How do you fund a hardware pivot when your market disappears?

I started out as a park designer definitely designer specifically doing product design instead of Designing products for someone else we just decided to design our own product and build a company around that a lot of Founders had really struggled with this concept they think that I want money now I'm going to start talking to VCS and what they don't realize is no you need to be building these relationships in months months in advance if not a year or two in advance we built our products we manufactured it we started selling it to some success welcome to episode 14 of fundraising demystified the podcast where we uncover The Untold Stories of startup Founders who have raised Capital to bring their Visions to life join me Jason Kirby as I interview these Founders and dive into the untold Hidden Truths of how they got funded today we have Juan Garcia Mencia CEO and co-founder of unit one a safety hardware company providing smart safety for urban Mobility they raised a 3.5 million dollar series a for a total of 6.6 million raised we discussed the importance of Kickstarter for getting the company off the ground raising a total of 750k in pre-sales how they had to Pivot during covid and how raising too many rounds led to a difficult cap table and so much more let's go ahead and get started hey everyone welcome back to the show today I'm excited to introduce Juan Garcia Mencia with us today uh he's gonna be the founder of unit one and I'm super excited to have him bring on the show one is product designer background is products are beautiful and we're gonna hear about his story of you know pivoting to the proctories today um you'll want thanks for joining the show Jason thanks for having me it's happy to be here yeah no this is awesome now what would be great is if you can just give the audience a little bit of a background on how you became a product designer to where you are now where you've successfully closed a three and a half million dollar series a uh what's that Journey been like and just kind of give us a little bit of that story uh sure I can do the the the the the capsule thing and so um I started out as a truck desire a duffle designer specifically uh doing product design back in Argentina that's where I'm from uh I was I was heading down on my live there uh designing all sorts of crazy stuff and I ended up partnering up with my Ben Boss to kind of build for the first time instead of Designing products for someone else uh we just decided to design our own product and build a company around that uh so we set out to do that I partnered up with them very very soon after uh we we added a third our third co-founder Francisco Who provided a very much needed business background because two designers are in a company that can be I can get tricky and then with that kind of a balance in place we we set out to to design the product build the products um fund fun fund it to at least fund its production uh build the brand around it you know launch it build it sell it the whole works um we had a pivot in the middle I'm I'm happy to discuss in a minute and then long story short We Now find ourselves in the urban Mobility space uh designing and Building Safety accessories for all of cycling with a focus on the heavy focus on design and safety through Tech so we use Tech to make our products safer and make our Riders safer ultimately what we want is to you know put more more butts on bikes and take people away from Cars help them adopt cycling as a lifestyle and you know push them a little bit a little bit of a push from our part to to to kind of promote this this lifestyle altogether make it safer make it easier to adopt well I'm excited to have you in the show because as a cyclist and e-skater myself uh and a a worry some wife who wants me to be safe all the time I will say you have probably one of the sexiest and safest helmets I've seen on the market and if you're not yeah excited to you know kind of learn how this this journey got started so let's you kind of gave us a little you know shortened down version what I really like to understand is you know what was that first product kind of before the pivot and you know what was that story like because you raised some money for that and then you had to kind of transform the business to what you guys are today so tell us a little bit about that origin story yeah so I was um I was I'm a lifelong skier I've always loved the snow and so our first product kind of came from there um big fan of of was in music uh while skiing big fan of Ski View group um you know walkie-talkie one another so I I was I I was a ski instructor in Veil uh one season and uh classic you know aha moment after trying all sorts of different gizmos for for actually losing listening to music or communicating comfortably amongst others hears and I just this I just identify this super concise pinpoint as is here that was unsolved because I had tried everything from airpods to audio kits to you freaking name it so that was a very clear product problem that needed to be solved which is essentially the in the perfect input you can give my product design that's that's a program design that's looking for a problem to solve that's where the product does anyway so we kind of use that as Steel and it ended up being this um unique skin snowboard helmet with headphones that you could detach for after skiing and then you have this pretty big and sturdy interface that you use with gloves on for volume and just uh track control and there's there was walkie-talkie amongst friends of all the stuff that we that we always