Bo (00:02.574)
Hi! How's it going?
Tzakhi (00:04.734)
Thanks. Great. Now that you're here, it's even better. Thanks for coming. Meet that Capital Startup Podcast. Boa Abrams is an excellent founder from Como, which is a startup which you'll tell us a lot about now in property tech. And you have also an interesting background as a founder because you came from the VC world.
Bo (00:10.51)
Thanks for having me.
Tzakhi (00:33.854)
and then left that to start your own company. It's very early stage, but I can say that you're doing great for where you are in the startup journey. And I think you have a lot to share with other founders. And thanks so much for coming.
Bo (00:49.71)
Thanks for having me and yeah, I'm excited to chat more about the journey and hopefully help other founders avoid some of the mistakes that we've made and that a lot of founders make. And it's really all about founders helping founders at the end of the day.
Tzakhi (01:06.366)
Great, great. Can let's just start. Can you just tell us what Como does? Why you why you built it? Where is it going?
Bo (01:15.342)
Yeah, so Komu is your trust -based home sharing and travel network. So we allow anybody, even renters like me, to share their homes on their terms with and through the people they trust. And that can mean a lot of things. That can mean gifting your home to friends when it's available. It can mean charging a friend of a friend your rent when you're away. You can swap. But it's all peer -to -peer.
And so the idea is if you build a social layer on top of the home, you unlock all of these primary homes that are offline and they're not on short -term rental sites like Airbnb, either because of regulations, like in the case of renters like me, or because of preference. It's because most of us don't want a stranger in our primary home. And so really that's really what we're capitalizing on. It's this belief that short -term rental platforms like Airbnb, they've professionalized. They're mostly institutional.
investment management companies that own these homes, second and third homes, just to drive a profit. And there are a lot of second order effects of that that are really not only creating the opportunity for Combu, but also causing a lot of problems. And like, that's why you're seeing these regulations crack down in cities like LA and New York on short -term rental platforms. So that's what Combu is. I can obviously go back into the origin story, but I wanted to get that out there.
Tzakhi (02:33.118)
Yeah, wait, I just before we get to the origin story, I'm just curious because I want to understand something which I'm guessing our listeners are also thinking. I think quite clear the value proposition relating to using your social network.
to rent out your home or to visit a place in another city and you want to go to someone that's trusted, I get that. Can you explain where the regulation steps in or where you have an advantage over the regulation limits?
Bo (03:06.542)
Yeah, I would say the entire opportunity comes down to regulatory capture that essentially an Airbnb cannot capture. If there were no regulations in place and comu were to scale, theoretically Airbnb as a smart strategic company would just build a better version, a faster version with the network effects they already have and beat you. And by the way, we know that Airbnb wanted to build these networks. They wanted to build host networks at one point, but there's two reasons why they didn't build them.
The first was, if you show hosts and guests how they're connected that, you know, I'm on Airbnb and I'm going to meet you and we find out we went to the same college, we're going to disintermediate and we're just going to go peer to peer and pay on Venmo anyways. It happens all the time on Airbnb. So that's the first risk. It would cannibalize their core business model. And the second risk really is the regulatory risk of saying Airbnb, if you're an Airbnb host, you are required to register in cities like LA and New York City with the city.
And we'll get into like what, you know, that, that like, why that is the case. But ultimately it's to say like, I as a renter in LA right now, I cannot register even if I wanted to list my place in Airbnb. And so they knew that I would take, you know, if I didn't register, I would take my Airbnb link, I'd make my home and I'd share it with my friends. And I'd tell them like, Hey, here's my home. Here's the dates it's available as like a workflow tool. And that would threaten their $9 billion annual revenue short -term rental business. It's not worth it for them to deal with the regulatory.
sort of risks that they're already dealing with a lot of at this moment in time. Stepping back into like the origin story and everything, I guess, you know, that speaks to regulations. You know, there's a longer story here that actually had to do with like where we started and where we ended up going. But like ultimately, when we pivoted in this model that we see today, we were like, wait a second, all of these people, especially renters, they are listing all of the time on Facebook marketplace, on Craigslist, they're posting on Instagram.
