Startup Fundraising Strategy & Pitch Practice Office Hours Replay! [VIDEO]

Our free Startup Fundraising Video Office Hours help early stage company founders worldwide learn how to raise money for their startups. 

The fun, friendly live video Q&A sessions answer financing and strategy questions from entrepreneurs from all over the world with FREE expert startup advice.

The latest free session hosted by our CEO, Scott Fox, was February 24.

To watch the new Startup Office Hours replay click here.

Startup Founder Discussion TOPICS This Month

In this episode of our free Startup Fundraising Office Hours, StartupCouncil.org CEO Scott Fox took lots of questions from startup friends worldwide - both on camera and via chat. These mostly focused on helping startup founders accelerate their fundraising process to raise money from angel investors and venture capital firms including:

• John from Tustin: How do VCs typically exit a deal? What kind of multiples are they seeking?

• Mustafa from Irvine: Pitched his AI powered medtech startup for the 4th time. What great improvement. Congrats to him on the progress!

• Chelsea from New York City: How to find a technical co-founder? Scott's feedback here is maybe controversial but based in real life experience.

• Nithen from London: Several questions including current venture capital appetite from B2C investments, is VC still going to be relevant as AI eats many software companies and changes due diligence. Plus a detailed discussion about SAFE notes for equity fundraising without a valuation. Also - be careful about the side letters that many investors want to augment the simple SAFE documents today.

• Mustafa from Irvine: How to value a pre-revenue startup in the biotech space. Discussion of comparables and how to find them.

• Orrett from Atlanta: Strategy advice for fundraising for his clean energy startup, esp from NGOs, SBIR, DOD, ARPA and similar US government grants.

• Darla from Oakland: How to get more interest in her hospital and insurance billing pre-seed software with no signed contracts yet? How to be realistic about competition.

• John from Tustin: What triggers the conversion of SAFE notes into stock?

• And (as usual) everybody wanted to know the best resource to find early stage investors interested in their startups. Answer: Google + https://www.StartupInvestorsDirectory...

And much more, as usual!

Watch the free replay for startup founder pitches, and the expert investor feedback they got!

To watch this month’s Startup Office Hours replay click here.

And see a complete TRANSCRIPT BELOW.

Please don't forget to SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, and SHARE if the show is helpful to you?

Visit https://www.StartupCouncil.org to join us for lots of FREE startup resources, expertise, publicity opportunities, events, and much more - including 7 different FREE email newsletters - and discounts to find investors using https://StartupInvestorsDirectory.com's unique investor research tools.

Plus, get details on StartupCouncil.org's worldwide network of Meetup groups that can help promote YOUR local startup events in YOUR city, too.

Great to see everyone and congratulations on progress you are making with your startups! 

JOIN STARTUP OFFICE HOURS LIVE NEXT TIME to WATCH & COMMENT:

The Startup Office Hours livestream is the 4th Tuesday of each month at 900pm PT / Wednesday 1200am ET. Questions and practice investor pitches are hosted LIVE by Scott Fox, CEO of the Startup Council/Angel Investor/Serial Founder/Author/Startup Expert.

You can watch LIVE here later this month on March 24:

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MasterMinds Startup Fundraising Office Hours TRANSCRIPT for February 24, 2026:

0:00

Thanks for joining us tonight. We're going to talk about startups. Once again, my favorite topic, maybe yours,

0:05

too. We're going to have a hour at least of uh good conversations about the challenges and opportunities in startup

0:11

land. Today, especially focusing on startup financing, how you can raise venture capital style money for venture

0:18

capital style Silicon Valley style high- growth businesses. If that sounds like

0:23

you, then you're in the right place. I'm Scott Fox. I run the Startup Council. We're a worldwide community service

0:29

group dedicated to accelerating early stage founders. Uh we're trying to connect people who may not live in

0:35

Silicon Valley and give them the benefits of the expertise that I've gotten from decades of working in

0:40

Silicon Valley around Silicon Valley, raising money, building companies, losing money, losing companies, all

0:46

those things that go into the journey of a real entrepreneur. And these days, I'm more of an investor than an

0:52

entrepreneur. So, I've been on both sides of the table. And I started startups.org to help people like you who may not have

0:58

the benefits of my background to accelerate your access. Really, it's really about reducing gatekeeping so

1:05

that people who don't live in Silicon Valley can benefit from the expertise and the potential road to riches that

1:10

have been created there over the past couple decades. So, if that sounds interesting to you, thanks for joining us. We're going to be here for a while

1:17

doing questions as well as um investor pitches. If you want to practice your pitches, we can do that as well. We've

1:23

got some people backstage who are SVPd and if you are going to join us backstage uh you should have an on

1:28

camera link already and if we don't have enough people show up for that we'll we'll all open it up to other people but

1:34

we give priority to folks who are members of startups.org. This is a lowcost community platform that we

1:40

built. It's only I think it's $49 a year, right? Less than a good lunch these days at least here in the states.

1:47

and um we'll give you access to all kinds of really cool um services and a

1:52

huge amount of discounts and things like that. So those folks get priority but I am really here to help everybody trying

1:58

to who is interested in bettering themselves and bettering the world through entrepreneurship you if you

2:03

don't know me personally the reason I have the microphone well the main reason I have the microphone is because I started this so I've stepped up and do

2:10

it and I've been doing these office hours for years now and u on multi- channels so hopefully some of you are

2:15

out there watching on uh YouTube as well as LinkedIn Facebook and over at our website at startupconsil.org board. But

2:23

I've been doing this for a lot longer than that. In fact, these books behind me, I wrote these uh the three in the middle are in English, and the others

2:29

are foreign translations. You can see uh there's Japanese and uh Turkish, and that's Russian, and up there's uh

2:35

Polish, and uh there's Vietnamese down there. Anyway, those books are all about helping people who may not have a

2:41

business background figure out how to turn themselves into entrepreneurs. It's been the same challenge and journey that

2:47

I've had myself. I was a corporate guy for a long time and realized that I just wasn't really happy and that I wanted to

2:53

be my own boss and I managed to pull that off 20 plus years ago uh multiple times actually and um I started writing

3:01

books to help other people and these days we have the beauty of live streaming. So I'm here personally to help you if you have questions or

3:08

investor pitch you'd like to practice. So um let me just give a few disclaimers

3:13

and you know what I'm going to turn on the chat room. Um let's see here. Where's the chat room? Uh yeah. Oh, and

3:20

I'm I need to invite you ask you to invite your friends, right? We do this for free, but we're trying to help a lot

3:25

of people. And I'm sure you know somebody that could use this uh advice and expertise that we're going to share here. And by the way, it's not just me.

3:32

We have a lot of people that are going to show up in the chat room from all over the world. And I really do this to build the community among all our

3:37

founders and service providers and friends and of course investors so that we can help each other. I'm a rising

3:43

tide lifts all the boats sort of guy. So, if you haven't liked and subscribed yet, please do because we're here all

3:49

the time trying to help each other. So, here comes the chat room here. And I

3:54

need to turn this on. There we go. So, yeah, there we go. So, we got some folks

4:00

showing up here in the chat room, and we will get to those questions as well. And, um, you all can chime in there. Um,

4:06

looks like the, uh, John Habgood and Mayweather are both on YouTube. If any

4:11

of you are watching on LinkedIn successfully, I would love to hear from you. Make sure the LinkedIn link is

4:17

working because we were having trouble with that one last time. And then also um the uh Facebook link and where else?

4:26

Uh well, anywhere else you can find. I forget all the places this goes out, but if that's working for you, please chime in. And I guess hopefully you can tell

4:33

confirm also uh that you can hear me. I've been talking for five minutes already. I'm not sure anybody can hear

4:38

me, but go ahead and chime in and we will address the questions that get posted in the chat room as well. But if

4:43

you want to join me backstage and you have a question, we can uh Oh, thank you, Mustafa. Excellent. Mustafa says

4:50

we're you're hearing me. Excellent. Very helpful. Um we can here I'll put up the link for the the backstage as well. And

4:58

um let's see. Mustafa is backstage and he even figured out how to use the front of the house chat. You're a smart guy,

5:04

Dr. Dr. Ogle. And um let me just do a couple disclaimers and then Oh, good.

5:09

Somebody's on LinkedIn. Thank you, LinkedIn user. My best my favorite friend here on LinkedIn. That's helpful.

