savitra Wilson, and I'm the founder and CEO of Resilia.

Hi, I'm Daniel Cohen short, the CEO and co founder of Gloss Genius.

Hello, I'm Kelvin Beacham, starting right tackle for the Arizona Cardinals.

I'm Alex Conrad, a senior editor at forbes. Welcome to Cloud 100 as one of the most fun things we get to do. As part of our Cloud 100 list, we profile rising stars, up and coming entrepreneurs who have raised less than 25 million in venture capital, but are showing a lot of promise and have technology that could make a big impact. This year, I'm lucky enough to be joined with two of our Rising Star CEOs, as well as Kelvin Beacham, both a star NFL player, whether he would admit that or not, and also a very active angel investor who works with entrepreneurs every day. Thank you all for joining us. Now, Kelvin, I have to start with you. I'm curious, how many companies are you usually working with so that we know kind of what we're about to put these two entrepreneurs through?

It's over 50 at this point, so I'm staying pretty busy.

All right, so we've got an expert investor here with us. Savitra, could you tell us a little bit about how long you've been working on Resilia and what you would say, kind of the overarching mission of your startup is.

Absolutely. So we launched Resilia to the public at the end of 2016, and our mission is really simple. We're seeking to democratize philanthropy, making it more accessible to all. And by doing that, we're able to bring more people to the table.

Awesome. And you're based in New Orleans, right?

Based in New Orleans with a second office in New York.

That's great. And, Danielle, can you tell us a bit about Glass Genius and your mission there?

For sure. So we believe that anyone should be able to participate in small business entrepreneurship and be able to achieve their economic and personal dreams. So Gloss Genius is building an ecosystem that empowers business owners, helps remove barriers to success, and instead replaces them with very fun, memorable product experiences, so any business owner can feel like they're on the journey of a lifetime. The industry we serve today, beauty and wellness industry, is perfect for this and very exciting, given a lot of things that are happening. So, yeah, in a nutshell, it's what we're doing.

And where in the world are you these days, Danielle?

I'm in New York City.

Great. Okay. We've got two East Coasters. We've got someone kind of in between, and Then we've got Kelvin down in Arizona, you know, trying to stay cool, I guess. Great. So this has been a pretty intense past few months, I think, for everybody, but especially for entrepreneurs, maybe starting with you, Savitra, what has it been like for Resilia? I feel like your name is perfect for a company that's going to handle adversity well. But has this been an exciting time for the business, A difficult time? What comes to mind first?

So the first thing that comes to mind really is, yes, it's been exciting time. Both exciting, but also very just empathetic to what's happening around us with the pandemic and how we're trying to all come out of this. But as a company, we actually thrive when there's more capital being deployed in the philanthropic space. So in 2019, there was over $430 billion given by corporations and individual giving, not even including government. In 2020, that number went up 7%. So when we see that type of capital being deployed to philanthropy, that's where Resilia thrives. We come in, we help, whether that's foundations, whether that's new funds set up, and help them deploy that capital, but also support the capacity of those who are receiving it and those who are boots on the ground doing the work. And we all know there was a lot of much needed work to be done over the past few months, and still is.

Got it. Yeah. That's no surprise. And, Calvin, you have a nonprofit, right? And you're working a lot, both on that for profit and sort of nonprofit side. So is this something that is resonating with you as well?

It always has. Me and Savitri have talked in the past. We've crossed paths already. So great to get to actually share the stage with her again. But I sit in a world where I get to intersect them both. Sports plays a huge role on both the for profit and nonprofit side. So to see Resilia doing the type of work that they're doing not only in some of the Southern states, but across the globe is impactful right now.

That's awesome. Gloss.

Genius.

A little different. Danielle. I know it is for profit, but your customers have probably been going through some interesting times. What would be the perspective that you would bring to the table here?

