Lafayette Julius
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Lafayette Julius, an associate from Valor Ventures and we’re excited to host our Atlanta Startup Podcast. Featuring one of the top finalists from the Startup Runway, we just had our ninth cohort, so we’re very excited. It’s the top pitch competition in the southeast that represents some of the top underrepresented founders. Today, joining me is the incredible Rodney Morris. Would you like to introduce yourself, Rodney?
Rodney Morris
Thank you, Lafayette. My name is Rodney Morris. I’m co hosting the show today. We have Ashley Richardson from MyTotem. Ashley, first of all, congratulations on being a finalist in the ninth cohort that is an extremely competitive achievement. You’d beat out hundreds of other startups to be recognized and that way. It’s an extremely competitive process. Tell us more about what you’re building and some of the milestones you’ve achieved to this point.
Ashley Richardson
Yeah, and thank you so much for having me. Obviously Startup Runway was amazing. I’m Ashley, founder and CEO of MyTotem. MyTotem is an AI powered brand maker that uses data driven algorithms to personalize the branding process and allow tech savvy entrepreneurs the ability to make content market their brains seamlessly. We’ve been working on this for about since the start of this year, so almost a year now. We’re just excited to be here and talk about it.
Lafayette Julius
Nice, nice. Now, since COVID, everything has been digital and doing Startup Runway, we usually do in person pitch competitions, but we switched virtually. How is the virtual pitch event better or a worse experience for you?
Ashley Richardson
It was actually a better experience. I’m an introverted person. I get shy in large groups. But doing it virtually gave me an opportunity to be able to not only engage, but I could see everyone that was involved in the event that day, and we had several different breakout sessions. It was more so intimate. We had a board meeting as well. I got to meet some incredible investors. I liked how intimate it was, but also very informative, and fun and collaborative. I really enjoyed it.
Lafayette Julius
Nice, nice. I think you were one of many that really enjoyed the virtual experience. I definitely had a great time during the board meetings as well. And you were one of the companies that I definitely wanted to get to know a little bit more about. Especially your journey as a founder, what drives you to build such a product?
Ashley Richardson
I can definitely say that [it’s] my experience growing up. I was raised by a dad that was in the Army, Special Forces, and a Jamaican mom. I kind of have a different perspective on things. I was very independent. So going into college, I just wanted to explore and really get to know myself and that started through a fashion organization at Georgia State where I became a president of. I just thought it was really interesting how so many different moving parts can come together to curate amazing experiences. We used to throw these fashion shows and invite all the colleges around Atlanta. And from there, that’s when I thought that I needed to start something. I started as a creative designer freelancer. My friends were excited about starting companies at the time, and I really wanted to help them. But that’s really how I realized the gap between professional design and this new emerging market of entrepreneurs that now have opportunity through social media to be able to actually act on these ideas, because everyone has ideas, right? But obviously, it was so much more expensive to start a brand prior to social media. That’s what really inspired me to create a solution that my friends can enjoy and also myself as an entrepreneur as well.
Lafayette Julius
Nice, nice, that’s great.I think Rodney definitely enjoys the company as well and wants to dive into, , what your customers are saying and what kinds of customers you’re looking for now?
Rodney Morris
Yeah, actually [I’m] interested to hear after Startup Runway and the experience. I have a couple questions. We realized that the boardroom session was very valuable for a lot of founders that we spoke to. What did the board room setting do for you? We understand as an early stage founder usually is you and maybe another co-founder, having an advisory board is kind of like a new situation. I’m interested to hear what was shared in that session that landed with you, and what type of customers are you looking for now?
Ashley Richardson
It was very new. But I enjoyed practicing every bit of it. I’ve never had an official board meeting. So just going through that process, sharing our vulnerabilities at the moment, getting direct feedback, and being able to vote, I thought was just not only very helpful for the direction of our company, but also the practice of it all was amazing. As of now, we have customers that were servicing our tech solution isn’t fully automated. So it does take a bit of manual work to fully deliver the solution. Our real question was, are we going to continue to service our customers while we build out the automation? Or are we just going to do a cold stop, really invest in the technology, and then relaunch how we pictured our first launch to be? I got amazing feedback at just seeing the varying perspectives, and all was inspiring, but also, it allowed me to really think about why I’m making the decision to continue servicing our customers while building out the automation. I think that became clear through that board meeting. We decided to do it that way. We decided to continue to learn from our customers.Our deliverables, we create 16 graphics that you can use on your social media for the month, and they’re already pre designed and pre branded. I think by doing that, through our customers, we can really form like a deep understanding of the experience that they want, the campaign ideas that they have, and the goals that they have after they get their branding. That was amazing. You asked a second question, but I can’t remember.
