November Founder Showcase: Pre-Seed Startup Pitch & Networking Event [LIVESTREAM]
Investor Bade Aluko of White Hibiscus Capital discusses funding African startups at a Founder Institute showcase. He built IBM's largest sub-Saharan equipment distributor before investing. African founders face limited team experience and shrinking Western capital, but fintech thrives on low banking penetration and mobile adoption.
Chapters
2 headquarters. I'm coming to you live from Austin, Texas, my home. I also serve as the executive director for all our Texas programs for Founder Institute. So thank you all again for joining us for another amazing round of the Founder Showcase, the last one of the year, if I do say so, uh, to mention. Um, we're looking at over 200 people in the audience. Don't be shy, y'all. Definitely use that message. Let us all know where you're coming from. We have people from all over the world in this global India bars, and y'all are part of it too. So let's find out where y'all are at. Let us know. We're getting everybody. Somebody's got no sound on there and you have to toggle on your audio issues. But we come people from Chicago, Sacramento, Denver, South Africa, Palo Alto. Oh, y'all are using the little emojis to do that. I like that. That's great stuff. So we've got a great, great program for y'all today. Phenomenal speaker is going to come up, Ariel Uko, in a second. Before I do that, um, just want to give you all a quick heads up on what this whole experience is. Maybe it's your first time joining us on Airmeet for Founder Instinct. Maybe it's your 100th. We've done a lot. I host a lot of these too on this platform. It's a fun platform. You're able to connect with other people via the chat, obviously. Um, if you were hanging out before we went live, uh, when we were hanging out backstage, you noticed that there were tables So we have tables for all of our presenting companies today. We have 6 that'll be pitching live, and we'll be doing some live QA with them. And then, but you can also connect with each other based on topics and do some one-on-one conversation. So definitely take advantage of that once we wrap the pitches today. We'll keep the networking lounge open for as long as y'all are hanging out. We've had people here for hours and hours and hours afterwards. We certainly want y'all to meet each other and connect as well. Magic happens when y'all do that. So A little bit about Founder Institute before we bring up our, our guest speaker, uh, Bade, is, uh, for those of you might not know, Founder Institute is the largest pre-seed accelerator on the planet. Started in a classroom at Stanford back in 2009, and to date we're in over 200 cities in 100 countries around the world. Helped about 6,000 companies launch in those 13+ years, and today we're going to meet 6 of them. So excited for you all to meet that But they've all gone through this core program, as we call it, in the course of 14 weeks. They've learned to validate their idea, understand their customer, that initial customer, and how they're going to approach building a solution that's going to solve the problems that those customers face. So we've got a variety of different companies presenting today from a variety of different areas and all brilliant founders that we can't wait for you to meet too. So if you are interested in learning more about how you can turn an idea that you may have into reality, head on over to fi.co, attend more of these events, and maybe sign up and apply for one of the many, many opening chapters that we have for the upcoming programs for the winter and spring of 2023, all in Texas, where applications are open as well. So if you are in Texas, love to meet y'all, love to have y'all part of it as well. So let's get to it. I would love to bring to the stage Bade Aluko of White Hibiscus Capital. He is having a little bit of an internet connectivity issue, so please allow us some grace while we get through on that. But otherwise, it's going to be a great convo. Bade, welcome to the stage. I know everyone else is excited to meet you. And how you doing? Tell us. Again, just for context, I know one of our other speakers has had some power issues too. I don't know what's going on, but thank you for making it. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Martin. It's nice to be here. I'm sure the world is going upside down, so we get the feel of the energy problem everywhere across the globe. But then we are human beings, we are resourceful, so we always find a way.
That's the entrepreneurial way. It's the entrepreneurial way. We are resourceful, we get things done. So thank you for joining us. And yeah, I hope we have a good signal with us throughout. May the air meet be in our favor. So tell us a little about yourself. You have an amazing story. I've had a chance to get to know you over the past year, but now I want you to get this whole community of ours here, 200+ attendees for this showcase today, hitting on 230 now, a little bit about yourself. So maybe not go all the way to the beginning, but maybe tell us about your entrepreneurial journey heading into becoming investor?
Okay, all right.