5:14

Thank you. Uh okay, so let's um I need to put up just a couple disclaimers here

5:21

because this is not professional advice, right? Um you need to consult your own

5:26

advisors. This is just some guy you met on the internet mouthing off trying to help. Okay? So, you need to talk to your

5:32

own advisors, your uh lawyers, your accountants, uh your spouse, anybody that controls your checkbook and your

5:39

hours, and especially folks who know things about laws and regulations in your country. So, um I will help you as

5:46

best I can, but please don't rely on this advice. It's up to you to make the most of it. And do consult your own

5:51

professional advisors. Also, this is being recorded and it will be shared worldwide. So, please don't say anything

5:56

crazy or stupid or don't give away too much confidential information, but we're definitely happy to help. And if this is

6:01

helpful to you, we have um I think I've got over 300 videos on our YouTube channel these days. I've been doing this

6:07

as long as anybody essentially. So, uh you can see me much younger and without a beard if you want, as well as hearing

6:14

lots and lots of Q&A about startup issues. So, if any of that sounds useful to you, go ahead and head over to

6:19

youtube.com and you can subscribe there and then you'll of course, you know how that works, right? You'll be alerted. And if you're there, please of course

6:25

like and comment and all that. It really drives the algorithm and helps us support more people. All right. So, um,

6:31

okay. So, Mustafa says, "We're hearing me." Well, good. That's great. Let me put up Did I I don't think I did yet.

6:37

One more thing to do. I will put up This is So, the link that's on the screen right now, startupconsil.org, is this

6:43

website, like I was talking about, this is a platform that connects founders and investors and service providers all over

6:50

the world. And we're blowing this up into a really big community as super low cost, mostly supported by sponsors. I'm

6:56

not making any money doing this. This is to help you guys because I've I've retired a couple times, right? And I

7:02

figured out this is how I can help the world. So, this and my books and this show are all efforts to help connect you

7:08

and I hope that you will go and get involved and check it out. All right, so head over there and by the way, you can

7:14

save. We haven't even announced all the discounts that are there. We just added those this week. If you are buying

7:19

anything related to startup um services, uh especially software, I promise you,

7:26

you will you will like 10x your membership cost if you go and and and buy some of the

7:32

stuff there and we don't make any money from that. This we're just trying to get everybody in one place because as a wholesale purchase we can bring great

7:38

discounts to you, right? So kind of a chamber of commerce kind of model or a trade association but specifically

7:43

focused on you. So let's get going here with um okay we got a couple questions

7:49

here and then Mustafa is going to pitch. Um oh I was going to put this up. So, this is the URL if you want to come and

7:55

join us backstage and um you have something that you want to ask on

8:01

camera. Um sometimes it's a little easier, right, than just on the um on the when I'm responding to text or if

8:07

you have a pitch that you want to practice and they're just two minute quick pitches. And Mustafa will go first on that because he he uh wrote in and

8:13

gave me a chance to prepare and plus he's been here a couple times. So, I'm excited to hear how his pitch is doing because I know he's been working hard.

8:20

All right, let me just uh and oh, by the way, the folks who are in the chat room, where are you from? I always forgot. I always get a kick out of that. Let me

8:25

know where you're tuning in from because it's interesting for us to see where our marketing goes. You may not know this, but Startup Council, uh we have um for

8:33

example, Meetup groups in 21 countries now. Um 80 maybe 90,000 people

8:38

worldwide. So, we are coming and growing everywhere that we can to help you. And

8:45

if you um if you're not part of it yet, please do. But also, just let me know in the chat room. It's always fun to hear.

8:50

So, who we got here? Uh, well, Rodrik, I think you're in LA. Nice to see you again. You sent in a a question, I

8:56

think. That's super. Um, doesn't look like you're backstage, though, Rodri. Um, you might use this link on the

9:01

screen if you want to come backstage on camera. Uh, Lori, nice to meet you. Martina linked is working. Excellent.

9:07

Thank you, Martina. And, um, and Mustafa is in Irvine, right? He's local. This is

9:13

near where I am. And then we have two questions here. Let's see. What is the most effective way to get a family

9:18

office directory and how do VCs typically exit a deal? Okay, those are

9:23

interesting questions. Um, let's see. I can I'll nail those two down real quick and Mustafa then we'll come to you. So,

9:31

where that let's talk about this family office directory. Bulgaria. Awesome. Bulgaria and Germany and NYC. Okay,

9:38

cool. Martina, you get around. Excellent. Then we got some of my neighbors here in Orange County and Irvine and Tustin. Nice to see all of

9:45

you, of course. And Lory's up in LA. Okay, so we've got from one side of the globe to the other. And where's all my

9:51

Indian friends? Usually there's a bunch of Indian folks here. I do this at night actually because at night, California time so that we can reach uh India, the

9:59

Middle East, and Africa to help those developing markets more. Uh so if any of you are here, let me know. Okay, so

10:05

here's our first question. What is the most effective way to get a family office directory? Well, I think you mean

10:11

a directory of investors probably. So, you're looking for investors? That's a totally legit question. I I don't have a

10:17

good answer. I I'll be honest. Um, we built a site called startupinvestors directory.com. Let me put that up for

10:24

you. Um, the URL is um

10:31

it's just what it sounds like. Startup investors director. Here it is. Startupinves investors directory.com.

10:36

This has a whole bunch of investors, family offices and other people. Also, it it's not focused specifically on

10:42

family offices. This is what it looks like. Actually, there's a code there. There's a promo code that you guys can

10:47

get um half off or something. So, this costs a little money because it took us a lot of money to build this, right? Um

10:53

but you can go there and what's unique about it is there's about 3,000 plus investors there of all different kinds.

11:00

Early stage focused though, uh venture capital style investors, right? But what

11:05

we have is a best search engine I know of. So there's certainly a filter that could search for family offices, for

11:11

example. Um, but you can also search for all kinds of other things. Of course, industry and stage and geography,

11:17

obvious things like that. But we also added a whole another set of filters that are unique as far as I know in the

11:22

world because I this is what I think founders need, right? And I used to be a founder myself. Um, and this includes

11:29

filters for things like if you're a veteran or you're an immigrant or you're a first-time founder or uh you're black

11:36

or Latino or you're um a rural founder like you live out in the country somewhere, right? So, different angles

11:42

and lenses because or you're woman because those types of um personal

11:48

characteristics these days there are funds and investors for almost any specific angle that you want to address.

11:54

So, you might have an advantage, right? you might be struggling, but if you can go and find an investor because you I

12:00

don't know, you're a a black veteran who lives out in the country, well, you can

12:05

filter for that on our on on startup investor directory, and I don't know that you could do that anywhere else. So, I hope that might be helpful to you.

12:12

Other than that, I know um there are plenty of family office directories. I see them promoted on LinkedIn. I'm not

12:18

looking for investors from family offices. I'm more a family office myself, so I haven't tried any of those.

12:23

Um, I would give them a shot or, you know, check the references or see, you know, do do your research, right?

12:30

Because there's a plenty of scammers out there, too. And if you, uh, have a good experience, please let us know and we'll

12:36

we can partner with those people and maybe get a discount for you, right, in the future. So, um, hope that's a good

12:42

first question anywhere. Anyway, uh, from Houston, Texas. Okay, great. Mayweather, nice to meet you. Let's uh

12:49

Okay, I was going to do one more and then we're going to bring Mustapa on camera here and uh let's see. Or Gooden

12:55

from Swishte um participating out of Atlanta. Oh, and it's working on LinkedIn. Great. Thank

13:01

you for confirming that. Um I guess you can have the uh you can see the video then. It sounds like that's good news.

13:06

All right. And then the other question was here it is. What is the most Oh, no, I already did

13:12

that one. Okay, here we go. How do VCs typically exit a deal? they generally

13:17

looking for 7x type money. It's a good question, John. The there's no simple answer, of course, right? Um but I'll

13:24

try to keep it simple because um 7x is probably not enough. Um it depends a lot

13:31

on the stage of the investor and the industry that you're in, you know, because like some industries have higher

13:37

typical multiples for exit and and um than others. Um, but the other and an

13:45

early stage fund that takes a lot of risk for example, right? When you're preede or seed, they're going to look

13:51

for a higher return because so many of those deals crap out. But if they're a later stage fund, like

13:57

say you're like a series D or E, like you things are going great and you've already raised, you know, 50, 100, $300

14:04

million and somebody puts money in at that point. Well, they know that you're already kind of a real company and

14:09

you're probably going to exit sooner than later. So they might be looking for less than 7x. They're just kind of more like a stock market investment, right?