They're posting in Slack channels at work and they're sharing on text or email. People are distributing their homes and doing these peer -to -peer bookings in a very inefficient way currently and with no real good form of social proofing. And we were like, hang on, like why is it that those networks are not being regulated? But you know, we theoretically would be with a, you know, a previous business model that we used to be used to be just a home swapping platform. It's a longer story, but that's to say, we're like, how come those networks are not getting regulated?
Bo (05:29.902)
And it's because those networks are Section 230 compliant. Basically, the Communications Decency Act, Section 230, which is like the bedrock of the internet, says you as a network are not responsible for user -generated content unless it violates a federal law. So you can't sell drugs, obviously, on the internet like Silk Road, and you're gonna get arrested. But we're like, wait a second, if you just give people the tools to list their homes,
Tzakhi (05:35.678)
Okay.
Bo (05:56.558)
you know, and social proof and share homes and do that efficiently and centralize all of that inventory and their networks. And you don't take any transaction fees. That's the key, by the way, not taking transaction fees. Then first off, you have no disintermediation risk because all you're doing is helping people share that information with each other, share when their home's available. And ultimately you can bring online and centralize that behavior that you're seeing on Facebook or Craigslist. It's like the despite test, the fact that people are turning to those networks as an alternative because they're not being served by Airbnb because they can't be.
and there's no other options. And so we are predicated on that, of like, as long as we don't take transaction fees explicitly, you know, ultimately we can go where Airbnb can't go, and we can not have that disintermediation risk. We can show you all the ways that you're connected to somebody. And you know, Airbnb has 500 million users and only 5 million hosts, most of which are now becoming professional management companies, and 75 % of global travelers by...
next year will be millennials or Gen Z -ers that are experiential, that are not being served by Airbnb as hosts or guests right now. And that's the big opportunity. We're saying, you know, we can get 1 .5 million of those 500 million users, less than half a percent, to pay us $200 a year for essentially unlimited stays as both the host or guest, where we underwrite some of that risk on, you know, both the protection plan, the distribution, like owning that network and saying, hey,
We're here to cover some of these wider network stays and make sure that you feel connected. And ultimately we're saying that subscription model is a 300 million ARR opportunity to get 1 .5 million people doing it, which is less than half a percentage of Airbnb's total worldwide users. That's the first principle belief of what we're building into. Obviously we think there's a broader opportunity to go after.
every primary home in the world, even when you're really wealthy and you have your home in Aspen that you never would list on Airbnb when you want to share it with your other wealthy friends, being this workflow tool that makes that possible because of the social network. But that's, you know, stepping back, it's really to say being a network is the protection against, you know, becoming a short -term rental platform.
Tzakhi (08:09.982)
Okay, so you have a few pieces that are very nicely set in place, huge market, a demand that's quite clear because you see it happening. Like you said, people are doing it sort of off platform. So you see the people want to kind of connect with their peers or with their network and rent homes. So you know that the opportunity is there.
Okay. Maybe tell me a bit how you got into the space of all spaces, because there's a lot out there. And I don't, did you come from like the world of, were you renting like Airbnb's? How did you come into?
Bo (08:51.854)
No, and that's the funniest thing too. I think if I actually worked at Airbnb, I would never actually pursue this opportunity because I would know. No, I'm more saying even as a VC and like as a founder, it's like most of the people that I see and meet even in the VC, it's like they typically work somewhere and they have this really direct experience. For me, it was just the pain point and the problem. So ultimately what happened was I worked in finance.
Tzakhi (08:58.118)
No, I didn't think you worked at Airbnb. I asked if you had like an Airbnb property that you were renting.
