Founder Hotseat Webinar: Silicon Valley vs. New York City

Hello everyone, hopefully we're broadcasting. It looks like we are. My name is Deo Ressi, welcome. We have a bit of a pitch-off tonight and I'll be talking about that in a second. Let me introduce myself first. I'm the CEO of the Founder Institute. The Founder Institute is a program that helps new and aspiring entrepreneurs launch their business. We're running in about 130 cities worldwide. We're accepting applications right now in about 25 cities, and you can join the program by going to fi.co/join. Tonight will be, or this afternoon depending on where you are, We're doing a bit of a pitch-off session between two of our enrolling cities here in America, Silicon Valley versus New York. Both Silicon Valley and New York have deadlines for their programs coming up in the next few weeks, so we'll have an event in New York City tomorrow night going out for drinks, so I invite everyone to come out for drinks in New York. Then on Wednesday night, we're going to be talking about funding in Silicon Valley. You can check out our various events at fi.co/events. Let's talk a little bit about what we're going to do tonight. We're going to have a pitch-off. How it will work is we'll have an entrepreneur come on, we'll have one of our directors in New York and one of our directors from Silicon Valley, me, on the line, and we're going to watch the pitch. Now, we don't know where the founder is, so I don't know if they're in New York, I don't know if they're in Silicon Valley, and we're going to hear their pitch. And then I see we've got someone big on screen here, maybe that's not by desire, but anyway, we don't know where that founder is. So we're going to hear their pitch, we're going to give criticism and feedback, and then at the end we're going to tally up all of the scores and see who wins. Either New York wins or Silicon Valley wins based on the score. And this is based on something that we call a hot seat. So let me quickly introduce the concept of the hot seat, and then we'll pull on some people to see the pitches. So each week at the Founder Institute when you're in the program, you're going to get the opportunity to get in front of a room of about 30 or so people and pitch your idea. Now, each time you get up and pitch, we have 3 top local CEOs: the founder of Meetup, the founder of Evernote, You name a top company in your city and one of those CEOs is going to be there most likely during the program, and you're going to pitch in front of them. And they're going to rate you 1 to 5, no 3s, and give you very honest feedback. The idea is that you're telling your story and these CEOs hear it and rate you, give you the honest feedback. The idea is not to argue with them but to learn. So you're going to hear some things tonight. We're going to be rating the pitches and you're going to hear some feedback. Some of that feedback you may like, some of the feedback you may not like, but your goal as a startup founder is to listen and learn. So hopefully you can handle the feedback with grace and you'll get a lot of feedback in the program. So we've had over 50 submissions just to pitch tonight. And we selected a few of them to start, but we're gonna select a few more, so you can still pitch. So if you want, submit your pitches at bit.ly/SVNY_Hotseat. bit.ly/SVNY_Hotseat. So let's bring the New York Director Online Kevin, are you there? Kevin Siskar.

Hey, how's it going, Adair? How are you, everyone?

Boom! Welcome, Kevin. You look gray to me, but I may look gray to me too. So, why don't you give me— you're a grad and now a director. You run New York City full-time. We'd like to discuss just a few differences, but before we go into that, do you want to just quickly introduce yourself and the New York program?

Sure. So my name is Kevin Siskaya. I'm the director for the Founder Institute here in New York. We run the program full-time in New York, so we're running all the time. So you can definitely check us out. We have a meetup group. We have a few thousand people. We hold events once a month. You can come check it out, like Hideo mentioned, tomorrow night. We're doing a Founder Night Out, and everyone's welcome. So you can go check that out, that's on fi.co. I also host a podcast called Ambition Today, where I interview a lot of successful founders, entrepreneurs, and really get to the core of their story and figure out what isolated steps along the route had them find success and what got them there.

Great. Well, one of the things we— before we go and hear the pitches, There are two things I think would be good. Maybe some differences between New York and Silicon Valley for us to chat about, and then some quick pitching advice. But I do want to get into as many pitches as possible, so we'll keep it pretty short. What may not be incredibly well known is that I am a New Yorker, so now I live in Silicon Valley. I don't get to run the program very often, but I hurt my hand. I'd show you, but it's kind of nasty. Actually, the stitches are coming out tomorrow. I haven't been able to travel because I've been in physical therapy and other things. Because I'm not able to travel, I get to run the Silicon Valley chapter. One of the things is when I do travel, I come to New York very often. I usually stop on my way to Europe or whatever, so I'm there 3, 4, 5 times a year, have family in New York, so I know the differences between New York and Silicon Valley pretty well. But Kevin, quick thoughts on some differences, and I'll chime in after?

Sure, sure. So I can speak definitely more from the New York perspective as I'm here, but I think the main advantage for New York is it's growing twice as fast as the Valley. So even though the Valley is I believe currently 3 times as large as far as the technology scene. New York's growing twice as fast. We increased venture capital spend by I think 240% in the last 10 years, and it really is growing fast. And I think riding that wave is definitely a major advantage for people doing startups in New York City.

