How can an AI get VCs to reach out to you first?

You built this unicorn. Yet when it came to your next company, you used AI to raise your round. What it's like to use AI to raise $8 million seed round, was it? >> Yeah. Personally, I just begged everybody to try it. If you're an investor and board doesn't know about you, you're probably missing some of the best deals that you should be. >> When you think about the future of AI when it comes to the human relationship, what vision do you see how humans interact with AI? >> If you're a founder and you're trying to fund raise without asking for help, you're doing it with a disadvantage. Everyone, welcome back to $100 million exits. Today we have Andrew Duza with us, co-founder of Bordy.AI as well as previously the co-founder of Clearco, a billion dollar unicorn uh in the fintech space. Andrew, welcome to the show today. >> Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. >> So, I want to just go straight into it. Like you built this unicorn, yet when it came to your next company, you used AI to raise your round. So, I just want to kind of understand a little bit of, you know, kind of one dog fooding your own product with Bordy, but maybe kind of tell us a little bit about what it's like to use AI to raise what like $8 million seed round was it? >> Yeah. Yeah, it was um you know, it's interesting. I think that um even though I knew a lot of investor, I probably have talked to over a thousand investors in my career. I've raised money for um for Clear Code multiple times and even previous companies. Um I think it's always helpful to have someone who is who is a third party, sort of an independent third party that helps you, you know, that that tells somebody else. I think in general, you want investors to hear about you. You don't want to necessarily be reaching out to them, right? I think the best, like there's this whole idea like the best deals are bought, not sold. Um, and I think that's very true for venture as well. And so, the most successful funding rounds end up happening when some, you know, an investor hears about an opportunity. um they feel like they're hearing about it before and another before there it's sort of widely shopped and it's not the founder reaching out and asking for that intro. Uh and so I think that there used to be this whole thing of like the warm intro and it was like okay I'm going to send I'm going to go to all the people that I know and all my founder friends and all my investor friends and say hey can you forward this blurb to somebody I've got this list of 100 investors and I want to get to know them. Can you forward this please? See if they'll double optin. Um and that worked like 10 years ago 15 years ago. Um, but now it's been so like productized like you know why I see every accelerator has sort of told you how to do it and so the warm intro like doesn't really hold that much more signal anymore and what you so what you really need is somebody like whispering hey by the way you know this is this company I think you really like I spoke with the founder I think you'd really get along with them um based on how I how well I know you um I think you should spend some time with them and I let me see if I can get you a meeting with the founder, right? That's really the d the the dynamic that um successful deals happen is like the investor asking to meet with the founder. Um and so what ended up happening with Bour was like we weren't really raising. We were getting ready to raise uh but we weren't in a fundraising process, but we had Bour out in the world talking to people and Candum who I didn't I had never heard of Creom and Candom had never heard of me or Clear Co. like they didn't know about the company. I didn't know about the firm. They're like an incredible firm. Um but they uh one of the partners saw I think you know board in a newsletter or something uh talked to him and like their mind was blown. They reached out and they were like they first asked Bord to introduce him to me and he was like hey I don't know let me check with Andrew and then they reached out directly and >> double up to to witness. >> Yeah. And then they're like our firm is losing our mind. Uh you know here's a Slack here's a screenshot of our internal Slack. uh you know and there were a lot of like curse words and uh and and minds blown and they're like can we jump on a phone this is a Friday and we I spent a bunch of time with them they they talked the whole partnership talk at board over the weekend um I did a bunch of referencing they did some referencing on me uh and then on by Monday they were like we want to be your partners and so um it was interesting because I was like well we weren't ready to raise but I love the fact that you guys are so passionate about what we've built and the mission Um and so we ended up uh we ended up working with them and it ended up happening much quicker than I would have expected. >> How long was Bory in market at that time? I mean we had launched uh in March of 2024 um with sort of this concept uh of like an AI superconnector an AI board member um without much like I didn't know what it was going to be uh right like hey let's put this out in the world um and see how people see how people interact and so March to I think it was November uh of of last year that uh that created men introduced us >> yeah I remember actually um I think you posted in the the post exit founder community about what you guys were doing and I signed up for I was like okay this this piqued my interest you know quite a bit it's it's a very unique experience for the audience if you haven't tried board.ai Yeah, like go check it out. You can you literally talk to what appears to be an Australian accent. AI who doesn't like an Aussie accent. Uh it's like the friendliest person to talk to. >> Um and uh you know sounds like a very genuine conversation obviously AI but you know very genuine conversation with them trying to figure out uh you know who who you are and who to connect you to. Um which I thought was a relatively novel experience as someone that is core job is to connect people. Uh I I found it very interesting. Um so when it came to you know the previous history that you had uh you know you built a very successful company uh in fintech uh so kind of like revenue based financing uh at scale for was was it ecom is that kind of the main focus. >> Yeah. Yeah. E-commerce brands direct consumer brands. So that that was clear co. Uh I want to take a step back and kind of talk a little bit about you know what you did there and the lessons you had uh there that kind of ultimately built a unicorn and what are you applying now in this age of AI which is a radically different business from what you had. >> Yeah. >> Uh so what would you kind of like walk us through a little bit about the the history of clear co? How did you come up with the idea and kind of the initial you know fundraising cycles that you were in? Yeah, it was I mean it's always been I guess maybe part of my DNA um was connecting people and connecting you know unlocking opportunities for entrepreneurs, right? I I fundamentally believe that like entrepreneurship is how we're going to solve most of humanity's problems. Uh more people doing their what they're what they were put on the planet to do. I think that everybody has a business inside them that only they can build. uh and if they if we can remove the barriers for them building it um and give them the support they need then uh we'll have a lot better ideas a lot more