Mecca Tartt
Welcome back to the Atlanta Startup Podcast. My name is Mecca Tartt and I am your host. I am the Executive Director of Startup Runway, the leading nonprofit connecting underrepresented founders to their first investors as well as the nondilutive capital. Listen, I’m excited because we’re coming hot right off of our showcase, where we had 10 founders pitching for 30,000 in nondilutive capital. And guess what, today, I have our three winners here with me live and we’re excited to have them. I want to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves, and also introduce a little bit about their company. We’ll kick it off with Timothy Min with Supercopy. Welcome, Timothy.
Timothy Min
Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here. A quick intro about our company, I work for Supercopy, which is an AI marketing content generation software. Whether it’s social posts, blogs, emails, or whatever you need, we pretty much have you covered. We make sure that your target copy is very relatable and empathetic. That’s sort of what we do.
Mecca Tartt
Thank you, Timothy. I want to introduce you all to Vanessa Sachs, who is with SWAKE.
Vanessa Sachs
Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for having me, Mecca. I’m really excited to talk about SWAKE because we are the first-ever sweat-resistant cosmetic company that has created cosmetics that are built to last 9-5 and beyond. Our products are the official cosmetic of UGA athletes. It was a pleasure to pitch in Atlanta.
Mecca Tartt
Thank you, Vanessa. Welcome Elissa Russell with READI.
Elissa Russell
Mecca, so awesome to be here. I’m Elissa Russell, Founder, and CEO of READI. We are a workforce training platform that rescales young adults who might be employed but earning minimum wage or maybe completely unemployed. What we do is scale them using virtual reality. We have over 200 simulations and careers from electrical to plumbing to early childhood development and what we’re doing is really changing how we address the workforce.
Mecca Tartt
I love that. Let’s get right into it. So you all pitch in front of a packed audience. I mean, it was standing room only at the beautiful Woodruff Art Center right in downtown Atlanta. You all won. All of you were winners from the past showcase. What were some of your biggest takeaways? We had VCs that came in from all over that set on the judging panel. I know Timothy, you took home the judges’ grant. I know Elissa, you took home the women’s empowerment grant and Vanessa, you had the Audience Choice Award. What were some learning lessons or experiences that you had from moving through the Startup Runway showcase?
Elissa Russell
I’ll jump right in and say what stood out to me was the opportunity to meet with other entrepreneurs and thought leaders when we did our informational feedback sessions. Even when it was persons who didn’t have an experience in my particular field, they had amazing ideas to share from their work that really spoke to me. That was probably the most phenomenal part for me.
Vanessa Sachs
Just to piggyback off of that, I had a table of about ten men at one point speaking to me about cosmetics. It was so insightful though, to hear their opinions and actually just see their wheels turning like what, what if you went out to women here and there? And I was like, okay, I can tell you guys are all married with wives and you have a lot to say about cosmetics right now.
Mecca Tartt
That is awesome. That’s an opportunity. When we think about the diversity of thoughts, I think that’s the great opportunity that comes from actually meeting with the VCs. You’re talking about the mentoring sessions that take place which are unique to Startup Runway. We have an opportunity for our founders, before they pitch, they actually have a mentoring session with our VCs, as well as executives from some of the big corporations here in Atlanta, so that you’re able to get that direct feedback from leaders in the city. Timothy, thoughts?
Timothy Min
Right on the money right there. I guess I kept thinking about it, likewise at my table. I’m so used to just talking to AI specialists, and marketers, and all of a sudden at this mock board meeting, we’re talking about how to implement marketing into maybe law firms or education or nonprofits. I think just the setting allows not only for more just diverse conversation on perhaps your target market or who you could even reach out to but even more implementations about just your product in general or service. That part was awesome.
Mecca Tartt
Awesome. The question that I have for you all is whether there are a lot of listeners that are founders, some of which that have not started the pitching process, and haven’t started really going after grant opportunities. Startup Runway, our focus is closing the gap, the disparity that exists for minorities and for women, because there is a significant gap when we talk about funding that’s allocated. How did you know that you had an idea that could be a viable business? I mean, something more than your aunts, your uncles, and your grandma’s saying, this sounds great. Because they’re going to be in your support network, they’re going to be supporting you, but how did you know that there was an actual customer base out there for you? What does that journey look like?
