FI Alumni Panel: Building Beyond Covid with the Founders of Leasecake & Endiatx

All right, hello everybody. Uh, thank you for those who are joining us or who may be watching us now live on Facebook. My name is Dustin Betz. I am the Founder Institute content editor of the Founder Insights blog and newsletter. Uh, I see we do have a couple people joining us live in the participants. Please let us know where you're where you're tuning in from. We often get people coming in from all around the world and like to kind of know where our viewers are tuning in from. So feel free to introduce yourself in the chat. And as you also start to have any questions once we get started, you can put those in the chat too. We have somebody, a producer, my colleague Virginia, who is on live and monitoring the chat. So any questions that you drop in there will be relayed on to our panelists. Just really quickly, Founder Institute, we're the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator. We're currently enrolling now in 65 cities around the world. If you're interested in learning more about the Founder Institute, you can see a list of enrolling cities at fi.co/enrolling. But without further ado, I want to introduce my two panelists for today. First, we have, have Taj Aadhav. He's the co-founder and CEO of Leasecake. Leasecake is a lease and location management made easy for commercial tenants, brokers, and landlords in a mobile-first application. Where business owners today more than ever need a grasp of their real estate portfolio, it's a single source for truth for team collaboration in the new economy. And my second panelist that we're pleased to have today is Torrey Smith. He is the co-founder and CEO of Endyotix. Endyotix is a biomedical device startup developing a remote-controlled pillbot that patients will swallow instead of opting for a more invasive endoscopic or surgical procedure. So it will first be used for diagnostic in the GI tract, but the medical device will eventually allow for direct treatment as well, sedation-free. So Tori and Taj, thank you both for joining me today.

Oh, so glad to be here. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks so much, Dustin. Appreciate it. This is gonna be a great event. We're looking forward to it.

Awesome. So these experienced entrepreneurs are here to help us answer the question of what does it mean to build beyond COVID as we kind of build a new future, build a new economy. You know, they're going to help us consider this question as it pertains to their own companies, but also for the future of their respective industries and for the world at large. And they're, of course, also here to answer your questions. So as I say, if you're attending live here, please feel free to drop your questions in the chat and we will get to them. So without kind of further ado, just to kick it off, I sort of introduced you very briefly at the top, but Taj, we'll have you go first if you want to give, you know, a brief introduction for LeaseCake, your short elevator pitch. But then the question I want to ask you is, from your perspective, what is the biggest change your industry is facing right now?

Ah, no, so that's a great question. I mean, obviously the entire world has been disrupted, right? I mean, companies and industries have always been afraid of disruption, but COVID-19 has done a great job of changing everyone's lives across the world. And I think, you know, beyond the obvious, I mean, it's a massive health crisis, a big economic crisis. That's what everyone is certainly focused on, health and safety. But for businesses today, we're a commercial lease and location management solution for anyone that owns or leases real estate. And all of those organizations, companies of all types and shapes and sizes are focused on, you know, what is the timeline to reopen? How do I train my staff and my employees of all different mixes? And the key is, how do I bring revenue back, right? How do we kind of restart the business in whatever the timeframe is? So, you know, obviously it's moving the needle forward, but end of the day, you know, we are experiencing probably one of the most significant growth cycles in our history. And I think it's all because everyone owns or leases real estate in their business. And I think the risk of real estate and kind of the impacts of keeping track of dates and moving into a true new cloud type of environment transforming work is really what companies are looking to do. So what's good about where the industry is, I think they're recognizing that they need new solutions. And I think frankly, the smart ones, the ones that are tech forward, are saying, "Good enough is not good enough. The solutions that we have, the disjointed types of things, we're needing something better." So that's really where we fit in. We're excited about it. We expected there was going to be a bit of a downturn, but, you know, our phones are kind of ringing off the hook. We've got tons of inbound leads. You know, I think it's very promising for entrepreneurs like those that have dialed in. I'm really interested in kind of what Tori's take is on it. You know, he's at the forefront of health and wellness and kind of the future. So Tori, what's your, what's your take?

Well, we went through the 2008 crunch at a previous med device startup, and what we saw then was like 9 out of 10 med device startup companies failed here in the peninsula on the Bay Area. But the companies that failed were the ones that had complacent teams. They were the ones that were going to be fourth to market with a slight iteration on the tech that's out there. The companies that succeeded were the passionate teams that truly felt like families and believed in each other. I would have worked at my company, Atheromed, where we made Roto-Rooters for arteries back in the day. I would have worked with them even if I wasn't getting paid. I mean, my whole identity was that startup. And so Fast forwarding to today, when you're thinking about your own company or your own venture or something you want to start, it really comes down to just how much you believe in it and how much you believe in your team. Because with all the others quitting, um, sometimes they quit before they really have to. And so by simply being persistent right now and choosing to elect to not be the person who quits when it's really hard and really dark, you not only you keep your own thread going, but you buoy yourself up because of everyone else throwing in the towel. So there's a, there's a force multiplier effect to being persistent. And also, as the leader of your company, you know, the person carrying the torch, it's up to you to keep that morale up high and not ever let your team feel the panic or fear, right? If you're feeling it, talk to your fellow entrepreneurs, but don't let that trickle down to your crew. You need to keep them happy. And if you can do that, I think not only can you survive, you can thrive.