Yeah, but it's still wickedly small. "We're growing really fast, we have 10 users, now we have 20." I'm teasing. It's actually the second biggest venture market in the world after Silicon Valley, but just to give you a perspective, Silicon Valley is half of the global market. So literally the venture dollars in Silicon Valley are half of all the venture dollars spent worldwide. Now that's excluding China, but definitely I love New York. I was a CEO and I built two billion-dollar companies in New York, so I have great affinity for the city. The city doesn't love tech startups as much as people love tech startups out here. I think there's a little bit of like, I don't know, maybe that's changed. What's your opinion? But when I was there, tech startups were always sort of like, and there's banking, and there's advertising, And there's fashion. Oh, and there's tech startups, you know.

Right, so I think what's happened, and I've talked to a lot of people around the city that have been here through the whole way, and I think from like 2012 onward, it's sort of— prior to 2012, it was like, is this going to happen? New York felt like all these other ecosystems really trying to break onto the tech scene. And then in 2012, you know, with Facebook moving here, Google's offices growing, Twitter made headquarters here, The ethos is much more that this is a tech ecosystem, it's a no-brainer. Cornell is building an entire tech campus on Roosevelt Island. They just took down a hospital and they're building a massive campus, they're going to start kicking out more developers. And so the ethos is that it's—

Who goes to Roosevelt Island?

People that want to ride the tram. That's really it.

I mean, if you like the tram and the weird bridge, You too! No, alright, anyway, that's a great place for a campus. So yeah, I would agree, there's definitely been an uptick. I mean, there's more technical talent here, but there's more like culture and connectedness in New York. I mean, there's a whole theory of collision, which Tony Say out of Vegas is trying to do. Like, if you meet more interesting people you're going to have more spontaneity and creativity and ideas. And look, to be blunt, in Silicon Valley, I mean, it's only tech people. There's not a lot of arts, there's not a ton of culture, though there is a bit of counterculture like Burning Man, but there isn't as much culture, let's say. I mean, let's put it this way, there's probably more culture on the average block in New York City than the whole of San San Francisco.

There's probably more people too, so that's what's happening is tech is not tech and banking, tech and fashion, tech is becoming a layer throughout all of these industries and the advantage is your customers are here, the industries are here, the big Fortune 1000 companies are here and you have access to all that.

Yeah, but we have better nature, better weather, more money, I mean, so you know, Well, let's give some advice to the people coming up. Basically, I almost don't want to give them too much advice because I want to see how really genuine they are. So when this event got pitched to me, I was like, who the hell is going to— I don't know, we'll see. I've always found New York entrepreneurs to be better at hustling, so they may be better pitching. So in fact, maybe it's not even worth you and I talking too much about giving them advice. Maybe we should think about our grading system. So on the hot seats, it's 1 to 5, no 3s. So no, you're not going to see any 3s, right? And the idea is either you're good or you're bad. A 1 or 2 is bad, a 4 or 5 is good. And the general rule of thumb is If you rate someone a 4, you better be prepared to meet them. Like, and if you rate someone a 5, you better be prepared to write them a check. So I really highly doubt there's going to be any 5s today, but you never know. But the question is, do you, like, I'm presuming they're going to pitch kind of crappy, so do you want to lean it more towards a pitch or more towards the idea? Or blended?

I think a blend is fine. I mean, pitches, confidence, swagger, hustle is good, and I think the idea is obviously important. So yeah, let's do both and let's give them a shot. I think this is really cool, actually. It's like if Shark Tank was a game show and we tallied up the scores at the end. This is going to be fun.

Yeah, I don't know. All right, so for all you people out there that are pitching, First of all, reminder, if you want to pitch, we're going to do an equal number of Silicon Valley and New York founders. You go to bit.ly/SVNY_Hotseat, all lowercase, SVNY_Hotseat. So, alright, now if you're up there and pitching, remember half sort of confidence and stuff, and half does your idea suck or is it good, right? So, you know, Kevin and I— I mean, Kevin, you must have seen hundreds and hundreds of pitches, and I've seen thousands and thousands of pitches. So we sort of know if we say half idea, half schwager, we know it's going to happen. So you got 30 seconds, right? Now, we'll let you go a little long, but that's because— but get it done. I mean, if you can't explain your idea in 30 seconds, you might as well, you know, not try. So, because you're going to— the point is, this is like, hey, you met me and Kevin at a bar, and you're like, here's my idea. Then what Kevin and I are going to do is we're going to hold up our hand, and I'll do a 3-count, and then we'll vote. 1 is bad, 2 is bad, 4 is good, 5 is awesome. 3-count vote. The only thing that I'm looking at here is that let's just vote first and discuss second, okay?

Sí.

Good. Alright, who's coming up? Aaron from Work Nice. Mr. Work Nice.

What's going on guys?

Hey, I see you, you're little, in some ways you're big. Can you control how big he is or can I? Oh, there we go, I can do it. Hey, I like your artwork. Don't tell me where you're from because I don't know, so don't give like a hint like in New York or in Silicon Valley. For all I know you're in your house and you have You have some wacky painting in the background that looks like a clone of that famous guy. Anyway, you ready? Okay, you got about 30 seconds and then we're going to rate you, so whenever you're ready, we're ready.

Hey, let's do this too, so when he's done pitching and we do the count, everyone that's watching, put what you think the score was in the chat, so we'll get some some crowd interaction too.

Okay, agreed. Are you ready? Go!

Cool.