Vanessa Sachs
I can get us started here. For me, I actually went through an accelerator at the University of Georgia while I was still doing my master’s. And I had pretty good mentors over there who tried to tear me down a good bit and say, no one’s gonna buy this. Why would you buy this? Like, who cares if you sweat while you work out? No one cares. I felt this urge to be like, no people do care. This is such a problem, especially in the age of social media, where people make their entire career off of sweating, and working out, and they want to look good while they do it. I remember going out to gyms just to get market validation and asking girls, what makeup are you wearing? What are you wearing right now? Basically harassing people on the treadmills like, hey, wait one second. It came from a place of people who do need what SWAKE has to offer and how can I validate that? Well, I just went straight out into the fields to find our customers.
Mecca Tartt
Absolutely. A lot of field research on your end to identify and make sure that people have an appetite for your products. Timothy, Elissa, any thoughts?
Elissa Russell
I would say that, initially, I got started because I was working in a nonprofit and we just weren’t having the impact. I was in an adult education nonprofit. I’m in a leadership role and it was just very challenging to implement some of the programs I wanted to implement. I was saying that we weren’t having the impact. READI has done about four iterations of our solution. We were at the base and then what really put us over the top was COVID. When we got into this space of needing essential workers and needing trained people to provide services, that’s what made us look at how can we really reach people where they’re at, especially when we’re in this remote space. And thus, we started exploring the XR/VR solutions. Here we are today in virtual reality.
Timothy Min
As far as Supercopy, I think, even before we built a product, one thing we really want to do is sort of this like customer discovery. I think we interviewed at least 200-300 separate, individual marketing agencies and marketers just to confirm, maybe these are the pain points that these people are looking for. I think we found true validation after doing our research when the first day, the day right after we built our product, we already had our first customer. And so in seeing that happen, we’re like, okay, perhaps this is a software that isn’t just wanted, but needed in this industry. I think just doing that initial research is very crucial.
Mecca Tartt
Absolutely. Vanessa talks about this a little bit and because there are a lot of hurdles that come your way and you have to have I think one of the qualities or characteristics that every founder has to have is being resilient and confident because there are people out there that’ll tell you, “Oh, someone else is already doing that.” There are four or five different chicken and burger spots on every corner, but that didn’t stop someone from coming up with another idea. Vanessa, you talked about even some of your professors saying, “I don’t know why someone will actually buy into this.” And there are men I remember talking to someone about your product specifically, and they said I didn’t know that women wear makeup to the gym. Yes, there are some women that wear makeup to the gym, because it’s more of just having that confidence and coverage, but at the same time you don’t want to talk to someone and there’s sweat that’s melting off your face, right? Talk about what was the biggest challenge or hurdle to date that you’ve had to overcome with your business.
Vanessa Sachs
I think understanding growth and the speed at which I was growing was probably the most difficult hurdle. Originally coming out of my master’s program, that’s when SWAKE started. It was that crossroad that every founder probably goes through, do I pick security of a job that I work a 9-5 and be able to pay rent every week or month? Or do I chase a dream? SWAKE was growing at a really quick rate. We were doing 30% more every month. I wanted to push it and push it. And then our supplier was like, “Hey, we don’t have the bandwidth to create as many products as you need every month. We’re just a small startup supplier in Canada.” I remember at that point is like, what the heck do I do? Where do I go? I only have one person producing SWAKE products. From there, I realized, to sustain, I’ve got to have two suppliers. I’ve got to have three employees working on the supply chain and communications with customers. Figuring out that the business has to adapt as I grow and just made sure that I took the steps to ensure that when I did.
Mecca Tartt
Awesome. Now, that’s so important. That’s valuable information because there are times, I think we’ve all been in that place where we want some more of a particular product, and the person is always out of stock. That’s also in itself, that’s not good business, right? Because then you have a customer that stops relying on you. Making that difficult decision and pitching to your parents that said, hey, you went to school, but I think betting on yourself is one of the most rewarding things, but it’s also one of the riskiest things you can do at a certain time. Timothy, and Elissa, any thoughts on that as well?