I mean, well, there's no way we're not going to go all the way back because, uh, I started my first company with a group, with a friend of mine, when I was 26 years old. So that's a long way back. In those days, it's, it's not the typical team. You, you tend to just take a job and stay on the job and spend 25 years on the job and retire. So they thought we were crazy in those days, and the truth was that it was actually a very daredevil kind of move if you consider it. I'm Nigerian by birth and I went to school in Nigeria. I finished university, I did computer science at school and I joined a French conglomerate, technology and systems, and at that point in time IBM office in Nigeria was moving out And the SCOAN, which is the owner of technology and systems, then bought IBM office in Nigeria, and then they merged us with the IBM office in Nigeria, and then we became the principal owner of the business for IBM in Nigeria. IBM Nigerian office is the second largest outside South Africa, and it was extremely very, very successful. At that point in time, I spent about 2, 3 years Sorry, I spent about 4 years with IBM and then I thought I could do things better than IBM was doing it in the local environment. And then myself and a friend of mine then decided to start up a technology house where we basically tried to do the same service that IBM was doing but better than IBM, which is, if I can say so, was quite engineers of us. But what was quite interesting was that we started out like every startup with only an idea of what we want to do.
No money.
This was way back in 1994. In 1994, nobody believes in you being able to do anything, so nobody gives you money. But we recognize that we understand what the customer want. And that the current provider of service in the country was not doing what the customer wanted. And I think that was the key element. And this is one of the things that I use today when I do mentoring. It's extremely very important that you do customer validation so that you understand precisely what is it that the customer is saying is my problem, not what you think is the customer's problem, which is the mistake that most of us make as an entrepreneur. We have a good idea, We lock up in our room and then we start imagining what the customer wanted. Usually it's a problem. So we were able to validate what the customer wanted and that enabled us to define from day one what was the segment of the market that we wanted to play with. So we wanted to play in oil and gas and banking, not government. Oil and gas and banking. The reason being that the oil and gas and banking industry were private sector driven. Decision-making process can be predicted. Government is usually very long and cumbersome, and we had no time to go on a long gestation period of closing. So we stayed in that industry, and then we started competing with IBM, quite the trust, IBM office in Nigeria, and within a short while, By the time we were on our 4th year, we became the largest distributor of IBM equipment in Black Africa outside South Africa.
Wow.
Wow.
That's pretty fast.
Very, very, very fast that we became a household name in the country. And then we decided that, okay, we were doing purely Enterprise servers and services are consulting.
Nope, looks like we may have lost Bade. Hopefully we get him back. We got him back.
Cool.
Awesome, buddy. We're having a little technical stuff on there, but you're back now. So I think we just lost your writing. Right, just like a few minutes, like a second ago. Let's see, Bade. Again, gracious, thank y'all for being so gracious in the audience. As you all know, Bade was having some technical issues earlier. It looks like we are getting him back here shortly. If you do have questions for Bade, please put them in the chat for us. We'd love to have them queued up and maybe get some of your questions from up to him. And we'll be kind of building these out on the backstage so that I can get view on those as well. So I do have one coming out. And, Badi, let me know if you are with us. You may want to just turn off the camera too, if that's all right. It might make things easier on your end. And team behind the scenes, if— if there's anything y'all can share with me technical-wise, we make sure that we get Bade back as soon as possible. Bade, I see you. Looks like we did lose him, unfortunately. Thank you, Bade, on this end. We do have some other speakers coming out from the audience or in our queue. So if we can bring up maybe a couple of our guest judges for the pitch today while we get— hope to get Bade back. We'll learn a little bit more about what they're working on as well. But looks like we are getting him back. Looks like he is coming back, right? We got him back, ladies and gentlemen! Get those emojis, give me some claps! We can totally keep the camera off just for the sake of your bandwidth.
We do have power back now, that was the problem.
Oh, fantastic, fantastic! There he is. Okay, we are back on the road. This is what happens when you go live. These things happen. These things happen, ladies and gentlemen. Thank y'all for your patience. Um, well, all right, well, I guess that's a good way to transition. I'm already starting to get some questions from the audience, so how do you feel about maybe taking some audience questions? Um, so obviously, and we were talking about this backstage, pade, uh, but you know, it's, it's getting crazy right now in big tech world. Um, you know, you're talking about really not really necessarily affecting too much in emerging markets, but As you mentioned, you know, this— we're in a global, you know, we're in a global community, global economy. It's going to happen in some way, shape, and form. So I have, um, I have a question from the audience in that saying, you know, tech layoffs are big news just here in North America just over the last couple weeks. There's a lot of fear in the general market of a downturn, but is there anything that you're seeing right now in a wider sector, maybe with respect to the Africa markets that give you some optimism, or is there impact happening there as well?