So Worknice is developing an AI-assisted chatbot that makes people 10 times happier at work, helping big companies solve the expensive problem of high turnover through having the bot do something every day that makes your afternoon better. So no one has ever been able to solve culture in places like big banks, law firms, accounting firms, But speaking as a former workplace happiness consultant, I can tell you the secret sauce really is having someone execute culture initiatives every single day, just like a world-class HR person would do. So we're essentially selling an automated employee who just so happens to be the most incredible HR person you can imagine.

Okay, Kevin, Kevster, the Kev Monster. All right.

I'm ready.

Get the old fisty up. Okay, so remember, pitch and idea, everybody, on 3. Uno, dos, tres. 4 and 2. Alright, so—

You want me to start?

Yeah, well, let's go— I'll be fair, I debated between a 4 and a 2, but we'll give the 4 the first talk.

So, um, so alright, so actually it was closer to a 2, but the only reason I was close to a 4 is I'm actually really interested in culture initiatives. So one of the companies here in New York where we actually partner with for the Founder Institute is called Next Jump, and they just got named one of 3 deliberately developmental organizations in the country, actually in the world. And so they've solved culture. You can learn more about it if you look up NextJump.com, but they've solved culture. The only thing, and really why I was going towards it too, is it's an AI chatbot, and I get that bots are big right now, but I don't know what it does, right? So I get what the problem is, I get what you're solving, I don't know how it works. So that was it.

Yeah, I'm going to echo that, and you know, look, So it's like, hey, we're solving culture with a robot. Like, hello sir, welcome to the office, here's a coffee. It's like, fuck you, robot. Excuse my language. So, you know, I just— it's almost like, how do I say this, you know, your pitch was decent, you explained it rather well. I agree with Kevin 100%, some examples would have helped. But I feel like the idea was a 2, right? It's like chatbots are cool, culture is cool, it's like yes and yes, it's like so chatbot and company culture together and it's like, you know, it's like, I don't know, it's like milk and orange juice. I like milk with my cereal, I like orange juice, and as a kid you put the milk and the orange juice together, it tastes like disgusting, it curdles, it's just all wrong in every way. And I feel like this is milk and orange juice coming together, right? Because culture is like, you know, not— now maybe there are examples where the bot really makes culture awesome, but without those examples, I just feel like it's the wrong tool for the job. I could be wrong, but then either your pitch was bad, which caused me to give you a 2 because I didn't have good examples, or the idea is bad because it's sort of the wrong tool for the job. I'd see like, "Hey, did you ask your buddy how they were doing? Ask your buddy how they're doing." I'd be like, "Shut up, bot. If I want to ask someone how they're doing, I'll ask them how they're doing." You know what I mean? So what does it exactly do? And then maybe if there were examples, it would be better. Alright, so 2 and a 4 for our first one. You were going to say something there, Kevin?

Yeah, so in like 10 seconds, can you say what it does? Because that seemed to have come up twice.

Yes, so it nudges people towards small behaviors that help them be happy. So it might be giving them an idea for a random act of kindness. It'll organize experiences that build camaraderie, so that's like a wine and cheese night. Go-kart racing, puppies in the office, and it'll anonymously elevate concerns to managers. So you can talk to it when you're sad or if you're not feeling great about something that's happening.

Interesting.

I don't know about the talk to it when you're sad. Dear bot, I'm sad. Wow, tell me more.

Yeah, you need someone to listen.

I don't know. Okay, I got it. Some of those were better than others, but I think on the average they still didn't overwhelm me. All right. We're going to launch a poll and you guys can ask questions too. So if you have a question or a piece of feedback, I have a dashboard, I have a team, they're going to look at it. So not only can you put your number, but we're going to call Abhi from HelpTap. Alright. There you are. Now, Avi, I can't hear you, but Kevin, can you say something?

Can you hear me okay now?

I can hear you now, Avi. Boom! I'm looking at what looks to be a wall, a ceiling. I feel like you're looking down on me.

Actually, I am in a telephone booth.

Alright, don't tell me where though. I don't want to know. I have no idea where you are. La, la, la, la, la.

Shh, shh, shh.

He must have an earpiece in. You ready?

Yes, absolutely.

1, 2, 3, go!

Good. So my name is Abhi. I'm founder of HelpTap, just tap for help. It's an instant chat-based knowledge and services platform wherein anyone sitting anywhere in the world can give or get help with anything in real time via conversation. So let's say you come to HelpTap, write your query. Within seconds, not even minutes, hours, get connected with the right vetted professional who can take your task or get your answer within seconds. On the other hand, the service provider, the expert, gets to make money and monetize potentially their services that they're providing. We are already live in 20 countries across the world, have a few thousand users, processed more than $10,000 worth of transactions, and already backed by 500 startups and Google Angels. We are a 15-member team with Microsoft, Yahoo, Citrix, Deloitte, background. That's HelpTap, do check it out guys, by the way. I'd love your feedback. Thank you.

HelpTap, just tap for help.

Absolutely.

On 3, Mr. Kevin, I'm going to pull you on screen here. On 3, uno, dos, tres. Okay, 2 and 2, so I was like a 2 leaning a 4, This was more leaning towards a 4 than the last person, but because then work nice. So what the— this is like, is my life going to be like, I've created a chatbot to talk to you when you need to go to bed. I've created a chatbot that's going to be your friend when no one likes you. I've created a chatbot for your dog to chat with your dog. Like, here puppy. So I presume we are going to see a lot more chatbots.