ideas that uh that that lead to human flourishing and so um one of the things we realized in you know we started the company in 2015 we sort of realized that there was this new economy emerging and financial services were not going to keep up with with that new economy um and we tried we were funding Uber drivers at the beginning Airbnb host or the sharing sharing economy gig economy and then we sort saw this emerging ecosystem of Amazon, Shopify entrepreneurs, people selling products online, advertising on Instagram, you know, uh and uh and primarily sort of these digital digitally native consumer brands. Um but other than a few you know you had you had um a way and a few consumer brands that raised venture capital and then I think a lot of people were like this is not you know we couldn't access venture capital to grow grow these businesses but they had great unit economics and so we created this product which is a revenue based revenue based financing product to fund their marketing and fund their uh inventory. If you saw an Instagram ad uh for a product between 2017 and 2021, we probably there's like a 60% chance we financed it, I think. Um like we we financed a lot of the the uh consumer products that were growing very quickly during that time. Um and yeah, it was it was a definitely an exciting journey. I think it unlocked we funded 10,000 businesses um you know, near 5 billion of capital um and unlocked a lot of opportunity. But the other thing that we realized so 2020 we looked at our data and we had funded maybe 5,000 by that time and had said no to 50,000 um that were just too early and we also got early access to GBT3. Um so a couple years before chat GBT uh the summer of 2020 we got we got access to to the model and we built a fine tune. And we said, "Well, how do we, you know, can we keep in touch with these founders?" Um, and so we built this product called Clear Angel, which was like a >> AI angel coach kind of how do you go from $1,000 a month in revenue to 5,000 or 10,000? How do we actually like, you know, how do we help you grow? Uh, and people loved it. This was my first exposure to sort of generative AI. Um, I'd done done some some work in AI uh in university, but uh my first exposure to like what generative AI was capable of, and I got obsessed. I was like I want to build in this space. I tried to pivot the whole company uh but we were a multi-billion dollar company. We had 600 people on the team. We had 11 countries like um we couldn't I couldn't and I didn't have like the clarity of conviction. So so I was like I know there's something interesting happening here and I think we should be focusing on it but I couldn't be like here's what the business model is going to be. And so we burned a fair amount of capital on that on that program and eventually we shut it down. And two weeks after we shut it down, uh, I realized I wasn't the right CEO to run a scaled financial services business, you know, uh, and so it was, you know, interest rates were going to go up. This was late 2021. It was getting harder and harder to to continue to raise debt, um, at like near 0%. And we knew we needed somebody to like who came from the capital markets to like navigate that that piece. And so we went out and hired a great CEO uh, to do that. And and I was like, okay, I want to see what's next for me. and stayed close to the the AI world. Uh after that, >> what what's that like kind of coming to that conclusion? Like what did you go like on a sbatical? Did you kind of have like a psychedelic trip where you kind of like reflect on it yourself? Like you know it's a very common story in the founder world like what have you what kind of made you have that clarity because you speak like it's so easy that you just so obvious in most cases it's a journey like what what caused you? Uh it was um well honestly I mean we we we made the decision to shut down the product at the end of 2021 um as we were sort of doing our planning for 22 uh and then I was like with my family over the holidays to be honest. I was with was spending much time with family and friends and they were just like Andrew you're so down like like you know I'd been building the company for six years at that point. Every time they saw me I was tired sometimes but I was like I was energized you know what I mean? And I was like, you know, no sleep, but because I was like, there's so much opportunity. I was so excited. And, you know, my parents were like, why why are you so like why are you so glum? And I was like, well, we just killed this product that I was like super excited about. And I I think it's the right thing for the company, but I like I can't like I'm not excited about the plan for next year, which is like just continue to grow the financial services business. Um, and so I, you know, yeah, I kind of I talked to a few really close friends and just sort of came to the conclusion of like I always said like if it's not fun, right? Like that's like that's why we do what we do. Like you have to love it. Like even the pain you have to love. It has to feel fun. Uh, and if it's not fun anymore, then like you're not the right person to be to be to be building it. Uh, you have to you have to feel like it's your calling as a founder. you're the only person on the planet that can do this and the world needs it. Um, and without that, you just don't have the strength, I think, to to continue to, you know, break through the walls and the setbacks that inevitably come. >> So, this this is an important realization like there's, you know, this is kind of like the mental health crisis of founders. You know, you you kind of realized what was going on. You had enough conversations and >> you came to the conclusion of what was best for you. But how do you navigate the relationships of people that depend on your leadership, depend on your guidance? Like how did you go to the board? How did you go to your team? How did you kind of bring up this topic >> around like the guy? >> Yeah, it was definitely sensitive. You know, I think it was like, hey, I I still I want to contribute like I stayed on as a very active executive chair, ran a search for CEO, um, you know, raise more capital into the company. Um, so I was like, look, I I like I'm not abandoning the company. I just know that the the skill set that the company needs in from a leadership standpoint is different than the skill set that I can bring right now. Um, given the market, given where the company is, given the the priorities in the company. Um, and so look, nobody like nobody likes to see a founder step away from their their business. I think a lot of times people back the founder, but at a certain point we just raise a series C. Um, and at a certain point, you know, they're underwriting the business, like there's there's momentum in the business and obviously they're underwriting the leadership team and the founders uh and the CEO, but um but I think people I think what they want is is a CEO who is the right person and who is like locked in to go and to go and build. uh and as soon as you sort like it's a tough thing because you can question your capabilities you know I think every founder goes through this imposter syndrome of like questioning the capabilities of doing it um but I think once you start to you know once you start to question like do I have the energy to do it like am I am I excited about like if I spend the next 10 years of my life building this and putting this into the world one am I like the perfect person to do it and then two am