Yeah, that's great, because I want to ask sort of about resiliency— is a word that's buzzing and bubbling up a lot here— resiliency networks, team morale that you're speaking to, Tori. I think that's sort of a part of having a resiliency network, but I mean, you know, what basically role has your personal network played for you right now in navigating this crisis? And maybe if there was like one person who you reached out to, maybe you were going through that like mini crisis yourself in your own morale, so maybe it's that or maybe it's something much more tactical, it's just Is it to do with the business itself? But who is somebody who you reached out to maybe early on? And this is a question for each of you. Tori, you can answer first. But somebody that in your— in formulating your own response to how when this was just first coming on, who did you talk to that was maybe their advice really sunk in and maybe why?

Well, he never takes my phone calls, but this is going to sound funny, but honestly, someone I hugely look up to. Is Arnold Schwarzenegger, because Arnold basically has 3 rules the way he's lived his life. One is work your ass off. Two is advertise. And three is give back. All right. So one, you need to make sure your tech or your company is moving forward one way or another. You need to put in the work yourself. Two, you need to make sure the entire world knows what you're doing. Right. So if you start to like go on LinkedIn or Google or Facebook, for like who's making pill robots to go in the body. There's one company, Endyotics, that we are running our mouths day and night about how excited we are about these tiny robots, you know, even when they weren't so tiny, right? You just, whatever you're doing, you need to make sure everyone knows you're doing it. And then 3, give back. So we're in the middle of a huge crunch Everyone's losing their jobs. It's sort of, it's, it's sort of morose, right? How do I prevent my own team from getting sucked into that? Well, there's three, there's a couple of ways. So I'll just, let's look at the Endyotics interns. I have the most brilliant young people working with us at Endyotics. I scour the Bay Area for the graduates and the champions of like the first robotics program. Any kid like Our latest intern, Will, built a satellite at age 17 for his high school, and that's going into space later this summer. So we have amazing young people, but how do I keep the morale up? Well, we were going to pay them $45 an hour, which we thought was good for a teenager. And with COVID it's like, okay, hold on, let's be careful here. Let's not blow all our money. So I made a deal with my interns. What if we drop you down to $30 an hour, which is still not bad for, for, for a young teenager, but we more than double the equity that we're going to give you? So we went to 250% of the original equity offering. So although we take something, we give something back in another way to try to keep people feeling like they haven't been screwed over by this COVID situation. And besides that, we put their names on the patents. I don't call him a software engineering intern, I just call him a software engineer. You try in whatever meaningful ways you can to help people feel that they haven't had their heart broken. And that process is a completely open process on our team. We don't just tell them what we're going to do, we actually walk them through and ask them for feedback. And what I can tell you is the whole Endyotics crew is pumped right now. We feel like a family. And we don't feel like COVID is taking away the fun.

That's awesome. I really love that answer, and it seems like some of those things, you know, in regards to growing that team morale, like that pertains to after COVID is done and beaten as well. I mean, you know, just in the ways that you are engaging those employees. How about you, Taj? You know, speaking to resiliency networks, was there a particular person as COVID was first emerging, somebody you spoke to whose advice seemed particularly sage, and maybe, you know, who was that person and why did that early advice have an impact on you?

Yeah, sure. I can tell you, Tori, the reason Arnold's not calling you is because he doesn't like you, because I just talked to Arnold the other day.

So it's good.