Bo (09:18.83)
and startup operations and I started a nonprofit. It's a longer story, but I was going to business school, initially to go into venture philanthropy and venture healthcare and realized I'd actually think I was gonna be a better suited traditional VC. So that was my goal. And I wanted to go to the top business schools. And so I took the GMAT, the test you take to get into business school seven times. I paid for a GMAT tutor because I wanted to make sure I nailed that test. I paid for the business school consultant.
And I was, you know, I was going to go back to Easter school, COVID hit, I didn't want to leave my family, stayed and applied to UCLA. Same with my co -founder Gus, who got a perfect score on the GMAT the first time. He was also supposed to go to a different school and then COVID hit. We're both from LA, so we both applied to UCLA, ended up going there. That's all to say, after working so hard, I went to Montana to clear my head in the pandemic and four nights at a crappy Airbnb in Montana was half my rent for the month in Los Angeles. I have this great one bedroom apartment in LA.
It's very personal to me. It takes up most of my net worth. And it was really that two -pronged problem just from the start of saying, wow, not only can I not afford Airbnbs, which are 30 % more expensive than hotels for singles or couples that are traveling, but I couldn't leverage my home in any way because I'm not allowed to list it and sublet it while I'm gone. And so it was that double rent problem, so to speak.
Initially, I met my co -founder Gus, and what we found was we were both remote capable workers before the pandemic. Like we were at tech jobs that allowed us to travel and work remotely, and we didn't travel a lot at all. And we're like, why is that? And we're like, we had pretty well -paying jobs. And it because it was that expensive to try to be able to travel at all for any extended period of time. And so initially we came across this website called homeexchange .com. I don't know if you know homeexchange .com, but it's been around for 30 years.
The movie The Holiday when they do the home swap, they do it on HomeExchange .com. HomeExchange .com does $30 million of ARR and with no disrespect to HomeExchange .com, we don't think the product is that amazing and we think they were targeting the wrong market. They were going after 45 to 64 year old homeowners when it really was this like emerging massive class of travelers, millennials and Gen Zers, that needed a swapping platform and that would initially be.
Tzakhi (11:12.35)
Okay.
Bo (11:37.774)
like the first principle belief of if you build that for young people in the right way with the right brand, you have a hundred million ARR opportunity. That's all to say. What we found out was that two things, one is swapping is hard. You have to like make dates line up. You have to make home values line up and like you can do asynchronous swaps. Like you can do point system. That's what home exchange does. And, and you know, we totally get that. Uh, but the second thing that was happening was people were doing swaps. They know we, we, we initially started the company called swapped and this is cool. That's like, that's where we started.
Tzakhi (12:06.302)
Okay.
Bo (12:07.438)
And people were doing swaps and then the trust was bridged and then they would disintermediate and they would just do it awful. They would do it themselves, peer to peer in the future. So that was like where we sort of realized, wait a second, first and foremost, we got a problem of like, this isn't maybe, this isn't a marketplace that has staying power like we thought it was. And number two, we found out that we'd actually get regulated if we took any transaction fees for facilitating a swap. We talked to the city of LA.
We won the biggest pitch in business plan competition at UCLA in business school by researching his ordinances. So that was a lot of what led to it. I would call this like this pivitance opportunity. But stepping back, I was working in venture capital through business school at the seed stage. Gus, my co -founder, was working in product management in business school. We had gone to business school to get on track with our careers. We were not going in thinking, we're going to go start a company. And let me tell you, going into business school, going into tremendous amounts of debt,
to go through school, having credit card debt and all that jazz and then starting a company is a bad idea. Try doing that then graduating in June of 2022, right when the market took a dive. We've been doing everything on as hard of a mode as possible, including consumer and marketplaces and any of an incumbent of Airbnb that nobody thinks is vulnerable. Obviously they're thinking like, you think you know something that Airbnb doesn't and it's like, no, they know it, they just can't go there. So that's all to say.
Stepping back when Gus and I got to this point, through all the trials and tribulations and what we saw in the market and what was going on, we were like, I will bet anything I own or any future value of whatever I might own that somebody in this space, one of the four or five companies that's emerging, including GOMU, is gonna win really big. They're gonna be a dekakorn in three to five years, and here's why on first principle. And we're like, if we're too scared to go do that ourselves and build what we think is the best version of this, then who are we as people?