Okay, I mean, today the world is a global place, so obviously the effect of the global economics in the West is affecting Africa and the emerging market as a whole, but the effect is not as deep as it is in the West. So where we haven't seen a mass rush to court costs or court staff in Africa particularly, we are having currently challenges around the timeframe to raise funds. Usually when a funder goes into market to raise within the 3 to 6 months, they could easily accomplish their goal, but that is getting a little bit stretched now because the bulk of the fund in Africa usually are from the West. And I think it's quite important that we understand that even though we have funds that are African-origin funds, but they're usually very, very small fund sizes and their ticket sizes are small. So the bulk of the funds that come to Africa are from the West. And when the West gets affected, then the number of funds that are chasing the deals becomes smaller. And then when the deals are larger that are chasing the smaller funds, of course, most people who need the funding do not get it. So that's the current state. And for, for funds themselves, because of the— again, like I said, there are two types of funds that is in the African market. There is the African-focused funds that's coming from the West. Those are affected by the general LP economics of issues that's down that side. But beyond that, in Africa, Africa is They are Africa-based funds that are raising funds primarily from African LPs. The African economy has been badly hit. Most of the currencies have depreciated between 20% to 50%. Nigerian economy, for example, our currency depreciated almost 60%. So this has affected fundraising, particularly for funds that are African-based. I think the startups themselves are not necessarily having a hard time continuing to meet their obligations, but those who have had, uh, uh, are closing to their runways might be having problems in ensuring that they have the funds before the little fund that they have in the house gets, gets, uh, taken up. That's currently the state in Africa right now.
Got it, got it. And so I guess that ties in a little bit to what you're working on right now, obviously with White Hibiscus. We learned a little bit about that beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. You have the chops of actually starting businesses, growing businesses, and being good at it. But now you have the opportunity to actually invest in other companies and identifying people that might share your vision of what Africa can become and in certain industries that you really like. So tell us a little bit more about again, your own personal investment thesis, kind of how are you looking and identifying great founders and what are you excited about that you're really able to contribute to?
Okay, the key challenge in my opinion for most founders in Africa is that they have very low experience. The founders themselves have a low experience, so the team is a major challenge. It's easier to had to put together a good team in the West. So even if it's their first rodeo, all right, but you could see that the, the composition of the team and the skill sets and the qualification or career backgrounds are extremely very strong. On the contrary, in Africa, it's extremely very weak. So the number one challenge in, in, in team formation in Africa is that the local teams have a lot of challenge in experience-wise. Now you find out that, uh, I think there was a statistic that was released not too long ago that shows that there were a higher proportion of Nigerians, of Africans in diaspora, that is Africans that went to school in the diaspora, in the diaspora in this instance means out of Africa, who have been favored more by investors when you are looking to fund into startups that are African-focused. And that is the problem that I identified because we found out, the investors found out that the experience level of the local school or local graded startups are a bit weak. So that's the key challenge. I think the value there though is that the opportunity in Africa is extremely very enormous. All right. So where we have the challenge about team, the opportunity is huge, and the market is extremely very big. It's a very, very big market, and it's extremely very easy also to do cross-border sales. Uh, if you could do well in one country, let's say for example, most— this is what most of them try to do. They take a large country like, like Nigeria. If a startup do well in Nigeria, it's extremely very easy for them to scale across the rest of the globe— sorry, across the rest of the continent. And that helps them greatly in being able to actualize their scaling within a short time. And that's why you— I think we've recorded about 5 or 6 unicorns now, uh, in, in the continent, and typically around, um, uh, fintech or commerce-focused startups that enables the capability of the startups to, to scale extremely very well. So I think for me, they say it's a combination of finding a good team I'm finding a good, a good opportunity to invest.
Awesome, awesome. And you mentioned fintech here. I have a question from Miguel in the audience, um, who's, who's actually noticing that too. It seems like, uh, his question is, it seems there are a few rising fintech companies really coming out of Africa right now, um, and, and the trend seems like it's going to keep going this way. So, you know, what, what's making like the Africa market specifically so attractive for fintech? Like, why, why is fintech such, such an interesting sector right now in the region?
