💰 Get Funded! Founder Interviews by Serac Ventures w/ Rumaiza Ali, CEO at Wedy 🚀 08-30-2024

All right, we are now live. I'm live on X, I'm live on YouTube, I'm live on Facebook, live on Instagram, and LinkedIn for some reason giving me trouble today. But that is okay, we'll figure out a way to get it working on the back end. But nonetheless, we're going to continue to move forward. Hello everyone, thank you for joining us for another week of our Get Funded Office Hours series. Every Friday we interview promising early-stage founders, and today I'm super excited to be interviewing Rumeiza, who is the founder CEO of Wedi. For those that do not know me, my name is Darrel Frater. I am senior associate at Serac Ventures. We're a seed-stage venture capital firm in Oklahoma investing across the country. We write checks anywhere between $250K and $750K in early-stage seed and pre-seed founders, and we're super excited to continue to work with really great founders. Without further ado, I'd love to jump right into our interview. Rameza, how are you today? Would love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you're doing with Wetti.

Absolutely. Hey, Darrel, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. This is going to be a fun session. I'm Rameza. I'm the founder and CEO of Wetti based in New York, and my background is in architecture. We'll get to that in a minute, but I'll tell you a little bit about Wetti. So Weddy is a booking engine that aggregates unstructured wedding industry data and allows high-ticket businesses like wedding venues, photographers, and caterers to be bundled into an all-inclusive package with one contract and a transparent price tag. So that's what we do. And Weddy is backed by Techstars, and we were most recently featured on Shark Tank. So I'm sure we'll dump in, jump into all that good stuff on the session.

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. When I met you a few months ago, I think it was initially when you were interviewing for Techstars, as well as just following up with the work that you're doing and everything you're posting on social media, I decided to catch up with you and learn more about what you're building with Wedi. And I've been just super impressed with everything you've accomplished. We'd love to dive deeper into some of the details of how Wedi works. What does, you know, the process of using Wedi look like and how are your customers currently using it?

Yeah, of course. So let's take a backtrack. I want to kind of tell you a little bit about what happens when someone wants to get married today. It's a very fragmented and archaic process. So to get us started, the average wedding in the US is $33,000. And with that, full-service wedding planners charge anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000. So that's really the biggest pain point here. And when couples are trying to book wedding services, you need venues and photographers and caterers who are unrelated. So you're filling a contact form and waiting several days to hear back, and there is no system of record and transparency or a calendar for booking these vendors directly. So that really is a frustrating process when it comes to really just sourcing and getting proposals and quotes from vendors. But what really ends up happening is due to the lack of price transparency, Over 74% of American couples go into high-interest credit card debt paying for their weddings. And that really for us was our biggest, like, core mission to get started. And on Weddy, how we're simplifying that is it's a very transparent and streamlined process where couples are able to, A, source these vendors based on their location, their style, and their budget. And we eliminate the need for manual invoicing for every single service category. So based on the requirements of the client, Are able to book an all-inclusive package where it includes all the services you need, and you can apply to any venue of your choice. So the cool thing one of our clients told me most recently was we had a $25,000 budget, and what he showed me if I could get married in Tahoe or Santa Barbara, because the biggest pain point in the wedding business again is you don't know how far your money can get you because of the lack of price transparency. So we're the only company out there in this category where couples are not only able to have a transparent and experience, but also book those services and choose who they want to work with.

That's super exciting. I got married about 2 years ago, and I wish I knew about Weddy back then when I got married, because it definitely was not an easy process getting everything together. And really having a place where you can do it all in one and have that price transparency like you spoke about would have been amazing. So I hope new couples out there, if you are thinking about getting married, definitely go to Weddy first. So that way you can have a streamlined process. I'd love to hear, you know, any information on like how much are people like spending on weddings before using Weddy, then what are you helping them get to in terms of average money, you know, being spent on weddings on the platform per se?