Like this is the time to go learn, to go do it, and that's all we've done. And so we've now emerged, I think, as the top rated home sharing network. You can look at the app store, look at our reviews. You know, we're really proud of that, but obviously, like, we've had to scrap and we've had to grind, and that's made us better founders. But like, we had no intention of coming into this world and making our lives as hard as they could be, you know, financially to get here.
Tzakhi (14:27.23)
Well, it's a great story and it's a great moment to resolve and jumping into it. You did work in venture capital and I wonder how that helped you shape Como and specifically what I think a lot of our listeners are interested in, in raising first money for Como.
Bo (14:48.814)
Yeah, I mean, if anything, a couple of things happened. First and foremost, I'd say VC is a really brutal place to go and visit school because like, you know, it's hard to move up in VC if you're not a founder yourself, in my opinion. But I thought it was a great place, no matter what, to meet hundreds of founders. Like, you know, I did, and I was like, there were like three or four where I was thinking, man, if I could go work for that founder, like right now, and be employee number four or five, like, you know, there's no other way I would have ever found that opportunity, right?
That's all to say. I thought I would, I knew the market and I understood how difficult it was to like get through the VC fundraising process. Like I had plenty of deals that I had conviction over and ultimately would have to go to the partners and try to sell them on it. And even though I'm a different user and I'm younger and I saw something that it's, they're the, the GPs, they make the call and that's already like, you know, you'll find these people that go to bat for you when you're fundraising on the, you know, the VC side that get it.
you still, the final piece is the hardest piece of convincing the partners, the people that actually have decision -making power to then invest, especially if they don't understand the problem necessarily themselves. Stepping back, I think it taught me what to like look for and get ahead of. I saw hundreds of decks. I knew what I liked about founders and what I didn't like and like what ultimately mattered. Like I remember having the old score sheet that I could go through and I mean, a lot of it was like team, market, business model.
There was like, I don't know, remember there was like a fourth category, but that's all to say, it was like, I knew I had to like, if I had a good answer for each of those for Komu, then I had a good shot of being able to replicate that success. I also will say it didn't matter. A lot of the things that I thought I knew, I was so wrong about when I switched onto the other side. Like I remember I was sending these giant email updates to people, like the deck was like so many words and like so much stuff. And it was like, I'm like, wait a second, but you know better. Like, what are you doing? You're just like totally.
You know, there's a way to go about this and a lot of it is just information arbitrage. It's like knowing what to share and when to share it. And it's also about just like essentially just putting your foot down and saying what you need to say, like standing on your ground and believing in it and just running that process and moving on if it's not a fit. And so that's all to say, like you learn these things only by being a founder, oftentimes in my opinion. But I at least knew like what mattered to VCs and how to position ourselves and there's been good and bad from that, I think.
Bo (17:10.574)
ultimately for us.
Tzakhi (17:13.662)
Well, I think one point that you kind of touched upon is that it's very important to have a very clear proposition, a very clear explanation of what you do, not only because you're trying to convince the person you're talking to, but that person in the VC world is going to have to go to someone else and convince them. And you have to give them the words to do that. And you need to give them the tools to do that effectively to make it easy for them to tell your story. And that I think is something I...
I learned from others, not from my experience, but I think it's a very important trait to have.
Bo (17:51.278)
Yeah, you have to, and we talked about this a little bit offline, but you have to also have a really deep understanding of the market and where things stand. And sometimes, like we've said this before, it's like VCs will pass on you. You don't really know why they're passing on you. And they might say it's one thing, but it's really something else. On top of that, you have to think about, if you're really going to that next level, you might be looking at their portfolio and looking at where they are in their fund cycle and understanding who to really go after and why and not wasting your time.
you know, trying to win over people that have either already passed or that are just never, we're never going to invest in the first place. And so that a lot of that was just like, I think baked into me by being on the other side of the, the table.