No, I wish I had that kind of connection. But I mean, you know, it's a really good question. And Tori's got a very unique perspective. Ours is a little bit of a different story, kind of the, you know, where we all are as entrepreneurs. I mean, you know, you have to understand that a really great entrepreneur is ultimately a great connector of dots, right? The connector of dots to create your idea for your company, or idea for your product, and ultimately their relationships through through your lives that you should really treasure. Surround yourself by really strong people, people smarter than yourselves, and you'll find that really good things start to happen. So as you kind of roll out, as we looked at the impact that COVID-19 was having on our customer base and really the market in general and who we were speaking to, you know, we looked at what were other companies doing. So be a voracious learner, like just consume as much content of how to react in crises, what are other companies doing, what are the best-in-class responses for these kinds of scenarios? And it really informed our decision about really everything that Tori mentioned, which is, you know, keep the team motivated, communicate with them, make sure that everybody feels safe. But end of the day, you know, bringing those themes together, Every good startup is an APC, right? They're awesome people collectors. And the network of people that you bring together and seek advice from them, those that say, hey, I've been down this road before, what you guys should do is this. And, you know, FI was, you know, was really instrumental in kind of taking all of that, providing incredible content, giving us guidance as to what we should and what we shouldn't do. And it informed our positioning, right? We reached out to every one of our customers. We spoke to the marketplace with empathy and understanding. So it's about giving back, absolutely, providing, you know, new payment terms. But to be a successful entrepreneur, yes, be an APC, an awesome people collector, but you really have to have empathy in this world to connect human to human. You know, the phrase social distancing, I don't like that phrase at all because it's really physical distancing, right? The 6 feet apart, the shelter in place. We are inherently social creatures. And the reason that Zoom has taken off and GoToMeeting and all these things, we are so desperate to connect as people that we should never, never forget that end of the day, we're human. We have insecurities, we have fears, we have great days and bad days. So supporting each other, supporting your customers, and supporting the marketplace in that voice has been really, really helpful. And so seek advice from those that you trust. And that's, you know, that's our take, but it's been really, really, really helpful.

Yeah, quick follow-up question on that, just because I hear kind of some similarities a little bit between your two answers, between basically collecting awesome team members, being an awesome people collector, and like having the empathy to reach out. The kind of follow-up question I want to ask is, do you have any tips on just connecting with people, empathizing with people in general, like this through Zoom? Is there certain ways that you're reaching out? Is it more deliberative in some way? Taj, feel free to answer first, but both of you could speak to that if you have any strategies for connecting remotely.

Oh, no, absolutely. We did this several times. In this, in the commercial real estate space, in the B2B space, when, you know, this whole economic crisis started to tumble and we all got caught up in it, the probably the third week of March, we said, you know what, as a group of business owners across industries, attorneys, CPA firms, lenders, you know, us on the commercial real estate side, we said, hey, you know what, sign up for our webinar. I mean, there's no cost. We didn't charge anyone to sponsor it. Who cares? It's about bringing really smart people together in those industries and allowing others— we had thousands of folks that were listening into our webinars about multiple topics because they all needed help. So use your networks, use your social networks, use your LinkedIn. As Tori said, like, Just be that mouthpiece for everything about what you're doing in your business and how you can help. So we pulled off this webinar within about 48 hours, and we had thousands of people dial in from all different, you know, all different parts of marketplace and got tons of feedback because they just wanted to listen. They just wanted to say, hey, how's everybody else doing? So that worked really well for us.

That's awesome. One thing I've noted is I traditionally couldn't stand video conferencing or online workspace platforms like Slack. And now today, I've pulled a complete 180, right? We are fully engaged. With things like Zoom calls, what really helped me make it personal is getting active in the chat window. So if I'm not speaking on a panel, I'm furiously typing in the chat to try to make it personal so that someone who is attending gets their question answered. I'll throw my LinkedIn address and encourage people to add me. And those little tidbits make the online video experience much more real when you're actually getting several threads of engagement and you don't feel that the panelists are just talking at you. I noticed that really increased the sense of a little community that we build on our video calls. And then with platforms like Slack for the Endiottics team, besides a really useful tool of like throwing in your daily update on our own little daily update channel where you can say like what's working for you, what you're proud of, what's kicking your ass, it's a way for you to sort of not have to bottle up your challenges, but like make them known so people can help you. And then, and then the other thing is just turning our Slack channels into also a little bit of our social channels. You can throw cool pictures and funny, funny tidbits from your day to just draw people in because that becomes the banter that might cross the office otherwise.

Awesome. I love that. I don't know if this is a non sequitur, but I just kind of want to ask it anyway because it seems related to empathy, at least in my mind. May is Mental Health Month. I wonder if anybody has any tips on themselves or their team, any kind of mental health challenges with being in lockdown and just like, how have you dealt with that? And if the answer is like, I really haven't dealt with it, like that's fine. I think everybody's experiencing these challenges, but just yeah, anything on mental health while, you know, locked down as an entrepreneur?

Sure, I'll share a couple of stories. We all desperately need to keep our sanity. This is a whole new world. You know, we've got, we've got a couple of team members that have completely locked themselves down, even though they can safely get out, kind of stroll in the park, be out, you know, away from other people. And it's just like, just be sensitive to what you're experiencing and be, you know, hyper alert to, okay, I think I'm about to snap. and this is where the social connection really needs to take hold— you do have a support system. So before you go off that deep end— and we've had business leaders, you know, on several calls that have been very open in saying that, geez, I don't know what's next. I'm going, wow, you're a partner of a really big law firm and, you know, you're, you know, awake in the middle of the night losing sleep. I said, that's kind of— Very telling, but it's good to share. So a big part of mental health, and trust me, I've had my ups and I've had my downs, but a big part of mental health is talk about it. So there's all sorts of stories. I bike to our bungalow. I'm in our lease cake, LCB lease cake bungalow right now. It's about 10, 15 minutes away from the house and I get out and about. So you just kind of have to, do what you can to mix up your day and not be stuck in that monotony because it can drive you crazy.

