The Exchanges

Q Help us understand like why you did that deal. And if you're not spending, using it on ads, where are you spending it to drive growth?

A We got, uh, 450,000 dollars. I think that is the right number, right? We have the absolute luxury that our growth is profitable and our unit economics are extremely profitable. So I don't need to raise money to keep the lights on. That puts us in a somewhat nice spot. I mean, we actually, all the growth we're doing, we're doing plus minus EBITDA profitable. Some months we lose a little bit money. Some months we make a little bit money, but yeah, we primarily use it to, um, scale our outside sales operation, right? Like what our, since we promote so fast, we kind of have a step function. People are really good on the ground. They bring in money, but then we promote them to open up a new market. So we're actually growing market by market. The moment we do that, we lose that person on the ground making money. So we lose that Delta on actually cash coming in. They do get a base and now we have to put ads in indeed to find good candidates. Uh, right. We are spending to ramp up the market.

AI assessment note: “we primarily use it to, um, scale our outside sales operation”

Q Like why do you want to go cover so many industries? Does that mean, doesn't that make you weaker on everything else? Like, knowing what brain to build for a salon is different than the brain for a car dealership.

A Car dealership, let's take that out of the equation. Salon and restaurant, very, very similar. So that is the one we would look at first. Um, but yeah, it's a good question. I mean, for now, we are exclusively, every time we hire new reps, everyone is, can I go into others? And we say, no. We are only in restaurants. But if we think bigger, Mainstreet has such a big need. I don't see, and I see, you know, a big opportunity. When our product is there, we own the distribution on the ground. It could be an easy flywheel to unlock, but exactly, that is the challenge. Like, we did open up to hair salons, nail salons late last year, and exactly what you mentioned we found. We are just missing five percent to be perfect for them, and that is why we stopped it. With building becomes more bottleneck, the question is how easy can we adjust for this five percent, right? And we're not answering that question over the next six to 12 months, but we might try to answer that question next year.

AI assessment note: “We are just missing five percent to be perfect for them, and that is why we stopped it.”

Q So what would it look like if I applied today to join you as a commission sales rep, what would my basic like and what commission would you give me? What's my quota target?

A Yeah. So, you know, quota target is actually fairly low. It's still not a walk in the park, but it's around six locations a month. You would bring in about 36,000 of ARR, um, a month at around six locations. It's plus minus, right? Depending if you sell more hours. Correct. Exactly. Okay. So, you know, you take home between 30 to 40%. So that's real money. We're giving a lot of year one revenue away to the rep, which allows us to actually build and scale the company. On the flip side, from a biz dev side, you know, we're pretty open about this. Well, we don't spend money on ads, right? So we have virtually zero capex on a growth perspective for us, and we have a distribution that scales and actually builds a natural barrier of entry.

AI assessment note: “quota target is actually fairly low... around six locations a month... take home between 30 to 40%”

Q answering. We'll do the social media management. And you knew this was important because you actually, Came from the industry, you know, and you feel the pain. So what does this actually mean for the audience that's never been in restaurants before? When you say done for you phone answering, are you literally, you're not standing in every, in every SMB, you know, answering the phone. What does that mean?

A And what, what it really means is just, I mean, AI will answer the phone, right? Like, and the cool thing is we can clone the business owner voice, right? Like if I run a German restaurant, Carl Schnitzelhaus, right? I maybe want that Carl was my slight German accent. That's very German. Right? Actually, actually picks up, um, you know, picks up the phone. So Yeah, we can clone the, the, the voice of the business owner, answer whether one person calls or a million people calls, but here's the, the core thing. There's a lot of competition in this, right? Like, and what we always think about in the world of AI, I think there's still a lot of companies focusing on the transaction. So you have an AI voice answering to help someone to buy a burger. That's good and great, but that was what the phone call did before. We are helping really just a little bit. For us, it's more about, can we capture the data? Can we get an express verbal consent from a phone call to turn a phone call for a burger Into 20 more burger transactions down the line.