14:15

They're hoping for good returns but maybe not crazy moonshots, you know? So

14:20

the in between and the thing that you've hit on here which is really important that founders underestimate is the

14:26

speed. So, I'm writing a new book about how to raise money and uh for you guys.

14:32

And one of the things that people miss is um like you did, and I'm not picking

14:37

on you, but for example, a 7x return in a month is awesome. Everybody's

14:42

interested in that. A 7x return in 20 years,

14:48

not so exciting, right? So, the time element is really important here. So, and that's why it is um the returns are

14:55

expected. VCs are angels too. We we model out the expected scenarios kind of

15:02

a high, middle, low. Um both in terms of what exit value you might achieve, but

15:07

also how long it's going to take. Because like I said, if if you're uh your $1 turns into $1,000, but it takes

15:14

a thousand years, I would have been better off putting my money someplace more traditional and less risky, like

15:20

just in the stock market, right? Uh so that's a factor to think about. And the

15:26

base case that you're talking about um is bigger the better. So one of the

15:33

first uh questions that founders will be asked is how big is your market? And the

15:38

typical analysis for that is a TAM sams total addressable market serviceable

15:45

addressable market and then um tam serviceable obtainable market. Right?

15:51

So, it's a it's like a an onion or layers, concentric circles, right? So,

15:57

everybody in the world that could buy it, everyone that's kind of likely to buy it, and then the ones we actually think really might buy it. And that all

16:04

of those need to be big enough because you're going to drill down, drill down, and then, you know, it's going to be take longer and cost more than you think

16:11

and so forth. And you need to have a big enough number there in terms of your market size so that a 7x or a 10x or a

16:18

100x is theoretically possible because otherw

16:36

they buy preferred stock and then that um they have that at whatever stage and

16:43

valuation they bought in, you know, depending on how long your company's been around and what price it was valued

16:48

at when they bought in. And then hopefully sooner than later, you get bought or you

16:54

get to go public and then the stock gets converted into common stock on the public markets and hopefully at a much

17:01

higher price and then they can sell their stock. There's usually a lockup and there's a lot of terms and details

17:06

to this, but that's kind of the idea. They're hoping that a bigger fish swallows you or you go out to the public

17:11

markets and float maybe uh 15 or 25% of your stock out to the public and that

17:17

opens up the market for all the stock that everybody holds, all the investors and employees and partners maybe uh that

17:24

they can then sell that into the public markets after a lockup period and they get their money back that way. So, I

17:30

don't know if that's more detail than you wanted or less, but that's kind of the answer. And this is a perfect

17:35

example actually by the way of all those of you who are in the uh in the chat room. Please help each other. You might have more expertise about this than I

17:42

do. I don't know all the answers by any means. So I'm just trying to share what I do know and I hope that that's useful

17:48

to you, John. All right. So let's um we're going to

17:53

say goodbye to that question. Although like I said uh John or anybody else if you have follow-ups we can discuss that.

18:01

And let me just change our um

18:08

my There we go. Okay, that's our general Chiron. And I'm going to bring Mustafa

18:13

on here, but just let me just check I didn't miss anything. Nothing's on fire in the chat room with all of you. Um

18:19

okay, so yep. Okay, there we go. Yep. Yep. Yep.

18:25

Yep. Okay. Houston, Switzerland. Um,

18:32

okay. Yeah. Well, Nathan, we can talk about safes for sure. And John says, "Great

18:39

response." Okay, cool. So, we nailed it. Awesome. Um, watch for this new book of

18:44

mine, right? It's going to be another six months probably. But let me put that up on the screen actually. And that's one another one of the reasons to join

18:50

the uh startup council is because I'm going to give excerpts to the community there so you guys can give me feedback

18:56

right beforehand. you get early access to this book and it's um right now it's a monster. It's going to be like this

19:02

thick because there's so many things to discuss, right? But if that sounds useful to you, uh it's another reason to

19:09

come join us. Happy to uh happy to share that with you as we get closer. Okay, so

19:14

let's bring Mustafa. He's been waiting patiently here. And here he comes.

19:21

Here's Mustafa. Hey, Scott. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. I'm good.

19:27

Thank you. Nice to see you again. So, you're back for more pitch practice. Yeah. Uh I always improving little by

19:35

little and then getting better and better. Smart. Well, let me I appreciate the opportunity.

19:41

Yeah. Well, let me let me I was just going to give you a shout out for that because anybody that's watching this either now or in the replays and if any

19:46

of you have to go, this all ends up archived on YouTube if that's helpful. But you actually speaking of that, you

19:52

could go back and watch Mustafa's previous pitches because this is is this the third time maybe or maybe even the

19:57

fourth time. Third time. Okay. Um and he's getting better and better. So I'm excited to see what he comes up with today. Um but

20:03

we're going to basically the format here everybody is we give two minutes and that's a madeup amount of time. It's

20:09

just kind of forces a constraint on it. Otherwise, some people will talk forever and it forces people to kind of get to

20:14

the point and then I'll give what I think are room areas for improvement and would love your uh invitations

20:22

to uh connect with him or offer advice or the feedback you have to improve his

20:28

pitch as well. That would be really helpful and and generous of all of you. So, if that sounds good to you, we're

20:33

going to put two minutes on the clock and and let our friend Mustafa kick it off.

20:39

Hi everyone, my name is Mustafil. I'm a medical doctor and AI developer and CEO

20:44

of A1 diagnosis. We are building a AI powered laboratory service for risk

20:50

assessment of H rates maclear degeneration. 20 million Americans have age rates macular degeneration which

20:56

cause central vision loss. It is irreversible. It is detected after damage happens. Our AI powered platform

21:05

detects h8 macular degeneration risk years before vision loss happens. This

21:11

is the first bloodbased risk assessment platform for h8 macular degeneration. I

21:16

would like to explain our uh technology in a simple language. When we get older, some cells in our eyes start dying.

21:23

Where do they go? They go to the blood. Previously, we couldn't detect them. Right now, we can. How it works? The

21:31

patient go to the eye doctor office. Blood is drawn sended to our laboratory. We analyze with our AI platform. We

21:38

provide risk assessment result to patients and doctor before vision loss happens. Unit of economics price is $250

21:47

uh $60 variable cost $50 fixed cost. Target net margin is 70 at 70% at scale.

21:55

Who we are? I performed research at University of California for six years and wrote AI algorithm. Co-founder Murat

22:02

Pada is a Stanford scientist who raised over $10 million for his medical startups. Uh proof of concept studies uh

22:09

completed. We are raising 1.25 million for clear lab certification B2B model

22:15

insurance reimbursement possible revenue start first quarter 2027. A1 diagnosis

22:21

see the future clearly. Thank you. Wow, my friend, that was

22:28

you've come a long way. So, that was impressive. So, everybody else watching, that's how it's done. Seriously, amount

22:35

of information he crammed in there. I' I've met so many founders and we say it's two minutes or sometimes we say

22:41

five minutes. I can't do it in five minutes. And then they take like a 30page deck and just try to talk really

22:46

fast and they get to like page four, right? And that's not how it's done. You have to boil it down like Mustafa did.

22:52

You're very well done. I seriously I don't have any particular suggestions. I I I I want to recognize

22:59

the um I like the intro. I'm a medical doctor and an AI guy. Like that's an

23:04

unusual combination that would get your attention right away, right? Um you talked about the uh the specifics, which

23:10

I think we worked on before. It's actually a blood draw that goes to the laboratory. That's helpful because before it was kind of abstract to me.

23:17

Now I get it that this connecting the dots in terms of the service delivery. Very nice. You talked about the costs,

23:23

which is great. Um, and the margins, which is even better. Um, wholesale, retail, like the thing I always say, and

23:30

Mustafa has heard this before, but investors eat numbers. So, any of you that are doing a pitch and the the more

23:37

numbers you put in, the more likely their response is going to have numbers, meaning like a check, right? So, if you

23:44

have no numbers, it's all just kind of fantasy. And investors are numbers people. So, he's doing a good job there.

23:50

What we call this is unit economics like how much does it take to to make how

23:55

many of them do we get a discount at scale which I heard you say something about scale and then we'll sell it for

24:00

this much with this much profit margin and it will get better over time that's we need to see

24:06

not even necessarily the numbers are true but that you understand that equation because that's what a business

24:13

is right it's it's creating stuff cheaply and selling it for more than it cost and if you can't understand that

24:20

concept and explain it, then you don't really have a business. And and we see lots of founders like that um who are

24:27

more interested in kind of the idea but aren't ready to break it down into the numbers like like you did. So So very

24:33

nice. It was good. U and the and even in the last sentence or two, you stuck in a

24:38

whole bunch of you did a good ask. You said it's B2B. Um yeah,

24:44

that was a lot of stuff. So I don't have anything to complain about. with anybody. Thank you so much. Yeah, I learned lots

24:51

of thing from you and other people and then I combine it and it's getting better and better. Thank you.