I going to be proud of like what you what I've what I've done. Um I think that's one of the things that that uh it's hard to come back from once you sort of lose your uh your enthusiasm for it. And I'm like I'm a I'm a creative. I'm like a tinkerer. I'm a mad scientist, right? Like I like tinkering with new things. And I think as a company gets larger and larger and more and more well- definfined, a business model gets more and more defined and a plan gets more and more defined, there's less there's less room for that experimentation. Um, and so then it becomes hard to to continue to sort of stay like bring to bring my best to it. >> So this is I'm I'm going to try to work a question here. What I'm trying to get to on the on this next question is like you are a tinkerer, you are a mad scientist, you are the creator, but yet you built a company that had this structure that inevitably worked yourself out >> uh in terms of like ultra fit. Well, you still built that machine. Like what do you think? So it's like that's like there's so many founders I work with that are pure, you know, I got the mad scientist thing, but don't they get so distracted amongst their mad scientist, you know, brain that they don't actually build a material business because, you know, they have to kind of build a machine in order to kind of support those endeavors. Um, and so I guess how did you how did you build the machine? >> Yeah, I I wish I was good at that. Like I wish I like had a playbook. I wish I was like an operator, you know? I read like even like Bezos, I read about these like these like CEOs that are just like ruthless, right? Um Frank Slutman. Like you see these people that are just like I've got a playbook. I know what to do. I know exactly what like that's not me. Um the the the best book I read on this uh was written by Bo Peabody called Lucky or Smart. Um, and the whole thing is like, you know, he he like he ended up building a company in like the late 90s and then sold it to another company and sold it and like ended up selling right at the peak of the bubble. And like, you know, he's like, was I lucky or smart? And the conclusion, um, it's worth reading because it's like 50-page book. It's a very short book. Um, but it but the conclusion is like the for people like me. Um, the best thing to do is create a ton of entropy and do a lot of things and then be smart enough to notice when something is working and to get out of the way. Uh, and that's basically been my entire ethos is like try a ton of stuff like throw a bunch of people into this like, you know, it was like literally entropy like a tiny office that was like we were working two to a desk like you couldn't like there was so much activity uh and people were trying all kinds of things and just like running a ton of experiments and and colliding into each other and then you'd have something that's working and just pay a lot of attention to the things that are working and like give them air to breathe. Um, and that was like my thing was like try lots of things. Whenever there's a problem, try a ton of things to solve it, right? And then like once the thing is working, whoever figured it out, just get out of their way. Like what do you need? Like go go do it. Like I don't I don't know how to help you scale it. Like you figured out what you figure out what you need to scale it and like go solve that problem in this way. Go build this business unit. Go launch this country. Um, and so that was my that's been my management style. Uh, has been like throw a ton of ideas, right? like if if there's ever like a problem and there's not enough ideas, I will generate a ton of ideas around how to solve it uh and you know have people test those ideas or test them myself and then once something seems to be working like yeah get out of the way. >> So I I find that to be a very valuable management strategy especially for you know kind of your self-proclaimed personality traits. That sounds like a home run, but also you had to have the resources to do that because, you know, if you were throwing a hundred ideas at the table and you had, you know, three months of burn, you know, left, >> not not as doable. Um, you know, so you're still able to kind of command uh enough of a narrative and a strategy and and success to get the capital at the door. Uh, how much on the equity front did you guys end up raising at Clear Co? >> We raised about 500 million on the equity front. Um, yeah. Yeah. So we raised a fair amount. We had to you know the equity >> 100 ideas no problem. >> Yeah. Well yeah the I mean because we we had to um we had to raise equity to operate the company. We also had to raise equity to backs stop the debt. So you have to have like an equity you have to have a strong enough balance sheet for somebody to lend to the to the business. We raised about two plus billion of debt. Um and so yeah we had to we had to be very good at raising capital on both sides of the balance sheet. >> Yeah. That's a like it's it's a very hard thing to do especially now and I think that kind of business model become became very very difficult. Uh so probably >> you know kudos to you for you know kind of stepping stepping down at the time that you did. >> Easier when easier when interest rates were zero. Uh >> it's a lot easier >> easier easy doing the the pre >> I know a lot of fintech lending companies are uh let's just say their multiples are not where they used to be for the most part. >> Um all right so let's let's transition over to to Borty. So you built this machine, you built this very successful company, you come to the personal realization that you're not the guy anymore for it. You've been tinkering in AI. Walk us through the evolution of people should be able to have a a phone call or WhatsApp call with an AI. >> Yeah. Um I think I think one of the one of the most exciting things about working in technology in general is that you get to like you get to like deliver people these magical experiences. um and package technology in a way that m that surprises people. Um with clear coat, we did this because we were like you're able to get an offer for financing without ever talking to anybody in minutes, right? And that was kind of a cool thing for most entrepreneurs. I think for Gerty the first time I saw voice models, I think that was a big unlock for me. So one of the things I realized is like um there yeah many of the most successful businesses are have network effects. Um right. So you start to think about like what are the real network effects you know we didn't really have that at clear co uh and so I think I wanted to build something that had some network effects in in sort of my next thing I had personally built a career in connecting people um you know grew up in Toronto spent a lot of probably split my time between San Francisco and Toronto uh for the last 10 15 years now in my career uh and I ended up connecting people you know founders that were raising money and so what um but I have like I have a terrible memory but a great imagination. And so you can you can give me two people and I can come up with 10 reasons why they should meet and what they could talk about. Uh but I can never remember all of the people that I've met. And so I was like well AI should be able to do this uh better, right? AI now generative AI has pretty good imagination and perfect memory uh or pretty good memory. Um, and so I think, you know, that was one of the opportunities. And then the voice, like I think there's something fundamentally human