Lessons from Founder Institute Alumni: Torrey Smith & Chaima Torkhani Share Their Journey

All right, welcome everyone. Excited to host you today for our FI alumni panel. Hopefully this is an insightful session where you're going to learn from a few Founder Institute alumni. We have got Tori Smith and Shaima Dorkhani here joining us today. This is more than just a webinar. It's a chance to learn and connect and take actionable steps towards building your startups. So after we do this panel, we're going to do a networking event so you can either meet with some of the alumni here or even just meet with each other. There's probably a lot of founders here on the call today that are looking to build teams and recruit team co-founders. So I really recommend sticking around. We'll do some networking in the tables afterwards. But here's like a few different things we're going to cover. So what are the different types of startup companies that go through Founder Institute? What's the experience of being part of an accelerator program? What are success metrics that investors want to see? What are some of the tactics required to build a strong startup? More than anything though, I really want to get your questions answered. It could be questions from the audience around just startups in general. You can ask me, you can ask the, the panelists here. It could be questions about the Founder Institute Accelerator specifically. But at the end of the day, we want to make sure this is adding value to everyone in the, the audience. So we'll do this panel for probably about like 30 to 45 minutes or so, and then we'll jump into the networking portion of this. A quick introduction on myself. My name is Ryan Michaeletti, Head of Global Operations for the Founder Institute. I'm also a venture capitalist. I started the Veteran Fund, which is a $20 million VC fund that invests in military veterans building critical technologies. And I've been Head of Ops for the last 10 years at Founder Institute, helping us grow to 8,000 portfolio companies across 200 cities. I used to run the Silicon Valley Accelerator program, Did that for 8 years. That's how Tory and I met. And then now I run the Funding Lab program, which is our free postgraduate program that helps our alumni raise capital when they're ready. So without further ado, I would love to introduce some of these speakers. First up, Tory Smith, co-founder and CEO of Endiotix. Tory, do you want to say hello, do a quick introduction on your side?

Yeah, awesome. Glad to be here, everyone. I make little robot pills. That swim inside the human body. And, you know, it's kind of a new way to do medicine. But something I'm really proud of is that, you know, this is my first notebook for Endyotix, our company. And, you know, on the first page you can see us sketching robots, but then on, I think it's page 15, here's a night one at the Founder Institute. So that's like early January 2019. And the very first thing I have written in my notebook is Josh out. My co-founder quit on the first day. And the thing that I really appreciate about this community is we literally walked in with a notebook sketch of robot pills and we said, we've got an idea, but we don't know how to start a company. And Founder Institute basically put their arms around us and we've raised $21 million to date and put hundreds of these robots in people's bodies. We're a real company, and so I'm just incredibly grateful to be a part of the ecosystem and hopefully here to help in any way I can.

Yeah. Thank you, Tori. Much appreciated. Shaima, it's great to see you. Do you want to do a quick introduction on your side?

Yes. Hi everyone. Great meeting you online and nice meeting Tori and Ryan also. I'm the founder of Koloki, which is a platform that helps students and young professionals, uh, find their compatible roommates. And it was basically based on my, uh, uh, current, um, experience with the flat sharing. That's why I wanted to start something that is, uh, more oriented on human than on the housing. And that's where, uh, Founder Institute, uh, I guess, popped in and helped me with all the elaboration of the project and my business. And I guess without Founder Institute and with, especially with my background, because I'm a product designer, and from there I did the switch for entrepreneurship. And I guess with Founder Institute, this is where I really started enjoying entrepreneurship. Yeah.

Thank you so much. Um, speaking of, uh, employee to entrepreneur, we actually have an employee to entrepreneur event coming up. Um, our producer will put the link in the chat, but if you're still fully employed, um, I just saw this, uh, interesting, um, it's called hybrid entrepreneurship now, where you have a job and you're still working, but you're— we're also launching a startup on the side, which I thought was really interesting. Um, but yeah, go ahead and join that. You can kind of learn from, from other people who made that leap. What I would— so if anyone in the audience has a question, go ahead and put it in the chat here. We'll be able to get to those. But let's just start off with maybe Tori, can you share more about like the starting point of your company? I mean, you know, I still remember what— I forget what— I think it was like a Pitch Your Startup event and like we had some companies come in. This was like a big public event at— I think it was at Perkins Coie. And so all these startups were pitching and then Tori gets up and he's like, I've got this crazy idea to build robots that go inside the human body. We're gonna start with this, you know, pillbot. I just thought it was like the coolest idea. So I was like, okay, like, let me talk to this guy and see, like, see if this is real. And so, so Tori, I mean, maybe share a little bit more about, you know, what inspired you to start the company and any other details you'd like to share.