Rodney Morris
Yeah, definitely. Thank you for sharing that insight into what your boardroom experience is like. We’re just asking the type of customers you’re looking for now.
Ashley Richardson
Entrepreneurs that have an idea and don’t know where to start. Definitely, I have tons of friends that have just always wanted to start ideas, and they have during COVID. I’ve helped them through that process. We’ve mainly spread through word of mouth. So it’s amazing to meet entrepreneurs that are at all different stages, and that being just started, doesn’t know, hasn’t done anything, haven’t [done] logo branding, or anything, or they have their logo and branding, but they really don’t know how to market their companies. They kind of sat on their company for a while and haven’t really touched it and want to revive it, and really do something impactful. It’s really fun for us to kind of dive in deep and build that courage and educate our customers on, “No, it doesn’t have to be a $5,000 professional branding project.” Like, it’s not as hard as people make it out to be. So we can definitely help.
Lafayette Julius
Well, wow, that’s incredible. As a founder, I really find these tools very helpful, especially starting out a business. To put a scope on the whole social media kind of market, we’re totally kind of expanding and what do you think is the most important way that you differentiate yourself from others doing the same thing to totally move on?
Ashley Richardson
Where I really found the opportunity is not so much through that easy DIY creation tools. But basically, being able to direct campaigns, being able to take the thinking out of customizing these templates, and creating campaign ideas, and messaging and captions, and all these different things that go into your online brand. Instead of that, we set the direction based off of your industry, your company’s personality, and we curate campaigns around that. We take the design work out of the actual content portion as well. I think that that’s something that is incredibly important for small businesses is the direction itself. And so with Canva, they give you templates, and you can customize it easily. But you still have to think about what you’re going to make. And so not only what you’re going to make at that point in time, but what you’re going to make next week, and it’s your brand looking cohesive and is your messaging consistent. It’s just so many different moving factors that go into content campaigns. And we want to simplify that by really defining the goal, the vision, the messaging, and making sure that you have an extra person or art team that controls the narrative and we can stand behind and say, “Okay, this is how your brand can be consistently cohesive and this is how people are perceiving your brand, and this is how we can make it easy for you.” And so that’s what really our customers enjoy the most is that we take the thinking out of all of it. So it’s so much easier to just go in and have a kickstart than starting from a random custom template.
Lafayette Julius
Wow, those are some great reasons customers come to you instead of going elsewhere. Rodney, you want to definitely touch on some other points about MyTotem?
Rodney Morris
Yeah, I think we skipped over this one. I know, you touched on it a little bit, I want to hear about your Startup Runway experience? What did it do for you? And would you recommend it to other founders? And why or why not?
Ashley Richardson
Oh, absolutely. Lisa is amazing. We’ve actually had conversations outside of Startup Runway, and I respect her passion for helping diverse founders. I think that it’s completely necessary. She’s so active, and she’s so knowledgeable. She’s so genuine. I think that that’s very important when we’re shaping the direction of these new emerging founders. I think that Lisa is definitely paving the way in that sense, but also, she’s super smart. She is helping us with the direction of how to transition from tech enabled to fully automation. She’s had some marketing background experience as well so that’s been really fun to talk to her about that. Also, Jean Luc, I actually met him at ATV, Atlanta Tech Village, prior to Startup Runway. He’s amazing. He’s super smart. He gave me some great feedback on my pitch. And just like the network that they brought together for the Startup Runway event was amazing. I’ve reached out to many advisors after that. And I think that they’re definitely leading the Atlanta startup network. And so that’s exciting to see. Startup Runway, I mean, it was an amazing opportunity for one. And two, this is like a global thing, right? I was super honored to be a part of Startup Runway Atlanta and I’m looking forward to just continuing to build those relationships.
Rodney Morris
Thanks so much for your feedback. We definitely appreciate that. We were super glad that it was a great experience for you. I think another question just in terms of MyTotem, I’m interested to hear, what are the milestones you want to hit at the end of this year on top of 2021? What are your goals and outlooks?
Ashley Richardson
Yeah. Next month, we plan to continue to improve our features. We’ve closed sign ups right now, so it is an invite only to access. But if anyone is listening, you can just email me directly at ashley@totemagency.co and I can push you up on the list. But yeah, as of now, we are working on feature improvements. We are building out the automation so that should be ready by Q1 of next year. And then by Q2, we plan to start, really marketing and really just using that feedback to further develop the product. We’re in the midst also of fundraising, as well. So our team is having fun with that.
Lafayette Julius
Nice, nice. I think you said some great points actually. What Valor Ventures is doing, especially in the Atlanta tech ecosystem is amazing. Me and Rodney, we definitely give first hand experience about the companies that come to Startup Runway and have an amazing idea and just really want to scale it. Just from your founder experience and those boardroom meetings, what is some of the best advice you got from some of those VCs? What do you feel is your day to day personal life and some of the hardest things you have to execute in building MyTotem today?