wanted to have and never could we put on a product uh we designed that we put it on idigobu back then because we thought it was a good idea uh the campaign was not successful not even not even remotely and do we still believe that it was it was a product worth doing so we pretty much froze those funds I I think it was like 50k so it's not it's not going to cover the molds even so no we're nearly enough so we froze that money we said okay well never gonna get anywhere with that so we um we literally looked for an accelerator that could take us to the next level take us to a place where we could actually raise around we were lucky to be uh drafted by the first ever edition of the lead Sports accelerator in Berlin uh founded by the the family of the Adidas um grandchildren Adidas fan children so the Adidas family was behind this thing uh it was Sports oriented hits uh they're taking us and so from there we we ended up raising our first round to go and build this thing um only then we we released the funds for the campaign so this is going to take a while longer because we we ended up having to fund this elsewhere uh and we actually offered refunds to everyone's like hey do you want do you still want to wait for it or you want your money back because we hadn't used it and thankfully everyone said said okay I'll wait so we we ended up using it and we we did the works we we went to China to to build suppliers from scratch a very scary moment uh but also memorable in a ton of ways lots of fun stories there uh scary moments too but then yeah we we so we built our supplier uh network from scratch we built that product we manufactured it we started selling it to some success we sold out one season the small batch and we sold another season uh we sold out again smaller batches and we were kind of starting to ramp up starting we started identifying some issues in the product that we but we wanted to solve to you know take it the next level probably Gen 2 or something and then uh all ski resorts in the world closed overnight and we have we have one product seasonal that we couldn't sell to shoot for the foreseeable future we had about 500k in the can in the account intended to make more of these helmets and we we said we this is too rich he's like we're gonna we're gonna we could very well die on top of a pile of helmets that we can't sell so we told our investors um we need to you know pump the brakes and we need to to figure out a way to navigate this that ends up in a different place because remember I mean picture early days in the pandemic knowledge was scarce everyone was scared no one knew what exactly was going to happen and all we knew was that every Square resort was closed and we couldn't sell our single product that's enough to more than enough to kill to kill any startup basically that is quite the journey uh there's a couple things I want to kind of point out here that I think are interesting about this this journey that you've been through uh you know first identifying the the prop you know kind of a personal pain point and you know kind of building on from that point bringing together people around you people that you trust and you know kind of solve certain gaps in the business and then eventually you know getting a product you know to Market dealing with the challenges that you know maybe the Indiegogo is gonna be a home run that's all you ever need but reality it would necessarily wasn't uh and but wise enough to go out find the right type of investor necessarily pitching PCS to this stage or you're finding an acceleration early and you found perfect alignment you know in terms of you know the Adidas accelerator and so it sounds like an incredible like Learning Journey to get to this point and then the world just kind of kicks you in the face and you know you quickly reacted to that as opposed to being like Oh everything's gonna be fine which you know will it back three years now and it's like that wasn't you know we all survived well not everyone but I guess uh you know when we look at the you know scenario of the decisions that you made and giving you the opportunity to like hey we saw some cash what can we do this is that does that pile up in more inventory when we don't know what the future is especially because you got it pulled out for at least a year you know just kind of given the the market climb maybe you could sell down to South America you know I'm being even more than that it ended up being almost two seasons I mean northern hemisphere now I'm not talking North winter uh north south north south but two Northern Hemisphere Seasons it would have killed us I can tell you now yeah easily and um and and what are you gonna do you just sit on your hand like you can't obviously you you made a smart decision you basically communicated to your investors which is another point I want to point out to listeners of like you're not doing this inside a lot of people bottle this up get scared don't know what to do and but it sounds like you took the right step so communicated to your shareholders and uh stakeholders and you know let's let's continue so obviously since then you've you've had some success it's been a couple years since that point uh you have a new product Market you've had some kickstarters so let's let's talk about you know this new journey of discovering you know post pivot yeah sure so we took about half a million we had reserved for for more inventory and we set it out for Designing and developing a new product in a new space that had that was going to use some of some of the the supplier Network that we had built some of the knowledge that we had