AI assessment note: “what it really means is just, I mean, AI will answer the phone”

Q Was it quick or slow working with FounderPath? Just what would you recommend to other founders there?

A You know, extremely quick, right? Extremely quick. And I think I just, you know, the one thing, so, so FounderPath, right? Working with you, Nathan, has been, has been amazing, has been super smooth. When you look at financing, you just always have to be aware, right? Like in any cases, if I take on half a million dollars, and let's say I pay a 100,000 dollars on fees on that or whatever, right? Like, I mean, whatever the number is, right? My cost of capital was a 100,000. Well, A 100,000 dollars for half a million is a pretty good deal, considering if I would take half a million dollars, 10 X that as a result, my cost on capital would be 4.5 million when that investor takes five million dollars at an exit. And again, everyone is winning when things goes well, right? But taking that on can be one of the most effective ways, right? But you have to be in the luxury that you know your actual EBITDA, you know your profit margin, because it can also, and so far we don't see that happening to us, right? But it can, it can screw you because you have that cost.

AI assessment note: “You know, extremely quick, right? Extremely quick.”

Q Talk more about the product roadmap, right? What, you know, if we refresh your website in a year, what does the product likely look like?

A I think really how we are seeing the market, and this is pretty interesting, I think, is point solutions having a tough time. And so what that means is, you know, in the vertical, we're selling into a website as a point solution. Online ordering is a point solution. Um, reservations is a point solution. Scheduling is a point solution. I mean, even the point of sale can become a point solution, right? And they're all becoming extremely easy to build, and they're all Having an amazing amount of data. So currently what part of our business model is we do free websites, free online ordering, free loyalty and rewards, where there is other companies where that's their bread and butter, and we can come in and cut them out entirely. And we then monetize with the AI layer on top.

AI assessment note: “currently what part of our business model is we do free websites”

Q I have a technical background. Do you code? Are you in engineering?

A So, it's, I think, like a lot of founders. I have a computer science degree. I was not involved, and since the beautiful world of cloud code, I'm back involved. In the industry that we're selling into, it's about going from zero to one. Having data being used for the first time, and building primarily a lot of Smart pipelines. And I think the one thing which in this world of AI is the reality is also not everything needs to be AI. A lot of the thing is deterministic, right? Like it's, we're now trying to AI-fy everything when there's a lot of workflows that can be actually just deterministic. But long story short, I mean, we have obviously a top-notch tech team that builds all of this, but I think-

AI assessment note: “I have a computer science degree. I was not involved... I'm back involved.”

Q Okay. How many customers do you have today, and how are you getting more customers? What's your go-to-market?

A We're growing incredibly fast. You know, we are at, like, 400% year over year. It's actually accelerating. Right now, I'm seeing primarily our competitors go to market cold calling, automation, email, right? And it's becoming equalized. Everyone uses the same data pricks, clay, 11 laps, you know, AI pipeline, and is calling on the customer. So business owners are already going bombarded. I get bombarded with cold calls, right? And so we are exclusively selling door-to-door. So what we actually are is we are a solar company, a pest control company, a roofing company, right? Like, and it's incredibly scalable because this has been, there has been billion pharmaceuticals, another fantastic example, exclusively with outside salespeople, but it allows us in a relationship driven industry to actually build relationships, right? Like restaurant owners, they are caring, like there's crazy shorn in SMB SaaS, right? And I think every founder, you know, that is Trying to sell an SMB SaaS will found the hard part the moment you get to a level of customers is keeping up with the ones that just go out of business at the top and keep, you know, adding on top. And then just sharing in general, right? Business owners are super flaky. Like, you maybe add so much value, but someone else beats you a little bit on price, business owner will switch an SMB. I don't want to be toast. I don't necessari…

AI assessment note: “We're growing incredibly fast. You know, we are at, like, 400% year over year.”