Yeah, you know, so I, looking back, I had a pretty good background for this. Uh, you know, my education was aerospace engineering, my career was designing medical device. And so, you know, I had designed devices that cut plaque out of arteries, kind of like a Roto-Rooter. And, uh, I had designed devices that help women avoid hysterectomy through endometrial ablation, vascular closure, all kinds of stuff like that. Um, but what I really was was an early stage med device engineer. I didn't know how to write a patent or incorporate a company. And, you know, like many people, I had like a huge amount of imposter syndrome, meaning like, I would see my CEO, or the founder of the company I was working at, and I would just see an impossible gulf between where I was as an employee and where they were as the founder. And it just seemed like a brick wall. And it's not like there was anyone stopping me from doing anything. It's just I had built a cage around my mind, right? So I had this dream ever since seeing robots in the body in countless sci-fi movies like, you know, Fantastic Voyage or Innerspace, or any number of movies or books out there speak to this dream. As a medical device engineer with an aero background, obviously I had a similar dream. I said, hey, let's put robots in the body. That would be a great company, I think. And I would tell all my friends about it. You know, for years I told my friends that I had this idea that I was gonna start a company someday, someday. 10 years went by with me sketching logos for the company, sketching robots, but just doing that as like a hobby in the notes of my notebook at work, right? Finally, I saw a targeted ad on Facebook that said practice pitch your idea for free at the Founder Institute. And that's what led me to that evening that Ryan just mentioned. And I basically went to this event and, you know, I had seen stuff like this before, but just never clicked it, never had the courage to do it. I felt like there was some exclusivity with that kind of thing, but Founder Institute finally kind of just made it approachable and straightforward. Practice pitch your idea for free. I mean, how, what do you have to lose? So I went there and I didn't have any pitching experience and I kind of got slaughtered, if you will. You know, like I said, here's my idea and people were pretty constructively critical of it. But the thing that really stuck with me was just Mike saying, Mike and Ryan, you know, the two guys that were really leading that cohort and Ryan who's on this call, those guys saying, you seem pretty serious about this. If this is something you really want to do, this program is designed to help you transition from, you know, being an employee out in the world to being a founder, and we would encourage you to consider applying. And so, you know, the, the rest is really history. But it's just, besides all the tech ideas and whether or not you're a fit and do you have traction, besides all of those tangible things, I think there's a real human side to this community of how do people take that first huge leap of faith. And I think Founder Institute more than any other program is kind of the place that really honors that transition in a person's life.

Yeah, Tori, thank you so much. I mean, I think you brought up some really good points. Shaima, I mean, do you want to share a little bit more about how you got started? Like, what was the inspiration of your company? And what were your first steps to launching it?

Okay, it will be my pleasure. It's, I guess it's a long story, but I'm going to keep it short. So basically, after switching from product design to entrepreneurship, a master's degree in entrepreneurship, I started my end of year project in a company of project management. And it was there when I found out about Founder Institute because we were working at the same place with the Founder Institute chapter here in Tunisia with Emna and the Tunisian team. And so it was there when I found out about the Founder Institute program and what it could bring to the table, especially for young professionals. And after ending my end of study project and getting my degree, I thought this is the next step and I should join the Founder Institute because the end of the project of my end of study was colloquy. And I thought that this is a continuity of my project and I could really like help students here in Tunisia because I were struggling to find a compatible flatmate because there were solutions like Facebook groups where to find houses, but the problem was how to find a compatible one. The human approach wasn't found in the existing solution. That's where I started digging and I applied. And I applied at midnight and I did get the chance to go through the program. And I remember something very funny because at the end of the, like 3 weeks before the ending of the Founders Institute program, I was really stressed out. And I told Anna that I'm gonna stop. I'm not going to continue with this project. I got a lot of ideas. A lot of mentors was there giving their feedback about the project and about the business model and about a lot of things. And I had a lot of information coming through many places, and I didn't know what to do with all of that. But I remember that she told me, like, go back to what the reason that you choose to start the problem and it was why I'm helping this target. And that's where I thought this is it, I should give up and I should continue this path. And I don't regret it. So people don't freak out about the consistency of the Founder Institute program. And the inspiration about the project and about— is really my story, my struggle to find a compatible flatmate and to find a compatible house near the university or near the workplace that that I was working in, and so on. So I guess it's obvious, like, it's very obvious and very common with the flat-sharing project, I guess. So that's it.