Yeah, I agree with that. Part of mental health awareness for me has been finally acknowledging to myself that I actually do struggle with things like depression, and I think in the past I was maybe too macho to admit it to myself. And I realized that that just wasn't going to fly as a, as a founder with people depending on me. So I've, I finally kind of ripped that bandaid off and, and started to acknowledge that, like, I go in cycles of a couple of days down, a couple of days up. And if I'm not acknowledging that, then I'm dragging my whole team through that. Um, it turns out my team is actually really kind and sweet and they want to help me and understand that I'm not perfect. But they can't really help me if I'm in denial myself, right? So I appreciate bringing up the mental, mental, like, health month of May. And then another thing is just where you can possibly interact with another human being, appreciate that. So we're gearing up to swallow our robot, and so we've been learning how to jam borescopes into my mouth and essentially waterboard me while I'm gargling this robot and it's swimming around. It's really weird. And so we had the chairman of our board, you know, wear full PPE and come by and see what was going on. And we also had a little bit of food prepared and we were doing our best to physically distance. But halfway through that, he basically took me aside and he's like, Thank you, I needed this, right? And this is, this is someone that I look up to as like one of the pillars of the community I live in, basically bearing his soul that he himself was really challenged, right? So it's by acknowledging the reality of this and then asking for help from like my senior R&D engineer James over there, you know, we can, we can work together and we can make this happen.

Awesome. I think that's, that's really great advice. I really appreciate you guys opening up about it because this was not in our agenda to kind of talk about mental health, but I think, yeah, this is the month to do it. And if there's ever been a mental health month where more people— this kind of stuff is resonating across with so many, uh, it's probably now. So, uh, yeah, I really appreciate your openness there. One thing before I kind of— we go into what's the latest at your companies, I want to rewind a bit for the benefit of the audience and for those who watch the recording later. You know, you're both alumni of the Founder Institute, and so we want to ask about your FI experience just really briefly and kind of just a snapshot of it. So maybe what was one thing for you, a major thing that changed for you in your startup, or a challenge that you overcame way back when you were actually going through the Founder Institute program yourself? Taj, if you want to go first, yeah, challenge you overcame or just something that changed for you going through the program.

Well, I appreciate that. Let me start with Tory. He's always got some interesting color that he can add.

All right, sure, I'll start off. So the biggest thing was, you know, taking the plunge to join FI was a big deal for us because I literally sat on the idea of tiny pill robots For over 4 years, I had told all my friends all the time that one day I would found a company making tiny robots. And finally, 4 years later, you know, I had done nothing and I was very complacent in my career. And I was entering a pretty gnarly depression realizing like, oh man, you know, like the Arc of Tori is just like on the down here, you know, where is this going? I see a targeted Facebook ad that says practice pitch your idea at the Founder Institute. And I walk into this janky office on El Camino in Palo Alto. And I'm like, oh man, this is, this is depressing. This isn't like, you know, I'm walking into the castle on the hill of Silicon Valley and they're going to anoint me as the next champion. It was more like, listen, son, you're, you're going to be starting from scratch and building your empire brick by brick. On your own. However, we'll tell you which brick to pick up, pick up, and we'll tell you where to, where to place it. And having that guidance to have people walk me through the process of launching Endyotics was huge because I didn't necessarily feel like I was worthy of that at the time. Some of the things that I was asked to do, that I was forced to do were so far out of my wheelhouse and comfort zone. I wasn't even sure people would take me seriously if I called them up and asked them, you know, a GI doctor, an extensive list of questions on a cold call. You know, there were times when I didn't have the self-assuredness to do that. With Founder Institute, none of that is optional. It's like you do your homework or you fail, right? Incorporate or fail. You know, launch your business or fail. Quit your job or you fail was one of my homework assignments that I was pleased with. So while that was all going on, though, if I could say one thing on top of that monologue is you need to build your team and you need to have your tech moving forward in the background while you're launching your company. So when we, when we graduated the Founder Institute, we, we were just on the verge of having PoolBot here. And we entered the funding lab that Founder Institute offers to graduates. And based on this pool toy, which is really not as sophisticated as what you see here, we raised $185,000 in a matter of weeks. And that gave us all the money we needed to get to what you see here, which is now on the verge of live human trials. So I don't know if Founder Institute is right for everyone, but I do know that it was, it was right for a kid who had always dreamed of tiny robots and needed a little bit of guidance in making that a reality.

