Nwanyinma Dike
Welcome to the Atlanta Startup Podcast. I am Nwanyinma Dike, the Managing Director of Startup Runway, the leading platform linking underrepresented founders to capital and investors. Now on this episode of the Atlanta Startup Podcast, I am super excited to welcome Keith Chaney, founder of Peadbo. Peadbo was one of the winners of the most recent Startup Runway pitch showcase the 24th edition. He was the winner of the Judges’ Prize For Most Investable Startup. So with that, I would like to thank you. Keith, thank you for being here.
Keith Chaney
Thank you for the opportunity. And thank you for that big check. I appreciate it.
Nwanyinma Dike
We hear that people like that part, so we’ll keep doing it. Let’s just let’s jump right in. Please share a bit about Peadbo and in particular, share with the audience how you came about that name.
Keith Chaney
Absolutely. Peadbo is actually shorthand for the personal advisory board. It’s exactly what it sounds like. We believe that in the same way, pretty much any company you can think of understands, that they need a board to help them win and keep moving up to the right. We believe individuals should take that same approach, informed, dedicated teams to help them reach their goals, hold them accountable, and help them make connections. Because a lot of most successful journeys are rooted in connections.
Nwanyinma Dike
Awesome. One of the things that the judges noted that they were super excited about was your traction today. Hence, you got the prize from amongst all the finalists. One, I would like for you to share about what you have been the most rewarding about the progress you’ve made so far and some of the challenging pieces about the journey so far.
Keith Chaney
I think I think some of the most rewarding things at a high level are, to your point, some of our traction, which includes a two-year contract with Carnegie Mellon University, a partnership with the White House, but more specifically at some of the individual stories. Even before we had a platform, myself and my co-founders, one of whom is my sister, would be what we call nontechnical pilots. We would just coach people on what having a board could look like, and how it could be manageable among all the other things you have to do. And we started to see people get promotions and new jobs, and really life-changing transformations because they had this support system. They were able to structure it in a way that didn’t kind of take over their lives. That is by far the most exciting aspect of it, seeing that this thing works, if you work it, and which takes me to like the challenge. Our biggest challenge by far is that we’re asking people to change their behavior and that’s always going to be a lift. It can be uncomfortable. It can be intimidating, we’re learning, the idea of having your own board and running a board meeting. But it actually doesn’t have to be and so we’re very strategic about our messaging and making sure that people understand this is a light lift, especially if you use the platform as opposed to asking someone to mentor you. We coach people to ask for six hours a year and just that ask, changes how a lot of people are thinking about the commitment. And then you just have structured board meetings once a quarter. I meet with my own board and they kick my butt. They tell me all the things that I’m not thinking about how I should be and how we can improve our strategy, how we can grow faster, but it is truly one of the best hours of each quarter for me because it helps me to fine-tune my strategy. It really positioned us to succeed.
Nwanyinma Dike
I personally gravitate to this format. One, part of the Startup Runway day includes the board meeting. We’ve seen that even that short interaction helps folks bring forth challenges that they might not have thought about before and get an insight. I know that it works even in that format. One of the things I’m curious about is, how some of the large entities that you’ve engaged are giving you feedback about people and are they not getting in? Are there any changes in how you talk about the value, of university, for example?
Keith Chaney
For the university, it’s a unique value proposition because it is double the incentive for them. What I mean is I like to joke if I can get your Career Services person and your Alumni Relations person, then I think I’m in a good position because in addition to I think the clear value, which is you have rising juniors and seniors, they’re looking to get good jobs, they might need help negotiating salaries or with interview prep. It’s very clear the value added to those students and positioning them for success. What the universities really like is their position to ask alums for something other than money. I’m sure your alma mater sends you a lot of emails and donation campaigns.”Hey, we could use some money.” Understandable, things cost money. Now, they’re saying, hey, if you could spare six hours to serve on the Board of one of our rising juniors and seniors this year? The volunteers or the alums are saying, absolutely, I’ll be on two or three. Could you give me someone who’s in this fraternity or this major, because there’s that connection there? The schools know engaged alumni are three or four times as likely to donate. It’s an awesome way to get them engaged, but also not neglect that bottom line, which is another one of their bigger KPIs as a university, and so they’re enjoying that. It has been a challenge to get some of the students to do it, which again, is the behavior change, but when they do, they’re seeing some really big impact. They’re getting introduced to companies that don’t necessarily recruit on campus. They’re being prepped to interview and in some cases, as we know the corporate world works, they’re getting some side-door access to those companies. Hey, don’t worry about that. Just let me introduce you to so and so and we’ll figure out the details. That’s what I hope becomes kind of democratized. I remember being an undergrad, having my resume and my GPA, and trying to apply for all these companies. Some of my peers, their dads knew somebody. They got that side door access. I want everyone to be able to leverage their community leverage, their university network, and if possible, gain some of that access so that they can reap those benefits the way a lot of other people do.