accrued otherwise it was was going to be a hard reset like we kept the brand we kept most of our suppliers we we kept a lot of stuff shareholders team you name it we kept although we could and we were you're trying to be as smart as we possibly could in terms of where to go and we we have originally envisioned to go into the urban space at some point but we just brought it up way in advance and we said okay it's not going to be an additional space we're going to make a full switch this is going to be snow no more Hollow Urban Mobility it was a hard uh hard call um I don't wanna I can't claim credit for it this this originated um and Francisco my co-founder and it was a hard sell even for me like I was I was in love with the snow it was I was a you know lifelong's here I had built this from the heart from that special place and it was just ripping me out of there was was painful and I wasn't I wasn't even a cyclist back then so I had you know as a designer I didn't have no one anywhere you know close as a you know a strong a link as I had with the snow it was very hard for me to be feel empathy or a relationship to this new world that we were getting into because I wasn't part of it yet so I was the first one that needed commencing actually before even talking to the investors once we were almost three three founders were on board we told the investors hey we got to make this this move it's gonna be Urban ability it's gonna have it's gonna be a helmet yes there's gonna be some tech in it as we had on the snow helmet before that's all we can tell you right I cannot I cannot give you more because we don't have more and they were somewhat receptive to the idea um some of them asked like a bike helmet like really we we didn't get into into unit one for for biking or certainly they didn't we we weren't either but um and they asked was it what is it gonna have and like no clue just trust us that we will make something that is cool that solves an actual problem same as before same process only in a different space so they they trusted us and and we charged on and in the middle of the pandemic we designed and developed pharaoh which was a challenge in itself because it was Zoom calls ugly it was the new uh the new reality very early on which for product development can get tricky she would learn how to do that redesigned Pharaoh we launched it on Kickstarter and we sold more Faro in two weeks that we we sold the snow helmet in two seasons and at that point everyone was on board like you go ahead now you're you're good to go like okay this is clearly the reception that we intended and it just blew blue blew apart it was just so well received and we never looked back and one like I guess what was that timeline from like the world's burning you know every you know kovid's taking over the world and now you have proven this new product this pivot has worked march to October that's not bad okay not bad to conceptualize a whole new product initiative and generate Revenue uh substantially more Revenue than your previous Endeavors it is an incredible feat and personally I yeah I've seen this happen and I also went through in the pandemic pandemic forced a lot of businesses to like figure their stuff out very very quickly yeah and uh it sounds like you guys came out on the other side and so from the the journey to you know all right sales are working investors are behind you now um you're growing Revenue where are you guys at now you just recently closed your series a kind of get us you know caught up to this point in terms of uh where you guys are out of the capital outside sure so we so we um we launched Pharaoh into the market uh after the kickstarter uh we went ahead and built the thing manufactured it started um we put out our first batch we sold out we put out our second batch sold that as well remedies started growing and we Finally checked all the boxes that we that we needed for series a essentially Were Us solidifying the the actually the landing on this new space um our our chief tip of the spear products um finding product Market fit was also a big one we we needed a big check that we needed uh and then the steam started the team started growing around this and we were at a point where we said okay this is solid enough to build upon Southern not that we have figured out the the May aspects of this business and we're in in a position that is solid enough to grow it that was that was originally gonna happen this year so um this is gonna it was gonna happen late 2023 where we were we had because of the the world was in a bit of turmoil allowed the war the Ukraine and it was it was a tricky year to fundraise 2022 uh and we said uh-uh so this is not the moment that the openers here to say let's just postpone it to late 2023 that was that was a play and we were good we were good to now play but and you will find for for good or worse that our series a around was not the way it's supposed to happen or the way it usually happens it was a bit of a a good surprise in that sense because we were you know gearing up for the hardest rates at the most challenging moment but it ended up being I'm not going to say smooth sailings that's that's it doesn't doesn't exist but it was it ended up being less terrible than we imagined probably we were lucky but but it timing wise it it ended up being just the right place in the right time kind of thing so we we weren't raising uh pharah was doing really well we were launching new products always through Kickstarter we use that not right now not because we need it but because it's a great validation Channel and it's a sales channel in which you can sell a