Thanks, Tori. Yeah, Taj, do you want to speak to a challenge or something you overcame perhaps? During the program? I think we might. I think Taj possibly might have dropped off. We'll see here. Let me expand. Oh, he'll be back. Yeah, don't worry. He'll be back. Well, hey, Taj. Did you get that last question we had sort of asked about just your FI experience in general, maybe something that changed for you while you were going through?

Yeah, absolutely. And hope my audio is good. I apologize for dropping off. Internet's unstable for some reason. Um, yes, so I think, um, first of all, it is definitely probably one of the best experiences you'll ever go through as an entrepreneur. Um, whether you have the confidence that you will crush it or whether you have the insecurity that you will fail, you will gain a tremendous amount. And I think it's a— it's really— it's a reckoning, right? It's a reckoning of humility to say, holy cow, I really thought I had it together. By the end of it, or certainly the middle of it, there's these checkpoints. You know, for us, and I think, you know, Tori alluded to that, it's you've got to have the technology kind of behind the scenes while you as the founder and the leader are going through this to successfully launch the business and take those learnings back to the team. You know, for us it was you know, there was the screening test of what makes you a good Founder Institute candidate. I waited for a year because we were building the technology and the team that allowed me the freedom to fly out from here, Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, every week out to Palo Alto. And it was, you know, it was a huge burden that was lifted off of me because there's no way I could have done it kind of simultaneously, but the team back home was there to support the biz. And how far we moved the needle every week was tremendous. Just kind of saying, okay, look, we've already incorporated, look, we've already kind of have our go-to-market strategy. Yes, it needs to tweak. Yes, we've got a pitch deck. Holy cow, we gotta, we gotta throw that thing out. All of those little parts and pieces really made us stronger. And I think, um, you know, Tori and the rest of our FI family that was in our cohort could probably attest to this. We grew, right? It's not just, oh cool, you launched a cool company. I think we grew as human beings. I think we, we learned a lot about ourselves. We learned a lot about trust, humility, and what it really takes. Um, so thankful for that process and, you know, ultimately you know, having a mic in front of you. Every one of our team members, some were shy, some super confident. It's just a matter— it starts to become this equalizer. The growth that we've seen even a year out from graduating last year, uh, of all of our cohort has been nothing short of astounding.

I, I'd like to follow that with a tiny thing, which is I, I grew so much in the program because when I entered Founder Institute, I was like the classic Silicon Valley thinks he's a hotshot engineer, right? I was so naive, and a lot of people know how engineers can be like really lazy, right? That we think we're so creative that we just create one cool thing and that should carry us for a week. You know, that might work as an employee somewhere, but I felt like when I entered Founder Institute, I immediately like had the wind taken out of me because I realized like, oh crap, you know, this is gonna be so hard. The thing that I appreciated though was Founder Institute was willing to accept me as I was in that moment and help me build myself into who I needed to become week by week. It was like you get this basic honor and respect for just having a dream and be willing to step up to the plate, that was huge. There's an incredible honor in that. And so piece by piece, we built the new Tory, and I'm really proud to be here.

Dude, I like the new Tory so much better than the old Tory, I just gotta say.

He's got a new beard. I know that's a lockdown beard, at least I'd never seen that before. So that's awesome because honestly, you both kind of spoke to a transformation that was more internal to yourself and kind of like, becoming, growing into that role as a founder and as a leader, which wasn't really the answer I was expecting, but I think it is really, really important because there's no doubt that so much personal growth, just so much has to happen in order to actually become a leader of a company. So very enlightening answer. I appreciate that. There's a question in here from the audience from Eric for you, Tori, and he's asking about this way that you were incentivizing your team morale. He said instead of money or shares, was there another option, uh, you thought to keep your interns or engineers incentivized?