Yeah, well, thank you. I actually see a couple really good questions here in the audience, some around, you know, building hardware robotics, some around recruiting teams, some around fundraising. I want to get to those, but before I do, I have one question I'd like to ask, uh, maybe, you know, we'll go to Tori first, uh, which is, you know, there's a lot of people here that are, you know, they know about Founder Institute, they're considering joining, uh, maybe they're on the fence. What advice would you have on how they can maximize their experience and get the most value out of the program?

The most memorable quote I have from FI is, is actually one of yours, Ryan, where day one when, you know, my, my cohort began, you said, "Attention everyone, this is a boot camp for founders. Everything is a test." And I was seated in the middle of the room. And when you said that, I just realized he's right. Everything is a test. This is 100% full commit if we're going to succeed. And so I immediately stood up, walked to the front of the room and sat down front and center. And I made a point in that moment to myself, a little promise to myself that my hand would be the first up for any question or any opportunity to pitch, that it would be Endiotics, PillBot, and Tori striving to be the head of that program. Not because I want to push anyone down or push anyone else's idea aside, but to acknowledge that there will be winners and there will be losers. And it is my intent as the co-founding CEO of this company to force it into the victory column. And so with Founder Institute, for the first time ever in my life, I just went full commit, meaning my sleep-wake cycle, whatever I was doing in or out of the program, everything was fully committed to Endyotix now. There was no other part of my life that had a higher priority. I would be willing to sacrifice anything to pursue this dream. And in the nearly 6 years that have transpired since then, that full commit has been necessary many, many times because, you know, despite raising double-digit millions of dollars over the years, we've gone to zero cash many times. We've had critical founding members quit the company. Um, we've had the rug pulled out from under us many times, and that's just normal. That's par for the course. And you can very quickly tell that some founders are truly serious, like this is their dream, this is their identity, to, to build this company. And then there are other founders who are more comfortable. They have higher standards. They have less than 100% commitment. Usually you see very quickly those companies shake out. And so with that being said, Founder Institute was really the opportunity to just rip the bandaid off of my previous comfort zone and finally kind of step into the league of people who are really truly engaging life. And what that means is as someone who has 37, 38 years old when I engaged, I now on a daily basis get to interact with people who are just about half of my age who are now nearly as accomplished as I am now in my mid-40s. And it's interesting because I feel like half the time I feel like, oh damn, I missed a huge opportunity. But then the other half of me is going, hey, congratulations on finally stepping up to the plate.

Yeah, there's a lot of good wisdom in there. And there is a question here from the audience around making that leap, like the transition between employee to entrepreneur. I think it might be a good time to ask, and then Shaima, we can include this on your side too. But you kind of burned the boats and just went all in on Endyotix pretty quickly. What was that transition like? Going from employee to entrepreneur? And what were some of the things that you struggled with? What were some challenges? And looking back, is there anything that you could have done to make those challenges a little bit easier?

Well, I think— Oh, sorry, Chaima, why don't you go first?

Go ahead, Dory. I guess I'm going to learn a lot from you since you raised money, Dory. I didn't raise money yet. So I guess the floor is yours.