It's not a bot by the way, sorry.

What?

It's not a bot.

No, I know, I know, but the interface is chat. I'm teasing you. So let me go on this one. So one of my best friends in the world who I was texting right before I got on this webinar and might actually be watching is Aaron Patzer. So his first commercial success was a company called Mint, and then he went on and created something called Fountain, and Fountain basically does this. So Fountain kind of failed, but what Aaron did was amazing. He built like taxonomy of human knowledge. So if you said, hey, I'm looking for a console, based on who you are and other things, it would determine that console meant like a dining room table versus like some sort of consult on something, a dining room end table, and would put you in touch with an interior designer versus some other word meaning for console. So It was, he put together this taxonomy of human knowledge so you could very quickly find a professional in the right category, but it just didn't, it wasn't able to get big. So, you know, knowing that someone who's as smart as Aaron Patzer tried and failed in the space is what concerns me a little bit. Now, I told him from the beginning it was a bad idea, however, he discovered something that kind of worked. So what are your views, and then I'd like to hear your thoughts about the first market. But Kevin, and then I want to go back and ask Abby my question.

Yeah, so I would just— my feedback would be that traction solves everything, right? So when you started muttering off the traction, great, loved it. The only thing is sometimes it's hard when you do so much to distill it down so it's so simple that there's no flags or questions going off in my head, right? So when you said experts get their answers, but then also it's like task-based where like stuff gets done too, you just kind of lost me because it felt like you were trying to do too much, and I wasn't sure how you're doing everything. So yeah.

So the audience gave it a 4 overall, by the way, on average. So let me ask you a question, Avi. What market do you want to start with?

Cool.

Well, by the way, thanks for feedback, guys. Appreciate all the inputs. So in terms of market, we started small. We focused on business kind of support services. So I guess you can compare us to freelancing kind of platforms.

I'm going to cut to the chase then. So look. Here is what, so in these matching services, right, you need high pain, so I'll just tell you what I think the answer is and what sort of we were finding. So there are two things that these things end up working out as, either they become like horoscope and phone sex backends, which I presume you don't want to be, in fact there was this company called I'm forgetting the name of it, so horoscope and phone sex, it's just like horoscope and phone sex, horoscope and phone sex. But one area that I think we started to see traction when talking with Aaron at Foundant is on the tech side, so they call programming Googling Stack Overflow. However, if you run into a bug programming that you can't fix, and you can't find it on Stack Overflow, I mean, people would pay $5, $10, it's like, because you're stuck, right? You can't move forward. So to find the answer to a programming problem like that, for a programmer, is worth a lot of money because then they're stuck and they can't move forward. So every minute they spend stuck, you know, they're stuck. In a way that they can't proceed with a major project that's bigger things. I don't know what your views are on that, and then we'll move on to the next one. Any final thoughts there, Kevin?

No, I think you did a pretty good job summarizing it up. I mean, I guess I just— I was curious, so like, are you doing tasks or answers, or what is the—

I mean, just give me like 20 seconds. So yes, absolutely. So we are focusing on very small segment right now, which is assistant and programming kind of stuff, just to give you an answer. Second, I'm trying to reach Aaron for the last 3 weeks, but he's unresponsive. So if you actually know him, please ask him to respond to my email.

And I would love to meet him.

Yeah, well, he's living in New Zealand writing code anyway. I probably shouldn't tell you. All right, well, listen, Programa is a great market to start. I'll pass along that you want to meet him, and let's make that happen. You seem like a great guy, and it seems like a Great company. Almost a 4, but again, no 3s. Okay, so we're going to move to Evden from Sunroom Labs. Evden, please don't say where you're from. We're switching over. Are you there? Hello? Yep, I see you. You're a good-looking man with a beard.

Thank you.

Now give us an equally awesome pitch and then we'll vote on it. Shortly. 1, 2, 3, go!

Smash is an app for recreational tennis players that stimulates competitiveness by helping them track their results, create leaderboards, compare themselves to other players, and find same-level opponents. There are 17 million tennis players in the US that are dying for this service. We created Smash powered by 4 angel investors who invested $400 grand. The MVP will soon be launched and a former number one pro player joined us as an early investor and brand ambassador. Thank you.

Okay, um, Kevin, oh Kevin, are you guys ready for voting here? I'm back, I'm back. I don't know what happened. I'm still here. Hello.

I was out as well. I thought you were not hearing me. Did you all hear me?

That's good.

I heard you great. So Kevin, are you there? Lots of stuff is going on on my tech. I'm here though, I can hear you. Can you hear me guys?

Because it was like blinked for me as well.

Yeah, Kevin, are you there? Someone's like, I had this idea 3 years ago. I'm getting feedback from— I'm gonna go ahead and rate you. I'm not sure what happened to Kevin. He's here in spirit, so I'm gonna go on 3, everybody, you too, I'm watching stuff, you can rate it 1 to 5, no 3s, 5 is good. Kevin's computer crashed, so we'll get his rating, he did hear it. 1, 2, 3, I'm gonna give it a 2. Now there's a lot of things I like, there's a lot of things I don't like. The market's really limited, which a lot of people are saying in the chat, so 2422 sort of 3s.