product eight nine months before she's allowed a day no other channel lets you do that so we kind of used it it's a great sounding board from way way before hitting Market we usually make a lot of tricks this is a very tough demographic so we've if you please those guys you're probably going to be okay in the market um so we were launching new products around Pharaoh we were building this ecosystem of safety accessories to connect to each other and kind of build you know build up your safety uh from multiple angles that was doing well we decided to postpone the round because number one we could and number two it was 22 was was not the right ear to dress we all we all knew that so we so we we got introduced to a VC from one of our old investors one of the guys that Grant C through the the entire snow pivot Urban stage so we kind of we had a relationship with these guys at this point um and they're like the rich uncles that you you love and they have supported you from from really very very early on and so we we love these guys at this point and so we got introduced to a BC right right after we moved to Spain oh that that too is like we we knew that we couldn't run this from Argentina pretty early on so we we knew that we wanted to be closer to our markets close to our markets closer to our Capital so that was either Europe or the states we operate in both markets equally strongly we ended up here in Madrid uh setting up our our HQ whilst our product design and software teams remain in Argentina we have our HQ here for all stuff that is strategic commercial uh high level content to happens here and then of course China for manufacturing but I'm I'm derailing so we weren't gonna race and we got this introduction at the worst moment it's like I'm getting introduced to it free you know a nice match of a BC at the worst moment we weren't nearly close to opening around but we obviously took the call anyways right what you're gonna do you know you don't say no to these guys so he took the call it was the fund was the BC was slingshot slingshot Ventures Netherland based consumer product oriented BC perfect for us uh they have this really cool Mantra that they their their LPS are exited Founders so they have this like this nice full circle kind of a thing and I think it's it's a more empathic approach than most VCS because of that I mean we we had a couple chats they left what we were doing we loved their approach but it was like Hey guys listen we're not raising right now we're not gonna be racing for at least a year let's just keep in touch so what we did and I think this proved probably the the genius movie we didn't know it was a move back then we just send them Ambassador towards kept them in check you know send them updates almost monthly sometimes even more and pretty much I mean they were seeing us work without investing and they you know eventually started seeing our promises eventually materialized that we were in full that we were hard workers and I think enough of their boxes were checked uh internally because we don't know and at one point they said they called us up in this and they said uh late turn 32 again we weren't raising they said open the round I was like okay but you know this is still a sucky time for fundraising remember I mean we have to fill the thing whether whether or not you come in we still have to fill the whole thing it's it's supposed to be more than three million it's you know it's a big round to fill at least for us um they said open the rest so we got into that and they were masterminding a play that we didn't see back then uh they brought in another uh co-investor to lead the round uh panook happens to be the the BC arm of the pump family the pond family that the pong pong group owns well they're super Diversified they're this huge um Netherlands based group they have this is in the automotive energy sectors but they own half of the bike brands you know like I think they're 20 something so for an accessory company for cycling to have pong indirectly in your cap table is just you know a dream yeah yeah it was a big deal it's like okay this is a strategic that is coming in this changes things and they were co-leading the round with slingshot they didn't fill up the whole thing um but we also had existing ambassadors that had piranhas coming in a convertible that was open and then they also brought in a smaller BC fund also super interesting approach uh joint Capital they manage the wealth uh the the Investments I should say of retired athletes that they're you know they've done well in their careers they most of them retire early as far as age is concerned like some some of them are like you know 30. and they're retired it was super young and Super Active and what I'm gonna do with all this money right so they they and they they can teach them to invest it's a pretty cool ecosystem they have so they they got in there as well and between all of them yeah it was 3.5 million so there's a lot to to share and highlight in this point from basically focusing heads down on a business that went through a pretty tragic pivot not tragic but like you know complicated difficult pivot test yeah putting your head down and just focusing on product Market fit like building the best product you can for what ended up being probably a much larger audience more lucrative audience potentially that you know just the snow uh the snow audience and you know something I like to call out because like you said that the round went smoother and easier and I'm sure there's some like hidden details that you know you know come up it's never always perfect when racing around but