In that case, I'll be super fast. Founder Institute helped me because it, it was a forcing function. I didn't have the self-confidence to on my own do some of the things that I had to do in Founder Institute. So I got a homework assignment one week, which was incorporate your company by next week or you fail out of the program. And so it, I went ahead and took that seriously because Founder Institute fails you if you don't do what you are instructed to do. But they also said, hey, Perkins Coie has a package deal, they could probably make this easy for you. And so Founder Institute gave me both the instruction and the tool to go do a critical thing. Another homework assignment I got from Founder Institute was quit your job by next week or you fail the program. And it was interesting because I actually somehow managed to get fired that week. But then with all of the forcing function and self-confidence that Founder Institute was insisting that I channel, I sat down and I didn't cry or freak out or get nervous. I said, I understand what you've done here. I'd like to acknowledge that, you know, I haven't been the perfect employee. But also let's acknowledge we've done some amazing things together on this device. And that I've kept a pretty positive attitude even when, you know, say my depression was getting the best of me. I'm grateful for that severance package that you've offered of 1 month. And what I'd like you to do, if you don't mind, is could you go to the boss and ask him to quadruple it just to ease my transition? And I don't mean to be arrogant or mean in this request. And they were like, What? But I was polite, but I was professional and I was kind of speaking the new language I had been taught. And they ended up doubling the severance instead of quadrupling it. And so you don't get what you don't ask for. And then the last thing is when I was invited to participate in Founder Institute's funding lab, just weeks after that, one of my next homework assignments was raise $100,000 this week or you fail out of the program. And we did, right? And so that's kind of the amazing value of a forcing function like this is basically F BYE will be like, okay, tell me your dreams. Are you really serious? Do you actually want to do this? Are you willing to commit to it? And if you can check all those boxes, then you get this incredible support. But it really is only valid for people who are ready to take that seriously.

Yeah. And I just add one layer to that and then Chaim, I'm really curious to get your thoughts. You know, that's part of the benefit of taking a program, right? It's like maybe you're not sure if you're serious and maybe like it's hard to know if you're, you know, serious as well if you don't know if you've got a really strong idea. So that's where, you know, I like to call it the dojo, right? Like Founder Institute's a dojo where you could practice and you could like get beat up a little bit, but you learn a lot and like you can make that decision of like, does it make sense to go full bore into this? Or, hey, I learned some really incredible things. I'm gonna pivot now and I'm gonna focus on building it in this other way and then either come back to the program or push forward with, with the, the pivot. But Chima, maybe let's work backwards a little bit here. What was your transition like going from like employed entrepreneur going more full-time into your company? And then like, what advice would you have for founders going through the accelerator program?

Okay. So first of all, Ryan, I'm not a full, I'm not fully on Koloqi. So this is the thing that you should know. Um, this is my fourth year on Koloqi on part-time. So I guess, uh, here goes to, to Tory for not taking the risk, uh, as a founder institute, um, like, uh, for us too. But I guess if I had the chance to be like on full-time on Koloki, I will definitely do things really differently, especially with my co-founders, because I took a lot of time to find co-founders. I didn't take that thing very seriously because I thought, no, I can do it by myself. I'm a strong independent woman, especially that Back then when I started, I was really going through a hard depression, let's say. And after Founder Institute, I guess I got through another depression, but another type of depression because of a lot of the work that I had to do. But I guess the thing that put me through was the knowledge that I got from knowing all the peoples through the community of Foundr, but also the feedback that I got since I didn't— I seized every opportunity to pitch my idea because I wanted to know if this could work, especially here in Tunisia with all the, uh, the struggle that we have in bureaucracy and all that stuff. So, um, I guess I surpassed some things, but other things still have to be surpassed by taking actions like in a deeper level. I don't know if I answered right the question, Ryan, or I should be more specific.

No, I, I think that's fine. Um, is there anything else you'd like to share in that regard? Or should we move on?

I would love to jump in and basically say, thank you so much for just mentioning the concept of depression, right? Because when you become a founder, a CEO, a co-founder, a CTO, any kind of founder in this community, you take on this incredible mantle of responsibility and stress and you suddenly become very, very isolated from most other humans on the planet. Because very few humans ultimately become founding CEOs or founders of companies. And it is incredibly lonely. You know, very few people will understand the challenges that you're going through. And so you can't really think of mental health as this thing off in the distance. And it's maybe it's good or maybe it's bad. Mental health is just one of many variables that are constantly on your dashboard. What's my runway? And what, what is my current sanity level? You know, what's my stress level? Um, physically, how am I doing? Um, like, I was a depressed little potato for the last 3 months, but I've been able to kind of lean into that, give myself permission to become depressed, and be able to communicate that to people, be like, yeah, I'm just off this month, but You can expect me to try to get better and maybe you could help me get a little bit better. And you kind of have to keep yourself at redline for long stretches of time to bring something up off the ground. So it's not something to hide, right? It's something to talk about and to reach out to your friends and your network to support you. And you're gonna be supporting them as well.