Yeah, I mean, a very interesting last 18 months, you know, moving into 2020. The shutdowns happen. Very challenging time for customers. And even internally at the company, we were, you know, kind of in the trenches, making a lot of internal shifts and thinking about how we could continue to help customers navigate a Lot of the shutdowns during that time, in a very short period of time, we were shuffling things on the roadmap around. We were changing features that we had expected to take months to develop. We deployed them in days. We, we struck relationships up overnight with lenders. In a matter of six days, we facilitated around $40 million of loan applications. And even kind of moving out of the shutdowns and into the reopenings, we've been kind of at the center of helping many of our business customers facilitate safer and better client experiences as they're servicing more and more clients. So contactless payment solutions, getting those out to business owners and I think really the last year and a half has been marked by a very firm commitment to double down on helping customers not just when they're doing well, but also in times of need and making sure we're helping them not only survive, but thrive.

Got it. I'm curious if any of you please feel free to start on this one. But as an entrepreneur or when you're working with entrepreneurs, how do you balance kind of that short term need and sort of all hands on deck mindset to want to help your customers, help your stakeholders with kind of that long term vision and mission that you also want to stay to and not lose focus on. So how does one sort of balance that so that you've kind of, you're excelling both on the short term and the long term at the same time.

So I think 2020 was unlike anything that any of us can imagine. So our initial reaction was to jump in how we could support the communities around us. We immediately did that in New Orleans where we're based, also in New York. Ironically, both of those cities were the highest per capita of COVID 19 cases. So there was so, so much need, not only here, but all over. And so we knew that organizations just by nature of how capital was going to be dispersed because you have to realize, you know, I kind of lived through a life changing experience overnight with Hurricane Katrina. And and so I knew that when things began to lock down, when the pandemic hit, when government aid began to flow out, it was very, some of those things are very similar to what we saw at the Katrina. And so being able to really enact some of those historical type of reactions that I did in the past was something that we did as a company at Resilia overall. And so although we definitely don't want to have mission creep and we don't want to get off our goals and our roadmap, we knew that there were Immediate things that we needed to execute for our not only users and our customers, but also for the community that buys into the product that we are ultimately selling. And so, yes, very important to stay mission aligned and mission driven. But I think 2020 was truly just out of extraordinary and many of us had to do what we felt we needed to do in order to support our customer base.

I think for us, we were in a very fortunate position given our mission of helping anyone achieve entrepreneurial success and particularly business owners in the beauty wellness space was very closely aligned with some of the things that we actually needed to shift towards to help them survive and thrive in a post pandemic world. And so I even think some of the things that we did as we made a lot of internal shifts and shuffled things around the product roadmap and got experiences and amenities out to customers with, were actually, you know, initiatives that in some part informed and even furthered the mission we could be on and gave us even more conviction that the mission we were on was a incredible mission and a worthy mission and something that customers also really supported, given the depth of customer relationships that, you know, we developed over the pandemic and continue to further. So it was interesting to see how we could connect the dots. And we were in a fortunate position given the type of business we have, but certainly a lot of learnings from that. And I guess the kind of thing underpinning all of this is just stick to what you know and the constants and the values, and that really helps you stay true to your mission, regardless of short term or longer term changes.

And just to piggyback on both founders, you know, it's one of those things that I preach to the founders and the entrepreneurs that I was involved with was just executing, you know, us as football players, we talk about this all the time on the football field is execution. And I think during the pandemic, if you had great fundamentals and just great unit economics, you understood what you needed to do and where you needed to sprint during the pandemic. And that's still in the pandemic. But as we've come into 2021, execution is still the number one thing that I continue to preach and try to talk to some of the entrepreneurs that I've backed.

One thing that I found interesting is it seems like this generation of entrepreneurs is also trying to find partners and investors, other stakeholders who share their values or kind of care about the mission as well. I'm curious for our entrepreneurs if that's something that you look for in bigger Partners or in investors in your company today. And of course for Kelvin, as you're looking to invest in startups like these, if that's something you're looking for in up and coming entrepreneurs as well. So maybe, maybe Calvin you could start with maybe that zoomed out look and then Savitra and Danielle, you could kind of talk about what it's been like fundraising and looking for that on your side too.

