Startup Scout

Nick Hynes

Startup Scout is the best place to discover great early-stage startups - before everyone else! Hosted by Nick Hynes, enjoy interviews with incredible founders about their exciting businesses and innovative products. Startup Scout is perfect for you if you’re a business and tech fan keeping on top of the latest trends, an early-adopter looking to try out the newest products on the market, an investor seeking to increase dealflow, a business owner searching for partnerships, or an operator looking to join a top, high-growth startup.

  1. Cutting Through Notification Noise With Generative AI - Jack Lancaster (Spoke.ai) | Startup Scout

    04/21/2023

    Cutting Through Notification Noise With Generative AI - Jack Lancaster (Spoke.ai) | Startup Scout

    Jack Lancaster is the co-founder and CPO at Spoke.ai, a generative AI startup that are cutting through workplace noise by summarizing and prioritizing information. Previously, Jack led product teams at N26 and ONE Finance before co-founding Plantclub.io and Spoke.ai Spoke.ai cuts through workplace noise by aggregating, prioritizing, and summarizing information. Their App for Slack allows you summarize threads and channels in Slack to save time. It's free to use and you can set it up in under a minute: https://www.spoke.ai/slack-summarization They're also building a Smart Inbox that aggregates all your notifications across tools (Slack, Jira, Figma, Notion, etc.), prioritizes the most important topics, and summarizes across notifications. ⏱️ Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:38 - Jack’s background 0:24 - Entrepreneurship & first startup 4:36 - Entering into Generative AI 6:36 - Spoke.ai's first iteration 7:42 - The decision to pivot 10:30 - Second iteration 11:48 - Spoke.ai solutions 16:15 - Optimising the model 18:11 - Knowing when to go all in 21:10 - Getting buy-in from investors 23:07 - Early customers 25:34 - Spoke’s value metrics 27:03 - Go-to-market 28:37 - Beating the competition 30:24 - Team 32:02 - Building strong co-founder relationships 34:25 - Choosing co-founder roles 36:37 - Raising capital today 38:13 - Contrasting US / European tech culture ________________________________________________ ℹ️ Guest & Company info 🚀 Startup - Spoke.ai 🌐 Startup's site - https://www.spoke.ai/ 🗂️ Crunchbase - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/spoke-ai 🧑‍💻 Founder - Jack Lancaster 💼 Founder's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacklancaster4/ ________________________________________________ 👍 Liked this episode? 🎬 Like and subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@StartupScout 🎙️ Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/startup-scout/id1305855201 🎧 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LN6Bw37yNfqM9rcb0lVhr ________________________________________________ #StartupScout #NickHynes

    42 min
  2. How To Make A Perfect Investment Pitch Deck - Maximilian Fleitmann (BaseTemplates) | Startup Scout

    04/14/2023

    How To Make A Perfect Investment Pitch Deck - Maximilian Fleitmann (BaseTemplates) | Startup Scout

    Maximilian Fleitmann is an active angel investor and the co-founder of Wizard Ventures, an internet holding company that buys, builds, and operates online startups. He has been building businesses since he was 13, starting in the gaming industry before transitioning to education. However, his true passion lies at the intersection of founders & investors. As the CEO of BaseTemplates, he creates products and shares experiences related to fundraising, pitch decks, and investors. He has helped raise over 100 million dollars to date. BaseTemplates (part of Wizard Ventures) helps founders to start their businesses, increase the chance of getting funded, and ultimately build a great company. BaseTemplate's fundraising templates & education (Pitch Deck, Financial Model, Investor CRM) are easy to use and help you find the right investors for your startup. Start saving time & money now by using one of BaseTemplate's high-quality templates instead of building everything from scratch. ⭐️ Special offer: 30% off all BaseTemplates products with code: startupscout (valid until 15th May 2023) ⭐️ ⏱️ Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:44 - Max’s background 3:31 - When to think about raising capital 5:34 - Why do many founders think they need investment 7:38 - Pre-Product investments 8:50 - Team sizes 11:25 - Sole-Founders vs Co-Founders 12:40 - Title slide 14:07 - Problem slide 15:25 - "Land & expand" strategy & investing 18:59 - Solution slide 21:22 - Demos 24:01 - Market slide 27:19 - Competitors 29:14 - Go-to-Market slide 31:18 - GTM channels 32:22 - Roadmap / plan slide 35:17 - Projections slide 38:03 - Runway & breakeven 41:06 - Including advisors in slide decks 42:26 - Why now slide 44:19 - CTA / Final slide 44:49 - Who should the deck be shared with 46:25 - Finding the right investor 48:54 - How long to raise a round 50:21 - Choosing Angels vs VCs 51:59 - Bootstrapping ________________________________________________ ℹ️ Guest & Company info 🚀 Startup - BaseTemplates (part of Wizard Ventures) 🌐 Startup's site - https://www.basetemplates.com/ 🗂️ Crunchbase - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/basetemplates-com 🧑‍💻 Founder - Maximilian Fleitmann 💼 Founder's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximilian-fleitmann/ ________________________________________________ 👍 Liked this episode? 🎬 Like and subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@StartupScout 🎙️ Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/startup-scout/id1305855201 🎧 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LN6Bw37yNfqM9rcb0lVhr ________________________________________________ #StartupScout #NickHynes