Yeah, yeah, I think that mental health is such an important topic. By the way, Tori, send me your, I've got a gift for you. Send me your address, best place to send it. But so there's two, there's a few questions here. One is specific to Tori, one's specific to Chima. Chima, let's start with this and it's very specific to the African ecosystem. What are some of the things that you struggled with in the African startup ecosystem, especially like what have you heard in terms of fundraising? There's a lot of development that's still going on. I mean, is there anything, any advice you would have to founders that are looking at maybe starting a company in Africa, but they're hesitant because of the ecosystem?

So there's schizophrenia in the African ecosystem, I would say, because here, like here in Tunisia, we do have like a problem with the fundraising, but it depends on the market that you are working on. So basically there is some trends, for example, let's say green, like green social social solutions are really recommended and really, like, you find, like, potential investors in these sectors. Yet in other countries, there are larger sectors and wider interest in the investment ecosystem, especially in South Africa. Yet in Tunisia, we do have, like, a little bit of As I said, bureaucracy and a lot of, how to say, "barrières à l'entrée." I don't know how to say that in English, but let me search. Barrier entry, I guess. So, but I guess also that the thing with fundraising is It really depends on the market and why does the market, the larger investor are interested in. And I guess if there is an impact, then there is, they will be an investor that will be interested in your solution. I guess with Konoki, the road is very long because of the struggles that we have with landlords because here in Tunisia, for example, landlords don't pay taxes. So how will you rent like houses and secure the life for students if the landlord doesn't pay taxes? So here we need to find an approach where the public institution need to take step in to find like a middle with all the struggle, I guess.

So yeah, there's something I want to dive into fundraising here in a moment. There are a couple questions around it, but before we do, there is a couple questions around hardware. And so Tori, this is kind of more geared towards you, but, you know, one, do you have any general advice for hardware robotics companies? And then two, do you have any recommendations for cost-effective hardware design and manufacturing firms? This is coming from Kamal, who's building consumer kitchen appliance.

Yeah, awesome. So it really depends on, you know, what you're building and who you are. I am a, I stopped counting my SOLIDWORKS hours at 20,000 and now we're sponsored by Dassault Systèmes who make that and all sorts of other stuff. And so we're totally vertically integrated at Endyotics. Like we have 9,000 square feet in Silicon Valley in the East Bay in Hayward. We have milling machines, injection molding, all the 3D printers. We design the electric circuits. They're flexible, it's like, origami with electronics. We write the code, we test it, we build it. We just built our own clean room. And today I'm going to swallow my 69th and 70th pillbot. Um, and so my entire philosophy is full, full commit, full brain commit. Like, I don't outsource thinking because if I outsource thinking, then I'm paying someone else outside of the company become smarter than I am. And then who are my investors investing in? Are they investing in me, the brilliant founder with my amazing team that we've built, which actually has real tangible value? Or are they investing in a slide deck and someone else's team that could build it? Because if that's the case, then maybe just a better slide deck and a slightly different contract manufacturer is a better investment than you, right? So I don't want to rein on outsourcing and contract manufacturing and all that, because it is a real part of the ecosystem. But if you just have like an idea and you're getting other people to build your idea for you, it starts to get kind of iffy. Your differentiation and your defensibility start to really fall into question. And so like if you're making a weird, crazy kitchen appliance, you better have some version of that with cardboard and spray paint and duct tape and glue, riveted together with pop rivets if necessary, or 3D printed. Be building your thing. If you want to speak my language, that's all I can say. But take it with a grain of salt.