Tzakhi (18:34.942)
Yeah, and I'm guessing also because you've seen so many rejections from the VC side, then you probably were kind of ready for the unpleasant part of getting rejected a lot of times.
Bo (18:51.118)
I was, it's an interesting thing, because you still really never are, being rejected just is awful. But for me, as a former athlete that has had terrible injuries and surgeries, that didn't get into any of the colleges and programs I wanted to get into, and even business school with the GMAT, I've kind of built a lot of resilience. It's even like dating, I think I feel comfortable and confident in my dating life, only because I got rejected thousands of times.
You know, it's like, but the truth is, like, I was willing to put myself out there and fail and all of those things. And so in this game, I'm like almost equipped for it already. Like this is the ultimate game of rejection. I don't know many founders that are first time founders, especially in this market that are not getting, if you're not getting rejected a hundreds of times, you're probably not trying hard enough. Um, so did equip me for that. Uh, but yeah, you know, I will say I'm still as an athlete and as you know, somebody that.
As a former VC, I would say I have a first principle belief on the space. I could write the investment memo, both as a founder and a VC, as to why Comu is going to succeed. And it's really an option. I could price it and do it and say, here's the upside of it if it works. Here's what happens if it doesn't. And you can run the gamut there. And that's to say, if a VC rejects me for the wrong reasons, it still bothers me. And there's that spite that I have that Gus, my co -founder, will say this. He'll be like, Bo, you're so motivated by spite and fuel.
And it's not a bad thing, but it's just to say sometimes it's almost like being the athlete of having that enemy in your head, even with the VCs where you're like, I have to go out and prove them wrong now. I don't want to be a founder that's not malleable, that's not subject to change and going where the market's going, whatever. But also, I almost say go get rejected and keep that story, that crazy story that's probably not even true in your head.
So that you, in my case, it keeps me motivated when I'm tired and I don't want to like do this anymore. Or I'm like worried that we're not going to, you know, make it like every founder is. That's that next gear that keeps me motivated. They're like, Oh no, I gotta go prove to them that I'm going to go be an incredible founder and co was going to be an incredible company. And so, you know, get used to getting rejected across the board. And like, that's the name of the game.
Tzakhi (21:04.126)
Well, I didn't know you were an athlete. What did you do? What was your sport?
Bo (21:08.11)
I don't brag about it anymore. Well, I was a basketball player in high school. I was a three sport athlete. I was like the athlete of the year when I was 16. And then I remember thinking, man, I play so many sports and I never get hurt. And like literally from there, it was just like terrible injuries. I had like two ankle surgeries after hundreds of ankle sprains, shoulder surgery. I played on the top A at UT in the country at one point, which was awesome. But then like, you know, it was just, my body broke basically. And like, that was another good lesson of like.
take care of your body and your mind and your health even as a founder. Because without that, you have nothing, you can't run a company. But yeah, even in college, like I was, don't look at my stats, they were awful because I remember playing like through injuries and then I had bad mono that knocked me out, which is what actually started my whole venture healthcare journey. Like why I wanted to go into that space and start a nonprofit. But yeah, I was basketball player at one point, I don't play anymore because I don't want to get hurt.
Tzakhi (22:04.126)
Yeah, I was never a professional. I played for many, many years and then I screwed up my knee very, very badly. And I sometimes dreamed that I'm playing basketball. So I miss it. So.
Bo (22:14.51)
Yeah, I feel, I miss it a lot too, but it's like you have to find some other outlet, right, for your competitiveness.
Tzakhi (22:22.654)
Yeah, so yeah, pitching VCs is a good place to, I guess, to practice on. So what are the channels that you're using now to reach investors? Can you kind of break down the different, because it's not just one thing. I mean, one thing is maybe to, the obvious is to use your network connections, people that work with you, maybe in the VC world to introduce you to.
to investors. You're working with us, we should say. We're helping you grow your network of investors and reach out to people that were originally outside your network. But can you kind of give us a little bit of the things that you're doing? Are you going to events? What are the things that you're doing?