Yeah, it's a combination of both. I think it's a combination of do I want to spend the next seven to 10 years of my life with the founder? That's the number one thing that I think about. And then from, from an alignment standpoint is what they're doing something that I want to align myself with whether it's an enterprise company, whether it's a fintech company, what have you, is this a mission and is this something that I want to back and provide my energy to? And it's something that has really helped guide me. It's something I've learned from mentors across the country, but really just finding things that I resonate with and want to continue to back and want to continue to support through the ups and downs. Because this is not an easy journey for founders. It's not just, it's not easy. So is this something that I want to be in through the thick and the thin? And for me that's been something that's, that's really guided my decision making and.

I would agree with that. I think that from a founder perspective I am definitely looking for investors and partners who aligned with the vision not only that I have for the company, but the overall mission of the company as a whole. Oftentimes I think when you're early out of the gate as a startup and you're trying to raise those first dollars, you're just happy that anyone is like believing in your company and will give you money. And so sometimes you can overlook the values of investor that say, two, three, four years down the road when your company is doing great, you're thinking about wow, do I really want this person around or not? And so you want to be able to very early on understand and know that you align with investors that you're bringing on from out the gate because those investors are going to be around as set for a very long time and with you on the journey. And one other thing I think is really important is that now in this day and age, I think even investors are looking to ensure that they are aligned with founders values and missions as well. And I see this because of the type of partners that are being promoted right at these different funds and those who are reaching out and how they reach out and how they've done their research. And so I do feel that it's also changing from investor landscape and they're realizing, hey, if we want these founders in our portfolio, we also have to ensure that we're mission alive from the start.

And to Calvin's point, approaching it from a different angle, you know, from the kind of entrepreneur's perspective, you know, Calvin said, do I want to spend the next seven, 10 years with this entrepreneur? And I think every entrepreneur should be asking, do I want to spend the next seven to 10 years with this investor as a partner in my business. And for me, something that's very important is to align yourself with investors that understand what a mission driven company is. And like Savitra said, is investors that can be behind that too. You know, taking a step back, I always think and I. There's, there's a few different types of companies, you know, to kind of define what is a mission driven company for any entrepreneur out there? I think there's a few types. The first is, you know, a company where a business opportunity exists. The second is a company where there's a business opportunity with an added mission. And you know, Tom's Shoes, for example, is, is one of those types of companies where great opportunity to help improve this world but the very fact that a free shoe is being given away doesn't actually inform how the product or the shoe itself is developed. And then I would say the third type and make sure all investors that, you know, really support what it is you're doing. If you're a mission driven company align with this view. And it's that, you know, a company that is mission driven is one in which the, the kind of product and kind of operations and everything has to do inside the company is evolving because of the very mission you guys have. And making sure from day one, any investors on board with the mission and kind of seize companies in that way is very important for sure.

I'm curious, you know, when you guys are building your business, do you feel like you do anything differently or you have you make any different decisions then maybe if I were doing like another work, software company for other startups or something, do you have to make any choices that are proving that out there in building the business as opposed to just sort of at that abstract level? I'm curious, Savitra, when you're meeting with nonprofits or something, is there a different approach you have to take than perhaps if you were a non mission driven company. Because I think for entrepreneurs who might be in our audience, they might be wondering, is there a way to be more intentional here? Is there a way to infuse some of that into what they're doing too?