There's a lot of interesting layers to that, especially as it comes to fundraising. Um, so for example, like, you know, um, if you're not able to build the product in-house for whatever reason, then it's something where you might want to try and recruit a team that can help you build the product in-house. Because again, like, if investors are not going to invest in you early on to then take whatever, $100,000, and go pay a product development firm to build the thing for you, right? That's just not a good one. Like, it shows that the team isn't in the right configuration to properly build the company. But two, like, you know, those, those, uh, product development firms or consultants, they're not incentivized by the same thing the investors are, which is equity in your company. So investors want to invest in you when you're, when you're growing the value of your company. They don't want to invest in you when you just need to go and build the product, and especially when that's going towards someone else. So we can dive deeper into the the mechanics of fundraising. I think, I think that'd be a natural transition here. But, but before we do, I want to make sure we get any other just kind of general questions here. I'm reviewing the chat. There's some actually, there's some good questions that are kind of more like rapid-fire answer that, you know, I, I could go down this list. So let me just kind of see here. Can FI help with recruiting tech talent team instead of a co-founder? The process to recruiting your early team members and early co-founders, that is actually fairly simple. At the end of the day, it comes down to meeting a lot of people and building your network, which is something that we're especially good at doing. I mean, you know, Tori Shima, like, you, you went through the program. How many mentors did you meet with? And like, how, how did your— how was FI a network multiplier for you?

It's incredible. I mean, like, I can't understand why I wasn't going on LinkedIn and Twitter, now X, like crazy, you know, building my network. It took me a while to really take that seriously. FI forced that into action. And like our cohort, although I got in the front and I put my hand up and I, you know, became class president and all that stuff, it didn't mean I was trying push my other guys and folks down. It meant that we became like a family, and we would have, you know, someone would have a terrible week, someone else would step in and help them complete their homework. Um, someone would have to fly to a different country to get some immigration paperwork dealt with. People were gifting airline miles, um, and, and just anything to help this— these people build their dreams. And basically what we got out of this was, was incredible intimate network. And so now I can reach out to people in the FI network from my original cohort and beyond and be like, hey, I'm looking for someone with XYZ. And you'll get very, very powerful intros coming in rapidly. So it's a great community to sort of meet potential co-founders and then just people who can help you build your company.

Yeah, thank you, Tori. Chaima, anything you'd like to add to that?

No, same goes for me as Tori, because with Founder I started to have a network. I didn't have a network before. I didn't know what network was, the meaning of network.

Yeah, one area I'd like to dive into, because Elena asked a question here around like What kind of companies do we like to invest in? Can you share with us the investment mind setting? And I think there's some, especially for me, I mean, when I launched my first startup 15 years ago, I had a completely unrealistic expectation of what fundraising meant for startups. I thought you could just go out with a pitch deck and raise like $2 million and there's money out there. And, you know, unfortunately, or I guess maybe actually fortunately, that's not the case. That's not how fundraising works. So, so let me, I'll just give, run everyone through like a quick high-level overview. So in order to raise capital in general, right, you need to be full-time on your startup. You need to have a team, which ideally it's like 1 or 2 co-founders or early team members is fine. You need to have a product built. And you need to have some traction or validation for that product. Once you have those things, and there are some exceptions, right? Like deep tech would be an exception where, you know, maybe you need money to build a quantum computer or something like that's very technical. Um, but it, but really at the end of the day, like you need full-time team product traction, right? And so if your plan, if you need to raise money to achieve any one of those three things, You're, you're not focused on the right thing at the right time. And what Founder Institute does is it helps you focus on the appropriate next step based on your stage that will eventually enable you to get to this level, whether it's building your product or building your team to be able to then go out and fundraise. Now, some companies decide to bootstrap and I'm a big bootstrapping fan, but some companies need capital to grow. And there's a big difference between the two of them. But it's important to understand which path you're going down and then how do you build your company in the right way to achieve those goals. Torrey, I mean, you've gone through the fundraising wringer, right? Is there any advice you'd like to share for founders who are maybe at that very early stage and they haven't fundraised and they're still maybe MVP-ish?