Yeah, absolutely. So our couples are saving on average about $8,000 to $10,000 just by being able to, because on the flip side, we are a SaaS product for business owners and we are able to leverage and get pre-negotiated deals. So from a client perspective, time and convenience is obviously the biggest seller, but they're also not having to go to every single vendor, and we're able to produce volume. So that $3,000 photographer, they're able to get it for $2,500, and the sum of whole is more convenient than its parts. So from a cost-saving perspective, that's the figure that they're able to save. And also Most mid-market couples are not hiring a full-service planner. So that's really where, from a value-add perspective, we're able to kind of give them that opportunity and accessibility. And I think that's the key word here, because far too often couples have felt that these photos that you're seeing on Instagram and Pinterest are really stunning, but it doesn't feel accessible. And it's a very Yeah, it's not a fun process when you go door to door and figure out how much these things cost, and weddings are really expensive.

100%. I'm glad that you're making that process easier, and saving anywhere between $8,000 and $10,000 is significant for most families. So that's super exciting, and congratulations on being able to help with doing that. We'd love to hear, you know, when did you guys launch, and so far, how many, you know, weddings have you helped in the process so far?

Yeah. So we launched 3 years ago, and what was really interesting about that time was we were in the post-COVID shift, and things were really different. Darrel, if I told you that, hey, we wanted to try Wedi pre-COVID, people thought I was crazy for wanting to put prices out there. So really the trend, why the trend is on our back is because they were, people got comfortable buying high-ticket purchases online. We were seeing, you know, websites like Carvana where you could buy a car online. You could go on Tesla and book a $100,000 car. So that was really where we started seeing things take off, and people did not wanna physically go on multiple venue tours or tell their love story on a website contact form to 30 different photographers. So with that being said, the biggest shift in our business happened when we launched as an à la carte marketplace, kind of like Airbnb for weddings, where you go in, book that photographer, and you're done. But we constantly saw a pattern where couples were trying to add multiple services to their cart. So that's a key KPI that we internally focus on more so not the one-time customer, but the number of services booked per client. So just in the past 12 months alone, we've had over 1,600 services booked on our platform and we've made over $1.7 million in gross revenue.

Wow, that's incredible. And you're doing a fantastic job being able to not just be a resource for the people that are planning weddings, but also for the service providers that are in your network and actually build their business on top of Wedi. Could you tell us a little bit about the service provider side? Why are people coming to you to be able to host their services on your platform? What's the benefit that they get?

Yeah, I'm sure most people have actually seen this where, again, post-COVID world, we're seeing nearly 1 in 5 adults either in the process of founding a business or maybe have done so in the past 3 and a half years. We're all headed towards seeing a world where There are more and more entrepreneurs out there. And in that segment, you know, Weddies specifically caters to creative entrepreneurs in the events category. These folks historically have only had a pay-to-play listing directory where if you ever wanted your business to be published on any of these sites that are incumbent competitors to us, you pay $500, you're on page 2, $1,000 gets you to page 1. But really with that, there's a barrier of entry. So for 2 reasons, we were like, we started paying real close attention to the gig economy model. And we've seen this play out incredibly well with Airbnb, Uber, and the likes. So we kind of wanted to be intentional about keeping it a low barrier of entry for vendors to list their business for free, and they only get charged a service fee when a booking is confirmed. And that really started to take off for 2 reasons where they're able to get visibility and be— when a photographer gets booked and they're like, hey, I just booked a $4,000 gig on Weddy, Like, what's going on? I just paid $400 for my subscription or my advertising, and you just went somewhere and earned. So that really was where we started to notice the vendor flywheel take off, where they are— the vendors are itself their own vendor network effect, because the same photographer works with the officiant and the caterer and the DJ pretty much every weekend. So we started seeing these patterns of trios kind of talking about each other through word of mouth. And that really was helping us build a network effect in terms of the supply side. And yeah, they've just been really excited where today we— WOTI contributes to about 20% of our top sellers' annual income, and we're continuing to optimize on that. So that's something we're truly passionate about is helping these small business owners earn a meaningful income doing what they absolutely love.

That's incredible. And being 20% of someone's income is a significant portion and dependency on you guys and what you guys are bringing to their business and their livelihood. So that's super impressive. Congratulations. That actually like changes lives. So I'm super impressed with that aspect of your business. Um, you know, really giving people an opportunity to do better in business and to continue to grow their entrepreneurial journey on that business side. That's super impressive. Uh, we'd love to dive deeper into just kind of, uh, where you've been so far, uh, building the company. Um, as an early stage founder, there's always, you know, ups and downs within your business. One of the things that you've done that's super impressive that I loved is Yeah. And I was watching your episode on Shark Tank. I would have to say that was the most engaging episode on Shark Tank that I've ever seen, and you made it very unique and an amazing experience. We'd love to hear a little bit about that Shark Tank experience. What are some of the things that people don't see behind the scenes or, you know, know about that entire experience of getting on the show as well as executing and then even post-show? How has that been an impact within your business?