Bo (23:08.014)
Yeah, it is basically, you know, and every investor, sorry, every founder will have a different take on what to do. And I think I've learned a lot through this ordeal. It is like a sales process, you know, period. And you can do sales basically like, I would call it like high quality and high quantity and a mix of both. And like really both the channels kind of fall into those two categories. So the best channels most often times is really getting the network and like, I would say the most...
The soundest strategy that I found to really get to meeting, because that's the goal is getting to meeting and getting enough shots on goal to close, is to go through your network, is to build relationships with founders. And ultimately, if they like you, and they like what you're building, and they ultimately have these investors that have invested in them, they will be the warm intro that gets you a meeting for the most part. And same with once you do get investors, you know.
they are also amazing people that will make intros for you because like everybody knows like the incentives are aligned to those people want to see you succeed. It's almost like also why you shouldn't take an intro from a VC that's passed on you because the first person is going to be like, wait, you didn't invest in them, but you want me to invest in them? Like, you know, that's never, that's never a good thing to work on. So that's like the best way I think to at least like get to meeting on that side of things. That being said, a lot of people don't have networks and a lot of people don't like.
You know, it also is like one of those things where you, those are really high value shots that you don't always want to like blow if you're not ready for them. And a lot of our investors, like, you know, if I look back, came kind of from a high, like a high quantity cold outbound strategy, um, where like at a certain point, like I'm just like sending like 400 plus, you know, emails a week to different investor lists and people. And like, literally it did, it did convert to like at least.
I think five to 10 angel investors in Chile and at least $200 ,000 came through that and those are now also people that make a lot of interest for us. And so I'm actually a believer in going cold and being able to do that either yourself and writing an amazing email to somebody and just being direct and being confident and being okay with them rejecting you or whatever, or outsourcing that in some capacity. And so that's why we got interested to you is really this ability for you to take over my LinkedIn and I think send thousands of messages.
Bo (25:29.966)
cold to people that are maybe like a kind of a, you know, they're, they're, they're potentially warm in the sense that we're second degree connected and you know, they, they might be interested in the space or heard of us, but that's, that's the approach of like saying like, yeah, as long as I can take that off my plate and reach people with our message and see if they're interested. Not only do I have a good shot of getting enough meetings to get shots on goal without having to like spend too much time there when they rejected. Oh, go ahead.
Tzakhi (25:53.596)
Yeah.
Bo (25:57.774)
Sorry, did you say something? Oh, I was gonna say then the second thing is also like the best part is when they reject, if they do reject you or when they do reject you, because they will, for me and my ego, I'm kind of like, you're not even rejecting me, you're rejecting a message for my image or whatever, but that's another point. But the point is, you gotta get volume. You do have to reach enough people to get enough shots on goal.
Tzakhi (26:00.676)
No, no, please go ahead.
Tzakhi (26:23.582)
Yeah, and I think also, you know, people forget cold and warm are not static things. So someone that starts as a cold connection and you reach out to them, once they meet you, it's already a warm connection. It changes very quickly. And it also goes the other direction, meaning you have warm connections.
Bo (26:35.662)
You got it.
Tzakhi (26:43.422)
It doesn't mean that you can reach out to them again and again and again. If there's someone that's really believes in you and makes an intro for you, they're not going to make a hundred intros for you. They're not going to make, it's probably going to be two or three at most usually. And, and there's just, there's just so much that you can do with, with a relationship before it, it feels like it's too much and it becomes.
Bo (26:56.302)
You got it.
Tzakhi (27:09.022)
awkward and uncomfortable. So yeah, warm intros are excellent. Whatever you have use, but I, unless like you already have an incredible network, I don't know if you're Elon Musk or whatever, almost every founder reaches the end of their warm network and they have to step out and go for their cold, reach out cold and grow their network. It's not about.