Ashley Richardson
Oh, wow. Everything, I’m just kidding. I think working in a startup, you learn so much, and you learn so quickly. So every week, it’s kind of like you’re doing a different position. I think that what I really appreciated about our feedback was that the investors were experienced in that. They knew the pressure that founders are under, but they also respected that we have timelines, we have goals, we have to consider every possible scenario, and so I really appreciate that. The investors felt that we should go in the direction of continuing to operate while creating our automation, but they also knew the advantage of just investing into the technology. I think that that gives way more perspective and that’s a lot more helpful than just saying, “No, do it this way.” and not and not telling you why. I think that in itself, kind of shapes the way that you think, on a regular basis as an entrepreneur as well, because you have so many different ways of doing something and so many different pros and cons for each. But ultimately, what is your goal, what is what is top priority on your list, and most of the time, it’s moving fast. And most of the time, it’s information from your customers. I think that by working closely with your customers, but also keeping the vision in the timeline, and finding that balance between each is super important. I think that that’s something that I definitely struggle with on a daily basis. Our team is small but we have a pretty lot of customers. We also have a lot of advisors that are here to help us and a lot of information is coming in. But it’s incredibly important to focus and then have people around you that can kind of direct that focus as well.
Lafayette Julius
Great, great, I think that’s the best way to create your vision is to start small, and actually, you’re definitely on the right path to do that. Before we close out, I believe Rodney wants to ask you a few more questions, and then I’ll definitely ask one more as well.
Rodney Morris
Yeah, Ashley, how can people reach out to you if they want to be a customer and if they’re interested in MyTotem?
Ashley Richardson
Yeah, so you can just email me directly at ashley@totemagency.co and just let me know. Let me know that you listen to the podcast and you’re interested in becoming a customer, or even helping out right now. We are looking for advisors, we definitely need a technical adviser, somebody with experience in machine learning and AI. I think that would be super helpful at the point that we’re in. And also advisors with marketing expertise. Somebody that’s efficient and branding, design, digital marketing, or knows networks that are successful in those fields. I think that that would be incredibly useful for us at this moment in time. But yeah, just email me directly and we can take it from there.
Lafayette Julius
Great. Well, I want to thank everybody for joining us today for our Atlanta Startup Podcast. I think Ashley’s amazing and MyTotem’s amazing. Maybe you want to leave your customers with a think and feel well, what would that be, Ashley?
Ashley Richardson
I would say that COVID has been scary, very scary regarding especially brick and mortar businesses. I’m seeing brick and mortar companies kind of not being so sure about building their digital presences. I would say that the time is now to really dive in deep, and start adopting these digital marketing practices because when all else went on, when we’re all sheltered in place, you know that your brand is still thriving online, and people can still see you and interact with you. Within the next 10 years, I think that digital isn’t going anywhere. We would be more than happy, I would be more than happy to help and answer any questions that you have around social media and around how the content marketing works, and how to build your presence online. But COVID has definitely been scary, but it’s also something that we can work together and we can overcome. We can make a success story out of it. And so, definitely small business owners reach out to me, I’m more than happy to help entrepreneurs that have ideas that are just that don’t know where to start yet. I’ve been there, definitely reach out [to me]. And thank you so much first to Startup Runway. I mean, I think that the vision behind Startup Runway and just the people Lisa and Jean, you guys are incredible. Thank you for even considering us for this opportunity. It’s amazing. I got to meet a lot of different talents and founders out of it. A lot of different talented investors, knowledgeable advisors and I just think that Startup Runway is dynamic. It’s amazing, and I can’t wait for your next cohort.
Lafayette Julius
Well, thank you, Ashley. Brands out there if you’re looking to increase your brand power, definitely reach out to Ashley and MyTotem. I like to thank everybody for joining us today on our Atlanta Startup Podcast. My name is Lafayette Julius of Valor Ventures. And also our co host, Rodney Morris. Thank you guys for joining us today. Really appreciate it.
Ashley Richardson
Thank you so much. Thanks.
Rodney Morris
Thanks for joining us today, Ashley.
Ashley Richardson
This is so much fun. Thank you.
Lisa
The Atlanta Startup Podcast is produced by Valor Ventures as a service to the startup and investor community. We couldn’t do it without the support of our sponsors–Atlanta Tech Park, the global innovation center, and Write2Market, Atlanta’s favorite tech, and healthcare marketing firm. If you’d like to get your information on the Atlanta Startup Podcast, our share a message with our listeners, visit us online and check out our affordable rate card. All advertisements here are tax-deductible donations to the Startup Runway Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is connecting underrepresented founders to their first investor.