Yeah, absolutely. My whole perspective is gonna be through what is venture backable and venture scalable. So, you know, big ideas that could explode and change the world, if you will. I have less knowledge or expertise on smaller things that could become a good sustainable business, but aren't necessarily trying to like 10 or 100x some variable. So I'm over in the disruptive side of the mindset. And so in my little corner of the world, which I'd like to make a very big corner of the world, it's all about how quickly can you accomplish this? Because if the idea that you're pursuing has value, then many other people will have that same idea and they will all be pursuing it. And the question is, can you plant the flag and be the first or be a fast follower and be the true winner? We're trying to be the first and become the real winner. And so we're doing this really hard thing, tiny robots that move in the body and do things like microsurgery or diagnostics. And if I spent the next 10 or 15 years working on it, bootstrapping it, then how am I to expect that I'll be the first to actually bring it to market? And it like, I'll have to salute the team that beats us. But my goodness, I'm going to look in the mirror and have a really dark, difficult moment there, realizing that I tried and I failed to be the first. So venture capital is what speeds you up. Venture capital is how you hire a bunch of engineers and make it happen in, in, in way less time. And I used to think that the dream team of just the right couple of magical minds put just the right way together could create a product. And maybe you didn't need a huge amount of VC, but I'm starting to evolve beyond that mindset where engineered ecosystems require a lot of work, right? I wish I could just throw engineers at PillBot right now. And so where I'm going with that is raise as much as you can, as fast as you can, and build this into a real product ecosystem, go to market and dominate. In other words, get serious. This is not an academic exercise. If you want to just do this at your own favorite pace, do it in the academic world and, you know, release that knowledge through published papers and, you know, you can get credit for that in that way. And you can help the next generation learn and go on to pursue their dreams. But in the venture-backed disruptive worlds, it's all about scaling.

Yeah. Shaima, is there anything you'd like to add to that? Or I've got a question for you.

Yeah, I do have a question, I guess, which is, does the If a startup raised money, does that mean she succeeded or not?

Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. I mean, in my opinion, no, right? And I think at the end of the day, I call it the Shark Tank effect, right? Where it's like people see Shark Tank and they're like, oh, it's really sexy to be an entrepreneur and to go and raise money. Like, great, I raised $100,000, which is like a lot of money. But then when you're a startup founder and you realize, wait a minute, $100,000 is fucking nothing compared to like the resource drain that like startups are. You gotta pay people, you gotta pay taxes. You have like so many different expenses that like, you know, even a lot, a large amount of money, like $100,000, it doesn't really go that far. And so I do think like people get distracted with the goal of like, I'm gonna go out and raise money so I can pay myself a salary. Guys, I've got really bad news for you. Even as you go, you have to get to a large Series A before you can even really pay yourself anything decent. So if you think that you're going to raise money so that you can pay yourself to be full-time and give yourself a really nice salary to do that, the reality is much, much different. You're going to be a starving entrepreneur for at least 4 years, maybe longer.

Yeah, we're burning $500,000 a month right now. Right, but like, good luck. Yeah, and we're about— like, there will be months this year where we burn 1.5 per month because we're deep, getting deep into it with FDA, which is a good thing. Um, but, uh, yeah, just get ready for some really big numbers and understand that mo' money, mo' problems, right? So first couple of years, oh cool, you know, I, I can go do angel events and bring in angel checks, and I'm kind of raising money on my dream, but also like a history with Burning Man, cool stuff. And there was a narrative that worked to bring in angel checks. Then with seed money, you know, as you graduate from angel stage to seed stage, now people want to see you begin to show some polish and, you know, show some professionalism. The immediate consequence of just raising our Series A money means now I'm interviewing my replacements, right? Because now we probably need to bring in a Series A CEO, right? And we're kind of having that conversation. And so it's like, congratulations on raising your money. Now please step out of your job position. And, you know, there's a graceful way to do that. And, you know, right now it looks like maybe I'll become executive chairman, which actually sounds pretty cool. But just understand, like, The stress level and the numbers and the frenetic pace of this are only ever going to increase throughout the life of your company. You, on the other hand, will find yourself getting stronger by the minute. So don't shy away from the stress. Get better at handling stress, right? Don't look at your diminishing mental health as this thing that's just gonna run out. Find ways to build your mental health, right? You may find yourself leaning into like health and fitness just to keep your head above water. Like, I used to think of fitness people as kind of like almost like almost kind of dumb, you know, like that time when you're working out, you could be learning a new skill. Now I see it differently. Now when I go running, That is like my chance to like begin the run angry and freaked out and finish the run calm and serene and appreciating the people around me. Now, every time we do a board meeting, I run a marathon the night before the board meeting, just so that I can start the board meeting being like, well, gentlemen, I just ran a marathon. I don't know what you guys did. Let's get to work. And it's just, it's my way of telling people I'm serious. My legs are on fire. I didn't post a time that I'm super proud of, but I did the thing. And, you know, let's, let's get to work.