So yeah, absolutely. So, um, between money and equity, there must be some form of generous balance, right? So if you don't have the money, you better give the equity. Um, and, and hopefully you're giving both, um, in some ratio. But let's, let's go beyond money and equity. So the very next thing is, is just the straight-up way you honor your employees. So I insist, I put my foot down and insist against pushback on the team that even the youngest, most inexperienced intern at Endyotics is named on any patents they have the remotest contribution to. Which right now would be all of them. Um, so I make sure that if you work at my company, you have equity, you get paid, and your name appears on our patents. Um, as I said before, I will try to give people titles that are not a lie. They're an honest title and it's real, but I try to give someone a title that they can feel really proud about, proud of, that looks good on their resume later, and actually reflects the incredible work that I'm trying to get from people. So I try to get people to grow into a bigger title than they might be expecting. And I will take the Pepsi challenge and support any conversation about that title. That's not a joke. And then one case study in point, we're working remotely by and large, and yet Endiotics is a hardware and a software company. So for my mechanical engineer intern, Kian, Kian Tuma, this amazing kid, who's back for the summer, but he's safely at home with his parents. This is a guy who's making physical objects for Endiottics, and yet the Endiottics makerspace is in my living room. Kian called me up and he said, "Hey, I'd like to spend some of my own money to set up a little makerspace here." And he mentioned like a $600 budget. And I immediately was like, ah, hell nah. All right, we're going to get you a little mill. We're going to get you a little lathe with the digital readouts and all the zeroing dials. We're going to set your ass up with company money. And then at the end of the summer, you're going to keep all that stuff as a gift. Okay. And yeah, it's a couple multiples of his original budget and it's a couple thousand dollars out of ours. But what teenager has their, their, their job buy them their own little makerspace? Like, I think that's pretty cool. And by elevating Kian and by saying, hey man, we love you, we are so proud to have you on this team, we want to equip you with every tool we, we can for you to excel at your job. And then call it a signing bonus, call it a summer bonus, keep all that equipment. Please come back and use it with us next year, right? I'm trying in little ways to make sure that everyone on my team knows just how proud I am to have them here, and I'm trying to lift them up any way I can. We can't let COVID-19 kill the fun here, you know? In fact, it's our responsibility not to.

I love that answer, and I love the answer to the first one too about the title, because I mean, that's a no-cost, answer for you, Eric. I mean, if you have a teammate, by defining the role for them in such a way that they can like grow into it, I think that's a really applicable answer for almost any company anywhere, even if you have zero money in the bank, don't even have a bank account yet. So really great. Thanks, Tori. Taj, I have a question, next question for Taj, which is just, I mean, this is kind of getting more to what's new and upcoming at LeaseCake, but with the, you mentioned the growth that you're experiencing right now, you know, during COVID what, what are customers looking for now in, in their businesses? And maybe what do you see 6 months from now that's going to be different for, for businesses and, and for your customer base and how they're adapting to this new environment?

Sure. Yeah, you know, without question, um, there are companies that have been affected in so many different ways, but the universal truth is there are distributed teams, right? Everyone's working from home. Some companies, even though they're kind of opening back up, are saying, you know what, let's still use this remote workforce. So, you know, it's applications that they're looking for that can say, how do I keep all my team members on the same page, right? Whether it's, you know, any kind of application. And ours specifically, it's about a solution that they can keep track of all the key dates and dollars in their business. Have proactive reminders. So that's what they're looking for now. What I think 6 months from now, what we're seeing, and it's really inspiring because the companies that have reached out to us, they really believe in this, in the American dream. I do too. I mean, everybody here on this call, this is what we're all about, building great enduring brands and enduring companies. The things that they're saying is They really believe that they're going to emerge from this stronger. Not everyone's saying that, but the smart ones, the ones that we're building product for, ones that, you know, you're building solutions for, are the ones that see the future and they can imagine themselves in it crushing their competition or doing things in such a unique, different way that they're becoming much more efficient. So that's what's inspiring us, is the market is speaking about their view of the future. It's not just our view of the future, but their view of the future is saying we're going to emerge from this stronger. We're investing in tools and solutions that really help us, certainly as it relates to this distributed workforce, the transformation of work, and ultimately, you know, where we are. We're an enterprise application, but you can download it on the App Store, you know, when there are huge kind of corporate and institutional solutions that may look like ours.

We're just—

we're so much more nimble and low-cost but equally as powerful. So there's a whole suite of solutions out there that the market is looking for, and I have a feeling that the new entrepreneurs out there are going to be building them. So that's my advice. It's a pretty upbeat tone right now despite what's happening. You know, today.

Yeah, I love that. Listen to the market and build for the optimists, right? Because the optimists who you're hearing from, I mean, those are gonna be the winners. So if there's a big shakeup, like you're building it for the people who have that positive outlook, who are like, have a roadmap that they're putting in place. I think that's really smart advice in listening to the market and the people who are doing things right now and building solutions for them. Awesome. Tori, did you wanna jump in there? I wasn't sure.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is the opportunity now for any entrepreneur or founder type. Now is your time to shine because you get to take credit for thriving in the midst of chaos. I mean, that is the definition of, that is the kind of person who creates a whole new category, right? And like we said before, Simply being persistent gives you a force multiplier because others give up while you do not. It is OK to get your ass kicked and fall on your face 9 times in a row. Just get up 10 times. Right. That raw persistence is really going to pay off. And then just even if you've got bloody teeth, you know, put a smile on your face because, you know, if no one else has your dream, if you're the only one else that feels it, micro robot surgeons are the future of interventional medicine, dude, carry that dream forward because day by day you make it real. And every person you win over onto your team makes it more real. I remember the day at Founder Institute about halfway through the program when Mike, he was leading our cohort along with Ryan. He finally broke down in office hours and he just started grinning. When he realized the potential that this idea represented. If we could actually pull it off, I could see finally, finally I had infected him with the dream, and it just washed over his face. You could see this grin and this warmth in his eyes, and I was like, your ass is mine, Mike. Like, we're gonna do this together. Like, this is so real. As the founder with this idea, It's up to you to infect your team, your customers, and the rest of the world with the same warmth that fills your heart with elation. All right. Because if you feel that joy with your idea and you have one step you can take forward towards that goal, if that's a single cold call and that's all you've got in the world, take that step because like every brick that you lay builds that empire. And it is a worthy endeavor. And so yeah, if your teeth are bloody, smile even harder.

