Mar 3, 2025 · 33m · the-pitch
Is the ICO Gold Rush Over?
Dawn Dixon · 12m spoken Josh Muccio · 8m spoken Daniel Gulati · 3m spoken Jillian Manus · 1m spoken Phil Nadel · 1m spoken Michael Hyatt · 1m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
This retrospective episode of The Pitch follows founder Dawn Dixon as she pitches her smart vending analytics startup PopCom, faces rejection from venture capitalists, and subsequently charts a resilient path through bootstrapping and an SEC-compliant token offering.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Josh holds 29.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Josh as informed peer 5.1 Guest teaching 2.9 Guest disagreement 3.3 Josh pushing back 5.1
speaking balance: gold is Josh, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:46 Dawn calls out Daniel as a 90s-era retail skeptic
Rather than accepting Daniel's pass gracefully, Dawn directly challenges his market vision and compares his skepticism to people who refused to believe in e-commerce websites in the 1990s.
Hardest push from Josh ▶ 10:49 Daniel corners Dawn on negligible channel shareDaniel refuses to accept high-level market growth narratives and repeatedly presses Dawn on whether automated kiosks represent more than a fraction of one percent of modern brand revenue.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 12:33 Dawn details societal shift toward automated self-serviceDawn systematically contextualizes kiosk growth using global adoption trends and everyday examples like airline baggage check-in, grocery self-checkouts, and fast-food ordering.
Josh holds their own ▶ 20:49 Panel unites to highlight casual venture exits as a major red flagMichael Hyatt and the panel dismantle Dawn's framing of walking away from past ventures, explicitly explaining that treating equity casually signals poor stewardship of investor capital.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Josh as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Josh pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investor Panel Introductions and Dawn Dixon's Ask | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Dawn introduces PopCom and explains the transition from her emergency shoe venture to smart vending kiosk software. The investors listen attentively with minimal interruption as she outlines the problem and product vision. | |
| Live Product Demo and Technical Malfunction | 5 | 1 | 2 | 6 | During a live demo glitch, Daniel and Jillian probe into Dawn's reliance on kiosk.com. Daniel pushes hard on market concentration and Dawn admits she does not know kiosk.com's actual market share percentage. | |
| Pricing Model and Debate on Automated Retail Growth | 7 | 5 | 6 | 8 | Daniel repeatedly challenges the fundamental premise of the business, arguing that automated retail represents less than one percent of brand sales. Dawn pushes back strongly by drawing a historical parallel to the rise of e-commerce in the 1990s. | |
| Examining Dawn Dixon's Past Ventures and Exits | 5 | 2 | 3 | 6 | Phil and Jillian interrogate Dawn on her track record after she claims to have never failed but admits to walking away from prior ventures. The panel drills into whether she officially exited or simply abandoned equity. | |
| Daniel Galati Passes Over Market Size Limitations | 6 | 3 | 7 | 7 | Daniel passes due to limited market size, prompting Dawn to immediately counter with unit economics on 20,000 machines and explicitly tell him he sounds like 1990s internet deniers. | |
| Jillian Manus Passes on Consumer Trust and Expertise | 5 | 2 | 2 | 5 | Jillian passes citing a lack of consumer trust in buying higher-end goods from kiosks and her own lack of domain expertise. Phil follows by expressing hesitation regarding indirect distribution reliance on hardware manufacturers. | |
| Michael Hyatt Passes and Concludes the Pitch | 7 | 1 | 2 | 7 | Michael Hyatt delivers feedback on her past venture explanations, calling walking away a major red flag for investors. He and Phil decline to invest at the current valuation while encouraging her to return once she has proven traction. | |
| Follow-Up Interview: Abandoning VC and SEC Regulatory Halts | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | In the follow-up interview with Josh Muccio, Dawn details her decision to pivot from VC to a 30 million dollar ICO and how subsequent SEC regulatory interventions abruptly halted the campaign. | |
| Bootstrapping and Sustainable Runway Strategy | 6 | 4 | 6 | 6 | Josh challenges the logic of attempting to raise 30 million dollars without intending to aggressively scale headcount. Dawn pushes back, arguing that raising large sums to secure 5-7 years of runway without rapid burn is a superior founder strategy. | |
| Mission, Representation, and Embracing Failure Openly | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Dawn reflects on her mission to serve as a transparent example for underrepresented founders by openly discussing pivots and failures. Josh validates her perspective with light banter. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Dixon: 1 million of 8 million US vending machines are now smart
“Right now, there's eight million vending machines in the United States. One million of those are considered smart, which means they have a touch screen and they can accept credit cards. That number of smart machines is growing 30% year over year”
PopCom uses facial recognition to vend regulated items like cannabis and alcohol
“With the customer's permission, we can verify your face against your ID to dispense a product that's regulated. So think Sudafed, think cannabis, think alcohol. That you need an ID to verify. We have that ability.”
