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Aug 10, 2016 · 19m · top-founders

EP 382: Virtually Place Furniture In House, $900k Raised with Andrew of Pair3d.com

Andrew Kemendo · 9m spoken Nathan Latka · 7m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In episode 382 of 'The Top,' Nathan Latka interviews Andrew Kemendo, founder of Pair 3D, exploring how the startup raised $900,000, pivoted from an architectural SaaS tool to an augmented reality furniture platform, and scaled monetization through performance advertising.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 45.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 5.0 Guest teaching 3.8 Guest disagreement 2.3 Nathan pushing back 4.3
05100:0010:001:05–5:25 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Introducing Andrew Kemendo and the Pair Augmented Reality Concept Nathan probes into Andrew's military background and pushes for concrete numbers regarding the founding equity split and seed funding amount.5:26–10:40 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Pivoting from Visidraft SaaS to Pair 3D Consumer Furnishings Nathan intensely pushes back on Andrew's decision to shut down paying SaaS revenue to pursue a pre-revenue consumer AR platform, prompting Andrew to justify the shift using total addressable market scale.10:41–13:57 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Monetization Mechanics, User Metrics, and Online Profiles Nathan presses on how Andrew can claim signed ad contracts without active usage billing, while Andrew explains their unit economics including 20,000 monthly placements and a $60 CPM.13:59–17:03 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 HostGator Mid-Roll Sponsorship and Austin Live Event Promotion Nathan transitions through mid-roll advertisements and conducts the standard Famous Five rapid-fire question segment in a collaborative manner.1:05–5:25 · Guest teaching 3/10 Introducing Andrew Kemendo and the Pair Augmented Reality Concept Nathan probes into Andrew's military background and pushes for concrete numbers regarding the founding equity split and seed funding amount.5:26–10:40 · Guest teaching 6/10 Pivoting from Visidraft SaaS to Pair 3D Consumer Furnishings Nathan intensely pushes back on Andrew's decision to shut down paying SaaS revenue to pursue a pre-revenue consumer AR platform, prompting Andrew to justify the shift using total addressable market scale.10:41–13:57 · Guest teaching 5/10 Monetization Mechanics, User Metrics, and Online Profiles Nathan presses on how Andrew can claim signed ad contracts without active usage billing, while Andrew explains their unit economics including 20,000 monthly placements and a $60 CPM.13:59–17:03 · Guest teaching 1/10 HostGator Mid-Roll Sponsorship and Austin Live Event Promotion Nathan transitions through mid-roll advertisements and conducts the standard Famous Five rapid-fire question segment in a collaborative manner.1:05–5:25 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Introducing Andrew Kemendo and the Pair Augmented Reality Concept Nathan probes into Andrew's military background and pushes for concrete numbers regarding the founding equity split and seed funding amount.5:26–10:40 · Guest disagreement 4/10 Pivoting from Visidraft SaaS to Pair 3D Consumer Furnishings Nathan intensely pushes back on Andrew's decision to shut down paying SaaS revenue to pursue a pre-revenue consumer AR platform, prompting Andrew to justify the shift using total addressable market scale.10:41–13:57 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Monetization Mechanics, User Metrics, and Online Profiles Nathan presses on how Andrew can claim signed ad contracts without active usage billing, while Andrew explains their unit economics including 20,000 monthly placements and a $60 CPM.13:59–17:03 · Guest disagreement 0/10 HostGator Mid-Roll Sponsorship and Austin Live Event Promotion Nathan transitions through mid-roll advertisements and conducts the standard Famous Five rapid-fire question segment in a collaborative manner.1:05–5:25 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Introducing Andrew Kemendo and the Pair Augmented Reality Concept Nathan probes into Andrew's military background and pushes for concrete numbers regarding the founding equity split and seed funding amount.5:26–10:40 · Nathan pushing back 7/10 Pivoting from Visidraft SaaS to Pair 3D Consumer Furnishings Nathan intensely pushes back on Andrew's decision to shut down paying SaaS revenue to pursue a pre-revenue consumer AR platform, prompting Andrew to justify the shift using total addressable market scale.10:41–13:57 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Monetization Mechanics, User Metrics, and Online Profiles Nathan presses on how Andrew can claim signed ad contracts without active usage billing, while Andrew explains their unit economics including 20,000 monthly placements and a $60 CPM.13:59–17:03 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 HostGator Mid-Roll Sponsorship and Austin Live Event Promotion Nathan transitions through mid-roll advertisements and conducts the standard Famous Five rapid-fire question segment in a collaborative manner.