Absolutely. It's interesting because resilient is a two sided market. Yes, we work with nonprofit organizations, but we also have charities like Oxfam America, we have corporations like Goldman Sachs and Citi. And so we see such a wide spectrum of clientele and customers on our platform that we're working with. And so for us, because we're seeking to democratize philanthropy and we're essentially trying to undo who generally has had and held all the decision making power and in the philanthropic space to make it more equitable. And so our mission is so aligned when it comes to how do we bring these corporations, these organizations, individuals to the table and make them bite into what we're doing. Right. So this more equitable world that we're seeking to create, where that is organizations led by people of color, led by women, who have generally not been at the table in an equitable way. And for them to say, yes, we're actually going to change the way we're doing things. Right. In order to accomplish this. 2020 actually helped us move that mission farther, faster, but it's still a very antiquated way of doing things. And philanthropy has very much so been known for moving very slow and in many ways hoarding wealth. Right. And so we're trying to really undo that. So our mission and the values that we bring to the table, we bring those to the table every single day. And it's interwoven into the makeup of our company.

How do y' all think about, you know, this is to the entrepreneurs, how do you all think about decision making? I mean, you're growing, you know, businesses that are mission driven, you know, driving value for all types of stakeholders. But how do you all think about decision making? Some of the small decisions that you make and some of the major decisions that you make that may unlock a completely different market, you know, for the.

Company, I think just taking a very mission driven approach to decision making and really, you know, being intellectually honest about whatever decision is in front of you. Is this driving value to customers and stakeholders you're serving and is it furthering your mission? I think many times you'll find the answer is no, it doesn't. And in fact, like being very mission driven with your decision making is very effective because it helps you make decisions faster.

Danielle, does that mean saying no to opportunities, though that might seem lucrative or like an easy, easy thing to do, but it just doesn't fit that criteria?

Totally. Yeah.

And from a challenge like going forward, I mean, we've hit 2021. It's the middle of 2021. You know, what do you all see as kind of the challenges moving forward with the mission, with growing those businesses? Know both of you have raised, you know, quite a bit of money, but what do you all see as the challenges moving forward?

Calvin said something earlier that just really sticks with me to answer that question, and that's execution. Right. So I am constantly telling all of my team members and my department and my managers, you know, we have the plan, like, we have it right? We have that thing that's going to help us take it to the next level and scale, scale. It's all about execution and what we do with what we know and how we begin to ensure that this message is filtered throughout the company. Right. And so for us, this year, we began to hire our first sales team. And so now the weight of revenue doesn't solely rest on me and my VP of revenue. Ash came in and he's been killing it across the company. And really just not only mission aligned because sometimes when you bring in sales side of things, you know, you have some conflicting things that can happen with product and other departments. But at this point in the company, we're really gelling. And so it's like, how can we continue to do that and grow and scale and do the things that are mission driven, but also do the things that help scale the company? Right. Because that's what we are here to do. We're here to grow a SaaS tech company at scale. And so a lot of things that we think about really lie in the foundation of can we execute. Right. And how we do that.

Yeah. And even on the topic of execution, taking it down one step, I think something that is always embedded in very successful execution is prioritization. And so, Kelvin, to your question of what are some of the challenges? I think whether we're in this kind of operating environment or not, a challenge with execution always is prioritization, something we spend a great deal of time on thinking. And, you know, for us specifically, helping customers and achieving our mission, there's a number of ways we could be doing that and there's a number of ways that are extremely, like, worthy of pursuing our efforts towards. And so we, you know, think focus is important, we think prioritization is important, and ultimately we look at that and we say, well, that is the best way possible we could ever achieve our mission and execute because making sure we're prioritizing the right things helps us do them faster. And so in theory, we could be doing much more at the end of the day, once we've put one foot in front of the other in the right way and taken the right steps. And so I think that's like an accelerant to achieving your mission in many ways. And so challenges tactically for us, like, do we spend more time on product and these features or more of the thought leadership that we could be doing in this kind of world, all of them have their own merits, but it's an exercise in prioritization.

How do you all think about culture? Culture with how you're hiring as you're starting to scale and starting to grow, and then the culture that you have also internally being mission driven. Could you all kind of touch on that briefly before I kick it back over to my friend Alex, I'll step in.