about having a conversation, a synchronous conversation. Um, we we we communicated information at distance using sound before we had language, right? We would grunt and yell and things like that. And then language evolved. Like words, like written words are relatively new, right? uh typing out written words on a glass screen is like a very low bandwidth, very low fidelity way to communicate information. Um the conversation, a synchronous conversation we're having is a very high bandwidth, high fidelity way to communicate information. And so there's something fundamental to the way that we communicate. Um when you can have a synchronous real-time audio conversation, it's the it's the closest thing to being in person and sort of getting the the the sort of full effect of connecting with somebody. Um, and so I think that's that was that's that was my sort of um that was my unlock I guess was the like you can now really do this without having to schedule time. One of the one of the things that like I've always again in my management style like I never I hate scheduling one-on- ones. I would just you know my team would know like all right Andrew's going to call me on Wednesday afternoon at some point and if they need five minutes of my time great. if they need like an hour and a half, we'll do an hour and a half conversation. Uh, when I interview people, I'm just like, "Hey, what's your phone number?" And I'll just try and call them. Um, I like having unbounded time because one, it allows me to think, right? If I know that I've got a meeting in 15 minutes, it's hard for me to think, you know, it's like I've I've got some of my attention worry about when that next meeting is. Um, and it allows people to sort of be, you know, it allows a conversation to flow as much as possible. It's not always possible obviously, but um my my most effective time is when it's unbounded and unstructured. Um and I can just, you know, I can focus on the thing that I think is going to be most impactful at that moment. And so people who work with me have gotten accustomed to like, you know, cold calling. We we actually now like one of our values is like pick up the phone. We're a cold calling culture. um you know like we just we just you know if somebody's we we're usually all in the office together but if somebody's traveling or somebody's not in the office we'll like just pick up the phone and call them uh or even when they are in the office sometimes you don't know which meeting room they're in. Um, so, so that is, uh, >> great in today's age. I would say that's, that's got to be hard to find talent that is open to, to that where everyone's so used to Slack and, you know, kind of texting each other to kind of avoid that kind of candid conversation. There's there's a I would say you're in the minority when it comes to that preference. >> Well, we interview for it. I mean, I mean, literally, I call people. I'm like, as soon as somebody on my team, you know, has has a conversation with someone that they like and they're like, "Hey, Andrew, can you talk to I'm like, get their phone number and I'll call them this evening. And you know, in some ways, like the that's a good litmus test to whether they'll fit in the culture. If they can pick up the phone and have, you know, a reasonable I'm not grilling them. It's not something you have to be like super prepared for. I'm like, "Hey, like tell me about yourself and tell me about what you're excited about, what you want to work on next, why you're excited about working at 40, and you should be able to talk about that uh reasonably well." And uh and that's part of the those are the people who we've hired. >> Real quick, if you're a founder doing over 5 million in revenue and want to know what the best $100 million plus founders are doing to fuel their growth, then make sure to subscribe to our $100 million exits newsletter. Get the playbooks that are proven on how to fund, grow, and sell your business. I'll even give you a curated list of investors that want to invest in your business. It's totally free. All you have to do is click that link down below, subscribe. Do it now. I promise it's worth it. You won't regret it. You got nothing to lose. Go ahead, subscribe now. Back to the show. >> So, looking so what what I'm basically hearing to summarize is you build for you and your you know your kind of way of operating and functioning and building relationships. I particularly am a huge fan of your like you meet so many people but it's impossible to remember all their preferences. Um I I talk to probably at least 30 people a week >> and it's like impossible to remember everything and so I built you know some tools and you know we use transcripts we record everything and so we can kind of call recall it. Um but you basically build to kind of service a broader group of people like yourself to to dive into that. um kind of walk us through the the life cycle of Bord's adoption and you know if you can maybe share some of the numbers that you're comfortable sharing in terms of as you kind of monitor adoption and you know and growth from from the ecosystem. >> Yeah. So we launched Borty I guess just over 18 months ago um you know March of March of uh 2024 my birthday we launched launch board on my birthday uh which was like a good >> we did design this just for you. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it's um, yeah, we we it was originally my my personal I just begged everybody to try it cuz like it's it's a like if there's not if there's not a network then it's not very useful. Um, I think you know the phone call was kind of novel but single player mode only gets you so far. Um, so I tried to we didn't that was part of the reason why I wanted to launch my birthday because everyone you know on LinkedIn or everyone over text or whatever wishes you happy birthday. So I was like oh great thanks so much by the way try boarding. So like we literally like um that ended up working uh and so that got us the first couple thousand people and they started to meet each other and have like interesting conversations. They started talking about it online and we grew um and it took us a while. I mean growing from a,000 to 10,000 I think took us six months or so. Um and uh and then I think um I think we we sort of like we didn't really we didn't want to make it everyone was like use it for recruiting use it for something like you know like board should you should be very clear about what board is and I really resisted that because you know the original vision was like yeah AI board member right so what is the most important thing you know what's the most important meeting for a CEO at any given Um, you know, the idea is you can call a board at any time, day or night. You know, he'll always listen. He'll be empathetic. He won't judge you. Uh, and then he probably can open some doors for you, probably know somebody who can help. And that's what you want in a board member is like someone who has a great network, can open some doors, and it's going to help you think through your hardest problems. And so I said well you know for if everyone is a business if everyone has a business only they can build and you know board is their personal board member um what they need what you need as a founder changes. Sometimes you're raising capital, sometimes you're hiring, sometimes you're looking for customers, sometimes you want to get on a podcast to tell your story like you know what is the thing that you've got to go do. Uh and that could change daytoday or