6 College Students Pitch Us Their Startups | MFM Shark Tank

Summary

Podcast Summary: My First Million Episode: 6 College Students Pitch Us Their Startups | MFM Shark Tank
Release Date: November 8, 2024
Hosts: Sam Parr and Shaan Puri
Guests: Six ambitious college students from the University of Michigan (UMich) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) who pitch their innovative startups.

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Introduction

In this exhilarating episode of My First Million, hosts Sam Parr and Shaan Puri welcome six college students to pitch their startups in a format reminiscent of Shark Tank. The event is organized by Power Hour, an underground society at UMich and UIUC, dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship among students. The atmosphere is charged with excitement as the budding entrepreneurs present their ideas, seeking validation, mentorship, and potential investment from the seasoned hosts.

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1. Meet Your Class (University of Michigan)

Pitchers: Jonah and Blake

Overview: Jonah introduces Meet Your Class, a platform designed to reduce the phenomenon of "summer melt"—where prospective students decline their college offers at the last moment. By fostering early community building and integrating with popular social media apps, the platform enhances student engagement and commitment.

Key Points:

• Scalability: Over 400,000 accounts created with $600,000 in revenue through a freemium model.
• Impact: Partnered with Christ College, achieving a 61% reduction in summer melt, translating to an additional $1.7 million in revenue.
• Future Plans: Expanding to eight universities and preparing for a seed round post-graduation.

Notable Quotes:

• Jonah (02:48): "At the Christ College, students who used Meet Your Class experienced a 61% reduction in summer melt."
• Sam (07:42): "Meeting your class is tackling an $11 billion problem in higher education."

Feedback from Hosts:

• Shaan: Praised the application, likening it to a modern solution akin to Harry Potter's exclusive societies.
• Sean: Initially questioned the pricing model but acknowledged the compelling results and advised continuing the focus on scalability without raising unnecessary funds.
• Sam: Impressed by the real-world impact and potential for addressing a significant issue in higher education.

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2. Metafrozzo (San Francisco, UIUC)

Pitcher: Austin Majors

Overview: Austin presents Metafrozzo, an automated, authentic, and affordable video translation and dubbing solution aimed primarily at the educational sector. By leveraging AI, Metafrozzo synchronizes lip movements and translates on-screen text, facilitating multilingual education.

Key Points:

• Market Need: Addresses the $60 billion dubbing market by providing a cost-effective alternative to traditional methods.
• Functionality: Users input videos, select languages, and receive synchronized, translated content within minutes.
• Revenue: Achieving $6,000 in monthly recurring revenue with clients like UIUC and Velcro Corporation.
• Future Prospects: Potential integration with platforms like Coursera, targeting large-scale educational content translation.

Notable Quotes:

• Austin (16:36): "Imagine the millions of people trying to get an education in their second language where the content is not meant for them."
• Sean (19:24): "If you can recreate the in-person tour experience online, that's a game-changer."

Feedback from Hosts:

• Sean: Highlighted the potential and advised focusing on building a robust business around existing technology rather than holding back on investment.
• Sam: Encouraged reinforcing the uniqueness and scalability of the solution, emphasizing its relevance in the educational sector.

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3. Milieu (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Pitcher: Nathan Schatz

Overview: Nathan introduces Milieu, a personalized skincare company that tailors products based on an individual's unique skin microbiome. By analyzing microbial composition, Milieu offers customized serums and cleansers to enhance skin health.

Key Points:

• Innovation: Combines microbiome science with AI to deliver hyper-personalized skincare solutions.
• Process: Users collect samples at home, submit them for analysis, and receive bespoke skincare formulations.
• Market Opportunity: Targets the $150 billion skincare industry with a focus on sustainability and personalized care.
• Pricing: Offering a test kit and initial products for $59.95, with a subscription model for ongoing refills.

Notable Quotes:

• Nathan (30:00): "Think of the skin microbiome as a city. Each microbe has a unique role in maintaining skin health."
• Sean (37:35): "People might think it's gross, but it's just science."

Feedback from Hosts:

• Sean: Emphasized the need to demonstrate visual results and leverage content marketing to showcase efficacy.
• Sam: Suggested viral storytelling through platforms like TikTok to highlight the transformative impact of microbiome-based skincare.

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4. Brothers Nuts (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Pitchers: Austin Majors and Tommy Potter

Overview: Brothers Nuts aims to revolutionize healthy snacking with organic sprouted nut and seed snacks. The mission is to eliminate unhealthy additives and provide tasty, crunchy snacks that support a healthier lifestyle.

Key Points:

• Personal Story: Founded by Austin and Tommy in honor of their father's battle with brain cancer, emphasizing health and taste.
• Product Offering: Organic, sprouted, seed oil-free, and gluten-free snacks available in various flavors.
• Traction: Over $1 million in sales across 200 retail locations, with plans to expand to major chains like Whole Foods and Sprouts.
• Growth Strategy: Focus on expanding distribution, innovating new flavors, and leveraging their unique story to connect with consumers.

Notable Quotes:

• Austin (46:34): "Everything we're doing is to grow his legacy and create my own along with my brothers."
• Sean (54:38): "You're going to take this brand to the shelves of every grocery store."

Feedback from Hosts:

• Sean: Recognized the strong narrative and market potential, suggesting enhanced social media presence to drive brand awareness.
• Sam: Impressed by the real-world impact and immediate revenue, advocating for leveraging their unique story to further penetrate the market.

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5. Tour (San Francisco)

Pitchers: Advai and Christian

Overview: Tour introduces an AI-powered virtual leasing agent named Mariana, designed to enhance the apartment touring experience. By integrating with apartment websites, Tour replicates in-person tours, engages prospects, and increases lease conversions.

Key Points:

• Problem Addressed: Only 4% of apartment prospects take in-person tours, resulting in missed leasing opportunities.
• Solution: Mariana interacts with website visitors, offers virtual tours, qualifies leads, and schedules appointments, effectively augmenting the property managers' sales efforts.
• Results: Over a million tours delivered, driving $30 million in leases and achieving $1 million in revenue.
• Scalability: Plans to automate tour generation and expand to more property managers through AI-driven initial outreach.

Notable Quotes:

• Christian (55:12): "Tour helps apartments scale their digital sales force, increasing engagement and lease conversions."
• Sean (65:49): "If you can 4x the number of tours, that's a compelling proposition."

Feedback from Hosts:

• Sean: Acknowledged the impressive traction and impact, while questioning long-term scalability in a competitive market.
• Sam: Appreciated the innovative approach but raised concerns about industry adoption and differentiation from existing solutions like Matterport.

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6. PathLit (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Pitcher: Shrikala Kala

Overview: Shrikala presents PathLit, a virtual executive assistant designed to manage and streamline email communications for businesses. By automating email responses and prioritizing important messages, PathLit aims to reclaim employees' time and enhance productivity.

Key Points:

• Market Need: Employees spend an average of 13 hours weekly managing emails, leading to significant productivity losses.
• Solution: PathLit acts as a personal secretary, learning user preferences to categorize, prioritize, and respond to emails autonomously.
• Traction: Secured a six-figure annual contract with a Big Four consulting firm and piloting with a major children's enrichment franchise.
• Funding: Completed an oversubscribed seven-figure raise, demonstrating investor confidence.

Notable Quotes:

• Shrikala (69:15): "Imagine if just like a real secretary, it could learn from you and respond to emails on your behalf."
• Sean (77:00): "It's an absolute bloodbath category with giants like Google and Microsoft stepping in."

Feedback from Hosts:

• Sean: Expressed skepticism about market penetration given competition from tech giants integrating similar AI capabilities.
• Sam: Highlighted the challenge of convincing businesses to switch established email clients, advising a focus on unique value propositions.

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Conclusion

After thorough pitches and insightful feedback, Brothers Nuts emerged as the standout startup. Both Sam Parr and Shaan Puri were particularly impressed by their compelling personal story, real-world impact, and immediate revenue generation. The combination of a heartfelt mission and strong market traction positioned Brothers Nuts as the most promising venture among the six.

Final Thoughts: Sam and Shaan commended all the students for their innovative ideas and entrepreneurial spirit. They emphasized the importance of storytelling, scalability, and leveraging unique strengths to stand out in competitive markets. The hosts also encouraged the students to continue refining their pitches and strategies based on the feedback provided.

Notable Closing Quotes:

• Sean (88:08): "I think that's what's missing for me right now."
• Sam (90:33): "I just thought it was more impressive that a midwestern school... that's a really good thing."

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Key Takeaways

• Storytelling Matters: A compelling personal narrative can significantly enhance a startup's appeal and relatability.
• Scalability is Crucial: Demonstrating clear paths for growth and scalability is essential for attracting investment.
• Market Differentiation: Unique value propositions and leveraging technology can set startups apart in crowded markets.
• Feedback Integration: Actively seeking and incorporating feedback can help startups refine their strategies and improve their pitches.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Jonah (02:48): "At the Christ College, students who used Meet Your Class experienced a 61% reduction in summer melt."
• Austin (16:36): "Imagine the millions of people trying to get an education in their second language where the content is not meant for them."
• Nathan (30:00): "Think of the skin microbiome as a city. Each microbe has a unique role in maintaining skin health."
• Austin (46:34): "Everything we're doing is to grow his legacy and create my own along with my brothers."
• Christian (55:12): "Tour helps apartments scale their digital sales force, increasing engagement and lease conversions."
• Shrikala (69:15): "Imagine if just like a real secretary, it could learn from you and respond to emails on your behalf."

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Final Remarks: This episode showcases the vibrant entrepreneurial spirit among college students, highlighting innovative solutions across various industries—from education and skincare to healthy snacking and property management. Sam Parr and Shaan Puri provide invaluable feedback that not only helps the students improve their pitches but also offers listeners insights into what makes a startup pitch successful.

If you're inspired by these young entrepreneurs or looking to refine your own startup ideas, this episode is a must-listen!

Transcript

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Tommy]

So just to preface here, I'm Tommy.

[Sean]

Tommy Potter, student at UMich. Really excited to be bringing you startups today.

[Tommy]

Just to illustrate the community, we're Power.

[Sean]

Hour, which is the CIA for college entrepreneurship.

[Tommy]

And what I mean by that is.

[Sean]

That you don't know like who we.

[Tommy]

Are, you don't know where we meet. We are this underground society of hand picked killer founders.

[Sean]

Wow. Hold on, hold on. If you're building the impossible, we got Tommy, like Tommy Potter, like Harry Potter. And then there's no, there's no meeting place, there's no information, there's no way in and there's no way out of this club. It's a tap on the shoulder just like the CIA. We let you know individually where we're going to be meeting. Dude, Sam, they're speaking your language already. This is some real skull and bone.

[Sam]

I feel like I could rule the world.

[Sean]

I know I could be what I want to.

[Austin]

I put my all in it like.

[Sean]

Days off on a road. And I, I want to preface, this is live audience. If Sam and Sean, you don't know.

[Tommy]

I'll pan the room.

[Sean]

We got like 65 people here ready for you Mesh.

[Sam]

Let's hear on show.