Elissa Russell
I would chime in that, initially, everyone went, that sounds very cool. If you want to help young people get jobs, you should be a nonprofit. Absolutely not. I’m for profit. Selling people the idea that I could be a for-profit business that was actually engaged in social change versus being a nonprofit was probably my biggest challenge to date. But then when COVID happened, as I mentioned, that’s when we really began to go, oh my goodness, we need these essential workers. They’re not well trained or they’re not making enough. That has been really beneficial to my business. And then probably the second problem was the use of such an expensive high-tech solution which is how we arrived. We have a lease-to-learn model. Our customers actually, these are headsets from us and they are preloaded with learning content, and they pay for a subscription to live classes. Therefore there’s no ownership on the customer to buy any headsets or applications. We manage all of it, everything related to the headsets as well as the instruction so that’s really made us a bit of a seriously viable product.
Mecca Tartt
Awesome. So Timothy, what was your biggest challenge or hurdle when it came to your business?
Timothy Min
I guess we ran into this issue most recently with the rise of ChatGPT. As an AI company itself, we saw that it was almost like a double-edged sword. On one side, AI now became more recognized and almost more trustworthy and reputable. But on the other side, a lot of people start asking us, why should I use your product when we have ChatGPT? All the products surrounding AI have had a lot of skepticism as far as what really is the difference between different AIs and ours. Luckily for us, because we have such specific niches as far as marketing and content generation, we’ve been still being validated by our customers. We see that still happening. For a lot of AI companies, this is sort of the main struggle right now.
Mecca Tartt
Absolutely. Thank you so much for that, Timothy. What has been your vision and how do you each define success because everyone defines success very differently? Elissa?
Elissa Russell
The big vision is to be able to scale READI across the southeast which is where you’ll find most states ranked very low in terms of literacy and then workforce opportunities for youth. We would do that by deploying our mobile training unit. Over the next year or so, we look forward to not only renovating the one that we have now but adding on to that and then allowing ourselves to become a thought leader in this space where we can duplicate ourselves by training other agencies on how to incorporate these high-tech solutions. Work what we need our young adults to be working, and it shouldn’t just be a READI thing. Department of Labor should be doing it, Atlanta Regional Commission should be doing it so that we become the thought leaders to help share how we work in our plan with others. That would be our big mission. That would be a success when we are the ones establishing the platform for others.
Mecca Tartt
Absolutely. You can definitely do it and it can happen. Vanessa?
Vanessa Sachs
For me, I was asked this question really early on, probably a month into not even having the product of SWAKE, just the idea. I really, really thought, okay, I don’t want to be just in a ULTA store. I don’t want to be a cosmetic that you see at a boutique. I want to be a household name. I want SWAKE to be a Nike. You’re walking around in the house and you’re like, oh, what is that? Oh, I’m wearing SWAKE. Something that’s just across the world. We’re small fish in the pond right now but that’s the dream.
Timothy Min
For us, too. Of course, at the end of the day, we’d like to be the leading AI marketing software company for all companies where it’s a necessity, no matter what your marketing process may look like. But one thing we’ve thought about a lot as a team also, as far as what success may be, is we just sort of cultivate a culture where people actually enjoy working for the company where every day, you sort of come in with a smile, you’re able to maybe share some coffee with people. Ultimately, for us, we believe that not only does the success of the company matter, but also how you’re doing within the company. If you’re doing well, how the company is treating you as well, so that’s like a huge factor for us.
Mecca Tartt
Creating a great company culture. How do you maintain the diversity of thought? I know a lot of times founders have shared with me, even an entrepreneur myself, but specifically, founders have shared with me that a lot of times there are moments in which it can get lonely. You just go down this rabbit hole and you’re focused on creating the business and you’re not necessarily reaching out, but how do you keep perspective and then also diversity of thought in your business?