basically the VC came to you and set everything up and got things going this is like a dream case this is like oh wouldn't that be nice as many Founders might be listening you know kind of saying but you did a lot of things right you know you took meetings early you know before you were raising you established Rapport in a relationship over an extended period of time but the most important piece is you shared updates saying you were gonna do X and you did X you know like you you say you're gonna do one thing and then you actually do it and that's probably one of the most powerful ways to build trust with the BC in a relationship over time that Founders just not all but like you know a lot of Founders have really struggled with this concept of they think that I want money now I'm going to start talking to BCS and what they don't realize is no you need to be building these relationships in months months in advance if not a year or two in advance before you actually open the round because they just need to build trust with you to see what you've been up to then you see you'll hit on deliverables and they need to be able to believe in you and that's what you guys executed and that's phenomenal and you should definitely pat yourself in the back along with your team so when it came to this you kind of uh the the cats in this case the VC has gone herded for you um and you know when it came to kind of negotiating terms you know given it was not is a very different Market from you know 2021 and 2020 um how did you guys feel about the negotiation the terms um and just how things kind of came out for you on the other side um and kind of where is it enable you to go now as a company so it was they were I I gotta say you know you always picture so this was our first institutional round before that we we only dealt with family offices uh very wealthy private investors um the accelerator which has its fun but it's different right and it's none of none of them were a proper institutional VC so you kind of build up this scary image of VCS over time and I was I was not happy about that part going in so that's what we expected right that the big bad hairy Wolf coming you know stumping at your door demand the increase you stop from you and to be honest what we ended up receiving was don't take me wrong very diligent investors like they were stuttering due diligence was borderline traumatic on on the founding team and some of the senior staff um we we didn't sleep for like six days I think I think not that I recommend everybody always ends up happening I think we slept like six hours over I don't know four days it was not good but we we we we did it I mean I think it was part of the deals like they asked for a lot of things very shortly like without a lot of lead time because if you don't have it you can't fake it I think that that's it that's my take I haven't asked them yet actually did you do this on purpose like you did you only give me four days because and you knew that I couldn't make it up um so you so they gave us four days to to put all this huge huge list together before they came in and they they did this massive due diligence um there was there was um all day long this I think it was a seven hours worth of meeting uh where they they lifted every single Rock there was to to to lift and they were very very diligent but when it came to answer your questions when it came to the terms the negotiation the negotiation negotiation of the terms they were of course they were you know harsh I mean they were leading the round with major strategic um kind of a dream dream couple if you will you know the consumer goods arranged at BC backed by fellow exit the founders and the VC arm of the world's largest Cyclone player it's like you know where do I sign but then again you can't just say yes anything we have an existing valuation we have existed shareholders we have metrics we have unfortunately we had a large number larger number of rounds prior to series a because of the pivot so we didn't you know this we didn't just start out from scratch you know new company new cap table new shareholders we maintained everything out of trust out of gratitude I think to our investors that you know they saw us too the hard tumbles and it was just only right to continue you know uh using the same vehicle even if it meant more delusion to us and you know uh more let's say butchered cap table we still maintained it so it was hardly a classic series A Stage Company because we had more rounds prior we had more dilution than normal uh we had a pivot in the middle we had a solid number of shareholders wasn't it which isn't necessarily a good thing when you're coming into series a like too large of a cap table so you had all these things plus it was it was a shitty time to race right between two but then again it was then told us to open the round at a shitty moment nonetheless but play with this kind of you know to and fro that was was going on and yeah of course they were harsh that they were also fair and they didn't ask for anything that we didn't have in place before almost um and at that point we were thankfully pretty well versed in terms of you know corporate governance um board mechanics liquidation preferences and illusion mechanics uh the whole the whole works so it was a it was kind of smooth sailing from that end because they didn't ask for anything crazy and I think at one point they also were this is me thinking out loud but they were also considering their relationship with our existing shareholders it's like if you come in you know kick the table kick the board out and you say this is these are