[Sean]

The ecosystem is out here today. I know the same is going on down at uiuc. They got a massive room. How many you got in that room there? Austin here, I'll pan the camera too, real quick. Oh wow. So but yeah, we've ditto on all points that Tommy said. I basically help get all the amazing founders as well as entrepreneurs, content creators.

[Sam]

Everybody that's doing awesome stuff in the.

[Sean]

Same room down here at uic.

[Sam]

So we're super pumped on both sides. UIUC is that Illinois, Carbondale.

[Sean]

Urbana, University.

[Tommy]

Of Illinois, Urbana Champaign.

[Sean]

The big eye.

[Sam]

So all right, that's who we are.

[Sean]

So we got Tommy, we got Austin. The club is called Happy Hour. Is that what you said? No, we're Power Hour. Oh, Power Hour. Power Hour got you an hour full of power and, and it's all student run. There's no faculty, nobody who's, who's making this happen. Is this like has been around for 10 years or did you just invent this on Thursday? What's going on?

[Tommy]

Do you remember Bobby? Bobby Firehousel which was on this, this podcast about two years ago.

[Sean]

I may never forget Bobby.

[Sam]

So Bobby started all of this.

[Tommy]

Bobby started this.

[Sean]

Bobby started this. And it's kind of been planting around and UIC has their community. We're very like deep in our partnership there as well.

[Sam]

This is so this is fantastic. So to give the listener background, two years ago we had this guy named on Bobby. Bobby, I think, was in Michigan. Bobby gathered, like, this, like, group of maybe 15 entrepreneurs, and like, four of them pitched us, and they were awesome. And apparently Bobby has fight club this thing and gone out from university to university to, like, convince you guys to join on. And this sounds awesome. And so today, I think six of you, so three each, are going to pitch us. Is that right?

[Tommy]

Totally correct.

[Sean]

Yeah. There's a lot of school pride on the line in terms of which school is going to come out on top in this competition. So we're laying it on the line for you.

[Austin]

We have, you know, tons of creators in the audience. It was tough to get it down to three.

[Nathan]

Three startups.

[Sean]

But we're giving you our best, so can't wait. We're ready to. We're ready to roll. So this is college Shark Tank style. Two schools pitching from both. We're going to have a winner. We're going to maybe have a few other awards that we come up with. I invested in one of these last time. Sam out of. Out of Michigan. So how's it going? Company already failed, so we're not gonna. We're not gonna hold that against y'all. You win some, you lose some. And we lost that one pretty hard, pretty quick. But that's all right.

[Sam]

All right, but let's see if you guys can beat Michigan. So the first one that we're gonna hear from is meet your class, and I think is University of Michigan. Are you guys doing three in a row? And then it's gonna be.

[Sean]

We're gonna go back and forth.

[Sam]

All right, all right.

[Sean]

We just need to step aside and let this kid MC this. He's got the natural real for it. I'm a host. See, I'm using college words.

[Sam]

Is it let it bake or let them cook? Which one is it?

[Austin]

Whatever.

[Sean]

Which let it. We're going to let them bake. Hey, let's take a quick break, because when all your marketing team does is put out fires, they're going to burn out. And with HubSpot, they can achieve their best results without the stress. You could tap into HubSpot's collection of AI tools Breeze to pinpoint leads, capture attention, and access all your data in one place. Keep your marketers cool and your campaign results hotter than ever. Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more.

[Sam]

All right, the first one is the folks at Michigan.

[Jonah]

Okay. Hello, my name is Jonah, and I'm the COO of Meet youk Class. Two years ago, my co founders and I created a platform for prospective college students to meet each other before coming to campus. And Meteor Class quickly grew in popularity, largely because the communities we built actually extended beyond our own platform and integrated with the social media apps that nearly every high schooler uses on a daily basis. Within two years, this system has scaled to over 400,000 account creations and even generated over $600,000 in revenue through a freemium business model. Well, this was a great success. An even larger opportunity emerged when we were approached by a university called the Christ College, which was struggling with enrollment. Basically, they were having issues filling seats. And they were not alone. This is a really big issue. Recent polls have found that over two thirds of university CFOs are deeply concerned about declining enrollment. A really big factor in this that the Christ College, and really the majority of universities across the country struggle with is a phenomenon known as summer melt. Summer melt refers to when a prospect gets all the way to the tail end of the enrollment funnel just to, at the last second, renege on their deposit, renege on their commitment, and decide that they no longer want to go to college. At the Christ College, believe it or not, this was happening with every one in three students, which eventually was leading to a 33% vacancy rate at the school. The Christ College believed the Meeker class could help decrease the summer melt because our platform had gained a reputation as being able to build up excitement for prospective students and also to give them a support network. Furthermore, we also found through discovery that Meteor class data was very valuable for universities in helping them to allocate their limited time and resources towards students who needed the extra attention and help. And we're very excited to say that this worked. At the Christ College, students who used Meet yout class last year experienced a 61% reduction in summer melt, which is expected to add $1.7 million back to their top line. And we're so excited by these results because at a minimum, this summer melt issue is calculated to cost the higher education system over $11 billion per year. And it's of course going to take more than one case study to really go after this market. But luckily, we now have scaled to eight partners for the upcoming admission cycle. And amazingly, that same B2C business that I described at the start is helping us and empowering us to create a product that's industry leading, loved by students and administrators. It also got us admitted to techstars and has allowed us to bootstrap our way into A much larger, much more qualified team ready to take the higher ed market by storm.

[Sam]

Wow.

[Sean]

All right, that was great. Do you have an ending for us? So, sharks, who's ready to, you know, blah, blah, blah. And are you raising. Are you actually raising money or not? Not. Not raising money right now.

[Jonah]

We're planning to potentially open a seed round when we graduate in the spring.

[Sam]

Okay, that is awesome. That is awesome. By the way, of the $600,000 in revenue, how many people are working there? What's your profit? Do you have any profit?

[Jonah]

Yeah. So us as initial co founders, have not paid ourselves a dime, and we reinvest every single penny back into the team. So I don't know the exact profitability off the top of my head. You know, we try to keep the bank account enough to stay alive, but we reinvest every penny back into growing the team and getting to more university partnerships. And we're trying to get 50 by the end of this upcoming admission cycle.

[Sam]

Of this. Of the 600,000, how much is in your business account right now?

[Jonah]

I think around 300,000. We got 120,000 from Techstars. And then I've also won some pitch competitions.

[Sam]

Okay.

[Sean]

Okay, cool. And Blake. Your name is Blake, right?

[Jonah]

My name's Jonah. Blake is my amazing co founder.

[Sean]

Okay, great. So, Jonah, great first, great pitch. Really cool business. At first, when you were talking about it, I thought, well, you know, you sort of created Facebook 20 years too late. You're trying to help college kids connect. But then the story got really interesting when you started talking about how colleges are struggling to fill enrollment and they have vacancies. Just like a hotel has vacancies, a college has vacancies, and that maybe your tools actually could help them decrease that. And then, then they would be your customer. Right. You'd be charging them. Did you charge that first college? And what are you charging those other eight colleges who you said are partners with you on this?

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Jonah]

So our initial partners are heavily discounted relative to, like, the market rate for a solution like this, because we're trying to get more logos, more case studies. Currently, those partners are at under $10,000. But there's a very clear path to scaling this once we have a bit more credibility under our name.

[Sam]

You said market rate. Who else is doing something like this and what are they doing?

[Jonah]

We do have a handful of competitors. So this initial thing that we're describing is called, like, mid funnel conversion. It's basically getting people who are later on in the enrollment funnel and then trying to convert them There's a few competitors listed in that second column. Where we really stand out from them is our integrations with social media because we're able to get a large organic user base at the earliest and latest stages of the enrollment funnel. So a lot of our competitors are like third party apps where the university basically emails all of their students, says hey, download this and kind of forces them to use it. And the reason they do that is because these communities generate so much valuable data and they have a lot more control over it. And social media standalone really doesn't do this for them because it's not a tailor made higher ed tool. So we're basically retrofitting these social media platforms and bringing all the data that they pay for the.

[Sean]

So Jonah, if you were charging them what you think you can charge them, have you had any conversations about how much they would be willing to pay either as a percentage of sort of saved students or as a flat fee? What's your sense of how much each college going to pay you?

[Jonah]

So initially just for this mid funnel conversion tool, we believe that it should be pretty reasonable. Of course like college is very in size, but we've seen these at the lowest for the smallest schools around $20,000 and then we've seen them scale past 200,000. This is of course just like one small part of the enrollment funnel. There's many more issues that we believe we're primed to solve. That's just a generally like I almost want to say a commoditized rate that the university is comfortable paying for with.

[Sean]

Is this the biggest problem or is there a bigger problem?

[Jonah]

This is one of the biggest problems as I mentioned for the Christ College, one in three students were melting. So when we. So it's just like kind of like the lowest hanging fruit to initially go after because these are kids who arguably should be going to college. They got very, they got way to the tail end of the enrollment funnel and then we then converted more of them but they obviously wanted to just get more box and sees throughout the entire process.

[Sam]

Jonah, how's this? You know I always ask how the story ends. Is there a vision for where you, where you're going to be in 10 years with this?

[Jonah]

We're still trying to figure that out. We are very motivated by genuinely improving the student experience and making it so college is worthwhile. So in the long run we want to put power back in the students hands. A lot of students don't know that they have negotiation power in the tuition price and a lot of them also end up at places that are suboptimal. So we kind of want to in the long run become the go to place that students come to and they figure out where they're going to be the most successful two for ten years down the line.

[Sean]

Did you just say that you can negotiate tuition price? Because I had no idea that's possible.

[Jonah]

It is possible. I personally didn't do it. Some members of my team could speak to it a lot more. But students have a lot more power than they realize. Universities need students in order to stay in business. The majority of schools, not the University of Michigan, but the majority of schools are tuition dependent for revenue. Tuition in Michigan is like a very small percentage of revenue. So if you ask for decreased tuition here, that likely would not pan out because they're not really struggling with any financial situations. But at the end of the day, colleges need to act like a business, otherwise they're going to go under.

[Sam]

I was just googling some of these companies. Sean, have you heard of Unibody? Were you, did you Google any of those community apps? I had no idea this stuff existed. Some of them are actually quite large.

[Sean]

How big?

[Sam]

Unibody I think, raised $30 million. They raised it during COVID So there's, you know, TBD if it's legit, but it seems like it's a business that does many tens of millions in revenue.

[Sean]

Yeah. Jonah, my quick take on this. I think you actually have a real business here. One of the biggest investments I missed on was the very first guy who ever pitched me as an angel investor. He had a idea for something called Apply Board. And what he was doing was helping international students get into. He was helping like kind of these small colleges get more international students because international students just didn't know their name. I had never heard of Christ College till you just said it. And he was charging about 2 to 3,000. He was charging the university 2 to $3,000 per student that actually got admitted and enrolled there. And so he was making, you know, tons of money so that that company really took off. So I think you, I think you have a real business here. The only thing I would say, I guess to wrap up is I don't think you should ever raise money for this. I think you should bootstrap this thing. And if you actually just stuck with this idea and you bootstrapped it, you know, in four or five years you would be sitting on probably $20 million, which would be a phenomenal place for you to be exiting this business. And I think the biggest Risk for you is not a business risk. It's a. We raise money because we pitch investors that this could take over the world. Because we thought that's what we're supposed to do. We thought, you have an idea. You pitch investors, you raise round one, round two, round three. And suddenly we're looking at you saying, how are you going to be a billion dollar company? And the reality is this might be a phenomenal $50.50 million company, but no chance at a billion dollar company. So my. My advice to you would be don't raise. But great pitch overall. Sam, any last thoughts?