Well, it is because of the lack of infrastructure for banking services in Africa generally. The traditional banks are what we call armchair banking, right? Where they believe that the customer needs them rather than they need the customer. And when mobile penetration started growing up in Africa, and the cost of technology to start up a venture started reducing because now you could do pay-as-you-go technology. It becomes very, extremely very easy for young people to recognize that, wow, there are people who need these services that I can easily scale through. And because the services are propelled by technology, the cost of starting becomes very easy. So the chance to make a mistake and not really get killed with the mistakes is, is, is great now. Uh, unlike my time, if, if you want to start this business in my time, you need to have a minimum of $500,000 to start. Today you just need a couple of thousands to, to be able to get your, your startup on, on the rise. So with the, with the Remember first of all that the market is big. So if you look at SMEs, we have a— I think less than about 20% of the African market is banked. So that creates a lot of opportunity. And with the advent of mobile in everybody's hands in Africa today, the ability to bring those on back into banking sector becomes a great potential. And that is what the fintech teams are catching on. And that is the reason, because payment is the first engine of any business anyway. And if you look at all the people that were doing commerce and they were having difficulties in getting their payment acquired, with the advent of fintech, it becomes extremely very easy. And they, for the first time, could see themselves as part of the ecosystem. And that there were people actually who are actually thinking about what is their difficulties and are trying to solve their problem. And this is the reason why that fintech is extremely getting the traction that it's getting currently.
Got it, got it. That's very insightful on that. And these are fantastic questions from the audience. Keep them coming, everybody. We have a few more minutes left with Bade here. But let's talk about maybe another sector that's coming out of the African Union. So, Jose, Um, in the audience is asking, um, you know, how would you describe the progress for health tech companies in the region as well, or healthcare delivery? Are you seeing any trends or momentum with that sector?
I think that's the most beautiful question today so far, because that is one— that's one sector that's been neglected. Um, people find it difficult to understand that in Africa, one of— outside, if you actually take, uh, if you look at Black Africa, you take South Africa out The basic common pharmaceutical delivery is a challenge, right? The basic first level services in the health sector is a challenge. The secondary delivery services is a challenge. So that is an area that is actually extremely important for disruption. And I can tell you today there are a few players, very, very few, who are trying to break into this, and they're doing quite well. There are one or two companies now that have reached valuation of about $100 million in that sector, and even at that, they are concentrated on the pharmacy side, not the delivery service side. So there's a lot of e-consulting that is going, that that startups are trying to, to, to, to break into right now. But I, I, I think that the next sector that would give a great potential for investment in Africa would definitely, definitely be health.
Awesome, that, that's, that's amazing. Um, and really again, very insightful on this piece. So I guess let's transition a little bit, um, to again the entrepreneur perspective. Again, seems like there's amazing opportunities in the region, there is some brilliance coming in, there's still some challenges obviously, but say if you're building a company right now in the region and, um, and as you mentioned, struggling on finding talent, building a good team, you know, what, what maybe are some actionable steps right now to potentially find those people and build a team, or maybe outsource some of that work so you can still scale while you look to, to build that team directly?
Okay, I think it's a catch-22 because one of the key challenges with, uh, with talent in Africa is that tech talent is the key problem, really, right? And because the world is global today, you find the likes of Google and Twitter and Facebook taking those talents that are in Africa, right? Now, before, it used to be that we— they would emigrate to America or to the US or to Canada and the likes, but now they don't need to. They stay in Africa with infrastructure they're employed. That automatically makes them extremely very difficult for the local businesses to get. So, and because of the cost of technology being the key element of your cost composition as a startup, my advice has always been try to find sweat equity, find a CTO who can be a co-founder. If you are an early revenue startup, it's extremely difficult for you to raise funds. Right? So you have to do some bootstrapping, and if you are going to bootstrap, it is either you have had a good amount of savings, and when we're talking about good amounts of savings here in Africa, $50,000 is a good amount of savings, but that is also not readily available for a founder. So if you ask them to take a third-party service for the tech, they will probably not start because the cost is expensive. So what most of them then try to do is to allow part-time tech consultants to work on their team. So they would have probably a CTO and you have an assembly of 3 or 4 young tech talents who are probably not working for him full-time because they are also working somewhere else. And that's the composition that they are doing today. So I would think that the advice would be that anybody that wants to do— if you are local and you do not have funding, then it's important that you go look for a co-founder in technology who can be part or who can give you some form of equity to alleviate the cost elements at the beginning of your startup. And once you are able to develop your MVP, you can get get funding, then you can create your team.