Vanessa Sachs
For me, something that is important is with my team of three interns from the University of Georgia, we host weekly stand-ups and just have an opportunity for us to all speak. Something that I like about our team is that we have a videographer, a content creator, and a supply chain operator, so they all have different backgrounds in business, but they all genuinely love fitness and health. This is something that really resonates with our brand and we’re able to kind of get different perspectives. But I also love to involve my mentors at the University of Georgia, specifically those who have no background in cosmetics. Because again, you get that kind of resistance that I think a lot of founders need, especially to avoid the stubborn hurdles of, well, I think this is what is a good idea and then no one buys it. Make sure to involve those mentors that kind of push you in a direction of, okay, we’ll go validate it, then.
Timothy Min
Likewise, I guess a lot of the times, one thing we’ve been told a lot is, even in the initial stages, a lot of times they say, hey, it’s great. I think this is really awesome. I think this could really change the future. But for us, we actually take a very high value and actually our customers in churn, or who sort of leave our product, because it’s easy for founders to sit at a table and be like, this product and design is the best in the world. Obviously, there are people who are leaving the product, too. We believe that their opinion, their thoughts, and reason for leaving the software subscription are actually perhaps even more valuable. It just helps to go as far as our product development, what changes we need, and just how to grow and learn from it.
Elissa Russell
For us, perspective and diversity of thought start with our own team. I am very focused on ensuring that we have a diverse team of people from various backgrounds, those in the tech space and not in the tech space, as well as persons who are just like completely anti-tech. How do we make them a believer? I think that really helps us. Additionally, it’s about I think, people using the word curiosity, staying curious, a lot these days. And for us, that means always holding the interviews and serving people in and out of our space. I hold a lot of sessions with professionals who are mechanics and truck drivers. It’s cocktail hour, but I brought my headsets just to get them to try the content. I can always get feedback from people who actually do the work for fields that I’m trying to train for. It means always being a learner and a student of the work that I do.
Mecca Tartt
Absolutely. Always being a student and always being curious. I think that’s something that drives every business forward. Now, thinking of driving things forward, what drives you? When you are a founder, you have to have that internal drive, that internal get up and go in order to make things happen. How do you keep pushing forward, keep moving forward, despite the nos. What’s your secret formula or secret sauce? There are founders that are listening right now to your voice or listening to the fact that you all have been successful in creating your companies. For some, it is hard to keep that drive, or it might be. What keeps you moving forward and pushing forward with your business?
Elissa Russell
I would say it’s my community. Entrepreneurs need entrepreneurial communities. It’s great to have my mom and my sister and my good best friend, but the other entrepreneurs that I meet in spaces like Startup Runway, the other people that drive me. They go, Oh, my God, girl, I saw that. I tried to do it, too. I’m there with you. They’re always watching. They’re in the social going, Oh, I saw this didn’t happen. They give you the encouragement and the push because they actually understand in a way that no matter how much your mom or your dad or your cousin supports you, they will never get it. It is an entrepreneurial community for me.
Vanessa Sachs
I totally understand that. I think something that has been interesting to see from being inside the business is when I go talk to people, and they’re like, what you’re doing is amazing. How are you doing that? Can I get a sample and stuff like that? I’m like, This isn’t L’Oreal. You know, at the end of the day, I’m working from my kitchen counter. It’s funny to be inside the business and know the reality of it but hearing from other people, is encouraging, but at the same time, it’s like, what do you mean? I’m literally working from my kitchen counter. I think it’s encouraging to have your sister, brother, mom, and friends but definitely having that entrepreneurial startup community around you is so important to staying grounded, staying sane, and knowing that there are other people going through the same thing.
Timothy Min
It’s so relatable. Even in this conversation here just between founders like that community aspect in itself, I still will be like, “Hey, should we switch offices today?” And we just walked over to the next table next to us. It’s sort of this struggle that we all relate to, especially with the downfalls and even the upwards as well. I think the best part about it is that we’re actually all here to support each other. It’s not like we’re actually stopping each other’s growth or we’re not here to really just find ourselves as someone who’s higher than another company or any of that. But really, this middle ground of relativity is where we can all empathize with each other struggles and just the pains of it as well. Being a CTO, when I talked to other CTOs about just late-night codings, we just look at each other and, yeah, I’ve been there. I know what you mean.