[Sam]

I completely agree. Completely agree. Let's.

[Sean]

Jonah, thank you. Big round of applause.

[Sam]

All right, so where are we going now? Illinois?

[Sean]

Yeah, we've got our guy out in.

[Sam]

San Francisco right now. Shri.

[Sean]

Car.

[Austin]

So what's going on, guys? Nice to meet you.

[Sean]

All right. I love it. You drop out. What? You're not even in college. What's going on?

[Austin]

No, I'm actually on a gap semester. Hey, Sean, I'm in Founders Inc. I know you know Safwan.

[Sean]

Oh, no way.

[Austin]

Background. So, just met him yesterday.

[Sam]

A couple.

[Austin]

Me and my couple of my buddies are. I'm just visiting San Francisco here, seeing if this is the right place for.

[Sean]

Us, but yeah, all right, well, gap year, I like. I like the sound of that already.

[Austin]

About a year ago, me and my co founder were watching the Spanish TV show Money Heist on Netflix. Unfortunately, neither of us know Spanish very well, so we had to watch an English dub. Anyone who's ever watched a dub movie knows that there's a bunch of issues. The lips are not synchronized with the audio, the voice actors sound nothing like the actual actors. There's one scene or two voice actors had the same actor making everything extremely confusing. We looked at this issue a bit further and found that it is extremely technically complex, expensive at 100 to 1500 dollars per minute, time consuming and low quality to dub a video nowadays with all of this, dubbing is a $60 billion market in 2022, and there's been no clear solution for this. We started by translating content for creators like Mr. Beast and Mr. Nightmare and found that the essential use case is within education. Imagine the millions of people trying to get an education in their second language where the content is not meant for them. So we created Metafrozzo, an automated, authentic and affordable translation solution for educators. All a user has to do is input a video into our solution, press the input and output language, press submit, and within minutes get a lip sync voice clone and text on screen. Translated video just like this one that we translated for our client UIUC&GIES&Coursera Utilitarianism.

[Sean]

Suggests that an ethical choice will lead.

[Nathan]

To the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

[Sam]

That's pretty good.

[Austin]

So as you can see, Professor's voice is perfectly cloned from English to Spanish to French. His lips are synchronized and our key differentiator is any text on screen is translated with the same font, text and color as well. For our enterprise clients, we have a human in the loop process where we translate videos with industry specific terminology, keywords, idioms, none of that Google Translate issues. We also have the most languages and cheapest product on the market. Right now we're at $6,000 in monthly recurring revenue translating videos for University of Illinois and corporations like Velcro Corporation. We actually are in talks with Coursera for a potential integration in quarter one of 2025 as well. Just to look at one of our potential deals. After our paid pilot with GIES, just one degree looks like 30,000 minutes in five languages, generating $1.35 million in revenue for our company. This actually saves the university 91% in actual cost and curating the course as well. Our team combines business and technology with myself taking a gap year to focus on this and our machine learning team of five machine learning engineers having 37 years of experience in computer vision. Hi, my name is Shrikala Kala and my purpose is to break language barriers. Thank you guys very much.

[Sam]

All right, that's awesome.

[Sean]

Great pitch, Great pitch. And leave some of the slides up, so we might need to go back to them. So first of all, the demo was great. Can you just tell us a little bit about that? The magic there. So you said translates the voice, makes the lips match, which I've never seen anyone do that.

[Sam]

Did you see Dana White do that? Sean, you didn't see Dana White do that for the Mexican Independence Day ufc? It was great.

[Sean]

No, I didn't see that. So what are you doing to make the lips? Is it superimposed on top of their lips?

[Austin]

Yeah. So essentially we take one of my buddies YC model. We take any original video or any original audio and we are allowed to synchronize Ellipse based on the input of video and audio in our back end system. We then curate that thought.

[Sean]

You're going to say you took one of your buddy's lips and he's a model. So you're saying there's an off the shelf library. Basically a lot off the shelf model that does this already. You guys are Just integrating that.

[Austin]

Yes, that's true, that's true.

[Sean]

Okay, and another question, you said something like if they did this just one course for one university, that's like a million in revenue for you. Are they currently, are you convincing them, hey, you should dub this or they're already dubbing it just at 10 times the cost.

[Austin]

Yeah. So right now they're translating videos automatedly and they're translating courses like Imagine quizzes, tests and just like reading papers, but they're not translating the videos. So a Spanish user has to go on Coursera and you know, take the course in Spanish but have to read the subtitles on an English video. For these videos that these courses that they're creating right now, we're basically providing the solution that standardizes the actual viewing experience for the end user. So they are doing this right now just without.

[Sam]

You said that you said, I think in 22 or 23 or something like that, that dubbing was a 70 or 60 billion dollars. What is that number? Tell me about that number. That's ridiculous.

[Austin]

Just looking at traditional dubbing, this means in film, education, marketing, just translation in general, huge market, bunch of different positions that we could put ourselves in. Was trying to tell you guys that we also translated for content creators like Mr. Beast, Mr. Nightmare, but found that the niche was in education for us just because of the central need. Think about the applications of translation for people that have life changing opportunities. Strip for them because they can't take a course in their preferred language or they're not able to understand the professor in a classroom. So that's where we got that number.

[Sean]

Right. But key distinction, you said they're already doing this, but actually the way you said it was they're translating the tests and the quizzes, they're just not, they're not doing the videos today. And so for them to agree to do this, this would be a new cost of a million dollars to them that they're not currently spending.

[Austin]

So in terms of translating a video in general, they're trying to translate these videos. But for them for like a person to translate a video, just like for a 10 minute video takes four hours. They have to curate new slides, have a new professor go in, you know, speak in a new language of the contract. These people, this would cost them $3 million to edit these videos, you know, go over, edit the screen text and.

[Sean]

Right, but there's a big distinction. Let's say I'm sitting at this university and I look like I am with this vest on right now. And I, I'm sitting there and I've got my budget. But what I'm asking you is today they don't already spend in this. You're not saving them money from something they're already spending. They're currently not spending because it would be too expensive to do it. Too slow, too expensive. And so you're going to be a new cost to them. Right. So that's going to be a big point of friction because they're not going to make more money necessarily off this. You might be able to convince them that if you do this, you might be able to get more customers. But day one, it's going to be just extra cost with no extra revenue. Is that correct?

[Austin]

That is true. However, they are going in the direction of putting these courses online. Digital translation is a thing that they're already doing. This would just be an added cost for them at the end of the day, but it would provide a better solution, potentially being a marketing play for international students to come to the university as well. But to answer your question. Yeah.

[Sam]

What are you doing for Velcro? First of all, I didn't know Velcro was a brand. I thought Velcro was like Kleenex or tissue. I thought it was a thing. That's pretty wild. But what are you doing for them and how did you close those guys? Because they look like a big old sluggish company.

[Austin]

Yeah, we had a personal connection to one of the higher ups of the company. We do internal communications for them. So every month there's a 90 minute internal town hall where the CEO basically speaks in English. She's Italian woman. She had a bunch of issues with. When she's speaking English, she lacks emotion. She kind of doesn't feel like herself. And we were able to provide them a solution where she was able to provide the company with updates in her true Persona in the new language by speaking in Italian for 90 minutes into our camera. We put that into our solution. Within three hours we were able to curate a translated video that she's able to send to all the plants at Voql Corporation in 10 different languages. And we provide that solution to them today.

[Sean]

But it sounds like you're. You're not doubling down as much on enterprise. You want to go for this university education niche, is that right?

[Austin]

So we want to go into the education niche. This is universities. This can mean educational content creation. This can mean corporate trainings as well. We understand that these educational sales cycles are extremely long, which is why going to these translation agencies for educational content as well can help us Kind of apply like a geometric approach to our sales cycle as well, just to speed everything up faster, having us get more traction to it. And then the university brand itself creates a stance where people say, hey, University of Illinois, use this. I'm an educational content creator. I trust them. I'm gonna trust this company as well.

[Sean]

Right. Well, I think you have a solid pitch and I think you have a really great product, but I think this is a product in search of a market. I think you're going to run into a lot of trouble because you're going to go to these universities and you're going to say, hey, we're great. And they're going to say, yeah, that's awesome. But they have no budget, they won't have the budget for it. Or it's just going to be seen as an extra cost without a clear extra payoff or sort of ROI attached to it. And so I think that's going to hurt the sales cycle. What's already a slow sales cycle is university sales think it's going to get harder because you're costing them money rather than saving them money. But one thing to consider is if there's already a big market for dubbing out there and they're doing it manually, this actually could look like a private equity play where you go buy existing dubbing services that have existing books of business and then you just fire all the people and replace it with the AI that's going to do it better and faster and cheaper than they're currently doing. You said it costs like $100aminute or whatever to dub with, with humans doing it. And so what you could do is you could go buy companies and then rip out the cost structure by replacing it with AI. And that might be actually be a better way to go to go to this market. And again, this is something that you don't really hear a lot. You're in San Francisco now. A lot of people don't talk about this, but there is a whole other avenue of business, you know, roll ups and private equity where they're looking for this. They buy something at a fair price and then they slash the cost in half by using technology to make things more efficient. You could do that here.

[Austin]

Understood. And we actually are trying to do that right now, partnering with the translation agency to understand exactly how they derive their clients, how they are going through these sales cycles with like refugees, people that are going through different educational content. The one thing about universities is that I do seeing this being globalized in systems and learning management systems like Coursera. So we just had a meeting yesterday with Coursera to essentially say at the University of Illinois, pilot goes well, they're willing to give us a shot at an integration for translation for a couple of courses there that would, you know, allow us to dub from going like a thousand minutes for every two weeks to maybe a thousand hours for every two weeks. Just to show you the kind of stance that we're taking in terms of universities. We're going for the learning management systems, not the individual university.

[Sam]

Hey, Sean, I don't pay attention to this world too much, but how that video that we saw, how impressive was that?

[Sean]

I mean it's definitely impressive and I think they're doing a couple other things that are specific, like changing the text on the screen. So I think, you know, that makes the whole solution work because then the actual course works. So it's definitely impressive. But I, you know, there's got to be 10 other companies that could do this today or there's nothing like scientific breakthrough with what they're doing. So this is really going to be a question of who builds the best business around this new technology. The technology exists and anyone's going to be able to build a business around this. So it's really going to be about who figures out the right market, the right go to market strategy, the right pricing model to actually build the business out of this.

[Sam]

What do your parents think about you taking a gap year?