24:57

That's good. Yeah, that's great. So, anybody in the in the chat room who has suggestions um

25:02

please please comment. Um uh okay, those are good. John is

25:08

saying um not clear on how the service is sold and marketed. Okay, that's a good point. Go to market. Yeah, so

25:13

that's a big one these days. you're in a medical devicesish situation. So, that's a little more known than it would be for

25:20

like if you had a new uh dating app or some, you know, or something like that. But, it's still worth addressing,

25:27

especially if you have some sort of competitive advantage, like if you have a relationship with distributors of some

25:34

sort or some corporate partners, that is really good kind of traction. Like, how are you going to get the word out?

25:40

Because, as you know, like the typical way is to raise a bunch of money and then think you're just going to buy your

25:46

way into the market with like a whole bunch of conference appearances and pay-per-click ads, and that's not very exciting to investors. Um, in in your

25:54

space, there's probably other ways as well. Um, and then how long before you get paid? You mentioned the insurance

26:00

reimbursement, but that of course is always going to be top of mind for anybody that knows this space. So, more about that would be good. But but

26:08

even then I wouldn't I wouldn't criticize the lack of some of those

26:13

details because you said enough of the right things that I think anybody that was in this space would be would believe

26:19

you like your co-founder had good credentials as well. You threw that in there. Somebody somebody would believe

26:24

you um and then um want to know more to get a a bigger meeting basically. 10

26:31

minutes. Yeah, that's right. Because that's that's the point of a pitch. Two minutes piece and I can add everything but 10 minutes each. I have

26:38

also go to market stat and then all of them details. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

26:43

Even the scales you know 500 test when we sell how much the margin 1,500 test

26:50

per month when we sell what is the margin. I I made like animation and then when you move around and then you can

26:56

see the over the time changes each of them. Oh, cool. Oh, you're really getting there. Well, Nathan has some uh you

27:03

should have started with a really solid hook to get me engaged. That's true. There is a storytelling element um that

27:09

you haven't done yet if you want to do more. You know, something about the the problem this solves or why personally

27:16

you're interested. You know, your grandmother had this and it was terrible. You know, like kind of a little more emotional appeal. That's a

27:23

that's a very valid point. Um and it and that varies a lot depending on who

27:28

you're talking to, right? If you're talking to an experienced investor like me, I don't need that stuff. I'm just kind of looking for the numbers and and

27:34

your credibility and kind of doing the math in my head. If you're on stage like at a pitch competition and the audience

27:40

is kind of general civilians um or academics or something like that,

27:46

I Nathan's right on target. I think is to you probably want something to draw people in in terms of emotionally a

27:52

little bit more. I think that's a good point. Um Go ahead. Yeah.

27:57

Yeah. There's a uh I was invited the Stanford conference AI healthcare conference in March 26 and 27.

28:06

Excellent. I I will present over there and then one of the potentially master told me to

28:12

make a emotional connection actually. Thank you. The same way you say I will do it. Yeah.

28:17

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. Thank you, Nathan. That was a good one. And he brings up another point that I think is valid. You're

28:24

I'd call us friends at this point, so don't take this the wrong way. you have a bit of an accent to an American ears

28:29

and you might work on your diction so that we can understand you better like you can literally do exercises so that

28:35

the words are clearer to an American ear it doesn't this is my fault not yours right I but I

28:43

an American ear you have you're I think you're Turkish probably right is that I'm Turkish yeah right from Turkey yeah

28:50

yeah so totally valid thing to be right but in America we you know we hear differently right and he's suggesting

28:56

that you it was a little difficult to understand at times you skip over words a lot so that that is something you

29:02

could work on because I will work on it. Thank you. Yeah. Especially when it's a microphone like

29:08

in person you can people can hear better but when it's through the you know the

29:13

microphones and the internet it can gets a little compressed. So that probably makes it even harder. The easiest thing

29:19

is to slow down a little bit. Of course, at two minutes you don't feel like you can slow down, but being deliberate about it um will make it clearer as

29:26

well. So, okay. Thank you. I I really appreciate that. I will work on it. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Awesome. Well, good to

29:32

see you again. I'm I'm very impressed. I hope that goes well for you. Um that conference you got invited to, congratulations. That sounds really

29:38

cool. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. Well, good to see you again

29:43

and um I hope you don't graduate and disappear on us because now you're because now you're an expert. But well, I hope to see you again soon because

29:50

he's he's come a long way. And that's why I do this actually is you find smart people. He's a medical doctor and he

29:56

knows AI like obviously and and English is his second and maybe third or fourth

30:02

language too, right? Plenty of smarts, but you don't necessarily know the venture capital world, right? And how we

30:08

speak and and talk and what we expect. So that's why I'm doing this to try to help people like him and and maybe like

30:14

you, whoever you are, too. So, okay, cool. So, let's uh let's move on to um

30:21

what else we got here. So, Matias is backstage as well. Um if you want to

30:26

join us on camera, Matias, you can turn on your camera in a minute, but I will um let me take a couple uh questions out

30:34

of the chat room here. What else is going on? Um I got How far did I go?

30:41

Okay, Chelsea says,

30:50

"Yeah, well, this isn't a question so much, but it's it's a valid point." Chelsea Shay says, um, she's based

30:57

around here, I guess, and her minimum viable product is ready,

31:02

but finding a technical co-founder is really tough. And that is absolutely true. And most technical people these

31:09

days are fully employed and if they're not they're busy with AI building their own stuff. So it is very it's always

31:16

challenging and people um

31:21

not quite sure how to say this but but people overestimate the importance and the availability of co-founders. The

31:27

fact might be Chelsea or any of you uh you could and should keep trying, but

31:35

you it may not work. So, your choices are are you going to

31:40

learn some of this stuff yourself or are you going to raise money and hire people to do it? Because to find a co-founder

31:47

is a really hard thing to do. It's kind of like getting married. You have to find somebody who's exactly at the same stage of life with the precise expertise

31:54

that you're lacking that you get along with and complements your skills and

31:59

wants to work kind of for nothing, right? Unless you have a, you know, a trust fund or something. So that's a

32:05

really tall ask, especially when those people are so valuable and especially with vibe coding, they could go and

32:10

build their own stuff. Why do they need you? Right? So, I do encourage you to try to find a co-founder, a technical

32:17

co-founder, but I would also encourage you to think about what happens if you can't, right? Because you could spend

32:23

years thinking you're going to find one and you don't and then you lost years,

32:29

right? Um, I don't know if that kills your business or not, but maybe there are other ways to do this is what I'm

32:34

saying. Maybe you can raise some money or get some friends and family money or use your credit cards and hire a

32:39

co-found not a co-founder but a technical lead and they don't need to be a co-founder. A lot of times being

32:44

finding co-founders is a crutch. People want they're scared and they want to

32:49

find a co-founder so that they are not alone and that's totally reasonable. Those are human emotional you know valid

32:58

feelings but they aren't necessarily good business decisions. a co-founder may not

33:03

be what you need at all. You might just need to find 20 grand and hire uh a tech

33:08

guy or girl or team and build your thing and get the hell going, right? It's kind

33:14

of a a crutch and a delay a lot of times. So, that's some straight talk that I hope is helpful. I would love

33:21

feedback on that from anybody that's watching that that agrees or disagrees with that. But, Chelsea, I hope that

33:26

might be helpful to you. That being said, I I should point out that over at startups.org,

33:31

This is a common question we get and it really is a problem for everybody. Um, but we actually built something. This is

33:38

another thing. That's why I keep talking about startupconcil.org. Here it is. Um, if you go to this website, we actually

33:45

have advertising like classified ads for co-founders because so many people are

33:52

looking and you can, if you're a member, you can join and post an ad, right? So,

33:57

when you join, uh, I think right now it's $49, but you get $25 a member credits and the ads are, I think, $10 a

34:03

piece. So, you could, and all this we just do to cover costs and to keep people from, um, from ripping off the

34:10

services by spamming us and stuff, right? So, they're just a little friction so that you can get involved. But anyway, long story short, you could

34:16

post an ad about this and if uh, you know, that's the thing about putting yourself out there a little bit, you

34:22

don't know who might show up or who might be listening. In fact, right now you should even put in the chat room, put in your LinkedIn or your um your

34:29

Instagram or however it is you like to be contacted with a little more specific about what you're looking for, Chelsea.