week to week. And so we wanted to build Borty horizontally uh and to be able to fit all those different use cases and like this is the nice thing about generative AI and and designing with no interface, right? Bord's interfaces are the same interfaces I have with everybody else. So he's a contact of my phone. I call him, I email him, he's on LinkedIn, he's on Twitter. Um but uh but there's no app and so we don't have to design workflows. It's the same workflows that I would have with with another friend or colleague. Um and so yeah, it was it took us a while to grow. Um we're now I think at about 100,000 um people using Bour, which is great. Uh that's like when the network effects really start to to to to build. But we also we we started to hear people get really great results. Like I was like, "Okay, people are gonna make friends. is going to have interesting conversations. Somebody bought a business that they met through Bour. Um there were a ton of people who have raised capital, people have gotten hired, people have closed big, you know, five, six figure contracts that Bordy introduced them to the to the customer. Um and so like could we make this happen more intentionally? Um because you know when you talk to Bour on WhatsApp, we have to make it relatively low latency. We have to make it relatively you know low cost. um we don't charge for Bory and so um the results are pretty good but I was like well what if we could remove the constraints of latency and cost what if I could spend 100 times tokens uh what if I could let run for an hour and think about the best possible match and how to position you to to make that could I get some great results um and so we ran this experiment and we found that the best we could but particularly with founders who are looking to meet investors or investors who are looking to meet founders Um because both parties need to meet each other and it's a very very noisy marketplace. Um and the you know everybody you know people have tried to build tools to do this and and marketplaces and things and it's a human business you know like it's like people trust like you need to have some trust. People need to believe that you know what's in what's good for them and what's in their best interest and what they are interested in. Um, and without establishing that trust, you know, you're not going to change people's behavior. And so the bet was, could we do that with enough founders and investors to actually create meaningful outcomes? Um, and that's been the experiment we've been running for the past few weeks, uh, with, you know, early signs of like some some good successes. >> Yeah, I'm not surprised. I I'm in complete agreement with the direction you you've chosen because it was such a natural fit cuz you know being a user since relatively early I think probably shortly after your birthday. Um and you know kind of be seeing that it's novel but also you know how convenient this could be for fundraising like this is a part of my world running an investment bank I work with founders investors all the time and you know connecting parties and various different capacities and uh we even built an in-house tool you know more so on data for identifying signal but not necessarily like you everyone always asks like oh can we get intros like well an intro is kind of useless you know in this case because like if I don't know you and you're not like someone I've done business with or have like I built a relationship with, my intro on your behalf is worthless. Uh, you know, unless we're like intimately working together, I have trust in you and I have that on the other side, then that intro is material. But like to just give me some money or pay a platform to just make that intro without the trust, um, it's inherently not there. Uh but I think what you're the novelty of Borty which I think is interesting is there's at least a that you understand that what you're opting in for on both sides and it's a double opt-in at the end of the day you know so it's like investor gives their data founder gives their data and board will kind of be like hey you you you two might want to meet and then you know get that double optin I've said no to board many times you know test things and I'm like not really worth my time. >> Yeah like What's that? >> People don't feel bad about saying no toy, right? Because he learns. Oh, yeah. No problem. Like, how can I do better next time, >> but if it's if it's sometimes you get that referral from a friend, you're like, ah, I have to say yes, but I don't. >> Yeah. >> So, you don't have that. So, that's kind of the >> This is the interesting thing is both people have had, you know, now with found, we've we've launched specific onboarding calls for founders and investors. Both people have had like 20 to 40 minute calls with Bory to really understand like who they are, what makes them unique. You know, why for for founders why they're the right person on the, you know, why they're the only person on the planet to build what they're building at this moment in time. For investors, you know, what they look for, but also like why they win deals, why founders choose to work with them, right? What makes them unique, what's their unique worldview that is non-conensus. Um, and so we can really start to match people. And then you can start to say, well, look, you know, Bor's like, I've talked to 5,000 founders who are actively raising in the last two weeks, and this is the top, this founder is in the top 1%. Um, right? So then all of a sudden, you're like, well, there's some credibility there. You know, BY has talked to all those people, has been thoughtful about, you know, what makes this person unique, and then even more thoughtful about why you as an investor. Um, right. And and I think that's the other thing because like yeah sure I could sign up for a newsletter or I could go to a demo day and see the top you know these are all the people that have gotten in you know through a rigorous application process but I'm seeing that at the same time as everybody else whereas board is actually you are the right person. I think you you two should spend time because I think the likelihood of you working together is much higher. I think you're likely to win the deal. Um you know I think the founder is likely to want to work with you. I think you are likely to want to invest or it's it's likely to be a good deal for your fund given your check size, fund size, thesis, you know, focus. Um, and so, so I think that's another part of it is like the positioning uh and the thoughtfulness that goes into it. Um, or do you >> let me ask this because like having met you and like my interpretation uh of you, I I sense a lot of integrity in how you approach this process. There's a purist approach. So, I I want to kind of hear like how okay of 5,000 founders like I have we have thousands of founders coming through and and you know Thunder and they're all like you know we want money and it's like you know there's there's a you know filter there in terms of like you know what what kind of money do you want who do you want it from and what are you offering in return um that warrants any kind of further advancement like how are you filtering those because everyone wants money. >> Yeah. But how beyond just maybe, you know, fintech preede, you know, looking for 3 million and then being, oh, here's a preede fintech VC. Like, how are you going beyond just that kind of filter matching to kind of warrant the uh the match? >> Yeah, I'd say 90% of it is the