[Austin]

We got into, we got into techstars in June, ended up declining that. My parents are South Indian. They kind of are driven by, you know, percentages like prestige. Was able to show them that, hey, maybe I'm like top 1% of precede companies by getting this accelerator. I'm show them that they let me take this gap semester and then going to have to show them some KPIs, like keep on taking time off of school. But I'm loving it right now.

[Sean]

I hope they listen to this.

[Sam]

Hey, kids or parents? Your kid's amazing. This is, he's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna turn out all right. It's gonna turn out more than all right. I think there's a kid at F.

[Sean]

Inc. Where you're at right now, that office you're at right now, there's a kid there. He's not a kid anymore. His name is Johnny Dallas and he was in eighth grade when he started working with us and he started in the summer and then he started working every day after school. And then I think in 11th grade or so it was pretty clear this guy is awesome. And he should just work here full time. And we made him an offer and his mom was freaking out, couldn't. I can't. My son's going to be a high school dropout. This is crazy. He's like, no, no, no. He's going to test out, he's going to graduate, he's going to get his ged. And what I convinced her of was he's not dropping out, he's going pro. The same way LeBron James went pro because he had incredible skills. And that reframe, I got to tell you, that was some of my best work with that mom on a bench in a park, convincing her that he's going pro, he's not dropping out. And then we got him to, got him to go full time with us.

[Austin]

Got you. Got you, dude.

[Sam]

Congratulations on your success. Good job and thank you for letting us listen. And you're the man. All right, what do we have next?

[Nathan]

I'm Nathan Schatz, co founder of Milieu and we are creating personalized skincare that's built for your microbiome. My journey with microbiology began when I was 8 after I had a life threatening encounter with a flesh eating bacteria. This experience sparked a fascination with the world of microbes like bacteria and fungi. Since then, I've been driven to understand how the skin microbiome, which is the trillions of microbes living on our bodies, affects human health. Let me paint you a picture. Think of the skin microbiome as a city. A complex community of microbes, each with a unique job. Just like these little guys on the screen in our skin city. Some help manage inflammation, others retain moisture, and some even fight off viruses. This microbiome is unique to each person, like a fingerprint, and its well being is essential for healthy and beautiful skin. But here's the problem. Many common skincare products contain preservatives and harsh chemicals that are detrimental to your skin microbiome. Using these is like dropping a nuke on your microbiome city, leading to chaos and any number of skin problems. Acne, dryness, anti aging and other common skin concerns drive a $150 billion industry. Yet most products rely on an outdated one size fits all approach that overlooks our unique biology. This leads to a frustrating cycle of trial and error where consumers waste their time and their money looking for the right product for their skin, often to no avail. People need skincare that is hyper personalized and that is why Milieu is different. We create skincare that works with your unique microbiome. So here's how we're changing the game. Meet the milieu Biome Sense system. This is a comprehensive solution that combines microbiome, science, AI and personalization to meet your skin's unique needs. It starts with our at home microbiome collection kit. Simply swab your skin, mail it back to us and complete a short survey about your skin concerns, lifestyle and habits. In our lab three miles west of here, we analyze your microbiome sample. Our AI powered algorithm then integrates this data with your survey responses to create a personalized skin insights report along with custom formulations, a serum and a cleanser designed just for you. As you use our products, Milyou adapts. Through retests and reformulations, we ensure that your skincare evolves with your skin's changing needs, restoring microbiome balance for lasting skin health. Plus, our plantable boxes and recyclable packaging reflect our commitment to sustainability. Milyu offers high quality personalized skincare for 59 95, which includes the test kit, analysis and custom products. And with a 1695 monthly subscription, you get refills and retests as needed. We are pioneering a science driven, personalized approach to skincare and we're currently inviting new members to join our beta program. Please visit our website to learn more and join us in making personal care truly about you.

[Sean]

Thank you for.

[Sam]

Hey, hold on, brother. Keep that up. I'm going to try it.

[Nathan]

Go for it.

[Sam]

There you go. This is pretty cool. When I thought microbiome, Sean, what did you immediately think? I thought it was. Yeah, I thought it was gut and poop. I was like, do I gotta. I gotta poop at a thing and you're gonna give me a thing to help my skin? But that's. I didn't know that skin microbiome was a thing. That's pretty baller.

[Sean]

How's your skincare routine?

[Sam]

You know, body wash that goes on my armpits, also goes on my face. It's not very good, but I'm. I'm bought into the idea that it is important and I do want to get better. So this is interesting to me. Do you have any revenue at all?

[Nathan]

No revenue. We're currently in development. We're doing beta testing.

[Sean]

Okay, gotcha. And really smooth pitch, by the way. You are a talker. That was really well done. Okay, so let's give some thoughts on this.

[Sam]

So, dude, by the way, his deck, Sean, was great. Those, those cartoons, they told the story wonderfully.

[Sean]

Yeah. Who made, who made all that? You made that?

[Nathan]

The, the deck and the Story? Yeah, no one made it. That's just my story.

[Sam]

Well, it made it. The graphics are cool.

[Nathan]

Oh, the deck. Yeah. My co founder Ron and I worked on it and then we also workshopped it with like a bunch of other students in the community, so.

[Sean]

Gotcha. Okay. You know, one thing I think that would help you is this type of story I think would go viral on TikTok. Like basically what you told us if you were like, I used to think skincare routine. Well, I used to think, you know, I, whatever, I didn't care about my skin. And then I got a flesh eating bacteria. This is me after my trip to Costa Rica. And you show a picture, you're like, so here's what I did to get rid of this. And while never look at any of these skincare products the same again. Knock over a bunch of bottles on a table, right? You do something like that, you're gonna get like 2 million views on a TikTok. You can actually include that in this, which is going to be like, we know how to tell our story and get out there. And that that story resonates with people, that people are looking for something that's more personalized, that's actually science based and not just, you know, a fancy brand. And we're going to use content to our advantage and that's how we're going to have much cheaper customer acquisition. Right. The smart brands in the D2C space are basically content first, right now. They know how to tell their story on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube. And that's where they're getting just like a, a sort of runaway growth compared to everybody else who just doing very basic static ads on Facebook type of thing.

[Nathan]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we observe that many of our competitors sunk a ton of their initial revenue into advertising. And so we're looking at sort of a different go to market strategy. We want to please 50 people in our beta testing. We want to work like very closely with a smaller group of people to make sure that our product and our algorithm is really working the way that it's supposed to before we go like mass market. Um, but I like the idea of doing short form content. Cause I know that definitely hits with, with the younger audience, which is target market.

[Sam]

Yeah. Who's your competitors? So are there other people doing this?

[Nathan]

Well, there's no one that's doing exactly what we're doing. There are skincare companies that do microbiome testing and there are also personalized skincare companies. Um, the biggest skin microbiome company Currently is Parallel Health and they offer a 200amonth protocol where they do sequencing on your skin microbiome. Super high market, high end product. There's a company that's successful, they've been in business for seven years now called Proven Health. They were actually paralyzed. No, it's Proven Skincare. They were on their own Shark Tank and they do personalized skincare that's based off of a quiz only. So we have a quiz and we have microbiome testing. So we're sort of the baby between those two ideas.

[Sam]

A lot of times with health stuff, health stuff or skin, anything involving your body, that's very, it's very controversial because there's always, there's a bunch of people who love something typically, and then there's an equal or more amount of haters, which doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. It's just health is very controversial. What would the haters say about this? Like, would they say like, dude, microbiome stuff, it's not actually important. If you just use these three things, it's going to do most of the job. You don't need to worry about this other stuff. Like, what are the haters going to say about you?

[Nathan]

I'd say the biggest liability there is that the skin microbiome field is actually very nascent. So the. Basically we're testing a hypothesis. We believe that skincare that's precisely tailored to your microbiome is better than the traditional methods out there. I think people would likely continue to hold on to this societal idea that all bacteria is bad or like, we need to stay in this sort of sanitized mindset. Like people really like to feel clean. And so I think that that's the biggest objection to this is like, we love germs. We want to harness the power of the germs that are on your face. And we believe they hold a lot of potential.

[Sean]

Potential.

[Nathan]

So people might be like, oh, it's gross, but you know, it's just science. Science is grossing well.

[Sam]

I, I like, I think the criticism. I'm an idiot, but I pay attention to health stuff. I think the criticism is like, you know, that's like a, that that thing will just move the needle by 1%. Whereas if you do these other things, it's mostly going to get you there and be perfect. Do you know what I mean? You know what I'm saying, Sean? Yeah.

[Sean]

100. It's like in health stuff, you can listen to Huberman for 92 hours and suddenly you're Brian Johnson or whatever. And you're trying to take 42 supplements a day, but 80 to 90% of the gains are going to come from like, you know, good sleep, drink water, eat clean, whole foods. And if you just do those things and you're not, you're probably not already doing those things, that'll get you the bulk of it. The rest is really like, you know, on the edge optimizations. And I think you're right, Sam, that, you know, sort of a smart skeptic would probably have that thought. But I don't think that's what's going to drive success or failure in this case. So I think actually one thing you were missing from your pitch is to convince me that people care about hyper personalization and that that's where the puck is going. And really what you want in a pitch is for this to feel like an inevitable outcome of what's, what's happening here, of what's happening in this space. Whether it's you or somebody else, that's sort of secondary. But you really want to convince investors of two things. One, inevitably this is where the puck is going and that inevitably we are going to be the ones who take advantage, score when that puck gets there. Right? So you kind of need to make two cases when you make a pun pitch. And so, for example, I know that in hair care and kind of beauty products, makeup products, there's a lot of this already. The trend has gone in this direction. Where isn't it? Like you do quizzes and you figure out, oh, I have curly hair and my problem is that it's dry. And then for that you're going to get a certain product. And I think what you would want to show is that the companies that came out in the last wave for beauty products that went the personalization route have outperformed, have had all these really great exits, but nobody's done it for skincare yet. But they will. And here's what they're. Here's what's going to happen in skincare. The same thing that just happened in makeup and hair is going to happen for skin, right? Same thing that just happened in vitamins is going to happen for skin. And that makes it sort of feel inevitable. Oh my God, he's right. The next wave of successful skincare companies are going to use this kind of science based, hyper personalized thing that I think was missing from your pitch. So that's kind of my feedback for you.

[Tommy]

Thank you.

[Nathan]

That's good. That's very good feedback.

[Sam]

I thought you did a great job telling the story. I'M still trying to understand what. I already asked that question, but the other answers could have been, everyone agrees that this is right, but the question that we're trying to figure out is, can we or anyone even figure this out? I wanted to figure out, what does this all hinge on? Because if you're talking on a beta, what is this? What are you having to convince the world that needs to happen in order for this to be a massive breakthrough?