the terms now then you might you might be able to pull it out to pull it off but probably everyone's gonna hate you for it you know you won't you don't want that starting you know you want that to be your first step I think you know in the potential future collaboration like it's going to last years so I think they also concurred themselves with starting on the right foot with the shareholders as well as a patented team so they conducted themselves really really well in this scenario and it didn't end up being the big big map here we will we we all pictured going into this which again it's not just hey they weren't harsh they were indiligent they were but they were just you know also logical and Common Sense which is a lot these days and and that's great to hear in terms of that story and yeah like diligence can be tough and it's kind of expected these days from BCS you know they're the days of kind of like throwing term sheets without seeing anything is gone thankfully I think the world is a better place because of it yeah but I also want to highlight the fact that you know the Integrity you guys maintain during your down time when you could have easily shut down that company and started a new one and started fresh and kind of capture more equity for yourself you have easier said than done but not easy in my own eyes and probably not yours either in terms of the reputation that comes with that and how do you look at this hey look at them in the face it's like exactly yeah and and these that's something that probably also another check box or yeah this PC yeah slingshot and the other VCS that came in later of like look what how they acted in the the stand-up Integrity they had in this most difficult controversial point of the the business and how they treated their investors then you know it's a positive sign that you know you'll treat your investors properly down the road as well so they didn't want to come in and be unfair to you as well so you're setting the president and every single and that's something the founders should know is like every term sheet you sign every investor you come in like whatever the terms are now you're setting the president for what will come down the road and the more egregious terms today are going to be either equal and or more egregious down the road and this investor is probably maybe assuming that you'll need additional Capital down the road maybe from bigger investors they don't want to come in with excessive terms that we'll code back to bite then you know down the road whoever comes whoever comes new and top always gets the priority so I appreciate you sharing that that story and those insights as you kind of went through that journey and yeah you know when it came to you know it sounds like mostly existing investors and the new investors that came in were kind of like herded all together um from existing investors mostly but you haven't really talked about how you got all those investors the original investors to the table in terms of how you got in front of them how you uh discovered them and and got them to invest and so I want you to touch on that another question I want to kind of bring up in a moment is given the dilution that you experienced on the founder side and team side like how did you guys manage that forward so let's go to the first question how did what was your strategy to getting those early stage investors to kind of believe and find them and get in front of them so the what what got us our food at the door really was the lead accelerator for they had I've been very critical of them in a lot of ways as far as the program goes but as far as the opportunities they afforded us we closed our first round because of them they they filled in at that point it was uh six hundred thousand uh seed round and they filled most of it and then it was up to us to I think this was on purpose like they put in 400 and said okay now you go get the 200 remain prove to me that you can do this uh that sounds fair uh we we ended up going to uh any anyone that was close to us that could that could um that could help friends and family at that point weren't that relevant because the the amounts were so high uh so we ended up um pooling some some wealthy private investors together into a decent ticket uh and then into I think it was 100K or or 200k and then we had another guy come in with with 16 with it we ended up over subscribing um I think it was 700 but it was like this you know big 400 400 000 check and then smaller spread across tickets but how did you get the smaller guys you could have mentioned they were you know pineapples individuals but how did you get in front of them if it wasn't friends and family oh well it was we got them through friends and family it was it was always warm intros and we were very diligent with our decks our numbers and of course we have the Adidas family leading leading the round which was something already uh but at that point there was there wasn't a complete stranger on board besides delete the leader accelerators group that it wasn't actually lead it was Leeds shareholders amongst them we had a couple individuals that resonated with with our mission the the hardest and they were the ones who who put in the the the ticket so it wasn't everyone inside lead it was mostly Harold pre-mat Swiss guy x-racing racing driver shooting fun guy Colombian family office type type uh type investor both of whom we are of course really really close but by this time we've we've you know we I know their families they know ours we've met a hundred times so it wasn't really strange at that point and then we started being