34:34

And um maybe somebody would reach out to you. Um well, there you go. Look, Ian

34:41

Reed says uh he or she he I guess is in in OC and technical. It'll be

34:46

interesting to see what you're working on. So maybe maybe we maybe we solved it. Amazing. So I hope that's helpful. Um,

34:55

let's see. Okay. Well, let's just put this up because Nathan's uh I'm in the wrong

35:01

place. Hang on. Non is commenting on that. That's a useful comment.

35:11

Yeah, there it goes. So, technical co-founder is one of the hardest things to solve. You may not even need one.

35:17

That's kind of what I said. Advances in AI are unreal. That's a That's a great point. I didn't hit that, Nathan.

35:23

You may not think you're technical, Chelsea, or anybody who's watching this now or later, but you may not need to be

35:29

technical for very long. In fact, you can do things online with AI. You would probably be your time would be well

35:37

invested to stop worrying about a co-founder and go spend whatever your

35:43

time budget allows a week, three weeks, you know, or three hours every day after work or whatever your lifestyle really

35:50

punching the clock with Claude or one of the co-pilots or Gemini, you know,

35:56

whatever your tool set is or interest um because that stuff is moving super fast

36:02

and you may not need a technical co-founder at all. Yeah, great point, Nathan. Thank you.

36:08

Okay, so let's go. Um, let's see. Matias, so you

36:14

got to turn your camera on. I don't know if you're here or not. I thought you came on and then and then I need you to be on so that when I come back to the

36:21

topic, I'm happy to talk to you if you um let me know you're here. Okay, so um

36:27

what about this one? So this from Nitan also says uh are ventures still actively

36:33

looking at BTOC plays? Oh sure the um

36:39

I mean I guess you need to be a little more specific but you know B TOC it means lots of things. So are there new

36:45

um beverages being launched? Absolutely. I got a pitch yesterday. Are there new

36:51

restaurants? Sure. Clothing lines? Yes. You know lots of BTOC sort of plays. If you're talking specifically software,

36:58

um, and I guess you could even there's a lot of medical and healthc care stuff that's BTOC as well. Mustafa's thing is

37:05

probably going to go I I think through uh doctor's offices and hospitals and the traditional reimbursement route,

37:11

right? But there's like all kinds of supplements and wellness and uh apps and stuff for BTOC like fitness tracking and

37:17

stuff like that absolutely are still happening. And um the traditional thing that I'm thinking you might be most

37:24

acting about, asking about or assuming is kind of the B2B SAS um type products.

37:31

And yes, the here's the thing about investors. We're curious people. And I

37:37

mean that in both senses. We're a little odd maybe, but also that we're liking to learn more stuff and find new

37:43

opportunities. That's why we do this, right? you could just put, you know, I could just put my money in real estate or gold or Bitcoin or whatever, but I'm

37:51

curious about the frontiers of innovation and what people are building and

37:57

the there's been definitely a pullback in terms of B2B SAS software as a service kind of investing because of all

38:04

the uncertainty that AI has brought into the marketplace as you yourself pointed out.

38:10

But that doesn't mean it's stopped or ended. I think it would be um I think

38:15

valuations have changed uh probably come down in some ways because you don't need

38:23

a huge team anymore to build a lot of SAS kind of stuff. So, it seems like you could get to market faster with a

38:29

smaller team and therefore you need less capital, but if things work, man, they can take off, right? And we all know how

38:35

much money the hyperscalers are raising, right? Hundreds of millions, billions of dollars, and things just go to the moon

38:42

really fast. And in fact, literally to the moon these days, right? So um yes, I I I would um

38:50

I would think yes, venture uh investors are still actively looking at BTOC

38:55

plays. And the other angle on this that I always like to talk I talk about this in my books actually.

39:02

I don't care what they're doing, right? If I'm an entrepreneur and I have a

39:08

vision and I have a problem I want to solve, I don't care. I'm going to go do

39:13

this. I mean, you don't want to be stupid, right? like but um you know trying to I don't know build a new uh

39:20

e-commerce marketplace and compete with uh 100% with with uh Amazon or building

39:26

a new rocket company by yourself you know vibe coding a rocket company to compete with space probably not a good

39:33

idea but if you have a passion and something that you're going to build I think that statistics and reports and

39:40

market trends are not as important as your personal commitment and curiosity ity and ambition and grit. And if you

39:47

can get going on building things that excite you,

39:54

you have a chance. That's why I do this internet stuff. That's why I write these books. Um, and I think that you need to

40:01

explore that so that you can maybe build something worldchanging. It's up to you, right? And the reason I say that is well

40:10

lots of reasons but the key one is that even if you set out to build

40:15

a it's going to evolve right the trick is you need to get going and um get past

40:22

your analysis paralysis and move towards making a difference in the world by

40:28

building something special. And it's going to evolve. It's got it's not going to be A. It's not going to be B. it

40:34

might not be C or even D, right? You're going to meet customers, you're going to get feedback, you're going to engage

40:40

with the real world, and you're going to have to uh adapt. And that is both a

40:46

challenge and also the opportunity. So that's a long way of saying in some ways

40:53

it doesn't matter what the trends are because you are a sample size of one. So

40:58

if there's a thousand people voting yes and you vote no for your life and your

41:04

creation, you're still right. So there you go. Sorry, got on a soap box there.

41:09

That's that's an issue that's I think is important. People um underestimate the

41:15

power of an individual to change things, right? You you could be important and

41:21

what you're thinking and dreaming about could be important and that's that's cool.

41:27

So, um, okay, let's see what else we got here. So, okay. Um, time we got for

41:37

Okay, so let's do a couple more here and see what else people have got.

41:51

Okay. Hey, Flad, how are you? Nice to see you. and Chelsea, good explaining what you

41:57

want a little more. Yes. Oh, and you're already building with cloud code and notion. Good for you. Go ahead. Yeah.

42:02

Well, that changes the the equation, right? You probably I don't know how technical you are, but um you know, a

42:07

year ago, you probably couldn't have imagined that you're building what you're building now, right? Super cool. Good for you. Um okay, so any more

42:16

questions or people want to join backstage? Matus, if you are you the Matas? I think you wrote in, didn't you?

42:24

Yeah. Mattas from Berlin. If you wanted to practice your pitch, I can see you

42:29

backstage, but we could talk about geocentinel if that's why you're here. And if you're

42:35

a different Matus, you can let me know. Um, okay. So, let's see here. Uh, let me

42:41

know any more questions you have. Um, I saw another comment here though.

42:48

Oh, yeah. Okay, this is Nathan again. So Nathan um how relevant is ventures?

42:54

Capital is becoming a commodity and with advances in AI cost of startups require less money to get moving. Yeah, that is

43:02

true. I think venture is going to continue to matter, but the uh size and

43:07

structure of funds and the size and structure of rounds definitely could be changing. The um oh, somebody asked a

43:14

question about safes, didn't they? Maybe that was you. I can I can back up and do that, too. the um

43:20

capital is a commodity, but it's really only a commodity at the later stages. If

43:27

you're an early stage founder, you want capital that's smart and that can help you like angel style capital, right?

43:33

Mentors with checkbooks. That's a different thing than the commodity style capital which is certainly exists,

43:39

right? The size of the funds and the rounds that are being thrown around these days is staggering. Um and as we

43:47

mentioned startups are getting cheaper at least software startups but it's probably AI is probably taking a lot of

43:54

steps out of every kind of startup as it is out of every kind of business right so yeah I think things are changing for

43:59

sure but I think there's going to continue to be a need for people who don't have money but have good ideas and

44:06

are willing to work hard to find people that are interested in new ideas and do have the money right it's a I I

44:13

it's easy for me to say though. I don't know, maybe you're a VC yourself. I'm not. I'm an angel investor, right? So, I

44:19

I I invest my own money, so I can I can pick and choose. If this was my business

44:24

as a venture capitalist and I had uh limited partners who I had relationships and fund commitments from and I had

44:32

overhead and staff to manage and, you know, carry to watch and all the details of actually running a fund, I think I

44:38

would be concerned and I would have a better answer for you. Luckily, that's not the path I chose. So, I don't think

44:44

about it and worry about it too much. I'm more interested, like I said, about individuals who want to change things

44:49

and what um they might be able to do with these new tools. And I think that

44:54

uh there's room in the pool for everybody. And hopefully, Venture will continue uh to to prosper in that way.