Mecca Tartt
Why now? Why is this time in this moment most important that your product is out there in the market?
Vanessa Sachs
I thought to myself, why not now? I know that sounds so corny but being in my 20s, being straight out of college, I thought there will never be a better time than right now for me to start this. I don’t have kids yet. I’m single, not married. I thought this is the most selfish I can be. I’ve got to advocate for myself and advocate for SWAKE. If it doesn’t work, oh, well. I’ll go to READI, get educated, and get another job basically. So to me, I felt like the worst that can happen are you fail and try, but you tried.
Elissa Russell
So to piggyback off of that, Vanessa, that is exactly why now. Because this is the time. We are in what we call post COVID world. We are tentatively headed toward a recession and the future of work looks different. I’m in my 40s. So young adults are like, yeah, I’m not going to do college right now. Two years is a lot of money. I want to spend more time living, everyone has been impacted by the losses of COVID and other challenges that our world is experiencing. Young adults are looking at life differently. We have to then adjust what the work looks like. People are thinking about what work used to be. This is all you do, a big part of your life is work, and now, it’s not. This is the perfect time to come up with a different way of scaling people so that they can jump from entrepreneurship to maybe a 9-5 to go back to their entrepreneurship or have a side hustle. It can’t mean going to a university or something for four to five years just to get a skill so that you can make a living wage. It has to be something that’s more efficient, fluid, and that speaks to people’s unique needs right now today.
Timothy Min
For Supercopy and just seeing how marketing has changed so much these past few years, and specifically now, when it comes to brands, or even just company names, the first thing you think about is okay, what do they post about on Instagram? What type of ads have I seen on YouTube and all those things? We realized that now, almost your social presence is equivalent to how people may perceive who you are as a company. Whether it’s your tone, how empathetic, or the way you approach things as well. We believe that AI really is the future and to also be a part of that marketing process utilizing our software is the reason why we believe right now is the perfect time for this to be implemented into all company’s marketing processes.
Mecca Tartt
I love that. You all connected with and had the opportunity to meet investors, as I mentioned at the Startup Runway Showcase from all over. How much capital have you raised to date, that is your focus and your goal, or is that something that you’re interested in? How have you made the decision when it comes to building your business on how much capital you will actually raise for those that have raised? For those that have not been interested in raising, what has been your benchmark for yourself as far as bringing in more capital to the business?
Vanessa Sachs
Something that I’ve thought about going into pitching at Startup Runway was realistically, what do I want out of SWAKE? People ask me all the time, do I want to sell the business? Do I just want to give it off to L’Oreal and wipe my hands off it and be like, okay, I built that. Goodnight. Or do I want to be involved and create my own brand of cosmetics, activewear, basically a lifestyle brand? I lean more towards the latter but knowing that it’s such a beast to tackle the supply chain of each of those things, having the physical product, needing the designers for the clothing, and needing just basically the manpower to make that happen. What I’m looking for now, capital wise is much bigger than what I initially thought I would need going into the business. I’m definitely excited to start raising capital this coming year. What exactly that number looks like is changing for me as I consider what my business will look like, but I know I’ve got to be in the millions. We’ve got a little bit of ways to go before I start my first funding round.
Mecca Tartt
For those that are listening in, how do you determine that exact amount for yourself as a business owner?
Vanessa Sachs
Something that I really had to take into account was the talent that I want to hire and how I’d be able to retain that talent, which is expensive. I want the most competitive talent on the team because we’re going up against Lululemon, we’re going up against L’Oreal, in order to make a name for ourselves. Even knowing to have a team of five and paying them a competitive wage, it’s going to be in the millions. Now add to that the product side of things, it’s an expensive check we have to cut there.
Elissa Russell
Funding-wise, probably today, we’re probably like at $155-160,000 over the last three and a half years. That funding has been largely from grants and competitions like this one. This will be the first year that we actually look at a capital raise and we’re looking on the high end half a million on the low end $250,000 and that’s because we are seeking to get our mobile training unit on the road, which will allow us to go to our customer locations. We will serve individuals in our unit versus having to even use their facilities at all. Raising capital, we have really analyzed the cost of one, as Vanessa mentioned the human capital, because we’re in the business of scaling people for jobs. We want to make sure we’re a good steward of our vision and mission when it comes to the people that work on our team. That’s the first consideration and then, of course, those tech tools which are very expensive in the XR VR sector.