connected to them so the first stages we brought in to following rounds were a family office that was an acquaintance of one of our guys it was always warm intros but one thing we did we did do every single time is whenever we had an intro it was like Armageddon it was full preparation like we went in hard I was like no question could go unanswered no number it could be unclear uh we had to know our bits front to back and we were very we set a really high bar on our as far as our decks our presentation materials our numbers our charts our spreadsheets our our math everything was very very clear from from the yep go men's and cap table throughout cat tables throughout the process also a very useful an unexpected skill because a lot of these guys are very active and they kind of they want to keep a certain amount of equity in your business and if you provide constant updating of that number over the years they're gonna help out they're gonna you know be active in every we were lucky enough to get get people in that every single time we raced and we probably rate too many times too often out of you know attempt it was an attempt to reduce risk on the investor side but it wasn't it was a mistake too because it really hurt the cap table to race so many times without dramatic value increases between between routes that's a that's a learning we take home from that period were you guys using like convertible nodes or safes in between kind of these larger rounds and consolidating them together like was that the we did at one point we did but a lot of these guys are like you know traditional minded uh people not used to to venture capital type Investments not schuffer experience Angel Investors either so the language that they understood was a prized round it's like I give you X money you give me X Equity Let's Go full value alignment don't you know don't talk to me about caps discounts you know timeout periods anything so we ended up doing that with taking that road which also was hurtful in the long run and so too many rounds too close together with with without big valuation jumps is clearly not the way to go but one thing we did build over time with these guys was a relationship I mean they saw us and bust our asses night and day they saw us promised they saw us at litter they saw us go to China the stores you know these are hard promises that we were fulfilling so I think they they took that to heart and every single time we had a need for Capital they chipped in every single one of them every single time that is until our series a came which was bigger money and bigger tickets and I think that most of them said I've done my job I I you know I've got them this far now it's time for someone else to to take the gigs so uh yeah and to be honest like what you experience is worth a lot of companies are dealing with right now kind of these rolling safes for like these kind of roll consistent rounds of like Small Checks you know small rounds kind of coming in to kind of keep the business you know to the point where you know you still have the opportunity to win as much as it's nice to get the full lump sum all at once the reality is it's hard you know like certain metrics have to be ahead you gotta it's a whole process to kind of do a proper you know Equity round so what you experience is Not Unusual and I'm kind of glad you shared that just so people are looking at this you know you guys as oh we just got all your investors handed to you on a silver plier it doesn't sound like that at all it sounds like you had quite a struggle and journey to kind of get to the point where you had this opportunity but you know as a as a last question before you know to wrap up um I do want to talk about given all those rounds you know the dilution between three founders uh it must have been pretty you know substantial um what have you guys done has been like the morale in that aspect because you know taking that type of dilution where there are additional option pulls granted to you to kind of you know give you additional vesting options like just kind of walk through that kind of process so just kind of shares some insights to Founders that might have gone through it or might be going through it yeah so that of course was the cheap downside to multiple rounds and too many rounds uh too often and the cap table got hurt that way um but again because we were dealing with people that were in it from the start had established a relationship a trusting relationship at this point they also saw that but and before series a got even open uh we did is we liquidated the the option pool that we had in place we we just allocated all those points to the founding team and and since she your staff and then rehashed it it's like we we give them give them all away and then built a new one prior to the round even opening which was of course deluded to everyone mind you uh but it was a way to refill some of that Equity that was lost along the way and put us in a position that was more consistent of a on a custom Zero's a um prerequisite wasn't even there I mean but it was closer at least and then the VCS that came in again also speaks to their integrity as these seeds and also speaks to the kind of uh relationship that they want to have with us founders they also acknowledged this and they actually which was complete surprise to me and I'm not sure if it's even Common Market practice at this point but they allocated an extra point an extra couple of points to be added onto the pool after the fact after the round to kind of soften the blow dilution wise specifically for our standards also another good sign that you know