Nwanyinma Dike
That makes so much sense to me. I have little cousins that I want to send your way that they went above me to get into different doors and axes. I love that because that’s the necessary energy to be able to get those first opportunities. But that the people formalize it and also expand that bit of hustle as well, is amazing. And so beyond universities, what other areas are you hoping to get and see the value and apply?
Keith Chaney
This year, we’re hyper-focused on B2B growth. HR managers, talent managers, and even people who are in DEI roles within their companies, we want to position them to provide their rising talent with this type of support system but with some autonomy. We’ve done research that shows that 80% of professionals prefer mentors that they don’t work with. If you’ve ever had a co-worker mentor, it can be a little bit, what do I say? I know that you’re in a meeting with my manager right after this. It could be a bit a bit informal or a bit uncomfortable or you’re not as willing to be as transparent. With our platform, those managers and leaders can position their rising talent by saying, hey, we know you have people that you respect and admire. Bring them onto your board and we’ll have access to see who’s actually utilizing it and if they’re actually finding value because they have a dashboard where they can see which people are using the platform, what their sentiment is after board meetings, if they’re finding it valuable, but they don’t see the content of your newsletter to your family or to your professional network. We think that’s the right kind of line of visibility for those people.
Nwanyinma Dike
That’s really good. Well, I want to redirect the conversation a little bit and actually ask you a more personal question. How did you find yourself walking this path of entrepreneurship? How have you grown through your decision to dive into Peadbo?
Keith Chaney
Myself and my co-founders, we know this problem intimately, because we’ve lived it. I am a first-generation college graduate from Flint, Michigan, have an amazing family, my family would punch through a brick wall for me, but none of them worked for Google or McKinsey. Those are the places where I found myself in my career. There were limits to how they could help me to navigate. That experience of being in those companies thinking I could just put my head down and outwork everybody, only to learn that you cannot work the relationships and that you need people to sponsor you and vouch for you led to me bumping my head more times than I would have liked. But then also saying, how do we make sure that the next group of professionals can avoid some of those roadblocks and obstacles? I remember vividly being in a board meeting for a company I was doing some consulting for, and just thinking I need one of these for my life. Because things can be overwhelming, I’m a father and I have all these obligations. I think you can very easily make the mistake of trying to do it yourself. And like we say, our tagline, self-made is a myth. Not enough people are talking about the people that helped them gain access to their success. That’s what we want to do. We want to democratize that practice. It’s not something we made up. Wall Street Journal has been talking about CEOs, executives, and personal board of directors for years. I just want that to be something people are thinking about earlier, rather than later in their careers.
Nwanyinma Dike
I also appreciate that you’re introducing that concept earlier to young people of underrepresented spaces who are characterized as underrepresented, who might have informal versions of that, but bringing it into their careers and introducing that notion early is really important and powerful. I wanted to also ask, what was your experience at Startup Runway, just as a point of feedback, and also a point of being able to get a sense of how you were able to navigate a pitch event like this, and some of your thoughts on how you think, what your preparation might have looked like to have you win.
Keith Chaney
I think I can formulate it. My experience was awesome. Admittedly, that trip to Atlanta was double duty for me. So in addition to the competition, I did a workshop at NSBE the next day for a bunch of college students. I had a decent amount on my plate, but I’m so passionate about the work that excites me, as opposed to overwhelming me. Communication was very clear in terms of what to expect. I got some great feedback and made some good connections prior to the mentors that were provided. Even Startup Runway post-win has been very active about helping us to gain additional exposure, talking about the winners, and even something like this can only help us to get more awareness. I enjoyed it. I will say, the timing was really good also, because the week prior, I was in the pitch competition at South by Southwest, and we won that. I knew something that I said worked. I knew that I should probably use some of those same talking points, in addition to the slides and other things that I mentioned. It was a good month of March for us for sure.