Bo (27:11.726)
Big time.
Tzakhi (27:34.814)
cold network, it's about growing your warm network, but it starts with cold outreach because you can't just rely on warm intros. It's just, there's just not enough of them.
Bo (27:43.47)
Exactly, and I think that's a really good distinction and point of like, you nailed it. Like people, if you can get enough of a network, and like a lot of that is by breaching founders and reaching people that are like, that want to get on the line with you and have a conversation because they find what you're doing interesting or you maybe want advice or whatever, which I think is a good thing for founders, by the way. Like I've asked for tons of advice on fundraising and on our product and on marketing and so on and so forth. And that's not just to get to somebody's like.
investors like that's genuine because I think you've been there before and they know how to help me, you know, save time and be a better founder. It's that you're right, like when they make that intro and they volunteer like to say like, hey, here's like, you know, and you should only ask by the way, I think for like two or three, once that those intros are made and you've sent those emails along for them to pass along and you've done that, you know, they're going to follow up with those investors and they're going to see if those investors invested in you or not. And if they didn't like now that founder's reputation is basically like, you know,
You know, they've done their favor, they've tried, and they might be even thinking themselves, like, oh, you didn't close these people. You know, maybe I'm wrong or whatever, but I have to focus on my company. And you're right, you basically shot that shot. And they too are just kind of waiting around to see if somebody, you know, if you could pull it off with somebody else. It's really a network -driven game that you always have to be playing.
Tzakhi (29:02.43)
Yeah, 100%. Bo, we're coming to the end of our conversation. You've been through a lot by now, even though Como is a young company, but you've been through a lot and you also have a lot of experience from the VC world. Can you give us, let's say, five tips for startup founders for...
raising capital, reaching out to investors, maintaining their relationship. By the way, I forgot to mention, I'm getting your updates, your investor updates, and they are awesome. They are awesome. So maybe you want to say a word about that too, but can you give us five tips?
Bo (29:38.51)
Oh yeah.
Bo (29:46.574)
Yeah, so that I forgot, I totally forgot about that. And that's a great point. Um, so first off, like, you know, we send a, we send it a fundraising update specifically to all of the people that I've come across that have basically said that they would, you know, make an intro or have made an intro. And essentially it's, it's an easy way. It does two things. It's an easy way of keeping everybody on the same page about like where you stand with fundraising, like who you've talked to and then who you want to talk to. And secondly, like, and I learned this trip, this,
this trick, I should say, from another founder. I was told, and it's true, we have a CC email and a BCC email, but on this email, I literally CC 100 founders, mostly young people, because the older people don't want to get quote unquote spammed, because it builds this credibility and social proofing where all of a sudden those founders that said that they were going to make intros that maybe haven't dragged in their feed, they see all these other founders and you tag them out in the email. You're like, thanks, Kaben, for this intro, and thanks, Lee, for this intro.
Tzakhi (30:45.054)
Yeah, that's great. I saw that, yeah.
Bo (30:45.966)
And literally, and we show them and we're like, by the way, that intro you made led to that, you know, the VC fund that just came in this round, like that was from a warm intro. And so that's all to say, that was a really efficient way for me as a founder to build social proofing and show people like, hey, like I'm talking to these amazing VCs, like we're getting the meetings, let's keep it up. And like, we're closing capital. So that's one update that I think has been great, just like in terms of, if you don't have shame, which at this point, that's maybe tip number two, to have no shame, that's a great way to go about it.
I think like we talked about, right, having a strategy of like volume versus, you know, also just having like a very high touch strategy of like, who are your dream investors? Like, who do you really want to go after and why? It's really sound and maybe before that, a good tip would say, get organized, like have everything in one place where you're like, you know, who are the like, where gets your investor list together, like flag those funds that you want to talk to and also like be comfortable pitching.
either other founders or like those maybe like, let's call them in your mind tier two or tier three funds first. So you can kind of get the growing pains out of pitching because you might think you're going to be good when you just started. If you think, you know, I think I'm a very salesy person. Like I thought it'd be a good like B2B SaaS salesperson in another life or role. You know, you don't learn how to do any of this until you do it. Like you have to go do it and like learn from the mistakes you're going to make and then save that those big pitches for when you feel confident of like, okay, I know what to do and what to say and where to go.