Absolutely. Well, it was an incredible experience, and the casting producer reached out to us. It's actually on our website where I thought it was a scam, so I disregarded it. And then she continued to reach out to us through social media and we're like, okay, this is real. So with that, the fun component here is for whatever reason, Kevin O'Leary is ordained in the state of California. So the immediate thought was, well, why not do a wedding on the show? But here's where the catch really started to play out. The producers, not us, we did not want models to get married. So we were like, it has to be a real couple. So think about that exercise behind the scenes where you're calling up couples and telling them, do you want to get married on national TV? And the answer is no. But what was really fun about that is we finally found Hannah and John, an incredible couple. They met on the sets of a TV show themselves. So it was a full circle moment where they're like, absolutely, yes, we will get married on TV. So that really led to us doing the world's first wedding on Shark Tank. And the response from that experience was so incredible. We got so much street cred, not just from couples, but over 2,800 vendors requesting to join our platform. Weddi actually launched in the West Coast, but given the bump with the Shark Tank traffic, we got so much demand in Chicago, New York, Orlando, Um, with requests for our expansion. Um, yeah, it's just been a phenomenal experience and we're continuing to hone in on that, um, post that since it's only been a few months.

That's incredible. If you're listening and you haven't seen that episode of Shark Tank, please go watch it. It is season 15, episode 20, and you won't be disappointed. Super engaging, super unique. And even just that thought process of knowing, okay, Kevin is ordained, let's try to get a real wedding. That was just so creative on you and the team. So kudos to you guys for just being so innovative and really taking advantage of this great exposure you got from the show. I feel like sometimes founders go into this and they kind of miss their opportunity because they didn't do the front work to really prepare and make this a full—

Yeah, I feel like if I may add some color to that, it is you may get some opportunities like this from time to time, especially in early stage. Getting that PR hit is everything for your company. So I'm like, we got to milk this cow and how. So just from the logo placement to the brand positioning, we were very strategic on even the card that Kevin was holding. I'm like, there needs to be brand placement literally everywhere.

No, that was awesome and well executed. If you could go back in time, was there any elements of things that you wish you did differently within that level of exposure or the opportunity?

I think overall we prepared ourselves really well from a product standpoint. I think we continued, we kind of knew going in some feedback that we would get from the vendor community. One of it being we launched as a mobile app and our suppliers have constantly asked us for a desktop product. So that just opened a floodgate into, I really need this. So it was good validation, but we're also now we're like, okay, time crunch. We got to release that ASAP because people are really wanting to use it. So I guess that's the, that's a good problem to have, but also really puts a fire on your back to get it across the finish line.

Yeah, listening to your customers and having that validation is super important. So I'm glad that you have that ability to, you know, capture that information from your customer, but then be able to execute on it. Were you able to move forward with launching that web platform, or where are you with that part of the business?

So we did launch our web platform for couples, and right now we're in the— we are building our web platform for vendors. And we most recently, we actually hired our senior UX designer. He was formerly working at Tesla and Evernote. So we're really excited to, you know, build an incredible team while doing so.

Awesome. Fantastic. Love the growth and growing up the team. Congratulations. I would love to hear, you know, Weddy has been doing a really great job with Serving your customers and your vendors. How do you guys make money?

Yeah, so we make money on the transactions, and from an all-inclusive package standpoint, we make a 24% service fee. So classic transactional marketplace. And with that, I mean, we're giving away those tools for free to our wedding business owners, but we charge that 3% service fee on the supply side when a booking is confirmed.

Wonderful. And then in regards to the future, you know, WeddingToday, You're seeing it as a platform that's helping people, you know, connect with vendors and really plan their wedding. If all goes well, what is the big long-term vision of your platform and how do you see success in 5, 10, 20 years from now?