[Sean]

Let me ask you a very simple question. Do you believe, let's assume it works. Do you believe that it's going to be a visually different result? Meaning if I just showed you two pictures, one person who's using your thing and one person who's just using off the shelf stuff. Honest question, do you think it's going to be where I could just point and be like, yeah, that's clearly better, because if it is, then all your marketing is going to work that way. And if it's not, then the science kind of actually, in the world of supplement, supplements and, and vitamins and creams, let's be honest, nobody has a clue if any of this actually works. And so then it's all just a branding game. It's all a marketing game. It's all who can convince the consumer that what? That if you buy this product, you'll be more beautiful and everyone will love you and things will go well for you in life. Right. And so I think we're kind of, unless it's literally visual, where you can see the difference and it's going to be inarguable, then it's just a question of, are you going to be a great marketer? L'Oreal. Why is L'Oreal successful? It's not because we know that their product scientifically is better than anybody else's products because they're better marketers. That's the reality of the situation.

[Nathan]

Yeah, we certainly recognize that. We definitely want to sort of latch into the trend towards clean and sustainable beauty, which is why we made a box that you can plant in the ground and it grows flowers. We think it's really like the beauty's in the details here. So I absolutely agree with you. Before and after pictures are like one of the best things that we can get. And the results of our beta testing are currently looking very promising. But before I start to make claims and put those pictures on the website, I want to do like, really, really thorough analysis of how the products are working, how the algorithm is working to make sure that we have something that is. It's really solid.

[Sam]

All right, brother, we appreciate you. Congratulations on this and solid pitch. We got to go to the next one.

[Sean]

Great job. Thank you.

[Sam]

All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo, and it's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. You can check out a recent episode called the Secret to content that converts and they break down our buddy Alex Hermos blueprint for effective video production. So you can check out Content is Profit. Wherever you get your podcasts is Brother. Brother Nuts. Is that. Is that who's up next?

[Sean]

It is.

[Nathan]

Yeah.

[Tommy]

Hey, guys, My name is Austin Majors. I'm the co founder of Brothers Nuts. Here at Brothers Nuts, our mission is to kick the fake food to the curb and revolutionize healthy snacking with organic sprouted nut and seed snacks. So first off, my family found that half of the snacks out there weren't actually healthy, and the other half tasted like garbage. But first off, why did we create this business? Well, our business started back in 2010, actually, when my father was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer. He was given seven weeks to live, and through the changes in diet and lifestyle turned that seven weeks into seven years. But one of the biggest issues him and my family had was finding a snack that was as healthy as it was tasty. And so our current day cfo, AKA Chief Flavor Officer, AKA mom, being the amazing mom that she is, went into work and created what is now known as the crackled Cheesy almonds. Now, my family and my friends were astonished to see that these were as healthy as they were flavorful, but also very crunchy. And that's what makes us very different. All of our nuts and seeds are sprouted, but how has it gone over the last seven years? So I started this company. I was 13 years old when my father passed away with my older brother, who was 15. And over the last seven years, we've done over a million dollars in sales. We sold over a million dollars worth of nuts. We're currently available in 200 retail locations. And the future is very promising. We have a clear path forward over the next four years to take this business to $10 million in sales and be a national brand. How are we going to do that? We're going to do that by doing the hard work that no one else wants to do. And I know no one else wants to do it because I speak to these stores and no one else is doing it. So what is that? First of all, it's expanding and making more money from our current clients. Clients like Fresh Time, Mom's Organic Market, Fresh Market. But it's also expanding distribution and getting new grocery stores like Whole Foods, Sprouts, Heb Key Accounts. How are we going to, how are we going to grow within those stores? We continue shaking hands, doing what I just did for you guys, telling my story, having people try the product and letting people know that there's something out there like this. And last, we're going to continue innovating through our product. Right now we're developing a clean chocolate almond and we also have a, we're developing a high protein variant of our most popular flavors. Something that's never been done in this space. Now kind of more grand scale. I mean, there's 62,000 grocery stores. The nut market is selling $10 billion this year. I look at the biggest companies out there and we can absolutely get there. But what's really cool is we are on the up and up. Seed, oil free, where that sprouted, gluten free, gut friendly, we check all the boxes. Finally, something that my dad did in 2010 is now mainstream and we are on the cutting edge of it. In the last period, over period, products labeled sprouted grew 34% in their velocities in sales. We are on the up and up. But let's remember why we're doing this. Look, the reason why we're able to have the success, why we're able to land these retailers, get through these, to these gatekeepers, is because we're doing this in every sale that we're making. And milestone, it's contributing to continuing my father's legacy. Everything we're doing is to grow his legacy and to create my own along with my brothers. Because we know that by changing what people snack on every single day will lead them to live longer, better, healthier lives with their families. And so if you're ready to join us to kick the fake food to the curb and evolve the way you snack, I'd love to talk to you.

[Sean]

All right. Dude, that was, that was great, man. I got goosebumps. What an amazing story. Good, good for you, dude. I'm really happy to hear about this.

[Sam]

And I just placed a $52 order. I'm going to try the cheesy ones, the garlic ones and the spicy basil pumpkin seeds. So let's see what you're about.

[Tommy]

Throw some extra stuff in there for you.

[Sean]

This is great. So you, you're in some stores today. Can you just give us the basic rundown? So how many stores are you currently in and is that one chain or multiple? What's going on?

[Tommy]

Yeah, so it's multiple chains. Our very first store that gave us our shot was Fresh time market. There are about 70 stores across the Midwest. I mean the story with that is my brother cold called. The CEO got a cold got a call back in the lunchroom of the senior year of high school. We sat down with the team, got three stores, proved ourselves in three stores. They gave us 30. We proved ourselves again. They gave us 70. Stores only give you those that that many allow you to expand if you're selling well. So after we had that success story, we went out and we targeted smaller chains like Mom's Organic Market on the east coast, the fresh market, which we're starting off small with. And with that data we've, we're now going to new stores like we met with Whole Foods. We got a yes from them. We got pushed back. We're fighting in a bigger and better yes. And we have a huge meeting with Sprouts tomorrow, actually.

[Sam]

Wow. And so, and what was the, what's the revenue so far?

[Tommy]

Yeah, so since inception, over the last seven years, we sold over $1 million worth of nuts. This year alone we'll do 400,000 last year, 200,000 in next year. With some of the launches that we're planning, we'll do probably closer to 2 million.

[Sean]

And what are the retailers tell you? So that that fresh time that you're in, you're Sorry, you're in 70 stores with them or they have 70 stores now.

[Tommy]

We're in all 70 of their stores. We're in total of 200 retail stores across the country from some of those bigger players and some just smaller one off stores, health food stores, golf courses.

[Sean]

And like, you know, the way that retail works is they need to see the velocity of, you know, how much you're selling on the shelf at their stores for you to get into more stores. And so what data do you have and is that currently a strength? Is it a weakness? What's going on with the current cycle, cycle rate or whatever they call it for retail consumption?

[Tommy]

Yeah, so the velocities and the data is the biggest thing. So our product is incredibly unique in that we are one of the only ones who offer a product like ours. We have very few competitors. I can name them. And so what we have to do is of course first demonstrate a gap on the shelf. Hey, you are not, you don't have any nut flavored nut options that organic sprouted and then contain no seed oils. So first we have to do that and then we just show, share the data. I mean our velocities, if they were bad and that was an issue, we fresh time would not have let us go from three to 30 to 70 stores. They came to us, we didn't have to approach them on that. We were just killing it so much.

[Sean]

Okay, okay, fair, Fair enough. I feel like you answered a question that should be answered in numbers with let. That's okay. All right, so here's the problem that I have with this business. I like, I like your name, I like your story. I really want to try your nuts. All right. But here's the problem. When I go to your TikTok, I see 50 followers. And when you're young, you have a lot of disadvantages. You're not going to have the same level of experience. You're not going to have the same amount of funding and resources. You're not going to have the supply chain experience that you're gonna, that your competitors all have. But you do have a story. And what you should be is amazing at social media there. You should be telling your story on social media. You should be getting people excited about this and taking that to the retailers and saying, look, we're this young, exciting brand that consumers really care about and consumers are excited about and you don't have an option like that. You're, you're, the nutrition shelf for you guys is stale. It's just Blue diamond. And it's the same old brands that do the same old thing and they're not, they're not on, on trend, they're not seed oil free, they're not whatever, right? You have that story. But you're, you need the social side to be kick ass because social just takes creativity, it doesn't take money. And you're part of the generation that should be better at this than whoever the CEO of Blue diamond is. They, they're, you know, their social strategy is obviously going to be pretty boring. And so I think that's where you're dropping the ball and that's what you're going to need to get into retail because I've talked to retailers. And what they care about is they need to believe that you are going to help drive traffic to the store or that customers care about your brand and that they're adding young, hot brands to the shelf. That's what you need as your story. So I think that's what's missing for me right now.

[Tommy]

Absolutely.

[Austin]

Yeah.

[Sam]

With the family business like this, do you and your brother, are you the two owners or is your mother involved who owns the company?

[Tommy]

Yeah, so my brother and I are 50. 50 owners. We do have my mom, who is our chief flavor officer. She's in charge of making sure the nuts taste as good as they do. I mean, she's the original person who created these recipes, and we just took them and started selling them.

[Sam]

Dude, this is awesome. Congratulations. I. I'm bought in with Sean as well on the story. The story was very good. I saw your about page. I saw the personality. I was like, all right, this is definitely going to be something interesting. I'm now a customer. I'm very eager to try it, but this is pretty badass.

[Sean]

Sam, do you remember the name of that nuts brand that he's kind of like on Twitter. He might be naked. Is that it? It's like a peanut butter brand, right?

[Sam]

Yeah. They do many eight figures a year in revenue.

[Sean]

Many eight figures. So tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Yeah. Have you. Have you looked at these guys, Austin?

[Tommy]

Yeah, I'm familiar with them and I.

[Sam]

Think they just got popular on social media and their shtick is different than yours. Theirs is like the opposite of. Yeah, it's like indulge versus what you're trying to do. But you do have like, I've invested in a bunch of these like seed oil or seed oil free companies, I think TBD if it's going to be mainstream yet. But it definitely seems like it might be. But this is like super fascinating. You have a lot of tailwinds to help you out here, for sure.

[Sean]

I think you want to include that in your pitch, by the way. So, you know, an investor doesn't really know how big nuts brand can be in your numbers. While you know, I'm not saying that they're bad, they are on the small side for like an E commerce company. Right. So if you're, you know, we've done a million dollars across seven years. Okay. That's not. That's not huge. I think you got to paint a picture that this can actually be really big.

[Sam]

I looked up blue diamonds, by the way. Blue diamonds says about 1.8 billion a year. In revenue.

[Sean]

Correct. So I would show the nut category is huge. And you know you have Blue diamond does 1.8 billion in sales a year. The next one does this, next one does this. And we use this phrase on MFM that there's a sea of sameness. You walk down that aisle and it's all old brands. There's not one challenger brand. And all of them have the same problem that they're lacking. Xyz, we have fresh packaging. We're a challenger brand. We have a better story. We're hot on social media. So I think you need that part of the story. And I would include others like Nerdy Nuts. And I would show examples of others who have come into this category and are doing very well and how you're the next in line. Again, it's that sort of air of inevitability that you want to paint. And so when you don't have the traction that shows that your own trajectory is inevitable. You want to show the inevitability of a category, of a change. Some of the things you talked about, about, you know, sprouted products are growing 34% year over year in these stores. You know, that's kind of like you want slides there because it feels like every category now has a sprouted product and the sprouted products are overperforming. Guess what? Nuts doesn't have a sprouted product. We are that that sprouted nut. Right. And so you want to paint that picture for, for the investor, but really good overall. And honestly, I actually think of all the business we heard today, I think this is probably the one that could be the biggest. Yeah, but I don't think you're using your strengths and I think if you keep going on the same path you're going, it won't be huge. But you're still young and you have time to change. If you actually, like, take some of the feedback and do it, I think this could actually be a lot bigger.