Can you just make sure your cell phone is on the LTE and not the Wi-Fi?

Hey there, welcome back. Did you hear the pitch?

I just— all I heard was welcome back, sorry about that everyone.

So he's doing a tennis app and he's got $400,000 in investment, a tennis pro coming on, and it's to help people find matches, etc. So I gave it a 2. You still seem a little choppy for whatever reason. But back, so it's Fabio. So Fabio, the feedback is leaning towards 2 in the chat for the same reasons that I brought up. It's sort of a small market I mean, even with 17 million players, you've got to get the players, you've got to match them up. You have what's called a density problem, which is why these things suffer. Have you heard of density before? I'm happy to explain it to everyone. It's a common issue. Have you heard of the density problem?

Yeah, I mean, as far as I understand, I have to have a lot of people in the same place to manage to book them a match.

Right, well, so you've got— right, but let's be more specific about it because you've got number 1, the number of players, number 2, their location, right? So you need a certain number of players in a location. You then probably match by skill, right? Because you don't want to have like a novice playing a pro.

Definitely not.

And then they want some time. So this is, you know, all those criteria to force a match become very tricky and they are commonly referred to as a density issue. Now the real thing that would have made me between a 2 and a 4 is if you were to say, hey look, there are 17 million tennis players in America alone. Or wherever, and we've solved the matching problem or the density problem like this. Now there's some hacks to solving the density problem that have been very effective, right? Like Uber solves the density problem with surge pricing, is their kind of hack. But one of the hacks would be if you actually have organized events So you said, hey, Tuesday night is beginner night at so-and-so. And so everyone then knows now you've eliminated two variables: day of the week, time, and skill by saying, hey, Tuesday night is beginner night. So then all beginners know they're going to match and Tuesday night's the night to play. Then all you really need to do is geography and volume of beginners in that geography, right? So there are a bunch of hacks to get over, and since density is your big issue, you should bring it up. So Kevin's having some computer problems. Do you have any other thoughts? Have you thought about the density problem?

Yes, but something I should tell you is that I'm not trying to solve this problem at first. My first Our goal is to deliver service for users on day one, and that's going to be done by letting them save all their scores and create a leaderboard compared to their frequent opponents and their friends, so they will have a reason to input their result after every match. And since we are building a leaderboard, we're going to be able to find same-level opponents based on skills and not pay—

Yeah.

and not based on what people think they play, because there is a USTA ranking that people judge their skills by themselves, and it's not true because people lie.

Yeah, so of course people lie. There's, you know, this—

We're going to create a leaderboard based on an algorithm we developed that will rank people based on the results they have in the app, and they'll have a match history and a head-to-head comparison.

And after we create— Hold on.

Then we're going to have the density— Hopefully so.

There's great feedback in the chat, by the way, that I'm reading. By the way, the thing that's called when you think you're better than you are, it's called DKE, the Dunning-Kruger effect. So the very best players think they're worse than they are, and the very worst players think they're better than they are. It's a common term in video games. I think I'm bad, and I probably am bad. I don't suffer from DK, but a lot of people do. But anyway, so to get a good rating with your pitch, you really gotta address the— now, having some sort of what's called initial utility is a good thing. So inputting your scores provides the initial utility, but it still doesn't always address that density problem. Getting the density problem right is key. Alright, let's move on to Evteam from Sunroom Labs. Evteam. Hey guys, can you hear me? I can hear you. Alright, hi.

My company Sunroom Labs is developing the mobile app PantryCheck to help families with young children to manage groceries and household planning with expiration reminders, automatically generated shopping lists, and home deliveries. As the users track their household inventory through the app, they gain access to personalized services either from us or our partners. We aim to expand into deliveries, um, promotions and discovery of products, meal planning, nutrition, and others. We are live in the App Store, and we have 2K monthly active users, and we're getting a lot of feedback.

OK. 2,000 active users. Everyone put your stuff, your votes in the chat on 3. 1, 2, 3. I'm going to get just— You know, again, like, so let's just— I don't think that— Kevin, you're back. I saw you were here. Did you hear it? What did you rate it?

I gave it a 2. I heard the second half of it. Sorry about that.

Okay, so we've got so far, you know, work nice. So here's the— I hear this idea a lot. I don't know, have you heard this idea before, Kevin?

I don't think I have.

Okay, so we've got like— so I'm helping a company called ForQ, and mainly just because it's a friend of mine and it's very similar to this. I'm also helping another company called Suggestik, it's very similar to this, just again another friend of mine, and then we have a grad called Saymm, S-A-Y-M-M-M, and so there's a lot of these meal planning, grocery planning, and they get some initial traction, but the main— so, you know, Kevin, give some feedback and then I'll tell you what the main challenge that they face is. And so if there's an obvious challenge, you need to address it in the pitch, but Kevin? You want to give some feedback?