That's actually my favorite question. So 2 things is Weddy is not your typical one-time wedding company. Most times when I talk to investors, they're like, well, it's a wedding industry, you know, wedding company, and they tend to look away because of the one-time nature of these transactions. And with that, we recognize the low frequency of our business from the couple's perspective. And in consumer economics, we're capturing about $25,000 to $30,000 per client, which is rare for startups. And on the flip side, if anyone's excited by a $1,000 per month SaaS SMB subscription model with a 3-year retention rate, just imagine this, that we're able to capture that value with a single client. But really what we're doing on the backend is on the supply side, we're mining all of this unstructured data and making it useful, really building a distribution layer for the wedding industry, because all of these venues who charge $15,000, $20,000 are still using PDFs and Google Spreadsheets to really price out their product and services. So our long-term goal is actually to continue to hone in on that. And as we continue to grow, we will become the Airbnb Experiences for weddings and eventually expanding into other life celebrations such as honeymoon home and baby And beyond. And one thing that has always been with my DNA is I've operated globally. I've done weddings in Bali, in Thailand, in Palm Springs. So I'm really, really excited for our midterm goal, which is international expansion. I'm really excited about just building experiences for couples. If you want to get married in the Amalfi Coast, we're going to make that happen. But truly, the unlocking layer is I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, Well, we're getting into holiday season. Everyone's gonna be throwing holiday parties. And if you think about how that works, you need a catering company, you need a DJ, and you need, you know, an event space. So we're really able to package that model and sell it across different verticals too. So that's something I'm truly excited about as we continue to grow.

That's awesome. I love it. The expansion in both international and also other segments of the market, which will continue to grow your TAM and your ability to serve many different types of people, organizations, etcetera. I think one thing that you highlighted is the notion that, hey, many investors or people that are looking at the platform will say, oh, it's a one-time event. There can't be a strong business there. But when you look at the actual vendor side, that's a sustainable business where these vendors are going to continue to work with you and do business on that side. So looking at that perspective, like you said, you're a SaaS product for them. Although for the wedding You know, people plan their weddings, they see it as a one-time thing. But there's a good business on the event side.

What's amazing on the supply side is we're building a recurring revenue relationship with our venue and vendor partners. And guaranteed, these guys are booking 95 to 120 events per year. So they're filling up every Saturday between now and next year. So that's really what I'm truly excited about because there's so much repeatability there that's untapped and there's a huge potential to grow there.

Yeah. And one thing you probably get a lot when speaking to investors or other people in the space is like, how do you compare to like the other platforms like The Knot or WeddingWire and all those other platforms? What are your answers to that of how do you differ and kind of provide that unique value proposition to your customers?

Yeah, that's a great question. And when someone asks me that, I will first ask them back, did you know that The Knot got acquired by WeddingWire? And the answer is no. So let's talk about, you know, obviously you haven't spent time on their sites. So I really walk them through what the user experience is on those sites. So simply put, they are a Yellow Page style listing directory with an advertising business model. So when you have an advertising business model, they tend to intentionally hide true price transparency on their sites. There may be starting price ranges, but it's very vague where there are dollar symbols with affordable and moderate, which is very subjective. What is affordable to, you know, a client earning $80,000 is very different from someone who's making $400,000. So that's really where there's asymmetric information. In the market, where on the flip side, these couples are reaching out to those you know twenty thirty service providers. Think about those vendors; they waste over 1,800 hours per year on low intent leads. So that's really where the problem is on both segments of the market. And we have the differentiated approach where wedding allows the couples to view the detailed vendor packages with clear cost breakdowns, itemized services. It includes sales tax and service fees, which are truly the hidden cost in the wedding business. If you look at most invoices. of like someone's wedding bills, like they have over $5,000 to $6,000 in just hidden costs that they technically did not factor for. And that's really where most folks end up going into debt. But that is our differentiated value where we don't have a pay-to-play model. We have a transactional model. So you'd be able to book your entire wedding just as you would book a trip to Paris.

That's wonderful. I think the incentives are more properly aligned than the other platforms. And I think when you have the right incentives, then the outcomes are going to be aligned. aligned for success for you and your customers and everyone within the ecosystem of the weddings that you're servicing. So I think that's a super smart approach that's gonna really yield you dividends in the long term, just having that aligned incentives for where everyone wins.