Timothy Min
I guess to start off, if there’s anything that I could sort of give as a little gesture to a lot of the founders listening right now, there are also a lot of bad deals out there. I guess. Our co-founders, we call ourselves like cockroaches, where we get really close to dying every time, but we still push there. Even before we’ve been offered a sort of some bad deals for investments and as much as the money is nice immediately, it’s definitely going to change the game. We knew that in the long run, this perhaps wouldn’t be beneficial for the company to give so much equity for that amount. We are looking to go into our first round of raising. We’re looking at around perhaps about $2 million or so. But one thing to consider is not looking to raise too much money because this can also be detrimental. If you raise $3 million but you’re not really even sure how you’re going to utilize it, that’s actually going to be a sort of negative impact on your company in the future in the long run as well. That’s also something to consider.
Mecca Tartt
I do have a question for you about that. How did you know that this seems to be a bad deal, where did that thought process come from? Or when you’re evaluating different opportunities for the founder that’s listening in as well, how do you make that decision on whether or not it’s not going to be a good setup?
Timothy Min
Absolutely. For one person, it actually might be a perfect opportunity and for them, then by all means, go for it. I fully support you in that, but perhaps if it’s a situation where maybe you’re just starting or something, then someone immediately wants about 15% of your company for maybe $20,000 or so. In the long run, even in board meetings or so, it’s tricky because how much you actually own of the company also changes by then. For us, personally, in two to three years from here, do we believe that with the growth and scale of the company with this money? Will we still be able to state that we do have these opportunities to further push the company? Or will this actually be a stalling moment for us in the long run?
Mecca Tartt
I love that frame of thought. How do y’all keep your competitive advantage within your marketplace? Vanessa?
Vanessa Sachs
I might be a good person to start with for this, considering there are just thousands of cosmetics out there. We really had to hone in on our unique value proposition that we’re really sweat-proof cosmetics and the number of sweat-proof cosmetics out there is extremely limited. If they are sweatproof, they don’t market themselves up that as their key components. Focusing on that gym rat culture, the busy mom, people who just have a schedule, where SWAKE would be the vehicle towards getting more done and feeling good while they do it, that’s who we have to hit. We play around with Facebook ads to make sure, okay, who’s engaging, who’s not engaging? Who are we missing? And then tailoring our marketing strategy from there.
Timothy Min
When it comes to AI, we believe that, for us, having that specific niche is so important. Because if you Google AI software companies, you’re gonna get maybe like, 3 million of them pop up immediately. We believe that having that specific target market with a specific goal in mind, and knowing that you can actually make a real impact in that field is what continues our validation and seeing sort of like indicators for us. In our inbound sales where we still haven’t done any marketing yet, we have people that we’ve never reached out to purchase our product. I think it just further proves the validation for it. But of course, we gotta keep pushing from there.
Elissa Russell
We remain competitive by staying knowledgeable. Reading white papers is a big part of my weekly tasks already, knowing what’s happening, what’s new in XR VR, which new headsets are coming out, and what the price points are, so that helped us stay in the game pretty much. Additionally, it’s also flexible. We want to serve young adults in this specific category. However, AARP recently reached out. They said, hey, what about the silver workforce? 50+? We’re also open to having these discussions to actually go into where we’re needed as well.
Mecca Tartt
Absolutely, being flexible. That might be a new avatar for you, a new audience that you had not identified, but the customer, the need has told you that there’s a need out there. So many of you have experienced different successes. Obviously, being a winner of the Startup Runway showcase was a success. What has been your biggest success to date for your business? How did you prepare for that opportunity?