Got it, got it. Absolutely sound good advice on that for those of you in the audience. Um, and so like I say, now you're building, you know, as we're working through that entrepreneurial journey, they're building, there's maybe they've, they've started to secure co-founders and they're just working through equity. Maybe they're going to a point now where there's really— they need to start fundraising. So is there any kind of baseline requisites, at least maybe from your own investment thesis or, or generally speaking, uh, from the investor perspective and what you look for in, in a founder or a team or a company that, that would make it attractive for investment? Um, you know, some, some maybe some bullets that the audience might be able to take to heart and apply to their startup.
Okay, um, I think the first one I said earlier is team. The team composition and the synergy around the team is extremely very important. I mean, we all know as an investor that there's a saying that if you give a good, a good project to a bad team, they're gonna mess it up. If you give a bad project to a good team, they're gonna make something out of it. All right, so the first thing that I look for is the cohesion and the experience of the team. Then of course, it's important to understand that the opportunity servicing is important. And this is really why it's also very important that for investors to understand the local nuances around the market you are trying to invest. Because if you stay in the US, for example, and you are talking about healthcare, if you really don't know what's happening in Africa, it's possible for a founder to tell you all the stuff that you want to hear, but those are far from the reality on ground. So from a pitch point of view, you think, oh, now this is good. But when you have a member of the investor team that understands the local nuances, then they are able to ask the right questions because more often than not, founders try to create a good story. Some of those stories have no legs to stand on. So I would say, investors should try to either include in their team people with local knowledge or acquire that knowledge by themselves. I've had friends of mine who are, who have funds in the West and Canada, who anytime they are dealing with a founder in Africa, they will ask me to come and join the evaluation team just to give them a perspective from my knowledge of what is really happening on ground and what the investors are trying to create impression for. So I think that they, they acquired a lot of new A good example today, I have another friend of mine that is doing, um, uh, that is doing DeFi for investment for founders that will naturally not get funding. So he's doing equity-based funding. So if— sorry, he's doing asset-based funding, right? So if you have, for example, you are, you're a small startup who is using, um, water pump to generate water from the world. All right, it will finance the water pump and share revenue that you, that you get from that water pump. So which is a different concept from, from, from, from funding, because such investor, such a startup in the first instance will not get a traditional investor like me. All right, but because he's created a, a system around being able to measure is the, the output of that asset and take his return upfront before it gets to the hand of the founder. He's done quite well. I mean, today he's doing about 1 point something million annual recurring revenue. So there are a lot of innovations that would come into startup as we continue to go. Another area that I'm extremely very passionate about is how to get retail investors to partake in the ecosystem of funding in Africa. If you look at something similar to what is happening now in America, where retail investors can invest up to certain amount, in Africa that is not— there's no, no system around that at all today. Unfortunately, why very, very few Africans are rich, the bulk of us in Africa are poor, right? The bulk of the people, it's extremely difficult for them to bring $10,000 out. As a fund for investing. But a lot of people can bring $5,000, $1,000, and if you combine it together, that should be the pool where founders can get their first investment as angel investing or as angel list or as friends of friends of friends and families. I think that that should be an area that we should focus on Africa, how we can get retail investors to become part of the pool.
Fantastic. Um, I love that insight on there. Um, looks like we are going to be running up on time in a little bit, and I want to be respectful for— I know it's already evening on your end, and we got some pitches we want to get into. But, um, if there's, um, what's a good way for, you know, an entrepreneur to engage an investor? You know, they might be ready, they have the good team, and now they're ready to start talking individuals like yourself. You know, is there any tips and tricks on how they should be approaching that? Um, because, you know, for, for first-time founders, they, they end up putting their foot in their mouth pretty often when they're trying to get money. And, uh, in this case, you know, we want to help them avoid those kind of pitfalls. Any, any basic tips on, on, you know, informal engagement with investors at the beginning?