Yes, I do. I do have like two advices to give, which is, uh, please be friends with accountants and lawyers. Those two people should be in your circle. I don't know how, I don't know when, but you need to, to find those peoples and to, to be friends, really friends with them. Also, the second thing, if you're not good with numbers, please learn. Learn how to read and how to write. It's very important. I didn't know how to do that and I really struggled at first when I first started with the accountant part.

Yeah. And to highlight something and then we'll go to like final questions here, you know, don't get distracted with fundraising. Yet one thing that I think every founder should have is a North Star. And again, this doesn't work for certain types of companies and certain types of founders, but I think it probably will work for at least 80% of you on the call today. Your job is not to go out and raise money. Your job is to go out and build your company and get to your first million dollars in revenue. And if you can do that without raising capital, you're in a really good spot because now you can pay yourself whatever you want. You can pay your team, you've got resources, you've got runway, right? You've built the company to where it's very appealing for investors to come in and fund you, but you could keep bootstrapping or you could go out and raise capital, in which case you're raising from a position of strength. And so don't think your job is to go from building the product to raising capital. If you need to raise capital to get to your first million in revenue, Okay, it makes sense to go and do it, but don't take your eye off the prize. It's really about building a great company. And in order, the first like really, really big milestone for you is to get to your first million in revenue. So let's go ahead. I've got final question here and then we'll wrap the networking piece. Maybe Shaina, let's start with you. What's one key message you'd like to share with the audience that they can take away about being an entrepreneur?

Key message, I would say, balance your social life with your work life because it's very important. Please find time to your friends and your family, it's very important. At the end of the time, those are the people that, like, who believed in you, so you should not, like, let them down or, I don't know, pretend like they don't exist. I guess this is the most important lesson that I, that I've learned from my experience, my first experience.

Tori, what about you? What are some of your— what was like one piece of advice you'd like to share?

Well, founders in my mind are like the rock stars of the business world. And so picture a rock concert, So for me, it's gonna be like Metallica in Moscow or something like that. So I just, 75,000 people in arena, 3 people on stage, say 25,000 to 1 ratio between employees and founders, 25,000 to 1 ratio. So you have to ask yourself like, okay, that's gnarly in a crowd of 75,000 people, in a crowd of, in a crowd of 25,000 people. What makes you so very interesting or weird or special, right? You, you, everyone here in my mind, in my heart, is entitled to things like life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Absolutely. Please be entitled to that. Please be entitled to the concept of education. That's a society I want to live in. Please be entitled to the concept of healthcare. Let's get that for everyone, right? Let's not question that. Absolutely. But what you are not entitled to is being a rock star. You do not deserve to be a rock star. If you want to crawl out of a crowd of 25,000 people and put yourself on that stage, you need to burn for it. You need to earn it. You need to prove and justify it, and you need to fight for it. You are not entitled to this. And so it is an incredible privilege to call yourself a founder, to call yourself CEO. Are you kidding? Celebrate and revel in that privilege. Fight for it every single day. Right. And if you can't hack it, go be someone's employee and make their dreams come true today. But if you want to make your own dreams come true, that is a privilege.

Yeah, love it. Tori, thank you so much. Chima, Tori, I appreciate you guys joining us today. We're going to go ahead and switch the networking portion. So in a moment, this broadcast will end. Everyone will kind of appear back in the place where they were when they first came into this event. And there's a couple of different tables. Feel free to connect with folks from the audience, or if Chima and Tori have a few minutes to stick around, they'll be joining their tables. And I want to thank the audience for participating today. If you have other questions around Founder Institute, you can always just reply back to any of our emails or join any future event. We're happy to discuss any questions you have. So thank you so much, and we'll see everyone in the breakout rooms.

Take care.

Thank you. Bye-bye.