Timothy Min
For us, a really big win recently was being able to actually reach out to a big-name university and onboard them as clients. It’s funny because I guess preparation-wise, it’s a lot of long nights knowing exactly what you’re gonna say, how you’re gonna pitch it, and really just demonstrate the product to them. But at the same time, I think internally, I never really feel totally prepared. I go there, maybe my knees are still a little shaky, and my hands get a little clammy and sweaty, but ultimately, I believe if you have confidence in the product and you really go up there knowing that this product is going to change your entire life and your work life that we felt this is the preparation we needed going into it. I think it proved true in that situation.
Mecca Tartt
Congratulations, Timothy. Vanessa?
Vanessa Sachs
Timothy, I wanted to mention that I just saw a syllabus online get posted to Twitter that said, from a professor, that we know that AI tools are out there. Watch what you’re using when you’re writing papers, which is so crazy because I was in college only a year ago and we didn’t even have that. That just goes to show the market for AI is just increasing.
Mecca Tartt
Vanessa, what has been your biggest win and your biggest success today? What was the preparation around it?
Vanessa Sachs
I would say sort of what propelled us into being really successful was our partnership with the University of Georgia athletics. Getting it into the hands of so many athletes, we worked with the classic city collective over in Athens to provide us with funding so that we could work with these athletes, work with their marketing team, and make sure we had content to push out once the athletes got our products. We did a photoshoot with the UGA athletes and this was only about four or five months into SWAKE being a thing. I had only had products for about two months at that point. It was crazy to see UGA athletes wearing SWAKE and asking, okay, what shade am I? I was feeling just like starstruck by them being there using my products and them saying, thank you so much for this opportunity. And I’m like, no, thank you.
Mecca Tartt
Absolutely. Elissa, what’s been your biggest win today?
Elissa Russell
The biggest win today was being accepted to a program called Venture Wells E-team. We had applied two to three years in a row and they were no, with two pages of why and said no. Finally being accepted, like, hey, you guys got it. Upon being accepted, introductions were Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Georgia State University, so to sit at the table with all these great minds of academia, and then at the end of it all, we won $42,000. We won over all of these amazing, incredible teams. It sent us to stage three. So this year, we’ll be going to Boston to pitch for $50,000 and an equity investment. A big part of that is Chelsea Clinton of the Clinton Foundation funds this, so we got to meet with them. They did this big shout-out for us. Verizon announced us as a company to look out for. It really was a big boost.
Mecca Tartt
That is outstanding. It shows also that there are so many ways to define success but then there are so many opportunities out there and to be seen and to position your company, you have to be your biggest advocate for your business. That’s why you have to be very comfortable with being the face and with the selling process. Before I had us wrap up, Vanessa, I believe you mentioned hiring great talent, around how much that will cost, but when you think about growing and scaling your business, and the biggest need that you have, which is human capital, what’s your thought process about ensuring that you have the right people at the table to help grow and scale your business to new levels? How do you go about finding that great talent?
Vanessa Sachs
For SWAKE, I read something a while ago on LinkedIn about just not being afraid that if someone isn’t a good fit, to be able to have that conversation with them and let them go. No feelings hurt. It’s okay. It wasn’t a good fit. I’m still figuring things out for a new company. You just aren’t able to provide me with the talent that I need for this position right now. Let me know how SWAKE can serve you in the future? Making sure that with every employee that I hire, there’s transparency that we’re a startup, and we are still figuring things out. If you don’t feel like this is a good fit for you, I expect you to come to me, and the same for me to you.
Mecca Tartt
Timothy, what are your thoughts around just really ensuring that you have the opportunity to hire top talent and what does that look like for you?
Timothy Min
For me, I think I still need sort of a long process when it comes to truly understanding how someone fits into our company. Even with the work culture as we discussed, and for me in that first technical interview, perhaps I might get a little understanding of what the fundamentals and understandings may be. But even some of the greatest people I’ve worked with start with not really having any knowledge in this field and really just spending the time to grow and learned in it. And to this day, I still think that there are some of the greatest engineers and people that I’ve worked with. Just to see that opportunity and perhaps people will say that gut feeling about it, too.