[Austin]

Awesome.

[Tommy]

Thank you so much.

[Sam]

Thank you, man. You're the best. Awesome majors. Thank you very much. All right, we have the last one from University of Michigan. Right.

[Advai]

All right. Hi, Sam, Sean, MFM fam. We are tour the powered salesperson for property managers.

[Christian]

Today, only 4% of apartment prospects that ever land on an apartment website actually end up taking the in person tour. And it's no surprise that the in person tour is the highest converting part of the apartment sales process. I mean, there's nothing like someone giving you a guided experience of something you're about to buy.

[Advai]

But when 96% of the potential prospects that hit your digital storefront never get the chance to experience your tour, the highest converting sales moment in the apartment process. Well, leads get missed.

[Christian]

Yeah, these leads gets missed and these apartments are left with hundreds of thousands of dollars of missed opportunities and unleased vacancies that could have been filled if these prospects took a tourist.

[Advai]

That is, until the apartment installs tor. TOR helps apartments like Arbor Apartments scale. Mariana their digital salesperson. Now, Mariana doesn't have enough time to tour every single prospect that visits the property in person, much less all the prospects that visit the property online.

[Christian]

But what if we could recreate Mariana's best in person tour and replicate that on the website so that Mariana is on the website for all prospects 247.

[Advai]

Our property manager just paste a link to an apartment website, rescrape the website and generate video scripts that help Mariana with the infrastructure to record the tour and scrape combine it all together with the knowledge base into a smart virtual leasing agent.

[Christian]

Once the tour is ready, all the company has to do is paste a little piece of code on the website. And now Mariana is on the website 24 7. And when a prospect goes on the website and starts to browse, we're actually learning about that prospect through small digital micro interactions. And Mariana can pop out of the right hand corner of the website at the perfect time and ask them if they'd like to take a tour. Once in the tour, Mariana can teach them about the apartment and even offer to give them a tour of like a specific floor plan or a specific amenity that we deem appropriate for them. Mariana can also ask qualifying questions for that prospect such as would you like to take an in person tour or would you like to schedule a call back? All while driving engagement and increasing appointments booked.

[Advai]

Now replicating that in person tour for these apartments can drive nearly 3x the engagement and create more qualified leads for the apartment. We know this because we're working with some of the largest property managers in the nation. And the spirit of the podcast, we delivered our first million tours and helped drive over $30 million worth of leases for the apartment. Additionally, this has helped us get to reach over a million dollars in revenue.

[Christian]

And that's not all. Guys, do you remember those videos that we recorded of Mariana earlier? Well now those are one of the biggest assets for the apartment tour. Automatically repurposes those videos to follow up with leads and automatically run TikTok, Meta and Google Ad campaign.

[Advai]

Look, Shopify has set the experience with the advent of Shopify online shopping for everyday Commodities is compelling visual video first. But larger purchases like shopping for an apartment online, otherwise known as leasing, still remain stuck with static photos, manual scheduling and follow ups. But that ends today with Tor. That's right, this shopping online for apartments is nearly 2x larger than all shops, all other forms of e commerce combined.

[Christian]

That's right, guys. This is the $2.5 trillion industry in which property managers rely on their tour to close over 80% of their sales. We're a passionate, driven team who has designed and delivered some of the best experiences at the best companies in the world, including growthamp and Google Shopping.

[Advai]

We started on campus to solve our own problems and our own shopping journey. We got into YC and are just getting started with solving it for millions of more with Tor. The salesperson for property.

[Sean]

Matt.

[Sam]

All right, all right, all right, all right. That's pretty great. So you've raised money already or what?

[Advai]

Yeah, we've, we've raised about 350 to 400k so far, but largely been bootstrapped. We've, we've had many interesting moments throughout the journey, but you know, we're, we've been really focused on getting the product experience as good for our customers as possible.

[Sam]

Can I tell you, I used to work in this industry a long time ago. Can I tell you like the three reasons why I think this could fail? And you could, you could tell me how I'm wrong. The first, I think that there was this thing called Matterport that existed for a long time. I know Airbnb tested it on their website and I used to be an Airbnb owner. And when they had these, Matterport made these like realistic models of what your apartment looked like.

[Sean]

Basically 3D virtual tour.

[Sam]

Yeah, similar to the, and they found that it decreased conversion. And the main thing being is that a lot of apartments for rent are shit. And like, it's like, dude, just like, I just need to get someone in the door. And once they're in the door, I can like, like do some salesmanship to sell them. But like online it looks pretty shitty in a 3D way. The other one being that there's like right now, I don't know, do apartments need to be filled at the moment? Like, it seems like a lot of these folks are like, dude, I'm killing it right now. My vacancy is quite low. Why don't, why should I spend money or do this work? And the last one being is a lot of apartments that you need, I would imagine, to do sales on the apartments are kind of shitty. And I don't want someone to see them online. I need them to see them in real life so I can sell you on it. And, you know, it's. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't want, like, a user video of, like, a 1994 Honda Civic. But if I get you here and you're like, dude, I got $1,000, I'm like, this shit box is for you, and I don't need a video for that. You know what I mean? So can you, like, refute some of those points?

[Advai]

Yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right. Matterport is one of our comps. You know, they're doing 500. They're still doing $540 million per year. They are a public comp. But the big thing that they do that's different, or that we do that's different is where you're telling me that.

[Sam]

Matterport does 500 million in revenue.

[Advai]

Yes. Yes. Now, the big thing that is, to put it in perspective, the big thing that we do that's different is two things. The first thing is we are fundamentally an active experience that's partnered with the apartment to funnel someone down the whole sales funnel from the first moment they meet them to following up on email, following up targeting, and that allows us to hit a large, much larger market than Matterport even does today. And then the other thing that I think you talked about, which is, like, the nature of most of these apartments, you know, fundamentally being not necessarily, like, maybe old drab experiences, I think the first thing is, look, things change. Apartments are becoming one of the largest purchases we make. It is one of the largest purchases we make. And, like, these are becoming more commoditized. They're becoming more amenitized. I mean, the whole future is going into the experience economy. And I think the experience is going to be a very important part of how our Gen Z or even millennials shop. So I think that experience is a very important part. We see that because a lot of our tours we've delivered over mentors. Many of them are international, out of state. And these are important decisions that people are on the edge on which different shops, you know, different shops that they. Or different. Different apartments they might want to work with. Now, for example, one apartment might want to have a virtual leasing advantage compared to others. And that's why we help fundamentally become the part of that virtual leasing advantage. And then the last element. I know, Christian, you want to say something is just that we're also augmenting the sales force, right? So there's a frontline. Sales in most of these businesses are fundamentally high churn. There's people leaving the building all the time. If we can help augment their sales team, we have a much larger staying power with the actual property, not just a one off virtual tour.

[Christian]

And one thing I like to add is that matterport, they're like essential goal is to communicate the physical establishment to the customer. And obviously we do that. But what we're trying to do is to augment the website to better communicate that as well as segment leads so that they know how to allocate the resources best to the highest intent leads. So that's another area where they save money by better allocating resources.

[Sean]

And the tour, the tour that you give. Sorry, I might have missed this during the thing. Or like, I don't know, maybe you have a demo. Is it just a girl talking and photos or is it like a walking tour that you generate or do you go film it first? Like what, what is the actual thing? Okay, here's the video.

[Christian]

Yeah, we go and film it.

[Advai]

So we have two elements. We either have a video pro network that can help film it or we're building more and more scripts that you can easily start filming it from your phone. IPhone 16 is like rivals like Sony cameras. And then once we have gotcha.

[Sean]

So this is not AI generated. This is like a video you guys make.

[Advai]

Yes, yes. And then we take the knowledge base as well as that media and supply that throughout the whole sales process.

[Sam]

Got it.

[Sean]

Okay, cool. So you guys go film a video when an apartment starts to work with you and then you have the AI wrapper around it where it's chat, it's Q and A, it's scheduling appointment, it's following up with a targeted ad. It's things like that. That's what you guys do after that.

[Advai]

Exactly.

[Sean]

Okay, cool. And the 450k of ARR that you have right now, that's from how many customers?

[Advai]

That's from 130 property managers, usually around the price point of $300. Some are 250, some are paying more.

[Sean]

And how'd you get the 100? Whatever. Property managers.

[Advai]

So the cool thing is we have a land and expand motion. So once we're inside a property manager, usually they manage many properties, large apartment buildings. What we do is we demonstrate our results and most of our other property management companies start expanding within the property managers. So they one property manager inside a company refers us to some of her additional properties in her portfolio or some of the other regional property managers.

[Sean]

So how Will you go from a hundred something properties today to, you know, a thousand or ten thousand in the next year? What are you going to do?

[Christian]

So one of the big things we've been trying recently is automatically generating tours so that we can demonstrate value to apartments before we even have to like go in person. Because obviously that's a large cost of like videotaping the actual apartment. So we can immediately just scrape the website, pull some images, use flux to kind of turn the images into somewhat of a mock video, pull some information from their website and generate a tour that can act to segment leads on the website. And then they can kind of see the value of it. Oh, a tour lead came in. This is a high intent lead. Let's follow up on it. And then from there, if they're pleased by the value, then we can actually go out and record that video, making the tour even better.

[Sean]

Okay, so you're going to go, you're going to auto generate these videos as a prototype, as a sample, and then you're going to cold email them and say, hey, we could do this for you guys.

[Christian]

Cold email referral. Yep.

[Sean]

Okay. And then what do you guys run an AB test? So do you, on any of your, your apartment websites, do you show if you have us installed versus if you don't have us installed, what's the difference in revenue?

[Advai]

Yeah, absolutely. So what we notice is when it comes to the actual properties, like the amount of value we generate for the properties, usually an additional 300,000 to $500,000 in leases. Now specifically, we do three things, really importantly that leads to like these fundamental items. The first thing is we deliver four times number of tours, prospects who are on the website get three times engagement. And also the leads that we end up capturing just obviously are going to be more qualified. Right. And so those leases convert at a higher rate.

[Sean]

Okay, gotcha. That's pretty convincing. If you told me, hey, however many tours you're giving per week right now, I could 4x that. If you add this thing to your website, that's a pretty compelling proposition, don't you think, Sam?

[Sam]

Yes, I still think that there's a bunch of the. I think there's a bunch of other questions related to the things that I said, but that is compelling. I think that I just, I think I'm scarred from this industry of like selling to these companies and how hard it is and how old school some of these. Like, have you guys noticed that about how old school your customers are? And it's like the two customers that we've had in this presentation or in this section have been campuses or colleges and apartment buildings. And I'm like, oh my God, those are like both really, really, really hard. Have you guys noticed that when you're selling to these apartment companies that they're a pain in the ass to work with?