Yeah, sure. So I think the biggest thing you're going to come up against here is that people are just lazy in general. So you're lucky enough that people go grocery shopping, right? If we didn't have to eat, we probably wouldn't. But now you have Fresh Direct, right? So you just automate it, right? So let alone I do my grocery shopping every 2 weeks, but I then have to scan everything in seems a bit tedious. And then I'm not sure that the value is there. Like, if I open my cupboard, I know that I'm out of peanut butter. I don't necessarily need to check an app to tell me that. So those are my concerns. And I guess the other thing that, you know, it's only a matter of time until GE just puts this in a fridge and there's some sort of automated system, right? So I'd love to hear if you have a plan to automate the inventory, then maybe it's viable. But if you're manually doing the scanning, I don't see it working.

Yeah, what about that? That's interesting. There's a lot of IoT devices out there. What do you say?

Exactly.

So, um, actually it's kind of interesting that I do believe that there are two sides of it, to it. One is the ease of use, definitely, to keep tracking the inventory, and then the other is the value. And we are aiming to basically make it as simple and as automated as possible. Uh, the one thing that we've discovered is Users actually, when they start doing inventory in their houses, they have a lot of stuff and it's not easy for them to open the cupboard. We actually get almost all of our users that stick past day 1, they inventory everything in their house. They really love it, how quickly it is. There are ways to automate it depending on what kind of services people use. If you have a store card, then for some store cards we could actually link up to the website and automatically get their purchase history.

So here's what the largest problem with all these apps are. So I've seen many, many, many, many, many of them, like dozens. So if I've seen— now I see a lot of companies. Any talented or smart investor will see as many companies as I do, if not more. Though I do see a lot, so I'm probably in the top 10%, but you know, the top 25%, the difference isn't that much. So I may see 10,000 companies a year, the top 25, and that puts me in the top 10%, the top 25% will see 6,000 or 7,000 companies a year, right. The top 50% will see 3,000 or more companies, you know, so, and then you start dipping below. So a lot of investors will see a lot of companies. If you see a lot of companies, you're going to see this idea, and if you see this idea a lot, you need to address the most common concern. The most common concern with this particular business is how to monetize, right? So if you don't know how— so there's basically in your business you have the unit economic model. You acquire the customer for a certain amount, and I know that you, with a lot of optimization in this business, you can acquire them for 75 cents to about $1.50, right? But you might not be there yet. Second, then you need to, you need, so that's your cost of customer acquisition, then you need how much is your lifetime value, which is based on on revenue. So you basically need a functional model for unit economics, and everyone always says, oh, we'll do grocery, we'll do this, we'll do that, but that's like pie in the sky. So the difference— you've got to show me, if I'm an investor wanting to invest in this, or if I'm a serious person about backing you, that you have some sense of a functional unit economic model. If you do, then yeah, I'm in. Right now, when I meet everyone, they're like, maybe this, maybe that, and they do these tests and it doesn't work out. Now I see Sue was on a minute ago. Sue, Sue, places for kids. Thank you, Ev team. Any final feedback, Kevin?

No, no, that's it. I just want to see how it's automated.

Alright, Sue, or do you go by Sue or Susan?

Sue.

Okay, great. Yeah, because it says Susan on your thing, but Sue on— alright, Sue, welcome. So Places for Kids, go.

So my company Places for Kids is building a website to help parents, especially the ones with kids aged 10 and under, to easily find places to take their kids to to, and we're building, we're also building a community where parents can find tips for visiting and useful reviews from other parents. So I'm a mother of 3, and needless to say that I'm always looking for places to take my kids to, and I find it is challenging to be able to find places online, and then when I do, it's hard to find the easy information like the admissions, the price, the hours, and stuff like that. So we're building a site where You can easily search for places by category and by cities, and you can easily see the information of the place, and then you can see the description, you can see photos, and you can see tips from other parents who's been there, and then you can also write and read reviews there.

Great. All right, so we— not to cut you off, but you went over the 30 seconds. Now I'm going to put Kevin, I'm moving you to the big screen, at least for me. Are we ready? Oh, you went back to Sue, but I like you, Kevin. On 3, 1, 2, 3. Okay, yeah, the pitch was kind of cruddy. That's, I'm sure, why. So we'll go with the dark side. We're both kind of dark. We'll go darker. We'll go the extremes first. So why don't you give it a 1.

So it wasn't clear how this isn't just a Google search or Yelp, right? So you're going to have places, people are going to leave reviews, and that's it, right? So I just didn't see there being enough value there, right? So when you first— I love the idea though, right? Like, too many kids are sucked into iPads, right? They need to be outside, and they need to get those experiences and and play together, right? And so I loved where it was going, I just didn't like the solution. We actually— I'm a venture partner with a fund called Outbound Ventures, and we just invested in a company called Tinkergarten. And what they do is they create meetups that are led by leaders in the community, where once a week preschoolers can go and play in person and always outside in a park, right? And so through that they get people outside. So I think if you just came up with a better mechanism and a better way around making that solution. The problem's there, it just needs to be solved better.