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Nathan 56% · guest 44%0:00 · Nathan 56% · guest 44%3:00 · Nathan 14.4% · guest 85.6%3:00 · Nathan 14.4% · guest 85.6%6:00 · Nathan 22.6% · guest 77.4%6:00 · Nathan 22.6% · guest 77.4%9:00 · Nathan 23.9% · guest 76.1%9:00 · Nathan 23.9% · guest 76.1%12:00 · Nathan 48.8% · guest 51.2%12:00 · Nathan 48.8% · guest 51.2%15:00 · Nathan 87% · guest 13%15:00 · Nathan 87% · guest 13%18:00 · Nathan 100% · guest 0%18:00 · Nathan 100% · guest 0%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 10:14 Andrew defends pivot with TAM metrics

Andrew firmly pushes back against Nathan's skepticism, countering that the architectural SaaS market capped out at $100M whereas consumer home furnishings is a $101B market.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 10:05 Nathan cuts in on abandoning paying customers

Nathan interrupts Andrew to explicitly challenge why a founder would shut down an active revenue stream to earn zero revenue.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 10:14 Educating on market size disparity

Andrew reframes the business decision from short-term cash flow to venture-scale market capture, contrasting a $100M total addressable market with a $101B opportunity.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 12:17 Nathan synthesizes high-intent CPM economics

Nathan demonstrates advertising domain knowledge by contrasting low broad-market Google CPMs with high-intent 3D AR product placement justifying $60 CPMs.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Introducing Andrew Kemendo and the Pair Augmented Reality Concept 5324 Nathan probes into Andrew's military background and pushes for concrete numbers regarding the founding equity split and seed funding amount.
Pivoting from Visidraft SaaS to Pair 3D Consumer Furnishings 7647 Nathan intensely pushes back on Andrew's decision to shut down paying SaaS revenue to pursue a pre-revenue consumer AR platform, prompting Andrew to justify the shift using total addressable market scale.
Monetization Mechanics, User Metrics, and Online Profiles 6535 Nathan presses on how Andrew can claim signed ad contracts without active usage billing, while Andrew explains their unit economics including 20,000 monthly placements and a $60 CPM.
HostGator Mid-Roll Sponsorship and Austin Live Event Promotion 2101 Nathan transitions through mid-roll advertisements and conducts the standard Famous Five rapid-fire question segment in a collaborative manner.

Statements from this episode (9)

Disclosure
Kemendo: Pair Monetizes via CPC, Impressions, and Manufacturer Revenue Sharing
“So that's really how we make our revenue is through our manufacturer integrations. It's largely a cost per click, cost per impression model, but we have a couple others that we do revenue sharing with.”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 2:17
Disclosure
Kemendo: Pair 3D founders had a 50-30 equity split
“So we have like a, it's like a fifty-thirty split.”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 4:31
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Kemendo: Pair 3D raised just under $900k over 18 months
“Just under 900,000 we raised over the last 18 months.”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 5:08
Disclosure
Kemendo: Pair 3D paused revenue in 2016 after $40K in 2015
“We came out at the end of 2015 with about 40,000 dollars from some of our early manufacturers, but we said, okay, we're gonna stop that so that we can onboard faster because, you know, obviously more incentive, faster onboard.”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 7:34
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kemendo: Pair 3D has the world's largest AR catalog with 2,000+ products
“So we've got 15 manufacturers now. Some of the largest names, some of them I can't actually say, unfortunately, because we're still in pilot phase. But those are, so 15 names that you would recognize, and out of those, we have over 2000 products, which is the …”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 7:55
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kemendo: Home furnishings TAM is $101B vs. $100M for architecture
“The biggest size you can get in the architectural model is about a hundred million. I mean, that's the total addressable market for architects. The total addressable market for home furnishings is a hundred and one billion dollars this year.”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 10:15
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kemendo: Pair 3D projects nearly $1.5M in advertising revenue this year
“We already have signed contracts for revenue. We expect that over this year, our CPM and CPC revenue numbers will come in at close to 1.5 million, and those are the projections that we have with our on going.”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 10:58
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kemendo: Users place roughly 20,000 products monthly in Pair 3D
“Somewhere around 20,000 products get put in into any of the spaces on any given month.”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 12:01
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kemendo: Pair 3D achieves a 6% CTR and $60 CPM
“And so over that, so we do six, so our click through rate is six percent and we're doing a 60 dollar CPM.”
Andrew Kemendo Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 12:10
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