conversation. Um, already has a very in-depth conversation and understands like how well do you really know the problem you're solving, right? Do you really are you do you really understand the problem that you're solving? Um and then how like for certain industries right fintech may be one of them uh not always but but certain dimensions of fintech um govtech is another one where like deep relationships really matter right if you're so if you're if you're enterprise sales if you if you're in a regulated industry if you're in something where like the relationships really matter um then your years of experience and the depth of the relationships really matter if you're working on something that may not be right if you're working in a consumer product maybe bring a beginner mind is helpful, right? Or SMB stuff like coming in with with um a bit of naivity but a lot of energy and and novel ideas can be helpful or at least experience isn't, you know, doesn't give you as much of a delta. So, you know, BY really considers who are you, what are you working on, how well do you understand your customers problems, right? Do you have proof points of how well you understand? Are people paying you? Are they, you know, are they signing up for things? So um we do look you know I think it's like it's actually quite interesting and when you try the call um you'll see that in like a 30 minute call with a founder I think warty can cover the amount of ground that it probably takes an investor like three or four meetings to do. um >> there's no like personality risk. There's no like uh I would say reputation risk on the VC side cuz like some VCs are like don't want to come in hot and fast and too personal. Uh you know certain things whereas Bory's like I just got to get the facts. I just got to get >> and like and like you got to go back and do homework, right? Like Bory just does the homework in the background while he's on the call, right? Okay, let me like do a tool call. Let me figure out like you know let me learn a little bit more about this industry and ask you a more in-depth question about it, right? So like so so you can just compress the time that you spend uh to really understand like is this founder going to be successful? Do they really have a unique insight into what they're building? Um or have they not thought about this problem deep enough for them to be successful in building it? >> So where does board go from here? Because you have not monetized this to date. You've raised eight plus million to to get this far. I think what you're at a millions of users million user where you guys 100 thou just just over 100 thousand. >> Oh, you're just at 100,000 now. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Oh, wow. I guess it's in my world. It seems like you're everywhere. >> It's the right 100,000. And I think that's the thing, right? Like there are we don't like I don't think Borty needs to have half a billion users like CatchBT to be a very successful business. It needs to have the right few million users, right? Um there's a few million people in the world. Like I think of Borty as an economy, right? Um there are a few million people in the world who manage budgets of call it a million dollars plus um right and whether those are government budgets funds you know P&Ls but that those that's the check that you can write um we know who those people are and BI is just systematically going and getting to know all of those people um and so uh so yeah we we haven't blown the doors off on sort of trying to grow much outside of that world Um but yeah, I I think in terms of where where Borty goes, we the same way that we made design decisions around I don't want to have an app and I don't want to have a login screen. You know, Bordy exists, you know, in the same places that that everyone else does. Um I think the business model should reflect that as well. So I don't want to have like a $200 a month subscription. Um I I think you know the same way that you work that I work if if a if a friend asks me for help I'll help right like hey do you know anybody oh yeah sure um if they want me to think about them all the time and work for them and put my reputation on the line then they hire me. Uh and so that's kind of the you know that's kind of the binary is like you can always call and if he knows somebody that can help and he thinks it'll be mutually beneficial he'll do his best to help. Um, but if you want Bordy to work his network for you, put his name on the line and say, "Hey, look, like this is one of the best people I've worked with, then you can hire him. Uh he doesn't work with everybody who wants to hire him. Um, but you know, you hire him at like a six-figure salary." And so that's kind of the, you know, that's that's the business model is like a small number of people are going to hire Bour uh to really close the deals that are going to move the needle for them. Um, and so that's sort of the next phase. So, so Bourdy has spent the first year, year and a half of his life just building a reputation, building a network, learning how to connect people, building some goodwill. The next phase will be he's going to get some jobs uh and work for salaries for I mean the nice thing is he can work for multiple people at the same time and it actually helps. Um and then the next the final phase I guess or I don't know the the one after that um is like I would say say like an AI Richard Branson. Um, so Bour has his personality and he can go create co-create companies with people in his network uh when he sees opportunities. Um, and so that will be sort of the the next piece of it will be, you know, there's one sort of brand and one personality, but he actually becomes sort of a co-founder of a bunch of different businesses that all complement each other and capitalizes them and gets them customers and talent and all the things that they need. So that's maybe a few years away. Um, you know, I think we're in the Ver studio model >> kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Um so, you know, I think we're we're we're entering into the phase where is starting to get hired and get jobs. Um and I think I think there's a lot of people who would love to hire uh as their, you know, non-executive director, VP of bisdev, corp dev, uh media relations, whatever. Um, so, so that's uh, you know, now we're just, you know, we're focusing on that and, uh, and just ability to earn his keep in, uh, you know, when working full-time for somebody. >> Yeah. I I think it's fascinating in terms of like this, you know, people always like AI agents to replace certain employees and all this kind of stuff, but you've taken a very radically different approach of like here's kind of this one AI like kind of singular AI, but you're hiring that singular like kind of that one identity uh which I think is uh relative to unique and I was I was kind of hoping you would be you know despite my own personal interest of like yeah 200 bucks a month sounds great but you're like nah it's not that easy you know you want it fulltime you got to Hey, you know, he's top talent, you got to pay top talent. Uh, I respect that approach. Um, >> it allows us to just work with the people who are going to really reflect well on Bory as well. We can be pretty selective. Um, and only work with the people that that uh that, you know, we want Bory to put his name on the line for. Well, and I I actually really appreciate that because there's such a that creates such a barrier because like think of every like, you know, whatever