Love it. Yeah, so I want to ask about, this is sort of related, but basically I want to pivot a little bit towards fundraising. But I think the way in which it's related, it's all about, you know, storytelling and having a story that resonates with people. And so yeah, I want to ask a question for Tori. It's just about, fundraising during COVID I believe you've had a couple of angels who committed since the onset of the pandemic. And what's your advice in general about fundraising right now? How can founders do— they go about that?

Yeah, so fundraising is a process. It's a game, and it's a game that you can learn at places like Founder Institute. When we went through the Funding Lab, what I learned is that you do not need a big break You do not need to get lucky. You do not need something for nothing to make it big in this world. All you need is to be persistent and have some guidance in taking the right steps. I used to think that because someone who may have founded a tech company that rhymes with schmoogle once ran my zipline at Burning Man, that like that was my big break, you know, and because of that, we would, we would get funded. No, no, I still want that person to invest in us. But, but like, we're happy to go earn the right to have that honor. Right. So fundraising is a process and you turn it into a game. You don't look for a big break. You just develop hundreds of leads and get ready to hear no 99 times in a row to get to that one yes. So we've actually had 4 angel investors commit to put money in since COVID-19 happened, and every single one of those investors is someone that we've been talking to for months or even as much as a year prior. So what you're doing is you're building a story of your company in your mind, and you're slowly infecting that person with that that concept. The biggest one of note was someone who simply tuned into a virtual demo day that we did at Founder Institute, much like this, this call right now, where I got a call from someone that said, I watched your presentation. I'd love to meet with you. So we met up in Berkeley and then a few weeks later, they asked me to fly down to Guanajuato and present to the fund that they were raising. So they actually had venture capitalists also have investors, right? VCs are working just as hard as we are as founders to get money into their project. It's interesting to learn that. So we went and presented as a potential portfolio company. And then a few months later, as we approached First In Human, they called us up and said, We want to be the lead investor on your seed round. So in summary, you take whatever tech you have, you take your ugly duckling, whatever it is, because whatever it is is real. And real means 1,000 times more than some fancy PowerPoint presentation. You take the tech that you have and you get out on the pitch circuit and you start meeting people and building connections. and you just stay at it. And after months, that builds into something real. And then the neat thing, like they teach you at Found— Funding Lab, is once investors start to get a little bit of FOMO, once they realize that this opportunity is not gonna last forever, they start to come around. So yeah, build your tech. And if you can draw a line from one point in time to another and show progress, that's pretty compelling. And there are about 15 robots in between my two hands to populate that story.

Awesome. Yeah, as we kind of get to the end here, Taj, I don't know if you wanted to speak to fundraising at all, but this is kind of the point before we get to the end to also share any asks you have for our audience, or if you want to hint at anything that's coming up next at LeaseCake. Taj, kind of closing remarks from you.

Yeah, no problem. I'll just kind of tidy up on the fundraising side. Don't be dismayed or set back that there's not capital out there. There's definitely capital out there. Your ideas have value, and it's about finding the right ones that are willing to listen. You know, when we started, we raised $1.8 million to date. Most of our investors are customers of ours. So don't discount the fact that your customers are potential investors. If they like your product that much, don't be afraid to ask. And, you know, we're closing out our round right now, but the capital that is out there, there are smart angels or smart seed stage VCs They're always looking for kind of, hey, what's the whisper? What have you heard? What's the secret? We want to kind of be first in line. So definitely make sure you target them. You know, for us, Dustin, I think it's just making sure that the essence of your product is amplified. It's not necessarily— it's not about the name. You know, LeaseCake sounds cute. It's lease and location management technology. That's what we do. We're not necessarily a startup company anymore, but you have to focus on what does your solution solve for, what is the problem you're solving. So just make sure that you have your, your, your pitch honed in such a way to say there's a massive problem out there and this is it and this is how we solve it. That's probably the most engaging. Um, so, you know, our, our ask is, you know, hey, if you're interested in learning more, you've got lots of locations, or you've got some potential leads, happy to have you join our program as an affiliate and we can take it from there. So, Marie?