45:03

All right, let me go find somebody that asked about safes early on. Oh, that was you again, Nintendo. Boy, you're I don't

45:08

Do I know you? You're got a lot of good questions. You know, speaking of that, let me let me just mention for a second.

45:14

If we're not connected on LinkedIn, anybody who's here watching, you are welcome to uh come and say hello. Um

45:22

let's see here what I want to say. Oh, you can watch the replays. Yeah, here.

45:28

Where's my LinkedIn? It's around here somewhere.

45:33

There it is. Okay. So, you can come and I'm easy to find, right? Scott Fox, author, you can find me. But also, if

45:40

you come to the startup council page, you can get a lot of our updates and stuff um you know, right into your inbox

45:46

essentially. It's very easy and fun and uh you can help us. You'll get notifications about these events and all

45:51

the other things that we're doing to help you. So, if you haven't yet, let's connect and uh please like and comment,

45:56

all that kind of stuff. It's the only way we get paid from this. So, we would love you to share a little social media

46:03

love, appreciation. Okay. So, what about safes? That was your question a second ago. So, I clicked away from it, but

46:09

safe notes are a big deal. And um safes are uh safe is for those of you who

46:15

don't know what I'm using lingo as a simple agreement for future equity. It's

46:20

a deal structure uh promulgated by Y Combinator starting

46:26

about 10 years ago, I guess. And the idea is that it's a very simple

46:32

couple page agreement that you and an investor can sign and you don't need to pay a whole bunch of money to attorneys

46:38

to create preferred stock that is issued in what they call a priced round. So

46:44

it's a lovely convenience for both founders and early stage investors

46:49

because you don't have to value the company. you don't have to uh you don't have to pick a price essentially when

46:56

your company is so new that you don't really know what the price should be. So it defers the decision about valuation till later and it's cheap and quick to

47:03

execute as well. So that's the background. So what do I think of them? Absolutely. Safes are amazing. A couple

47:10

points. The safe has evolved. They started out being what they call pre-

47:15

money safes and now they're post money safes. You definitely want, at least as an investor, I won't sign a pre- money safe and most people won't anymore. So,

47:22

you want to make sure that you're using the format that is a post money safe. If you want investors interested, I believe

47:28

you could check uh on Peter Walker is a great guy to follow on LinkedIn and he

47:35

posts all kinds of data about startup investing and I think I remember seeing that 90% of early stage deals are done

47:41

by safes these days, at least in the United States. So, there's your answer. 90% is pretty pretty hell of market

47:49

adoption, right? So, you definitely want to be thinking about safes if you're early stage. It's just easier for you as a founder and cheaper from the law firm

47:57

point of view. Uh, and a quick side note on that is about safes these days. The

48:03

typical safe is so easy and simple that it doesn't provide as many protections

48:10

as we investors would like. So you need to go and um often sign a side letter

48:18

and many investors will have even a standard side letter that kind of gives them uh information rights and u talks

48:26

about some other protections for them that are kind of pushing the safe to be

48:31

a little more like a preferred stock issuance but still much cheaper. The

48:36

trick is that if you don't sign the basic safe, the side letter quickly gets

48:41

into a bunch of negotiation and therefore legal expense and so forth. So, it's a long way of saying a side

48:48

letter is probably going to come along with your safe, but you don't want to

48:53

let it turn into some big rigor and a whole another negotiation and cost to you. So, just be careful. Post money

48:59

safe is my recommendation. a basic side letter uh that you should really talk through and understand before you sign

49:06

it and hopefully limit it there. You don't really even need an attorney to do a safe uh post money safe again, but it

49:14

is advised. And if any of you need recommendations for attorneys or accountants or people

49:21

like that, please let me know because we know lots of attorneys. A lot of our sponsors are attorneys for example and

49:27

they're always happy to meet enterprising young uh young entrepreneur. You don't have to be young

49:32

but I mean like new companies. So um okay so that's a little bit about

49:38

safe. Hopefully that answered your question. Um okay Mustafa said something and it just posted in something long

49:44

here. Let me see what we've got here. Um, let me go back or I'll

49:55

Okay, that's a long question or I'll come back to that. Let me just I thought um

50:00

Mustafa had a question or something as well.

50:08

There it is. Yep. Curious how you'd approach valuing a preede biotech with no revenue

50:14

but strong clinical data, clear regulatory path and a serviceable obtainable market. That's s like I was

50:21

talking about earlier of $500 million in the US. Uh any frameworks you'd recommend? Yeah. So good question. I I

50:28

wonder if you know anyone like that must um

50:35

I guess I would I I wouldn't want to steer you wrong. Uh, I know a lot about pitching. I'm not a biotech investor, so

50:41

I don't have a great answer here. I think that there are probably frameworks you could find online, but I'll be

50:47

honest with you, that's not my expertise. So, I and you're you're serious about this enough, and I can see by the way you've improved your pitch

50:52

and you take coaching that you you're going to want to find a real answer. So, I I think I will bow out on that

50:59

specifically. Um, no revenue. I'm just trying to think what I can offer though with no revenue,

51:05

but strong clinical clear. Yeah, I mean you have a lot of the pieces already. Um,

51:13

yeah, I I would I think I would just Google or or Gemini or ChatGpt. And what

51:18

you really want to do is find comps. Maybe that's helpful. You want to find comparables of similarish companies that

51:26

have raised money and try to figure out at what level they raised. Right? It's

51:31

see what the market suggests. I would suggest that a sum of only 500 million

51:36

is not that large. I think that that's probably not going to help you. Most health care stuff to my experience has a

51:45

larger obtainable market. So if you're being conservative there, you might look

51:50

at the numbers a little bit again because anything under a billion dollars is is not that exciting to traditional

51:57

VCs. At least in my world, the software world. I would and I would think it would be even higher in medtech. So I I

52:04

would look at that a little bit more and figure out your if your market is large enough to excite a venture firm. Um

52:12

and then uh yeah, I would think that there's probably some pretty good data because

52:18

if you did the searching, although you probably already have, but if if you look out there, a lot of the exits as

52:23

you well know are for biotech companies are acquisitions, right? And those acquisitions are often done by publicly

52:30

traded companies. So those publicly traded companies should disclose quite a bit about the background of the startups

52:36

when they buy them. And maybe some of that would include early stage uh stuff that you're interested in in terms of

52:43

evaluation comparables and so forth, right? So I think that's what I would do. Um you're also here, you know, um

52:51

you should if you haven't yet, have we talked about specifics? Um, you should talk to um,

52:59

Launchpad at Octane. Launchpad Octane. If you've

53:05

not yet connected with those folks, I can introduce you if you send me an email, but they do a lot of medtech um,

53:13

market uh, development, helping startups, right? And it's free. It's um,

53:18

SBDC, Small Business Development Corporation. So, that would be some um, good people for you to meet. And in

53:24

fact, I can think of a couple medtech investors myself. Um, so you uh if you

53:31

contact me, you can email me or something. Um, I could probably help you out. Um, ask me that question again in

53:38

writing and I can forward you on. Okay. So, there you go. All right. So, oh,

53:44

Mustafa updated that he has a TAM of $42 billion. Okay. Yeah. Well, that that's much more exciting, right? So maybe

53:52

you're being a little aggressive on how you're consolidating the market in your estimates. Um I don't I'm not suggesting

53:58

you lie or exaggerate, you know, but if there's a another way to look at this where the um the sum was larger, I

54:04

you're you'll just get more attention. That's all I'm saying, right? A bigger if there's more money, you'll get more

54:10

money. That's how it works. So okay, so uh we're getting near the end here, I

54:16

think. So everybody um like I said visit the startup council uh please and join us and then or it has a really long

54:23

question here which won't show on the screen because it's so long but let me kind of paraphrase here

54:30

uh I guess this is a pitch centralized electrical grid is not failing because it's broken it's failing because the

54:35

world is designed for no longer exists okay that makes sense the electrical grid is not designed it was designed you

54:42

know what 100 years ago really right so swish tech I that your company sets its

54:47

sights on carbon-f free decentralized replacement by introducing electrootive drive systems to replace contemporary

54:54

fuel burning at the system scale. Cool. Our intra residential indoor safe

54:59

appliance targets a 400,000 demand serviceable obtainable market in our

55:04

local US southeast storm-prone region at $2,500 per unit by direct sale online.