you're getting you're getting in bed with the right people um and people always joke and you you hear these cliches turn around that you know investors like it's like a spouse of shorts it kind of is in a way that I think a Founder is like more of a spouse like I see I see my my co-founders every single day um they're like Brothers to me at this point but that doesn't mean an investor is not a long committed relationship that it's hard to get out of um and it is and you know to me stuff like that matters because it it says a lot it says that you're getting you're getting on a boat with the right kind of people and they have a similar kind of minds and and reasoning and their common sense and they're also compassionate when they very well could not be like no one asked him for this they volunteered it uh no one asked them to respect most of the standing terms we have with our investors they did so I think that maybe maybe I got this shoot I we were super Lucky in terms of what BCS we we got but the the two that we have on board the two we have on board is or three I should say are super super reasonable more so than I ever imagined and I'm grateful for that I'm not sure how representative of reality this is or how useful it's going to be for other Founders maybe everyone else you know it's it's the demon that we had foresee I don't know no it it is actually uh I wouldn't say it's the most common thing but when you have multiple deleted rounds these smart BCS know that adding an option pull post close or you know without post money uh is the right gesture because they're sacrificing a pretty insignificant amount on their side but it's a Major Impact to the funders to kind of you know motivate them and it's a negotiationship for Founders too if it doesn't come up with a discussion like negotiating term sheets is a two-way conversation you don't have to accept every term given to you um and uh it just sounds like you were fortunate enough to have some amazing PCS join your your team and or join your your cap table and your understanding that it's a long-term game and properly incentivizing you so I'm glad you shared that just because that is something a lot of outer space I've heard some really horror stories that were awful and have experienced both positive and negative outcomes in these certain situations in my own businesses uh so I appreciate you sharing these insights this has been an incredible you know time listening to to your journey and your story it just you know globally distributed team that servicing multiple different markets and having multiple different raises you know just two lives essentially you know as a company uh yeah so it's been a fascinating story and it honestly it's a more common story in my mind of what I've experienced amongst our community and network you know not you know it's like the very small percentage of companies that are just like perfect straight up and to the right and in reality you know that it can be a very bumpy ride and you guys are getting that chance to to kind of you know continue on your Journeys with the right Partners on your side so yeah really appreciate having another show for for the cyclists the borders the you know e-skaters out here that are listening today you know where can they learn about your products and yeah learn more about you sure so uh you can always find what we're up to uh at unitonegear.com um there's our growing for product portfolio of safety accessories is there starting with thyro we have a new helmet coming up uh smart lights a backpack the whole ecosystem for Mobility it's it's being born right right now very exciting times again part of the part of what this round has done for us is and just enabling us to to speed up and start growing with this portfolio rapidly growing the team growing adding more Tech more production to the mix it's a very very exciting time for us and it's all there and you didn't want to gear.com we also have um our latest Kickstarter launch just closed last week where so we shifted into Indiegogo uh we can find this there as well the whole Aura family hybrid smart helmet smart lights it's all there um to be delivered by the end of the year so yeah a lot a lot is going to happen over the next uh 12 to 18 months product Wise Market wise it's it's it's a fun ride they were barely getting started and it's very very exciting time awesome wow Thanksgiving my Christmas list uh I've already said it's my wife and uh yeah excited yeah if she's worried about you there's there's this crash detection thing we have on the helmet like she can know if you had a crash with with your location so this is going to be a good a good argument for you to get it on the tree like for real yeah I think my wife will buy it even if I don't if even if I didn't want it if she knows about it she's gonna buy it just for those reasons alone so uh yeah I really appreciate you having me on the show a lot this has been an amazing podcast and uh yeah thanks for joining us absolute pleasure thanks for listening to today's podcast we hope you learned something valuable and if you did be sure to let us know in the comments or by hitting that like button if you're a Founder looking to raise Capital be sure to check out our platform thunder.vc to use REI to identify which investors are most qualified to invest in your business it's free to join just go to thunder.vc again that is thunder.vc and if you're new we release new episodes every week and if you or someone you know recently raised around and want to share your story be sure to email me at Jason thunder.edc that's our show and we hope to see you next week