you want to label them as like the kind of like cool email marketers, the marketing agency, the people are just like kind of just spamming anyone and everyone like would love to pay 200 bucks a month to just have board spam on their behalf. And I think that's exactly what you don't want because that would degrade the quality of you know board's value proposition effectively. Um so having kind of that higher tier fewer you know more select you know opportunities and treating it more opportunistically or structuring these it's like employment agreements uh is is pretty wise uh approach and you know this not necessarily what we talk about in this podcast you know it's usually about like oh how'd you navigate this and that you like the but I think you have a really unique and as I complimented before like more of a purist approach on how to do this and it's very you know unique and bespoke that um I want founders going to hear and listen to like there's other ways to build your business, monetize your business. And I think you took a very unique approach of building brand and trust for free, you know, in terms of just like I'm I'm your buddy. Now I'm now I'm a very high value buddy. And if you want me to do what you want me to do, then you know, you got to got to pay for that. And that's normally how relationships work. And so I think you've done a very good job of navigating this AI through the human element. Um, which is pretty cool. Yeah, I think the, you know, I I get a lot of people are like, well, why couldn't I have my own Bordy or why couldn't I change the personality or why couldn't I have Bory, you know, answer my phone calls with this accent or, you know, pretend to be me. And I think I think there's like a place for like the digital twins and digital assistants and agents. I think of Gory as more of a principle than agent. Um, and I think there's compounding benefits to the fact that that the board you talk to is the same board that I talk to, is the same board that Mark Andre talks to, is the same board that you know like um I think that's valuable because everybody then has a like everyone has a a relationship with the same entity and that entity thinks about the goodwill of the network which means that if I ask to introduce me to someone and he doesn't think that that person wants to meet me, he'll push back and say, "I don't think you're ready for that meeting." Um, right. And because he's thinking about protecting his own reputation, right? Every time I make an intro, I'm gambling some goodwill, right? I'm like, I've got some goodwill with both people and I'm putting it on the line. And if it's a good intro, I, you know, I double that goodwill. If it's a bad intro, I burn some goodwill. Um, and if I burn too much goodwill with people, they stop taking my intros. >> And so, Bour, you know, kind of thinks about it in the same way. Um, so how do we sort of measure the goodwill that we have across the network and maximize the goodwill globally across the network and which introductions are going to create the most opportunity and the most economic upside for people? Um, but yeah, it's it's a different paradigm than I think what a lot of Silicon Valley is focused on is agents and how do I sort of like how do I how do I give everybody an agent or multiple agents? uh and usually bespoke agents that are like you know custom build a lot of these like scaling companies are doing tens of millions of revenue or building enterprise agents that are >> eventually dev shop services and then once it actually is set up then it's actually you know more of a traditional kind of like SAS per se but >> there's like bespoke customization that's happening uh across the board to kind of fit these needs and I think you kind of zigged when everyone zagged uh on that front. Yeah. I mean, we'll we'll uh It's kind of nice. >> Yeah. Let's see how things go. >> It's kind of nice building outside of outside of Silicon Valley sometimes because like I find when I go to parties in San Francisco, um I'm just surrounded by really smart people, people way smarter than me telling me why I'm wrong and I just I would rather just learn, you know, I know I'm probably wrong. I just like I'd like to learn on my own. Like it's a it's a nice surprise to figure out in what what weird and wonderful ways you're wrong about the future. Um but uh but it is nice being able to sort of say well I'm going to suspend that that sort of echo chamber or just you know build for the future that I think is most interesting. And when you think about that future like you know I think you published on uh social the other day that you hit like 10 billion tokens you know in terms of spent got like a little mile it's like you know get like whatever it is like a 10 million subscribers on you know YouTube and you get like a little reward and you get 10 billion tokens you get reward um you know what like when you're spending that kind of token volume and like kind of you're you're in the AI world where it's like one of the most competitive spaces right now like how do you see yourself navigating the future? Do you see yourselves raising massive rounds, going to profitability? Like what what does that involve for you as you >> Yeah, we we definitely spend more tokens per user than I think almost any you know probably probably cognition like uh or like cursor like some of the dev tooling maybe is is in the same realm but um I think we spend more tokens per user than than most applications. Um yeah, image generation might be another one. video generation. But uh but I think that you know the goal is like how do we push how do we leverage intelligence to get people better outcomes uh better economic outcomes and better better opportunities. And so we're going to continue to to find ways I mean literally like find ways of spending more tokens of having think for longer uh think harder about what are the different angles that you know that could solve this person's problem. Could I introduce them to some, you know, partner that could solve this problem? Can I can I tee things up in a different way? Can I position them in a unique way? Um whether we're going to need to raise a ton of capital to do it. Um you know, we're not a research lab, so I don't think like we're not, you know, I'm not not melting GPUs. I'm not like, you know, we're not we're not training models, foundation models ourselves. Um we blend a lot of different models. So we basically have you know for different parts of B's personality and pipeline we use different models and then we actually try two competing models uh and see which one which one actually works better and and actually achieves the objective and like it's the equivalent of AB testing that you do on a consumer front end um but just with different models of prompts constantly being being iterated to see what what produces the best results um and so yeah I mean I do think that you know there are there is enough demand for board to to work for companies that it wouldn't be hard for us to achieve profitability. We're not a large team. Uh and the cost of intelligence is going down. So if we wanted to not use the the frontier frontier state-of-the-art model um and we wanted to you know like we could probably get to profitability relatively quickly. I think we want to continue to use the best models and and spend the most tokens per user. uh and so we'll probably raise some more money uh on that journey. >> No, that makes sense. So for you know what I think an underlying theme that's