Yeah, I'd love to kind of follow that with that. It was such an honor to go through Founder Institute with Taj because Antiotics and LeaseCake are two very different dreams, right? Like Taj is like a classic problem solution like slam dunk. And I've been so jealous of you, Taj. You're in my lower right corner, so I'm looking at you right now. Like going through the Founder Institute, I was like, oh man, I wish I could be like Taj because he's got a problem, he's got a solution, he's got a good solution. And it's like this, and his experience and his team are perfect to, you know, to carry it through. It's like, oh my goodness, I look up to you so much. What I really appreciated about Founder Institute is that when I came in and I was like, problem solution, what's that? Dude, tiny robots in the body. Yo, how cool is that? And people are like, oh my goodness, what are we going to do with you, Tori? And gradually we were able to slowly formulate, you know, a concept of problem solution for Endyotics where it's like, all right, this is like an upper endoscopy without sedation. That's kind of cool. It can go places where you can't quite shove a scope. That's kind of cool. But also, Founder Institute allowed for the fact that we really were more towards like the vision opportunity. For example, tiny robots in the body, yo, like how cool is that? And the fact that, that FI was able to handle founders with ideas as disparate as ours and actually turn us into a successful graduating cohort. Where we both go out and can like raise money and build our tech. That made me incredibly grateful. And if Founder Institute has like a magic bullet up their sleeve, in my opinion, it might be that they are capable of taking extremely diverse groups of founders with very different backgrounds and very different visions and figuring out how to help them individually move forward and build the company. So I was, I was really grateful for that. I mean, because between me and Taj, I think you could pretty much do anything at FI now.

Well, I really appreciate that, uh, that kind of closing remark. That's a, that's a great, uh, and I love how you framed it too, that like, uh, Leafcake was a very clear sort of problem-solution framework, whereas yours Yeah, with the vision opportunity framework and, and yeah, how those are sort of different companies and maybe coming in at different stages too, perhaps, of development, but they're definitely different in how you go about them. So I really appreciate that. Anything else in closing here? Anything else you want to tease for the audience or those who watch the video later? Just anything upcoming or—

Yeah, so we, we've gotten into recreational waterboarding and We like to post, we'll be posting videos of that with a first-person view inside the human body. We call our, internally to the company, we call the testing phase colon racing 5000, 'cause it's basically like playing Mario Kart inside the human body. What could possibly go wrong? This is an exciting time we live in. This is a time where hardware and software and tech in general are at the point where you can do things now that, that, that seem like science fiction just a few years ago. Right. So this is the time for new, big, fresh ideas and new ways of thinking to kind of lift up and buoy the entire society we live in. So to be a part of a network of founders is maybe the greatest honor of my life at this point. And I'd like to make sure that anyone on the call now or watching this, this video later knows that Endiotics and, you know, myself, Torrey Smith, are here to support you. We're here to support each other. So I highly encourage people to look us up on LinkedIn, send a request, mention the FI video call. I will accept you and I will do whatever I can to help you. If that's a warm introduction to an investor Absolutely. If you're looking for a co-founder or a technical person, we know some smart cookies. So look us up. Let's help each other out. Let's build the future together.

Thanks, Tori. Taj, any closing remarks from you or final tips for founders at this time?

No, I think that was a great wrap. Just one, one thing to note, you know, while, while we may be at polar opposites in terms of, you know, pill robots in your body, yo, to lease management for an enterprise solution. You know, we still only have 4.5 people in the company, the same amount of people that we really had when we started about 2 years ago. And so great things can happen when you really trust your team and you empower them. And, you know, while we may look really advanced, we've got tons of great users across multiple different industries. But end of the day, you can change the world with just a handful of really smart folks. So don't ever forget that. Don't ever forget kind of reaching out to us via LinkedIn. Happy to help you as well. You know, go to leasecake.com, be a part of our growing community. We're really building a family, an ecosystem that can help people, right? We're not just solving a problem. We're serving a massively unserved market. And I think that's why our product's resonating. So Tori, I'm probably gonna be the next one in line swallowing your PillBot because from the insane hours, you know, I'll probably need some help from a health perspective down the road, but trying to keep the balance, the health-life balance in check. So it's been, it's been great work with you guys.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Tori. Thank you so much, Taj. This has been a really enlightening panel. Thank you both again for hopping on here with me. If you're a pre-seed stage entrepreneur interested in learning about the Foundry Institute Accelerator, you can learn more at fi.co/join. I want to thank everybody who's here, who's joined us today, day or night. Make it— have a great one. Thanks, both guys.

Thank you.

Take care. Bye.