I'll address one area specifically around how we're hiring. As we're scaling so quickly right now, very important that we hire everyone, you know, not only on the basis of merit, but also can they align with the mission, can they get excited about it? And do we think they're going to contribute to the mission in a very unique way? We have a whole entire kind of interview panel and many of the interview slots are dedicated to fleshing out. Is someone values driven? Are they mission driven? And, you know, aside from any type of skill they would need to bring to the company for the role they're interviewing, it's really understanding, you know, kind of their values and whether or not they're a good cultural fit for the specific mission we're pursuing. So, yeah, we put a great deal of thought into that.

And likewise at Resilia, Culture is really the foundation of the company and building Resilia with individuals who are passionate about the work that they do every day and, and come in with this idea that, yeah, we can actually change the world with our product. Like literally, we can change the world. And for us, we just ended a three series DNI workshop on social justice with the amazing Chanel Matthews. We have all of these workshops and bringing people in from various backgrounds and ensuring that everyone's voice is heard and echoed throughout the company, even if they don't physically want to say a word. And we have just experienced experience, such great feedback and overwhelming response from our team because we're always thinking about how we build the most inclusive culture that we can with our team members at the center of our work. So we are huge on culture and constantly thinking about it and constantly putting people in place to ensure that we continue to grow. Because sometimes as you grow, it can be hard to keep that culture that you had imagined when you first started your company in place.

Can I just say it is unfair that Kelvin is a starting player in the NFL, long career, community organizer, investor, and he's now a better interviewer than me. I wish he would have given me one thing, you know, but that said, I am curious, you know, seeing Kelvin and talking to you guys, I am curious if Kelvin, is this something you ask potential investments, you know, about their culture and about their mission. And if you were, you know, let's say you were meeting, you know, Savitra and Danielle for the first time, trying to understand their businesses, what would be the top question you would ask them about how they operate as an entrepreneur? Because I think it might be really interesting for our audience to kind of see what matters to someone like you.

You know, for me, the first thing is I have to get to know you. And it's been cool getting to know Savitra over the years. It's about getting to know you and getting to know the founder, getting to hear their story, because in asking questions, and I ask very poignant questions because I want to get to know about their, about where they came from, the struggles that they had, the successes, the failures. And these are the types of questions that I ask in an everyday fashion because it helps me at least be able to relate and empathize on a personal level. I've never been a founder. I'm a football player. I love playing football. I haven't been in that seat. So I need to understand their journey and what they've been through before. I can make a decision on whether this is something that I need to spend time with. But for me, that is the most important thing is really taking the time to spend time and hear the story of the entrepreneur. Because every single entrepreneur, founder and CEO has a different way in which they get it done. A different way in which they believe culture should be interwoven throughout, you know, throughout their, you know, throughout their company. I've had founders that, you know, they, they have a selective shoe that they use every time a, an employee gets to a year in the company. You have parties for certain companies, you have fireside chats where they bring in different high end speakers. So it's different things that different entrepreneurs and founders use to motivate and bring that inclusive culture together internally. And I just like to know about it. I'm inquisitive, I'm an avid learner. So these types of questions are things that I want to find out about.

That's awesome. Well, Savitra and Danielle, you've both had success fundraising for entrepreneurs who are in our audience. Maybe starting with Savitra, what has been the sort of single most important thing to really break through and find that success? Fundraising. And what advice would you give from your journey there so far?