Nwanyinma Dike
Well, obviously. Congrats on that piece as well. So if you were to give a bit of advice to someone who has an idea they’re super passionate about, and they’re kicking the idea around and they want to start, you’re a little bit further relative to that person on your journey. What advice might you give them?
Keith Chaney
If you’re like me, and it’s the idea that’s keeping you up at night, and you can’t stop writing down like little notes, pursue it, but also start early with getting feedback and learning what customers’ pain points are and how you can address them. As I said, we spent probably about a year doing nontechnical. We hadn’t coded anything. We were just on a Zoom call saying, hey, this is what a personal advisory board is, this is how it could help, this is how you can manage it. Getting feedback on what was working and what wasn’t working, and then saying, okay, how can we build that into the platform before we apply for any accelerators or anything like that? Immediately, we had to juggle. I was still working at Google when we started this thing. So that was tough. Get some help if you can. Don’t don’t sacrifice too much of your health. Make sure you’re getting sleep and eating good. Otherwise, you’re gonna burn out.
Nwanyinma Dike
I appreciate that. I appreciate the point about having conversations in the customer discovery piece. One thing I’ve noticed is that some people are super hesitant. Sometimes when they get impressed with their solution or their technology, to kick the tires on it, and are willing to accept what the market and the individuals they’re hoping to serve. Think about that idea or what they need. I appreciated that you spent that much time having the conversation about what the needs are and discovering them.
Keith Chaney
Just always be learning. We started with an idea for something that was strictly board management. And then one thing we learned in our startup journey is the value of the investor update in those newsletters. It kind of clicked for us. If we’re going to encourage people to take the business practice of forming boards, then they should also be sending out updates to their broader supporters because everybody’s not going to be on your board. That lesson turned into a feature that some of our users are more excited about than even having a board because they can just add in a few minutes, send out an update, and ask to hundreds of people, but not thousands of LinkedIn connections where there’s not necessarily a real relationship.
Nwanyinma Dike
Especially something I’ve noticed in this Startup Runway space is the founders that are mindful to send an update in a newsletter, just allowing their board members and people in the investor space to have them top of mind again, they get so much traction from that.
Keith Chaney
People say it’s not what you know, but who you know. We said no, it’s who knows what you need. Because if you know everybody, but you never tell anyone where you need some help then why would they help you? They think everything’s good. You have to raise your hand. You got to say, hey, this isn’t working. If anybody knows what we could do better, let us know. Often you’ll be surprised, who responds with, have you thought about this? Or hey, here’s someone you should meet.
Nwanyinma Dike
Spot on. I wanted to be mindful of time. I wanted to give you a chance to share what’s up next for Peadbo? What would you want audiences to keep their eyes peeled off about for you guys?
Keith Chaney
Just growth. We have a number of features that we’re starting to build out. The mobile app should be coming fairly soon. And then we’re also, of course, building in some AI and some machine learning in addition to your actual board members. We want to be very clear, you can’t replace real people. I know AI is what it is, but you can’t replace real people. But we do want you to have some version of a 24/7 board member to where any questions that you need, and people may be busy, you can still get some feedback, and it can continue to learn about your journey and the things that you could benefit from, and even push to you different resources, while you’re in between board meetings to help you to continue to succeed. So those are things that we’re navigating. We’re also bringing on a few additional heads. Marketing product and some additional developers, so if anybody’s watching this and is interested, reach out. Hopefully, more contracts with larger universities, as well as corporations. But if you just want to use it and you don’t want to wait for your school or your company, you can sign up on your own as well.
Nwanyinma Dike
So with that, do you have any last thoughts or ideas that you want to leave?
Keith Chaney
Gratitude. Want to express gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the pitch competition. And then, of course, the judges for selecting us as winners. But just for anybody out there who is trying to get a promotion, trying to get a new job, trying to break into tech, or any other industry, don’t make the mistake of trying to do it alone. There are people whether you realize it or not, who would be happy to help you. You just got to make that.
Nwanyinma Dike
Well said. And last thing, how can people find you?
Keith Chaney
We’re on Instagram, @peadbo. We’re on X, @GetPeadbo, LinkedIn, and then of course www.peadbo.com So you can sign up now if you want to.
Nwanyinma Dike
Awesome. Thank you so much, Keith, for sharing a bit, and thank you listeners for listening in. Have a great rest of your day.
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