The other thing I will probably say if I'm talking to an investor is, well, not, I mean, it's very hard. It's like, did you go to a wedding? Sure you did. I can bet, I can tell you that it's probably not the wedding you went to because we specifically serve the mid-market. So that's the other part where we're hyper-focused on who we sell to, and we don't want to deviate from that because this is 76% of the American mid-market that is truly the ones who don't have solutions. And the one end of it is a courthouse wedding, and the other end is luxury. So that's really where we're focused on.

Wonderful. I love it. We have a lot of founders that listen to this as well as a lot of investors. We'd love to hear about your history of fundraising and kind of how you've been capitalizing the business. You know, how did you get started? Did you bootstrap? Did you raise, you know, accelerator money? Did you raise pre-seed capital? Where are you in terms of your fundraising history? And talk to us a little bit about what we can expect in the future.

Yeah. So everything with our growth has been on $285,000 bootstrapped friends and family round. And with that, we built our mobile app, web app, acquired over 1,400 vendors, and just simply started selling. And we built a very lean and capital-efficient business. Another thing is when I talk to folks, we're like, okay, $285K product, there's some traction. Is it just you and your co-founder? Well, no, we're a team of 10. And that's really what I mean by we built a self-sustaining business. And with that growth, we were able to get into Techstars. So Techstars was most recent this past summer. So we got $120K from them. So that brings our total funding history to $405K. So that is as far as our current funding history. And as far as growth plans, we are gearing up for our seed raise. So we're right in the intersection of like really excited folks. I'd love to surround myself with marketplace veterans who have been there, done that. So I'm really excited for that.

That's awesome. Well, investors, you heard her. If you are interested in learning more about Wedding Definitely reach out and try to learn more about that upcoming round, and you don't want to miss out. Um, in terms of, uh, things that you've learned so far in your journey as a founder, you know, what are some things that you wish you knew when you were first getting started as a founder that you know now? And just share some helpful advice to other founders that are currently on the journey.

I think if someone's been through Techstars, they probably heard this a million times, but don't boil the ocean. It's really my biggest takeaway just from, you know, being in Techstars the last 3 months. It has been extremely helpful because the art of prioritization is literally everything, especially in early stage where speed is everything for you to continue to grow at an accelerated rate. You are definitely enticed to experiment in 5 different paths, but it's good to obviously run those experiments, but really hone in on the ones that are working. Pay attention to those KPIs. And I think if you don't measure, how would you know which avenues are working? So that's something we started doing internally now, which is we started measuring everything to truly understand what experiments are working, what's not really serving our purpose, and really saying no to those opportunistic revenue opportunities. Because that happens between, you know, when you start getting that early momentum where there's a, you know, random experience somewhere that looks very exciting, but it's one time, it's opportunistic, it's not scalable. So, well, it's great to say yes. It's also not going to pay forward for your growth plans tomorrow. So just really being aligned to your go-to-market roadmap is where I am today, which I probably wasn't a few months ago.

That's wonderful. You know, staying focused on the right things is very important. It seems like you have the right mindset on what you should be focused on at this stage of your business. So super excited for you and Weddy and your team. You guys are doing a tremendous job, and I'm super excited to be able to watch and continue to watch your journey as you guys continue to grow and progress. Is there anything that you'd like to say to the audience as we close out here? Who should get in touch with you? What's the best way for us to stay in touch and continue to watch your journey?

Yeah, again, thank you so much for having me. This was great. Feel free to get in touch with me on LinkedIn or my email, which is ramez@wettyapp.com. Would love to connect with marketplace investors and product founders alike. I love, you know, collaborating with service marketplace founders since you are solving on both sides and constantly thinking about supply acquisitions. So it's really a lot of fun to brainstorm with fellow founders on that. So if anyone's building a service marketplace, would love to connect. Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, Rameza. It was really great having you. And we're going to transition over to our Twitter office hours in about 30 minutes. So if you want to join us over there, we have 2 amazing investors in our network, CJ, who is the Director of Selection at 43North, as well as Steve Bernard, who is the Investment Associate at Techstars Boston. So if you want to join us over there on Twitter, please do so. And thank you all for joining us for another week of our Get Funded Office Hours founder interview, and we'll see you over on Twitter Spaces. Talk to you all soon.

Have a good one.

See ya.