Yeah, it's a real problem for sure, and I agree with Kevin 100%. So you're solving a real problem. That's why I gave you a 2. I wanted even maybe to give you a 4 just because it's a real problem, but your pitch wasn't very good, and we said a combine of idea and pitch Plus you're missing some real big things, like again, you know, Red Tricycle's out there and it sort of does this. So if there's— so you always have to address the biggest thing an investor is going to care about when you pitch. Always. You might not always know what it is. So the last one was, you know, unit economics for this type of business. This is like, you know, you also have a density issue, right? Because it's like San Francisco, New York, wherever, you're going to need enough parents inputting stuff, and then you're going to need the users on the other side. So you have a density issue, but that's not the big one. Like, what's the money model? What's the model? Because is it like, do I subscribe? Is it advertising? Is it ticket sales? There's so many ways. And look, like, what was that, that Daily Candy? It was just a newsletter with like fashion stuff. It was super valuable, probably one of the most valuable media. So this could be a super valuable newsletter. You just need to give me a little bit more of like how it's going to be a business. It sounds like a frustrated mom who's solving a real problem with no sense of how to make money. I don't know if you want to add anything, Kevin, or anyone else, but—

No, I think, like I said, I love the problem, and I think you're on to something, right? And so I would just encourage you, you know, don't be afraid to think bigger about this, and I think you're going to see some real value if you start to really think big. And I know that can be challenging at first to You think you have this big idea, right, but then it even could be so much bigger, right? So just make that leap, figure out the model around that bigger idea like Hidayat said, and I think you'll be onto something.

Okay, now we've got Nodar from CountUp. Nodar. Yes, dar. Come on, there you are. Boom, CountUp. Welcome, yes, nice to meet you. How's it going?

How's it going, Kevin?

Great, and we've got a couple Couple ones we're going to try and get to after you. So these are coming in right now. No, Dar, go.

Cool.

So AccountUp.io is a web-based platform to help entrepreneurs easily assign and manage accounting work with a dedicated CPA. So what we did first was we hand-curated and screened 150 licensed CPAs into our network who specialize specifically in startups. And we built out tools to help startups easily access this high-quality network on demand. Instead of hiring a full-time bookkeeper or CFO, startups can still access high-quality talent on demand at up to 60% less. In February, we launched our beta and so far matched over 300 startups with a CPA. We offer live chat, e-signatures, encrypted file sharing, online payments, and meetings. But we're currently working to add our QuickBooks integration and a handful of other workflow management tools to keep users engaged on the platform.

Okay, Kevin, Kevster, the Kevinator.

I'm thinking.

Okay, on 3. Alright, 1, 2, 3. Yeah, you know, it was the best. I wouldn't give it a Founder Institute 4, but I would definitely, it was like, this was leaning to a 4. What is coming in on the chat, chatter anger? ADP, what is a CPA? A CPA is a Certified Public Accountant. Yes. Okay, good idea. Alright, so first let me ask a question, how do you prevent, so Dude, again, people, if there's an obvious problem with your business, you need to address it in the pitch. No dar, what is the obvious problem in your business?

Well, I think, you know, obviously it's getting clients for CPAs.

No, no.

Well, then maybe—

Circumvention. So if you introduce me to a good CPA, I'm like, oh great, I just will pay the CPA. I don't need a middleman, right?

Yeah, so as startups, you're actually not paying anything. The CPAs are the ones that are paying the fee for processing the invoices for them. And the CPAs that I curated, they're actually like— I developed the one-on-one relationships with them. Like I said, it took me 6 months to actually create this network. Yeah, we actually even partner with some of the larger firms like EisnerAmper. So for some of the growing startups that outgrow a CPA, we can transfer them over to like a CPA.

But the problem still is the same. If you make money on the brokering of the introduction and possibly the ongoing work, you don't want to be circumvented.

Right, of course.

It's a problem that every marketplace has. It's something we're keeping a strong eye out on. With these initial CPAs though, we had absolutely no instances where CPAs wanted to go around the platform. They're very invested in their shop.

Kevin, feedback?

Yeah, so I guess, I like the idea, right? A marketplace for accountants. I think that adding QuickBooks integrations, all that's great, right? But I think my one question was like how How is this going to be startup friendly, right? Because startups don't have money. And so if you're going to build all this tech, why— I guess my question is, why is that your initial target market?

Well, it's our initial target market because, you know, for startups, it's going to be their first time talking to a CPA, so we're not going to be competing against, like, stealing someone else's clients, first of all. And second of all, it's not really also for all startups. You know, there are startups that are starting to rapidly grow Instead of, like I said, hiring a full-time bookkeeper and paying them benefits and a full-time salary, they can hire someone on demand who perhaps can, you know, act like a CFO on demand type of role.

Yeah, okay, so Kevin's right. Startups don't have a lot of money, so they're a shitty market, but it is— it's fine to start, and that's not with the best— Yeah, plus some of these CPAs are willing to put up— You could go— you could say startups to start because they're more tech-friendly and then move into small businesses, which are less tech-friendly. Again, so as I said, you know, getting that balance right of circumvention. So let me help you with that. So, you know, your accountants are, um, their job is to be meticulous, right? So they are like the least likely type of person to circumvent. Right, because they are very like detail-oriented, like get it right.

Compliance-oriented, yeah.