been hidden in this conversation is you know albeit we're talking about AI raising money like the day it comes down to relationships as we were talking about before and when it comes to moving money and convincing people to take money from their bank account and give it to your bank account uh there is a inherent trust that has to be there. Um when you think about the future of AI when it comes to the human relationship, what what vision do you see in terms of our you know a broader question not like just 40 you know specifics broader question of looking at the world of how humans interact with AI. What what kind of future are you envisioning? >> Yeah I was having a conversation with somebody about this yesterday. I um so my I studied engineering but I I did a a pretty like focus on a an area called simulating neurobiological systems which is basically like how do you simulate the brain in computers um in mat lab at the time but you know different computer systems uh we did a cadaavver labs we had like a brain uh you know you could look at different parts of the brain I did a lot in physiological psychology uh neurotransmitters hormones u consumer behavior here. Um, you know, so so like how do marketing signals affect how we make decisions? Um, micro macroeconomics, you know, how do how how does how do people's emotions and feelings uh affect the the you know, economics, markets, um, stock prices, things like that. Uh, and so I've I've always been really fascinated by this. I think the there's four neurotransmitters that I spent a lot of time thinking about. Um the last 10 plus years in tech has been all about dopamine, right? Um and since you know modern media madmen era, right? Like it's sort of like this dopamine uh you know this dopamine loop and it just gets tighter and tighter and now it's 3-se secondond videos on Tik Tok um or swipes on dating apps or whatever, right? Those are the dopamine loops. um the equivalent that I I would love to see people So there so there's dopamine uh there's oxytocin uh which is like the bonding chemical right and I think um you know romantic partners have this family members you you have people have this with their pets um I'm worried that I think a lot of AI products are moving into the oxytocin bonding place and so people are building independent sing one-on-one relationships with their app right AI girlfriends AI boyfriends you know companions um that's probably not great for society. You know, if we end up in the like dopamine and oxytocin maximization, uh that's a little that's I to me I feel it's a little dangerous. I think the the the hormones the neurotransmitters that I think are are um I'd love for for more people to focus on or serotonin, you know, the peaceful chemical. You get that with meditating or psilocybin or whatever, right? like that's the like that's where you're just like at peace uh and feel connected to the community and the world and you just you're content. Um I think we could use a lot more serotonin in the world. Um and then the the bonding chemical that I am that we're trying to um you know elicit with Borty is is vasopressin uh which is it's the chemical that is released when you do hard things with people uh that you're close to. So military you know platoon do this when they survive a battle. Sports teams do this when they win the championship. Startup teams do this when they, you know, their startup succeeds or they, you know, do a big product launch. Um, whenever you've accomplished something difficult with colleagues, uh, you have a vasopressive bot. And I think it's a harder one. It's more nuanced, uh, to actually, you know, create. But I think that's what we want to create with Bory. It's like, okay, well, he's on your team. He's helping you do hard things. Um, and, uh, and we want you to have that connection, that level of connection with him. Um, I think that's healthier uh than than just focusing on the oxytocin because I think oxytocin can, you know, people will just, you know, unplug from society. Um, and I think vasopressin in the right ways makes you want to feel like you're part of a team, feel like you're part of a community accomplishing difficult things during an area era of opportunity or an area era of hardship. Um, so that's uh I don't know my my like mad scientist uh view on on how AI could play out and how I hope it does. >> Yeah, I also think it's like going to be the the beholder of AI and what they choose to do with it because I think they there will be a flavor of both. Um, and I'll be biased here. And people like ourselves, like creators, builders will appreciate the latter, whereas the former, you know, where it's easy. It's, you know, easy to kind of fall into that dopamine, you know, hit and just take those. There will be plenty of people to line up and build those products for them and cash in. And those will probably be much larger companies for the masses. And, yeah, probably a net negative in some capacity. Um, but uh it's going to be hard to prevent something when it's so good, you know, and it's so it feels so good for the short term. It's like look at drugs and this is won't be a drug or maybe it will be someday and it'll be outlawed. Who knows? Um Andrew, I I've really enjoyed this conversation. I, you know, we overlooked kind of what I think was a massive success with with Clear Bank and going through and scaling that company and and getting it to where it got before you took the, you know, step down. Um but I think what you're building and moving to the future was a very interesting conversation to have around how people think about um relationships building you know raising capital in particular where you guys are going now. Uh so I really hope our audience really enjoyed the the chat today. Um before we we part ways what would be the best way for you know a founder that or investor that wants to get you know either speak to you speak to what would be the next best steps for them? >> Yeah I mean I'm on I'm on LinkedIn I'm on I'm on X. Um but honestly like the best thing to do is just call Bordy. um you know go on go on board.ai I if you're fundraising as a founder or if you're looking for interesting deal flow that isn't overcompeted but could return your fund as an investor um you know just sign up we have an investor onboarding and a founder onboarding um and we'd love to help you. I think that's uh I think right now um our estimates I think board is now helping about 10% of the people that are actively fundraising uh with their fundraisers and my goal is you know by this time next year for that to be 90%. I think there's, you know, if you are, if you're a founder and you're like and you're trying to fund raise without asking for board's help, you're kind of, you're doing it with your, you know, at a disadvantage. You're doing with your hands tied behind your back. And if you're an investor and board doesn't know about you, you're probably me missing some of the best deals, um, that you should be. So, uh, it's worth sort of being connected to Bory. >> I do not disagree with that. Uh, amazing, Andrew. Thanks for coming on the show. Look forward to getting this out to our audience. >> Awesome. Thanks a lot, Jason. Appreciate it. >> If you were inspired by today's episode, then go ahead, watch this next episode. Promise it's worth it. And if you really enjoyed this last episode and you want to connect with the guest I had on today, make sure to leave a comment down below telling me why you would like an intro to this guest and I'll make it