Apart from that, I mean, investor updates, like we send our current investors an update every month. It's pretty straightforward. And it's like, you know, just, just keeping them in the loop. We send prospective investors an update, maybe every three months to six months. Like it just depends. Like obviously a lot of them are like, Oh, you know, great founders always keep us posted and whatever. And like, I don't know. The truth is like, they get a ton of those and ultimately like,
I like that they don't necessarily always know what's going on in my company or like where we're at because like I want them to be thinking about us. It's like you want to be like that ex -girlfriend, you know, or you're like, I know you're checking my Instagram page once in a while to see how things are going. So it's like a light touch of like, how do you give them just enough info to make them want to come back and maybe have a meeting? And if not, they probably were never going to have a meeting with you again anyways. And you're just putting out information that you maybe don't need to that could get to your competitors or whatever. So that one, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but I'm like,
Bo (33:09.102)
keep them posted and then when you go into the next round, if they have somebody that said, you know, we're along for the next round, then go back into re -engagement mode. I will say, I hate to say it, but like the truth is like in fundraising nowadays, it's like always signal positive. Like, look, I'm a founder. I knew this was gonna happen. It's the journey. Like there's tons of things that we need to improve and fix. There are tons of things that are going wrong and there's always a fire and there's always a lot of things where you want to be transparent and tell your investors and everybody else.
Hey, you know, this is what we learned and this is how we're gonna improve. And this is actually, that's actually what happens at Comu. When you're talking to your investors, when you're talking to everybody else, when you're going out there, you got to, you have to talk about all the amazing stuff and you have to exude confidence. Like even though it's a really valuable thing to be transparent and that's who I am as a person, this game is a signaling game. And you need to signal that you are a winner and that you're gonna, you know, dominate and all that stuff. So that's, that's a lesson I learned the hard way where I thought like it's cool to.
talk about what isn't working and what you learned. It's cool to do that internally and with your company. Investors are psychologically driven at this stage and your job is to make them feel like you are going to be the next hottest, greatest thing ever and that they're right about you. So, unfortunately, be a positive signal. With founders, I think it's cool to be honestly transparent and they're very helpful too when you have problems and you need to get answers to that. Talk to founders about those things.
Tzakhi (34:36.542)
Well, thank you. This was super useful, very interesting. I really enjoyed our conversation. So investors should definitely reach out to you. I guess LinkedIn will share your LinkedIn profile.
Bo (34:50.094)
Yeah, whatever works. LinkedIn, they can email me to at bo at gocomu .com, but either way, like, yeah, we're trying to close this around now that we got a fund through the door and we're hoping to just focus on growing and scaling Comu because we're seeing a lot of exciting stuff in the product. So I'd love to get, I love fundraising sometimes because I think it's fun to pitch and try your best to see what works and what doesn't, but I'd love to also stop fundraising and just operate. So looking forward to that.
Tzakhi (35:19.71)
Awesome, yeah, and I think you'll get there soon. I know you've been doing great progress on your current round. So great, thanks so much, Bo. Oh, yeah, just to tell our listeners, don't forget, if you haven't done so already, come to Meet .Capitol, sign up to our newsletter. We send updates, takeaways from our...
Bo (35:28.942)
Thank you. Oh yeah.
Tzakhi (35:44.958)
podcast episodes and other great stuff. So that's on our newsletter. And if you're wherever you're listening, subscribe to hear our next episodes.
Bo (35:53.966)
and i remember i got to be capital from another founder so it's the same game of like you know warm intros lead to great outcomes so
Tzakhi (36:02.814)
thanks so much thank you
Bo (36:05.902)
Awesome. See ya.