Yeah, I would say the first step is have a very good pitch. All right, do work, do a lot of work on your pitch. That is your first foot on the door. Now, to get yourself to the attention of a VC, of course, it's important that you do your research to understand that the thesis of the investor matches your— is within your field of operation. And you can't get wrong by getting a referral. All right, on average, investor gets hundreds of decks every week. All right, for you to come on top of that pie, a referral is always very good. If I get a mail from, from Martin and said, oh buddy, look at this deck, I'm going to look at it right away. All right, but if you could, if, if you could drop me an email, it's not going to be sitting in my, on my pack until I have time to do it. So if you could get a referral. And a referral could be a third-level referral, all right? Somebody that— somebody in the best of who knows would definitely help you to get bumped onto the top of the pack. Now, but if you do not have that benefit, all right, I would say do a cold call, all right? Go to LinkedIn, send a LinkedIn DM. I get a lot of, uh, bets on LinkedIn. And when you are doing that, please don't Don't go into frivolities, all right? Go straight to the point. This is my pitch. This is what I'm trying to do. This is what I have achieved. I would like to have an opportunity to talk with you. If they are interested right away, they're gonna come back to you and say, okay, send us the full pitch deck. So LinkedIn is a very good place. Cold email is also something you can do with if you do not have a choice, but the best point is to get a referral. And the referral could come from an investor in the space, could come from a founder that that particular investor has already invested in, somebody that knows the investor. Makes it easier for them to give you a chance to have your pitch.
Awesome. Cultivate that network if you don't have it, or start to build it. And yeah, don't waste your time, and certainly don't waste the investor's time when you're reaching out. All very fantastic. Sage advice. Um, hope y'all, all 260 y'all in the audience, are having a good time. Um, so we are just about to wrap up here on this first segment before we head into the pitches. Um, but I love to ask this final question to every person I get a chance to bring up on a showcase. Um, if there was one piece of advice you'd give, and only one piece at this point, for maybe an entrepreneur, an aspiring entrepreneur in the audience that just still has the idea, hasn't even taken the step forward and turned it into a company, What would that piece of advice be?
Entrepreneurship is a very, very lonely, hard journey. You have to have a conviction that you are set for it, okay? And you must have thick skin because people are going to tell you you're not good enough, your idea is not good enough. But if you're convinced of what you're trying to do and you continuously, continuously validate through your customer what is it that they are looking for to validate that market, that solution in first place, and the market, you will definitely, definitely be successful. All right, so stay focused, be ready to see a lot of bumps on the road, believe in what you do, what you are doing. Don't sit in your house and assume it. Go to the market, validate through your customer that the solution you are proposing actually has a market and that there are people out there that are willing to to pay for it. Because one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that we think we will develop the solution first, then we go looking for somebody to pay. No, you have to start from the person. They must be telling you, if this is my problem, if you can find the solution and you do it this way, I will pay for it. That's what is important in entrepreneurship, in startup space. You have to listen to the customer, cultivate the customer, and continuously keep abreast with what it is that the customer is interested in, not what you think it is interesting for the customer. Thank you.
Oh, I love it.
I love it. It's Startup Week here in Austin. I hosted a panel in person yesterday and we hit a lot of these notes too. Like, you are speaking the truth here, and I think the audience is really enjoying it. Amazing stuff in the chat, y'all. Thank y'all for being such a great, great crowd here for Bade. Last but not least, of course, you know, what's a great way for maybe people in the audience to kind of follow your journey, maybe learn a little bit more about you, any social media or places of choice online that they can kind of follow you and connect?
The best will be LinkedIn, Buddy Aluko. I'm on LinkedIn. And by email is buddy.aluko@whitethubschools.com. So that's the best to get me.
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, we'll be sharing all that info from our production team in the chat. I think we already have, but it's been a busy chat in there, so we'll get that back up for everyone. Thank you again, Bade. I appreciate your powering through the lack of power in the beginning and making that time with us today. You can stick around for some pitches and hear some of these too. Awesome. Awesome. So I think my team over here is— we're going to take a quick break. Give y'all in the audience a chance to sit down at some tables, maybe pitch each other, connect a little bit, and then we'll be right back with the next segment with, with Bade, a couple other featured guest judges, and 6 amazing founders presenting their companies today. So we'll be right back. You sit tight.