[Advai]

It definitely is a old guard. And things change ever so often, but I think they're realizing how important it is, particularly when they're looking at E commerce and how things are evolving. It's important for them to be extremely competitively advantaged. And so just the nature of competition has really been tried to somewhat push the.

[Sam]

They're just slow. They're really slow.

[Sean]

Yeah. I do think though, again, back to that idea of like you want to make this feel inevitable. I think there's a clear line you could draw where you say, look, if you were a apartment building and back, you know, 15 years ago, you might have been able to get away without having a website. But about 15 years ago, you now had to have a website. Okay, you had to have a website. You had to be findable on Google. That became mandatory table stakes. And then after that you had to have photos. If you didn't have photos, you were, you were not even competitive. Right? You're non viable. And then you had to have videos. And you had to have videos. And then after that you had to have a booking thing where somebody could schedule a tour without having to call you. That became table stakes. And now 98% of apartment sites all have a way to book a tour online. Well, guess what the next one is? The next one is an AI agent that's helping you book those appointments by either answering questions, upselling you, or, you know, putting putting together a higher quality in a pitch to get in front of you. And that's the next wave of this. Like all websites had to go through this. And when the tech made it where it was possible, it just became too competitive. If you didn't have it, you were left in the dust. And that's what's going to happen in this space. All websites are now going to have an AI agent that helps them sell.

[Christian]

Agreed.

[Advai]

Yeah, I love that show.

[Sam]

And, and you guys have done great with your matching zip ups that are nicely merchandised. Congratulations. That's, that's step one to being a startup. So you've nailed that one. You've also nailed the revenue thing too. So congratulations on you guys.

[Sean]

The million tours is also pretty good. And $30 million of leases that came through your appointments.

[Sam]

That's, that's also that's okay as well.

[Sean]

But really, the jackets are fantastic. All right. Thank you, guys.

[Sam]

You guys are badass. Well done.

[Advai]

Thank you guys.

[Sean]

We kind of grade them on a curve. It's like if you're already in YC and you already have like, you know, a million tours done, then yeah, I.

[Sam]

Kind of feel like these are unfair, to be honest. I feel like if you are in YC or taking a gap year in San Francisco.

[Sean]

I don't know, the gap year, that's fine. That's like, did you even go to.

[Sam]

College if you're at yc?

[Sean]

Well, that's what I was saying. Those guys put up a team slide. And it was like I've experienced at Google, at Yelp, at like all these companies. Like, dude, I thought you're supposed to be like 19 years old. What's going on? Are these even college kids or what's happening? All right, I think we have one more left. The final pitch coming in from Illinois. Who do we got?

[Shrikala]

Hello, my name is Advai gopta. I'm the CEO and founder of PatLit. It's really nice to meet you guys today.

[Sam]

What's up, brother?

[Sean]

Nice to meet you too.

[Shrikala]

All right. Until a month ago, we were working on a no code engine that helped businesses automate their daily tasks with AI. And it was going really well. We were working with extremely large enterprises like the Big four and had more than a million dollars in VC money to accelerate our growth. But the more we worked with enterprises, the more we realized that our most valuable automations for them ended up being email related. They wanted help managing their cluttered inboxes that looked something like this. A fun story. Our lead investor once told us that she went for a week long break and had 8,000 unread emails. And a business owner that we were working with told us his employees were spending more time on emails alone than the job they were actually hired to do. And these stories are not one offs. According to McKinsey, the average employee processes more than 600 emails per week, wasting 13 hours and thousands of business dollars. Despite it being an essential part of our lives, email has become a burden. And we find it hard to keep track of even the most important emails in our inbox, often losing them. But according to industry select, 86% of business professionals still prefer using emails for some reason. So clearly we can't get rid of emails. So what can we do? Well, to solve this exact problem, we are currently building a virtual executive assistant or secretary that handles your emails for you. What if just like a real secretary, it could learn from you and respond to emails on your behalf. What if, just like a real secretary, it tells you what the most important emails in your inbox are every single morning? And what if, just like a real secretary, it could automatically respond to emails that you don't care about? Well, you can have that secretary because our mobile app does all of that and we are launching on the App Store next week. And no, we're not joking. We have been actively working with a big four customer, netting us six figures in annual revenue, and are starting a pilot with the largest children's enrichment franchise in the world next week. Not only that, but we have also been working with five global financial institutions and completed an oversubscribed seven figure raise. We were also fortunate enough to win first place in one of Midwest's largest startup pitch competitions. My name is Advai and together with my co founder Mark, we collectively bring more than a decade of experience in AI and building companies. My entire teenage years have been spent building and scaling numerous online security businesses to millions of users and Mark has tons of AI research and startup experience under his belt. We're now working together to change the way you interact with email today. So join us in helping you reclaim the biggest part of your daily workday. Thank you.

[Sam]

So here's the deal. I made most of my money from a newsletter business. It was called the Hustle and it was a daily newsletter at scale to millions of subscribers and it was the greatest business on earth. The problem with it was that I had close to 40 employees and only three of them were actually doing any writing. The other employees were growing the newsletter, building out the tech for the platform, and selling ads. And honestly, it was a huge pain in the butt. Today's episode is brought to you by Beehive. They are a platform that is built exactly for this. If you want to grow your newsletter, if you want to monetize a newsletter, they do all of the stuff that I had to hire dozens of employees to do. So check it out. Beehive.com that's B E E H I V dot com so hold on.

[Sean]

You.

[Sam]

The first five set words of your pitch was pretty funny. You said until last month we were doing this thing, so let me answer some questions and then. But then you have a six figure enterprise contract and you've raised a million dollars. I. I don't understand. Can you like briefly tell me the.

[Sean]

They had a product, they're pivoting. They raised money, they had a customer, but it wasn't the Thing. So they're pivoting.

[Sam]

Is that right? Is that yes for sure.

[Shrikala]

So I can answer that. All right, so essentially we have. It's the same business. So we have a. We worked on the Generative engine, Generative AI engine that we started just this February. So all the contracts that we have are now converting to the email client. Essentially, we were using our technology to develop email automations for all these businesses, and we had raised money on that. But now we simply change the user interface from a workflow builder that looked kind of like Zapier, et cetera, to more of an assistant email client interface that we found that it works better with enterprise customers.

[Sam]

Got it. All right. Because your website doesn't tell that story. But then if you click, you have this folder up top that says new exclamation point. Our email client, which is pretty cool, that tells that story a little bit better.

[Sean]

Can I PSA about the. Our team has decades of experience.

[Sam]

Oh, my gosh. I didn't want to get on that.

[Sean]

But yeah, yeah, I guess I say, because a couple of, A couple of the pitches have had that. I don't think you should do that. It. It seems, you know, what you really want in a pitch is to give the vibe to the investor that, wait a minute, I think this is even bigger than what they're saying. So there's this subtle art where you're, you're desperately trying to convince them that this is going to be big and awesome and it's going to work, but you cannot appear to be overselling it. You have to feel like you're underselling it. And then they feel like they're finding some diamond in the rough. And so, you know, how old are you?

[Shrikala]

I'm 20.

[Sean]

You're 20, right. So to be like, we have, you know, a combined 12 years of experience, I think that's a bit of a tell what you. What you would be better off saying is, I started coding when I was 8. By the time I was 12, I had already built blah, blah, blah. And when I was 14, I hacked into my school thing and changed my grades. And now I've figured out, you know, the, you know, for the last few years I've really been obsessed and focused with the AI and like, that's a more believable and exciting story for me is like, oh, this is one of those boy geniuses, right? Like, oh, you're one of those, like, hacker types that started early. I can pattern match and say, yeah, a lot of the best performing founders I know have that same story. And that story works better versus when you tell me, you know, me and my co founder who are, you know, 18 years old, we've got decades of experience, it's like, no, you don't. Right. Okay, now what else can't I believe out of this? Even if it's technically true, the whole like cumulative years of experience of your team is not a real metric that most people put in their pitch deck. So I would, I would get rid of that.

[Shrikala]

Yes, you're right.

[Sean]

Having said that. All right, that's public service announcement. I do have a question. It seems like you've done a great job of selling into people that are really hard to sell into. So how did you go get an enterprise contract from a big four consulting company worth, you know, over $100,000? I'm curious to hear what you did there. What's the short story?

[Shrikala]

Yeah, very good question. So, short story was that I was working as a consultant on campus as part of a university organization and thanks to my opportunity there, I was able to connect to a very high level business executive within a big four enterprise through my mentor who happened to also be the director of the consulting Org. So long story short, it was very network driven. They were looking for a solution to fit certain problems that they had within an enterprise. And what I was building as a personal project happened to solve those exact problems. So once I had that, we essentially made it a company.

[Sam]

And what did they say when you're pivoting? I mean, did you pivot because of them?

[Shrikala]

They are partly the reason we pivoted, but it was also when we started engaging with more and more prospects. So our initial generative AI workflow engine was essentially you could take AI and plug it into any legacy systems to automate any complex day to day task. For example, if you're a VC and you receive a lot of pitch decks every day via email, we could create an automation for you where you would automatically process those pitch decks, analyze them against your investment thesis, portfolio, companies, et cetera, and then also send out replies saying, hey, we love this, we would love to have a meeting or no. For the following reasons.

[Sam]

And what you're describing is that, Sorry, I want you to finish, but is what you're describing similar to Lindy AI? Yes.

[Shrikala]

So Lindy AI was definitely a competitor of ours in that space. But then as I was saying earlier, the more we engaged with customers and prospects, we found that our product was explicitly being used for email automations and a big problem with products like our previous one. And Lindy AI is that the barrier to entry for a lot of non technical users is quite high. You have to almost be a developer to actually use even these no code tools. And that is why we decided to change the interface into a much easier to understand virtual assistant or secretary.

[Sean]

Gotcha. I think the challenge with this business, because you seem really smart and you know, I think whatever you work on will be interesting. I think the challenge here is you're going into the most competitive space. So I do feel undoubtedly that email inboxes are going to start to have AI in them and the AI is going to help you process, categorize, summarize your emails in a way and respond, help you with the responses. The problem is, do I really believe that you are going to be able to get people off of Outlook, off of Gmail and onto your service? Or in addition, you know, they're also going to be doing that. Right. Google's definitely going to be adding AI into this and so is Superhuman and so is Microsoft. Right? They own OpenAI basically. And so I do think that this is going to be just an absolute bloodbath category. And so I think from an investment point of view, that would be my problem with this, which is even if I like you and even if I agree with the idea, it's kind of that second inevitability I talked about. One is, where's is the puck going this way? Yes, of course it's going this way. The second is are you going to be the team who captures that opportunity? And it just seems highly unlikely that you would be the team that captures that opportunity, given people don't want to switch email clients and that all of the email clients are already aware of this, you know, capability and are, you know, highly incentivized to add AI to it.

[Sam]

How did you say how much you raised so far? You said a million.