Right, so you know, you could, you could say like, hey, we know for a fact that CPAs and accountants are one of the least likely groups to circumvent because they honor their word and they're very detail-oriented, etc. Crowd gave it a 4, so that's the highest score so far. Good job, Notar. Let's go through a couple of these that have come in as well. We're gonna do text pitches, so I'm just gonna read them, and then we're gonna do rating for a couple more. We'll do 2 more and go from there, and then we'll get the score add up. So a gentleman named Mark submitted BodyQuant. Mark, if you're out there, you're getting your prime time here by me. You get your voice on the answering machine. All right, so BodyQuant is developing a whole body imaging service to help patients at risk for disease avoid invasive diagnostic procedures and gain additional insights with a quantified imaging biomarker platform targeted at the major organs and tissue of the body. Okay, so that is BodyQuant. Kevin, did you hear that all right?

Yeah, I heard it for sure.

On 3, uno, dos, tres. Okay, dark or light, you pick.

You can go first.

So I just— we have 2 directors that just came out of Y Combinator doing this idea almost exactly. I think you may have seen the video on Facebook. It was like viewed like 7 million times. Like you stand on a scale and this little thing comes out and spins around and then it gives you all these measurements of your body. But they haven't like been able to gain traction with users. I like the idea of you're not going after the workout market, which is larger. You're going after a more niche market, which is diagnostic for patients at risk for disease. I like it's more targeted market. That part I like, but I don't know why. The other smart scales haven't really— that are trying to do this image sensing. There's some Kickstarters and stuff, and they just haven't really taken off in a major way. So I don't know what your feedback is.

So I guess my number one feedback on the pitch is, for reasons like this, right, for some random reason, your company gets mentioned on a webinar with hundreds of people watching, right? And your pitch was full of jargon, right? So a whole body imaging surface with a quantitative imaging biomarker platform, right? So you should always start simple like you're talking to a kindergartner, and then very quickly scale up like you're talking to someone who has a doctorate, right? And that's how you can keep everyone engaged and still informed. So if this is what I think it is, which I think is like I swallow a pill and my get an update on my organs, I want that. If it's something what you were talking about, Adair, where it's like a scale and it's like an external body thing, then I— but I'm not sure what it is because the pitch is just full of jargon. So always be clear, I guess. That's my feedback.

Yeah, I got a lot of "too" from the audience. They don't really get it. Yeah, I thought that whole body imaging service was external because it said avoid invasive diagnostic procedures, which I presume are like swallowing a pill. There's literally, by the way, a pill you can take and it takes pictures of your gastrointestinal tract while it goes down. Alright, next and last, my company Self Emergence is building a leadership development platform to help organizations that want to offer training to all first-time managers and teams Scale leadership coaching cost-effectively with an immersive experiential video role-play app, facilitated peer support, and integrated growth tracking assessments. Self-Emergence. Okay, I read that out loud. I gotta try and read that non-out loud.

You want me to read it one more time?

No, I don't think reading it another time is going to make it any better. Okay, on 3. 1, 2, 3, everyone vote. Yeah.

1.

Uno. Uno.

So I'll go first this time. So I guess I just, I, It sounds like a leadership development platform, which just sounds like a website where people can put courses, like a learning management system, right? And there's hundreds of these. One of the best ones though is actually out of New York Fire Institute, Pathgather, and they are crushing it in this space. So I don't think there needs to be another me too business here, and I wasn't very clear on what it was. A video roleplay app, like, it doesn't even sound like VR, right? Like a virtual reality app where you do these interactions and training, right? So, just, there's nothing unique that stands out here.

Yeah, I don't know what video roleplaying— I'm reading the notes here. Fuck me, excuse my language. So, We know who the winner is. Guys, don't use jargon. If I can't understand it, you fail, right? So it's got to be like, we're building a website that allows up-and-coming managers to pretend managing an employee with people in foreign countries that don't really matter, so that you can refine your management skills before having to use them in the real world or something like that. It's like, oh, I understand, a practice management app. But again, it's not super clear, so if it's not super clear— now sadly we have a winner here.

I want you to read these words out loud.

Man, you know, it's not a good day in Silicon Valley, so New York wins. In a landslide, 36 to 21. So Count Up is the overall winner, I believe, with 12. Work Nice, and they were New York, Work Nice, which is also New York, is a 9, and that includes the average vote of the people in the audience. Body Quant New York is an 8, and HelpTap is also— BodyQuant is New York, and HelpTap, which is Silicon Valley, is an 8. So these are the top pitches. Way to go, New York!

We swept the podium stand.

Yeah, okay.

Did that work?

Yeah, it did.

Awesome.

Lousy, faux applause for New York. All right, now I'm a New Yorker, so I win either way. But yeah, New Yorkers won this round. Guys, come on Silicon Valley, bring your game a little better. You know, maybe it started too close after work and we didn't get our best talent. But all right, New York wins hands down. So congratulations, guys.

If you're up for a rematch— Say the word and we'll set it up.

I think we need to do a rematch. So guys, some final reminders. Deadlines for New York and Silicon Valley semesters are coming on. Kevin and I are the directors, not necessarily the mentors, and you'll be going through pitches and feedback every week with some of the best CEOs in the world. We got an event tomorrow night in New York, Founder Night Out. We got an event on Wednesday night Silicon Valley. Go to fi.co/events to see them. Go to fi.co/join to join our programs. Thanks everyone, congratulations on the New Yorkers. We'll bring our game next time in Silicon Valley. Have a great one everyone, that was awesome. Thank you guys.

Thank you, Adeo.

Bye, Kevin. Bye, everyone.

Anyone in New York, see you soon.