PopCom partners with Kiosk Information Systems to manufacture its smart vending machines
“My customer, we have the vending machine and kiosk manufacturers, which we have a partnership with the number one kiosk manufacturer in the country called kiosk information systems, kiosk.com.”
Dixon: PopCom charges a $200 monthly base fee per smart vending machine
“Each base price is 200 dollars per machine per month.”
Dixon: Japan has one automated vending machine for every 23 people
“Other countries like China and Japan, where there's one machine for every 23 people selling a product.”
Dixon: 82% of retail customer purchasing decisions happen inside physical stores
“82% of customer decisions are still made in stores.”
Dixon predicts consumers will eventually buy everything from automated self-service machines
“So it's a matter of time before we're buying everything out of self-service machines.”
Galati passes on PopCom, arguing automated kiosks are too small a channel
“Retail US retail is like this big elephant and I feel like this channel is like an ant. So I just feel like the easy way out for these brands and for most brands and retailers is to kind of say, Hey, this is like less than one percent, less than half a percent…”
Manus predicts hybrid pop-up kiosks will become a vital piece of retail
“I believe you in the fact that I see pop-up shops and I definitely see that, that, that this is going to be a very vital piece of the retail, this sort of hybrid, all right?”
Nadel: Younger generations are becoming accustomed to facial recognition for payment transactions
“I think that the younger generations, younger people in this country Are becoming more and more accustomed to using facial payment, facial recognition for payment, for transactions.”
Nadel: Hardware startups should control direct sales rather than relying on manufacturers
“I'm a believer in having control of your own destiny, and sort of selling it yourself as opposed to relying on a partner like the manufacturer to sell it.”
Hyatt argues a $200 monthly software fee is too expensive for operators
“I have a tough time believing the 200 bucks. That's a lot of money for a vending machine.”
Hyatt would pay a $10M-$20M valuation once PopCom reaches 500 active machines
“I would like to pay a higher valuation for your company, and I'd like to put in more money when you have 500 or a thousand of vending machines, and I'd like to pay for that, right? I'd like to pay a 10, 15, twenty million dollar valuation when you have actual …”
Dixon rejects traditional VC to avoid annual fundraising and forced premature scaling
“The traditional VC model doesn't work for me personally.
I don't want to go back and have to raise more money every single year.
I don't want to have to be pushed to grow and scale when, you know, it may not be the time because sometimes it takes longer than y…”
PopCom paused its $30M ICO until the SEC provided clear regulatory guidelines
“Really we decided to just put our fundraising plans on hold completely until we seen what the SEC was going to allow.”
Dixon: Regulated token offerings now feel identical to traditional venture fundraising rounds
“Now it's like so many more rules and regulations around it to the point where it feels almost identical to a tradition around, and I can speak from direct experience.”
Dixon: PopCom funded its hardware product development using upfront customer deposits
“Let's get people to pay for it and put the money up and put a deposit down for us to build it. And that's exactly what we did.”
Dixon: Aggressively hiring and scaling too quickly causes many startup failures
“So one of the biggest downfalls of startups is scaling too fast. Just because you have the money to hire a ton of people doesn't mean you actually need to.”
Dixon argues venture capitalists force founders to burn capital rather than wait
“Because if when you raise VC money, they make you burn it. You can't hold VC thirty million for seven years.”
PopCom pivots from a $30M ICO to a $950K Security Token Offering
“Despite all the ups and downs, Dawn is now launching something called an STO, or a Security Token Offering, which is like an SEC approved version of an ICO. It is officially live as of a few days ago, and this time around, instead of raising the thirty million…”