[Shrikala]

Yes, we have raised a little more than a million.

[Sam]

Are you still in school or are you living in San Francisco?

[Shrikala]

Currently we're on a gap semester. Like I'm on a gap semester. Everyone else on the mark's also on a gap semester. He has one class left, but everyone else is full time. We have four people.

[Sam]

Dude, I think like that first company, meet your class. It's that middle funnel things that's the issue. All these kids, all these smart kids are bailing on university. That's amazing that you guys are all just like picking gaps so.

[Sean]

Well, I just told you that you're probably going to fail. Tell me why I'm wrong and I should kick rocks.

[Shrikala]

Yeah, for sure. So businesses switching to our email client is definitely a very big hurdle that we were also trying to navigate. But what we found is by verticalizing in a lot of businesses with our own kind of information management secretary, a lot of businesses prefer us over their standard email clients like Gmail and Outmilk, for example. Currently, as I said, we're starting a pilot with the largest children's enrichment franchise. They entirely run over Gmail, but they're still willing to switch to us simply because some of the features that we provide is something Gmail and Outlook just can never do because they have to cater to large groups of audiences and they cannot fit specific niches of certain requirements that a lot of customers have.

[Sean]

Okay, all right, fair enough. Sam, what else you got before we wrap up?

[Sam]

I don't think I have much. I think that. I think that it's so early, it's hard to ask questions because I'm on your website and it looks like it's very much beta. So it's hard for me to fully understand. I think. Sean, you were asking about replacing Gmail. According to their website, it's an integration, it's not replacing Gmail. It's hard to fully understand because you're so new.

[Sean]

Do you just keep using Gmail and this is overlaid or is this a new client you download and you're supposed to go here instead of gmail.com?

[Shrikala]

Yes. So essentially you just log in with your Gmail. So one way we're beating that barrier to adoption is by not saying that you need a new TLD and a new domain id. You simply log in with your Gmail, we get all your emails and then you start using our interface rather than Gmail's.

[Sean]

Yeah, it's like Superhuman.

[Sam]

Right.

[Sean]

So you keep your email address, but fundamentally you're not supposed to, you know, you're not supposed to go to Gmail every day. You're supposed to go to Superhuman and open up your email and use your. Use that for all your emails.

[Shrikala]

Yes, that is correct.

[Sean]

All right, good pitch. Thank you. Best of luck. You. I think, I think this is a huge idea. I think it's going to be super competitive. And if you did it, that would be amazing. This is a. This is a multi billion dollar win if you can actually do it. That's the good news.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Shrikala]

Thank you.

[Sean]

All right, round of applause.

[Sam]

Thanks, bro.

[Sean]

All right, to wrap it, can we just name, I think, do you guys want to do the winning school that we thought brought the, brought the heat secondly, our favorite pitch, the best pitch, meaning the one we would be most likely to put our money into. And then the. I think we should maybe do a audience choice as well, which is, you know, let the crowd react and see which one they. They think is best. What do you think, Sam?

[Sam]

All right, so let's start with school. I have a winner.

[Sean]

But let's recap real quick. Michigan did meet your class, which was helping universities with the summer melt.

[Sam]

The middle. Yeah, middle funnel for university milieu, which.

[Sean]

Is the personalized skincare microbiome stuff. And Tour, which was the AI apartment tours. And then UIUC was basically MetaFrazzo, which is the dubbing company. Brothers Nuts, which is the Sprouted Nuts company. And Pathlet. That one we just heard about. Email. The AI email client. So those are the schools. Sam, what's your pick?

[Sam]

Illinois all the way. I think that Michigan's an incredibly impressive school, but I think that. I thought that. I thought it. I thought it was incredibly impressive that the Metafrozzo guy was at. Was that founders or what's it called? The. The way this. This young guy who just went the way that he had already raised a little bit of money and was taking a gap year. And then Brothers Nuts already has a business that has. Is doing like 400 a year in revenue. I just thought it was more impressive that a midwestern school. Their people are like going to the coast. And I think that's a really good thing. Do you agree or no?

[Sean]

I would disagree. I would have gone Michigan. I think that traction wise. I mean poor. Let's make the case here. Tour had the most traction. Right? Half a million dollars in ARR. A million Tour served. I think Tour. And they're nyc. I think Tour was doing the best. I think meet your class has a real business. I think he stumbled into kind of actually like a cool business where half a million people have used this thing and now he found a business model that might actually work. So I thought that Michigan had. Had the better businesses overall.

[Sam]

All right, good. They each. They each.

[Sean]

We disagree.

[Sam]

They each get a vote, but we disagree and it's a tie.

[Sean]

All right, so let's do our favorite business out of these. If you were going to invest your money into one of these, Sam, which one would you have invested your money into?

[Sam]

The business that I don't want to invest in, but I wish I owned. And I think the people should. The people who own this one might get the richest. The fastest of all these businesses is Brother Nuts. I think Austin Major or Brother Nuts I don't think they should raise money. I don't want to invest in them, but I would love to own that company. I think it could be a family business that makes hundreds or hundreds of millions or even more throughout the next handful of decades.

[Sean]

Okay. I like it.

[Sam]

My head, that's my favorite business.

[Sean]

My head tells me it's either meet your class or tour. But my heart is with Brothers Nuts, and I'm going to go with Brothers Nuts as well. I think that they are one, you know, one step away from actually making this, like, a real. A legit business that you're going to see on the shelves in every grocery store. I think they're not far away from doing that, and I actually think it's a. It's. I would actually. I would actually invest in this business because I think you could actually make it happen. It's not. It's. It's not theoretical here.

[Sam]

I think that all the. Most of the companies had an AI element, and I applaud that. I think that's where. That's where the puck's going. But it's hard to stick out, man. Like, we get. I. There's just so much going on.

[Sean]

We picked the one with an almond element.

[Sam]

Yeah, an almond element. I don't know, man. Right. Doesn't it seem. It kind of seems like it's TBD as to, like, who's going to be the winners? It seems really hard to pick a winner at the moment.

[Sean]

Yeah, it's sort of a trade off of, like, more competition, but maybe more upside.

[Sam]

Well, you. You said it. Well, you said. You said this is definitely what's going to happen, but it's going to be a bloodbath.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And that's how I feel.

[Sean]

All right, so now the crowd's choice. So can you guys unmute? I'm going to say the name of the. Of the business. Crowd reaction is going to dictate who wins the. The audience choice. Let's see if this works out. This might be crazy with. With the audio situation here. Our producers freaking out. Oh, yeah. Turn. Turn the laptops. Let's. I want to see the crowd, actually. Okay, so we got the crowd. Yeah. All right, we're going to start off from Michigan. Meet your class. Okay. From. From uiuc Metaphraza. All right. They might just be closer to the microphone. We'll give them credit for that. All right, From Michigan, we have the skin microbiome company Milieu.

[Sam]

Hey. VPC is definitely putting its mouth next to the mic.

[Sean]

All right, We're Gonna go. From uiuc, we have Pathlet. Lukewarm. Lukewarm. I'm gonna call it what it was. From Michigan, we have tour. All right, so from Michigan, it looks like MILU was the loudest. And now from uiuc, last one we have brothers Nuts.

[Sam]

So, Sean, I'm. I think I know who won that one. I think it was the Metaphrazo.

[Sean]

I think had it.

[Sam]

I think they had it. Yeah.

[Sean]

We miss you both. We miss you. All right, all right. Okay. Wonderful, guys. Great job, everybody. This is really impressive. You guys are way ahead of where I was in college. I think, Sam, probably the same for you. You guys are ahead of the curve. I hope our feedback is helpful.

[Sam]

Even the people we on, like, if we ask hard questions or give you a hard time ever. Of all the six people who presented the six companies, you're going to be in the 1% of the 1%. You already are in the 1% of the 1 percent. And what you're doing is badass.

[Sean]

By being active, you're badass. And it's a sign of respect if we are willing to keep it real with you. That's because we actually think that you can win. If we just wanted to be nice and say, oh, congrat participation, I'm so, you know, so happy for you, you know, that wouldn't have been helpful to you, but it also would be actually, you know, not a sign of respect. We respect all of you for doing this. And I just want to say, like, I would not have become an entrepreneur had I not had a class like this where a speaker came in and just got me hyped about the idea of doing a startup. I did not know what to do. My first idea was terrible. My execution was absolutely horrendous. But it got me on that path. It just seemed like more fun. And so if you're listening to this or you're at one of these schools right now, if it seems like something that you would want to do and it seems like the lifestyle, like, go for it, you know? You know, don't let that hold you back. This could be a tipping point moment for you, just like it was for me.

[Sam]

And it's the. You are currently in the phase of life where it will never get easier to do these things than where you are right now for the next, like, you have like a four year window where it's like you have nothing really big to worry about except for this. And also, I think it's Austin and Tommy. Give these guys a shout out. You guys are the man. It's really hard to organize this type of stuff, and I think that getting. Getting this type of energy in one room like you guys have done, it's contagious.

[Sean]

Sam, you thinking what I'm thinking?

[Sam]

I don't know what you got?

[Sean]

Two words for you. I got two words for you. Nationwide. We're taking the power hour nationwide. And then the second. The second two words for you. Pizza party sponsored by mfm. I think we should give these guys some money, let them host some events and have some fun. So we will. We will. We'll connect with you, Tommy, after this, and we'll. We'll give you guys some cash so that we can, you know, encourage you to throw more events and get more people excited about this. And I like that it's underground. I like that it's off the books. I like that this is not the entrepreneurship club of the school. This is, you know, just the people who actually, you know, care about building stuff and want to do cool things and want to get off the conventional career track. I'm for that.

[Sam]

Thank you all for doing this. We appreciate you. Have a wonderful Wednesday. And if you're listening on mfm, you got to go and give all these guys a little bit of love on their websites and check out the products. All right, thank you, guys. That's it. That's the pod. I feel like I could rule the world.

[Sean]

I know I could be what I want to.

[Austin]

I put my all in it.

[Shrikala]

Like days off on a road.

[Sam]

Let's travel. Never looking back.

[Sean]

Hey, Sean here. Quick break. To tell you an Ev Williams story. He started Twitter, and before that, he sold a company to Google for $100 million. And somebody asked him, they said, ev, what's the secret, man? How do you create these huge businesses, billion dollar businesses? And he says, well, I think the answer is that you take a human desire, preferably one that's been around for thousands of years, and then you just use modern technology to take out steps. Just remove the friction that exists between people getting what they want. And that is what my partner Mercury, does. They took one of the most basic needs any entrepreneur has. Managing your money and being able to do your financial operations. And they've removed all the friction that has existed for decades. No more clunky interfaces. No more 10 tabs to get something done. No more having to drive to a bank, get out of your car just to send a wire transfer. They made it fast. They made it easy. You can actually just get back to running your business. You don't have to worry about the rest of it. I use it for not one, not two, but six of my companies right now, and it's used by also 200,000 other ambitious founders. So if you want to be like me, head to mercury.com, open up an account in minutes. And remember, Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve bank and Trust Members FDIC all right, back to the episode.