To be honest, as a black founder, Traction. It has been the defining point between the difficulty of raising our seed round and the ease of raising a series A and investors who reach out every single day, interested to know if we're going to raise more capital. But outside of that relationships and network, I think that being in the south, when I first went out to raise capital, New Orleans is in a big tech ecosystem. And so I had to leave New Orleans to go try to find capital and bring it back. And I realized very early on how difficult it was because I had not built those relationships early enough and no one knew who I was. I wasn't a popular founder. And people may say, well, you're kind of popular now. You know, you've been in Forbes and Cloud 100 and these other places. But when I first started out, I no one knew who I was and I had to build those relationships and network. And so I, when I went out to raise capital, I had to really lean on the traction of the company and saying, you know, look what we have already done and this is where we're going. We need you along for the ride. And I used a lot of what my past performance of building a previous company, although tech and business were profitable companies. Yeah, you build a profitable company, great for you, but really showing the drive of how we're going to scale this tech company and how we're going to grow and bring resilience to the forefront of tech for good. So, yeah, it definitely has been experience raising capital, but I would keep those things in mind.

I mean, as a company that was largely revenue financed for some time before going and raising a lot of capital, I will absolutely agree that traction is a very powerful kind of card in hand to have when you're going and raising and attraction for companies can mean a lot of different things. Generally I think it means customer count and revenue. But for very early stage companies, you could think about traction in terms of things you've learned, you know, things that have worked, things that haven't worked. And knowledge generally, that's been amassed, you know, in the early part of your journey here. So I encourage everyone, you know, traction is very important, but there's a lot of different types of traction you could have, and it's really how you think about it and how you value that and communicate and share that with investors. It's important. And then the other thing, I would say that's really important, there's this, you know, there's this idea that what you aim at determines what you see. And I think, you know, in. In many ways, when you think really big and you, you know, kind of come to the table with a very ambitious picture of what a business could become, you know, I think you see things very differently, and investors definitely, you know, kind of can catch on to that, and they're very excited by someone who's able to see things in a very big way. And I would encourage anyone, you know, to think very big about, you know, how they're spending time and the business opportunity in front of them when they're engaging with investors to raise a lot of capital.

Now we're almost out of time, and this has been so fun for the founders. I have a question, which is, do you have a question for each other? Because you both have been successful fundraising, you do have traction, you do have a mission that I think we all understand now. And yet Kelvin and I are not entrepreneurs, and so we will never quite know what it feels like to be doing that. So what is on each of your minds as a way to end this? What would you ask each other if Kelvin and I weren't here?

I mean, I have something, because I think it's always great learning from other entrepreneurs and kind of exchanging notes. But to you, speech. I'd ask you what's maybe one thing you wish you had known kind of before starting out and creating your company.

So I think it kind of goes back to the idea of relationships. I think one thing that we see now is that investors like, oh, you can build from anywhere. You don't have to build from Silicon Valley. And so much of the universe was trying to pushed me to Silicon Valley. And I stayed pretty diligent, staying where I was. But had I known a little bit about the ecosystem itself, I would have done things a little bit differently as it relates to when I started raising capital, how I structured my company, right? So structuring my company, I just went out and I started an LLC and converted it to Delaware Corporation upon raising my first capital. So there's so Much I did not know right early on as a tech founder that I learned along the way. And so the power of finding, you know, finding your tribe where you are and the importance of understanding and putting mentors and advisors around you very early in the process would be critical. And I would do that a lot faster than what I did when I first started my company. And the question that I would ask you would be, what are you looking for? Forward to, like, what next are you looking forward to?

Many things, I would say. One of the things that I'm most looking forward to is seeing very different leadership capabilities being stretched and developed even in my own self. You know, I think looking back on the past set of experiences and the journey behind me has obviously shown that there's a lot of different requirements needed and a lot of adaptations you need to make as a leader. I didn't necessarily know any of those required when I was starting out. And so where I am right now, I think there's a lot about the leader I'll become that, you know, I don't know right now. And I'm excited to see that and continually push and, you know, kind of challenge myself to succeed in that area.

Any final advice or words of encouragement for our entrepreneurs? Calvin?

Keep doing what you're doing. Love what both of you all are doing. Excited to see you all continue to grow.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, you know, we're honored to have you all as part of the Cloud 100 community. Thank you so much for the insights, and we can't wait to see what you all do moving forward.