55:10

So 400k demand is that $400,000 or 400,000 people or 4,000 400,000 what

55:18

we've described as capital intensive. So we have targeted the DOE as department of energy ARPA advanced research project

55:25

agency e program to fund our product development smart our traction involves interest from the US dod gamic which is

55:33

an automotive industry leader varied nos non-governmental organizations with RFPs

55:38

this is alphabet soup request for proposal to meet energy needs in south and southeast Asia and subsaharan Africa

55:47

wow okay pretty advanced stuff here um what would be your guidance to our development. Wow. Well, first of all,

55:54

congrats. That's a that's a very high concept and certainly a a valid uh avenue to pursue that could be world

56:00

changing, right? Um I I don't know if you've uh

56:05

electromotive, carbon free, decentralized. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but I I was fascinated maybe 10 years ago. I read an

56:13

article that said the number one way to change the world would be to invent lowcost power supplies that could be

56:19

deployed like in the regions you're talking about. And the reason that that was a complete gamecher is because it

56:24

would allow uh artificial light into the evenings after it gets dark in places

56:30

that don't even have an electrical grid, right? And or where they burn smoky stuff like in their uh in their little

56:37

houses and stuff and get sick from the smoke, right? But if you could

56:42

uh offer clean clean and um readily accessible light,

56:50

it would liberate so many people to work after dark and learn to read. And especially it would liberate women who

56:57

could then have like handiccraft businesses and stuff in the evening like sewing or repairs and stuff like that.

57:03

And that sounds that sounded amazing to me. So I I just thought that was cool. So maybe that's that could be a use for

57:09

your tech, right? So that was more just a story I thought was cool. But if you haven't heard that narrative, it might be helpful to you in your pitch to talk

57:16

about that. Like you would be unlocking such a large segment of the population that because they don't have light, they

57:22

basically end their day, you know, when it gets dark and yet they could do so much more. Okay. So to your question,

57:30

what would be your guidance for our development? Well, let me review this. Okay, so 400k demand some local. Well, I

57:36

guess for venture capital, 400,000 demand, like I said, I don't know if it's dollars or people, but

57:42

either way, that's that's not very big, right? The VCs aren't interested in a in a market that small. So, I guess what

57:49

you're probably talking about is a pilot program. So, I would talk about it that way. Um because venture capital, we we

57:56

want to see big markets that can go global, right? So um it might it might

58:03

work in the southeast for storms which is great but that pilot is not enough to

58:09

attract people right so I would which is which doesn't mean you shouldn't do it you still need to do it but I would just

58:15

position it and you didn't have a lot of space here so I get it but you know position this as like a test or you know beta or a phase one sort of idea because

58:22

what you're really raising money for isn't the phase one it's the phase three or five right when it's huge and it's global right um So, okay. And you

58:30

already know about DOE and DoD. Yeah. SBIR sort of stuff. Um,

58:37

yeah, it's it's not my world so much. Um these are great questions but um the I

58:43

think um yeah it's a longer conversation

58:48

basically but I think the unit economics are interesting but you need to position that as a beta or a pilot like I said

58:55

and then really show what the what the larger realization could be because obviously there's a worldwide demand for

59:00

lowcost clean energy and um I guess that to me suggests awesome opportunity for

59:06

you but also a crapload of competition. So, I think you would want to get real sharp about how this stacks up against

59:14

all the other versions of, you know, solar and uh portable nukes and uh uh

59:20

long-term battery solutions and you know, there's you know more than I do about this, I'm sure, but there's so much going on in energy and especially

59:26

if AI unlocks new types of physics, this stuff is just going to go crazy. Um, so

59:31

I think a competition section would be really important. Again, you I'm sure you've thought of this, but you asked um

59:38

that would be for me like as an investor. I don't do this kind of thing, but I would be looking for a larger market. Uh some defensible moes in the

59:46

sense that you have protections. Uh and then that competition wasn't doing lots

59:53

of cool things that were going to be better and cheaper and faster to market, right? And then of course you need to

59:58

get to the how do you get it out there? And that probably is your NOS's sort of thing, right? you have distribution

1:00:04

partners. So if you have any uh background with NOS's or some competitive advantages in terms of who

1:00:10

you could partner with to get this thing out there then that would be I think an advantage as well. Um there are a lot of

1:00:17

people that know a lot more about DOE and ARPA funding. Um there are some organizations

1:00:23

oh what's that called? Um,

1:00:28

I can't remember, but there are Where are you? Did you say you were in

1:00:34

Atlanta or something? Um, there's a bunch of stuff around DC, of course. Right. With um that do um there's some

1:00:41

associations like that you might want to join. Gosh, I can't remember their names.

1:00:48

Yeah, I don't know. Well, goo Google and and research, I guess, to find some more. Oh, but okay. You had some comments in return. Um, fully patented.

1:00:56

Good. Two trillion TAM. Right. Exactly. Now, this to our other listeners, um, a

1:01:01

two trillion dollar TAM, that's gets people's attention, right? Because even, you know, you never want to say this in

1:01:07

a pitch, but even if you only get a small percentage of that, it's still a massive number, right? So, very nice.

1:01:12

And then you said we do exactly that. Oh, is this the uh um light for late at night for like women after dark sort of

1:01:19

thing? That's amazing. Cool. Very cool. So, maybe you've heard that story. I think that's could be empowering to so

1:01:25

many people. Very exciting. Okay. Well, I I don't know if that was helpful, but I I hope it was and happy to dig into

1:01:31

that more in the future. Or if you want to come on camera next time, um you can do that and come and join us at

1:01:37

startupconsil.org and then you could get on camera with me and we could, you know, kick it around a little bit and help you practice your pitch. Okay,

1:01:43

couple more here. Um what I saw um

1:01:49

yeah a two trillion dollar tam that's that gets people's attention for sure.

1:01:55

There we go. Okay. Yeah. A couple more here. Uh Darla says

1:02:01

Darla. Yeah. So Darla, you wrote in, right? So you had asked a question um but you didn't come backstage. So I'm

1:02:08

I'm happy to answer it here. But next time if you want to use the other link and to turn your camera on, we can talk

1:02:13

about it. But for now, she says, "I'm having problem raising preede. I have no revenue, but the hospital I used to work

1:02:18

at and the head nurse are very interested." Cool. I'm building AI, billing, supply chain, and preventive

1:02:24

appeal from insurance. Okay, cool. Um, yeah. Well, preceeded is tough, right?

1:02:30

Um, especially in software. So, I'm sure that what you're doing is of value. That

1:02:36

doesn't surprise me at all that you've got a as a if you've got insights into the AI healthcare billing supply chain

1:02:44

and insurance company stuff, man, that that's a mess as you obviously know. So,

1:02:50

um I guess I would be concerned about competition because there's a lot of people trying to do this and even those

1:02:55

that aren't there's a lot of AI coming that um is going to eat a lot of that

1:03:01

hopefully like in a good way, right? to clarify it, but there's a lot of people working on that already. So, I would bet

1:03:07

that's why you're having problems. I don't know your background obviously, but if you

1:03:13

hopefully you have some background in that that is demonstrable, right? Have you built AI systems before or some kind

1:03:20

of billing thing? Um, I don't know what your expertise is, but I think you would need to present with really

1:03:28

kind of unique industry insight and expertise as well as the grit to go out and kick some ass, you know, and do it.