Elissa Russell
At READI, it means having the team buy-in and not just the leadership’s opinion about oh, this is a good fit. I think we often forget about who are the boots on the ground and it’s not me every day, you’re going to interact with, it’s the interns. Part of our process is having even our unpaid interns have a say to review the resumes or to have a conversation with anyone who’s going to add to the team because these are going to be your colleagues. They’re going to work with you more than with me. Having that team buy-in is a big part of the process, as well as staying away from nontraditional questions and processes in interviewing. What is your superpower? To be a little more creative with how we get to know individuals that we want to bring onto the team.
Mecca Tartt
Absolutely. I want to thank each of you for joining us on this episode of the Atlanta Startup Podcast. And if each of you just share lasting thoughts with the listeners, those that are VCs that are listening, and that may want to know something more about your company, or how they can help, mentors, executives, as well as the founders that are listening in that would love to scale and grow their businesses. Any thoughts come to mind? Vanessa?
Vanessa Sachs
I just want to say thank you to Startup Runway for hosting SWAKE. That was our first big Atlanta pitch. Excited that we won. And for any VCs out there, I’m really excited to start raising funds. Because we’re at a point where SWAKE is growing. We need to grow and we really want to find investors that fit well with our company culture that understand fitness and health and wealth and all the things that go into it. I’m really excited. And if you’re a founder out there that you know you’re on the fence about should I start this company or not, just do it. Not to take Nike’s pizzazz right there, but just do it and see what happens. Elissa is always here if you need READI.
Elissa Russell
First, I want to say, Startup Runway, thank you for being courageous to hold a pitch competition on December 15, at the close of the year. Yay, you guys. It was fabulous. That was phenomenal for all of us who want one last check for the year. Who doesn’t love that? For founders, pursue your passion, pursue your dreams. It’s not for everyone, not every single person that has the idea right now, it might not be what you really want to do. It is a lot of hard work but if you’re committed and you’re like, I know, I can do this and I truly believe in myself, totally go for it. Look for us. Find us on LinkedIn, so many of us are willing to give you some time and say, “Hey, this is what you got to do or this is what you need to know.” One-on-one suggestion leads to the next person. For any potential VCs out there, please reach out. I can’t tell you what we do. I can show you what we do. This is way more impactful. Please reach out to us at READI.
Timothy Min
Once again, also, a huge shout out and thank you to Startup Runway, even for this opportunity to not only pitch at the competition but even for this podcast. Likewise for the VCs. My email is always open. My phone’s open. If you want to grab a coffee, I’m always open to it. But yeah, I guess for all the founders listening out there, just one thing I always go by is if you love your team, if you love your work, then you’re gonna love the journey wherever it goes. Keep striving and push through.
Mecca Tartt
Thank you so much, Timothy. Thank you Elissa Russell with READI, Timothy Min with Supercopy, and Vanessa Sachs with SWAKE. It has been amazing to have you all on this episode of the Atlanta Startup Podcast. For those of you founders out there that are interested in being a part of and pitching during the next upcoming Startup Runway showcase, it will be virtual, and it’s going to take place on Thursday, February 23. You can visit startup runway.org in order to apply. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Atlanta Startup Podcast. See you soon and thank you so much for tuning in.
Lisa Calhoun
We’re thrilled to have you as an Atlanta Startup Podcast listener to help you get the most out of the experience. Let me invite you to three insider opportunities from our host Valor Ventures. First, want to be a guest on this amazing show. Reach out to our booking team at atlantastartuppodcast.com. Click on booking, It’s a no-brainer from there. Are you raising a seed round? Valor definitely wants to hear from you. Share your startup story at valor.vc/pitch. Are you a woman or minority-led startup valor sister program? The Startup Runway Foundation gives away grants to promising startups led by underrepresented founders. The mission of the Startup Runway Foundation is connecting underrepresented founders to their first investors. Startup runway finalists have raised over $40 million. See if you qualify for one of these amazing grants at startuprunway.org. You can also sign up for our next showcase for free there. Let me let you go today with a shout-out to Startup Runway presenting sponsor Cox Enterprises and to our founding partners, American Family Institute, Truist, Georgia Power, Avanta Ventures, and Innovators Legal. These great organizations make Startup Runway possible. Thanks for listening today and see you back next week.