1:03:35

That's that would be a requirement and differentiation from the competition because that space is very crowded. A

1:03:43

lot of people see that as an issue. And there's a thing called um

1:03:49

what's that called? there's a a certain kind of bias that um kind of a

1:03:54

confirmation bias, but it happens a lot to founders and it happens to us investors, too. But we get an idea and

1:04:01

then we're convinced that we're different than everybody else. Um but it's it's more like you're different but

1:04:09

not different enough. You know, because the problem with what you're suggesting,

1:04:15

and this I'm just trying to help here, and you're not going to like it, but the way it's going now actually works, and

1:04:22

everybody knows how to do it, and it's really hard to sell businessto business solutions that are that complex because

1:04:29

they have to rip out everything they're doing and retrain everybody, which is

1:04:35

expensive. And there are probably lots of people big, you know, like Accenture

1:04:41

and Deote and IBM, you know, all trying to build this kind of stuff as well. So, it's a it's a it's a it's I'm not trying

1:04:49

to discourage you. I'm trying to encourage you and give you the ammunition you need to move forward with

1:04:54

that because it's a that space definitely needs your help. But if

1:04:59

you're having trouble, those might be reasons why. So, I don't know if that was helpful. Again, this is one where

1:05:04

people in the chat room, please go ahead and chime in. If you have uh suggestions for her, especially if you um want uh

1:05:12

you know anything about uh billing and that kind of stuff that it's a it's a big deal. And these days, frankly, there

1:05:19

is not a lot of investment pre with no revenue. It's just too easy to make some

1:05:25

revenue at least in software. So, um, I would be, this will be in my new book,

1:05:32

too, like how to demonstrate traction, but I would be looking for, if this nurse is very interested,

1:05:38

I would try to get her to sign something, a letter of intent or a memorandum of understanding or

1:05:44

something. And, uh, especially if it could have dollar amounts on it. I know that's a big ask, but without that, it's

1:05:51

hard to believe that your revenue is going to show up. And you also need to make sure that she has or he the head

1:05:58

nurse has the kind of perspective I was talking about a minute ago like that they know of all the competition out

1:06:04

there like they're probably getting pitched on this kind of stuff anyway right so you need to figure out with

1:06:09

them why you are different and better uh to the point where somebody should take s so much risk and invest in you before

1:06:16

you even have a signed contract or even a product right so I hope that's helpful

1:06:22

just trying to give you the honest context for this. Um, yeah. Okay. Well,

1:06:27

yeah. So, our friend, uh, my friend Vlad, hold on, has a comment that might be helpful to you. Um,

1:06:34

oh, okay. You had a couple comments here. You, uh, nobody's done what you've done. Good. Just make sure that's true. That's all I'm saying. It's easy to say

1:06:40

that, right? But are you really super sure? Right. And then you patented it. Awesome. Um, although business method

1:06:47

patents aren't as strong as they used to be, so careful with that. Um, I used to work in billing at the hospital. Great.

1:06:52

So you you have some specific expertise. That is great. Mine is the only real

1:06:57

time and HIPPA approved. Also good. Yeah. Okay. Good stuff. Um 25 billion

1:07:02

lost in the U. I I totally believe that. And that is a good nice big uh Sam TAM

1:07:09

number, right? Um and then she says she can't because legal. Yeah, it's pitch the board, but the products need to be

1:07:14

finished. Yeah, I know. There you go. Chicken and the egg. I I don't have a good answer for you there. That's that's

1:07:19

the entrepreneurs challenge, right? How do you do that? I I don't have a good answer for you. Um, you just got to do

1:07:27

it or not do it, right? This is your life, right? So, don't The one thing I will say, don't spend like three or five

1:07:32

years and mortgage your house on this um unless it's really going to work, right?

1:07:37

It's okay to walk away and have another dream later, right? I'm not trying to discourage you. I'm just trying to be your friend, like being realistic. It

1:07:44

sounds like you've got expertise, you have insights, you have a relationship. These all sound like good things, right?

1:07:49

But if you're not getting the money, you're not getting the money. So, at some point, you might want to move on. I guess another thing to do would be to

1:07:55

talk to some other hospitals. Um, are there other hospitals? Like, if you could have uh maybe she won't sign

1:08:02

something, but maybe if you have had, you know, 10 hospitals that all said

1:08:07

they were interested, that's a very different story, right? Even if it doesn't have dollar amounts, right? So, that kind of traction uh is what

1:08:14

investors are looking for when you don't have revenue and the product isn't even finished, right? Um,

1:08:20

okay. Let's uh I saw Yeah, Vlad had Yeah, this is good. Vlad had a comment

1:08:25

to try to be more helpful than I was. Just use bubble or lovable to build a first version they can use. So, those

1:08:31

are AI. You probably know those are kind of vibe coding platforms. Get feedback, narrow down the requirements, pack it as

1:08:37

a product, and sell online as a SAS. Yeah, that's that's yeah, Vlad, you're right. Um, so what he means there, if

1:08:42

that lingo not that you're not familiar with or others aren't, is is instead of thinking of it as a

1:08:49

product that you go and the um hospital buys it for whatever, you know, hundred,

1:08:56

I don't know what the right number is, $10,000, and they're a unique um customer that

1:09:03

you put up a system online that they can pay what, you know, $300 a month or

1:09:08

something and every month and it's all online cloud-based. You're probably

1:09:13

doing that already. But that that shift from being a installed product to a

1:09:19

service online might uh free up your might reduce your capital costs. Um and

1:09:26

the platforms that uh he's suggesting might let you build some prototypes that

1:09:31

would be impressive enough that people would then invest in you. So,

1:09:36

okay, I'm running out of voice and time here, but let's I thought there was a couple. Um,

1:09:43

okay. I saw another one. Seed round. Somebody had asked something more about safes.

1:09:50

There it was. Okay. And I think we'll probably make this our last question for the evening, folks. What is a typical

1:09:55

triggering event to convert from the safe to preferred stock for early investors? Okay, that's a good question.

1:10:01

Basic mechanics. Um, you know, that's a good enough question that I'm going to

1:10:06

write it down and make sure that I put that in my book, John. So, I'm writing basic triggering

1:10:12

mechanism for safes. Yeah, I need to clearly say that because it's not often,

1:10:17

um, uh, explained. So, um, so to back up for everybody else for a second, a safe

1:10:24

is a, um, a and you accept an investment with simple paperwork, but you don't

1:10:31

pick a valuation, right? So, it's all basically based on a triggering event as

1:10:37

John's suggesting that you basically say we'll take the money um and we will

1:10:43

figure out the valuation later once some stuff happens like we have some customers or we have some revenue or um

1:10:49

we've really developed this thing and rolled it out, right? Like it's it's a it's a we thanks for the money now and

1:10:55

we'll figure out the price later. Okay, so John's asking what is when do you convert, right? when when does that um

1:11:02

stock convert uh to become stock at a price? Because stock isn't really exist

1:11:07

until it has a price. It's not just like you kind of own part of the company, right? You need to know a value for that

1:11:14

company. So um so the triggering event is um when the stock converts at a a

1:11:22

priced round. I mean it can convert it can convert in theory on anything,

1:11:27

right? It's just a contract, which I know sounds scary if you're not legally trained, but a contract is just an agreement to do something. And it can be

1:11:33

about anything. So, the conversion could be the next time the Steelers win the Super Bowl or, you know, uh I don't

1:11:41

know, you know, Taylor Swift releases a new album. It could be literally anything. But of course, it's not. It's

1:11:46

written typically to be when a priced round is issued, meaning that your company has grown enough that you raised

1:11:53

money on a safe, probably from friends and family or seed investors, and it was so early, you didn't know what the valuation should be. But six months or a

1:12:01

year later, two years later, whatever, you've gotten to the point where, okay, everybody can see the trajectory. This is going well. and a new investor

1:12:10

usually or may might have been one of your previous ones, but somebody steps up to be the lead investor and they say,

1:12:15

"Okay, good job. We think the company now is worth X, like let's say $10

1:12:20

million, right?" Because before you didn't know that it might have been worth three, it might have been worth 30. Like, you don't know. But now things

1:12:26

have gone along far enough. It's $10 million. So, they're going to put their money in at that $10 million valuation. Pre, post, there's lots of details to

1:12:33

that, right? they put their money in and that's when it converts. So basically the priced

1:12:39

round will sweep up all the safes and convert them at that price together. So

1:12:45

if that $10 million round, say the lead investor puts in a million and you had $687,000 worth of safes, those will also

1:12:53

convert at the same price. That's the answer typically. Again, it could be anything, but that's how it generally

1:12:59

works. It's basically you're waiting for the company to have matured enough that

1:13:04

the friends and family uh and early angels waited long enough till somebody a third

1:13:11

party came in and kind of validated the company and said, "Okay, we get it. You've made some good progress. We're

1:13:17

going to we're willing to buy in the stock at six and a half million or 10 million or a bazillion, whatever it is."

1:13:23

Like this is somebody outside who's objective. It's not your mom and your cousins, right? It's somebody um a group

1:13:29

probably who's who are professional at this and have you know really done the due diligence and say okay we're going

1:13:34

to lead the investment and we think this is the price that's valid and then everybody converts. There you go. Okay.

1:13:42

So I hope that was helpful. Um and uh yes Damian it is live but it's just

1:13:48

about to end. So thanks for dropping by. Uh it has been it has been live and we've been here for an hour plus and uh

1:13:55

happy to see everybody. Thank you for joining me. I'm Scott Fox from the Startup Council. If you haven't yet, I suggest you come over here um just like

1:14:02

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1:14:08

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1:14:19

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1:14:32

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1:14:37

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