    54 min
  3. Unlocking GREAT Content One Micro-Transaction At A Time - Abhishek Dadoo (Fewcents) | Startup Scout

    03/31/2023

    Unlocking GREAT Content One Micro-Transaction At A Time - Abhishek Dadoo (Fewcents) | Startup Scout

    Abhishek has been a consultant and operator in Technology, Media, and Telecoms industry in the US and APAC. After 13 years in the industry, in 2017 Abhishek launched Shoffr, an ad-tech platform serving marketers of retail brands. In 2019, Shoffr was bought by Affle, a publicly listed company in India. Abhishek started Fewcents in 2020 to solve subscription fatigue in online media. Fewcents provides a plug-and-play micro-access solution for online media companies. Online media is getting squeezed for subscription and ad revenues; Users face subscription fatigue. Fewcents Wall allows brands to target audiences across the Fewcents content network and micro-sponsor individual content in exchange of user data with explicit opt-in of the user. Alternatively, users can pay for individual content using their local payment option across 80+ supported countries. Regulated by the MAS in Singapore, Fewcents offers users a wallet facility to store value and consume individual content on the fly. ⏱️ Timestamps0:00 - Intro0:32- Abhishek’s background1:27 - From startup to exit3:44 - Fewcents origin story5:22 - Fewcents MVP8:33 - Product suite10:52 - Demo12:30 - Data sharing14:20 - Revenue model15:45 - Cohort targeting18:24 - Use cases20:04 - Micro-sponsorships21:28 - Go-to-market strategy23:50 - How to approach partnerships29:04 - The Fewcents team and growth31:03 - Fundraising33:20 - Upcoming plans35:11 - Advice on exiting ________________________________________________ ℹ️ Guest & Company info🚀 Startup - Fewcents🌐 Startup's site - https://www.fewcents.co/🗂️ Crunchbase - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fewcents🧑‍💻 Founder - Abhishek Dadoo💼 Founder's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adadoo/ ________________________________________________ 👍 Liked this episode?🎬 Like and subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@StartupScout🎙️ Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/startup-scout/id1305855201🎧 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LN6Bw37yNfqM9rcb0lVhr________________________________________________ #StartupScout #NickHynes

    41 min
  4. UNICORN Investor Gives Masterclass On How To Raise Angel Investment - Jed Ng (AngelSchool.vc) | Startup Scout

    03/22/2023

    UNICORN Investor Gives Masterclass On How To Raise Angel Investment - Jed Ng (AngelSchool.vc) | Startup Scout

    Jed Ng is the Founder of AngelSchool.vc. Their mission is to help angel investors build their own syndicates. He’s a self-taught angel with 1x exit and has backed 2 startups from seed to unicorn. He started his own syndicate in 2020 and has grown this from 0 to 1000+ LPs with $0 marketing spend. As an operator, He built the world’s largest API Marketplace with RapidAPI (a16z and M12 backed unicorn). He holds an MBA from INSEAD. AngelSchool.vc is a Fellowship program dedicated to helping Angel Investors build their own syndicates. Program Fellows are equipped with a syndicate blueprint in just 8 weeks. After that, they’re invited to the Investment Committee (IC) to gain real deal experience and earn carried interest. Angel School’s syndicate is backed by 1000+ LPs and deploys $MNs annually. ⏱️ Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:25 - Jed’s background 4:08 - Angel investment trends 8:48 - Angel capital vs Venture capital 11:01 - Combining Angel and Venture capital 12:09 - Raising from Angels vs Angel syndicates 14:33 - Angel syndicate processes & due diligence 16:30 - Top tips for raising Angel investment 21:46 - Startup pitch deck mistakes 25:14 - Placing a value on your startup 27:56 - Down rounds 29:00 - Angel terms founders can expect 31:14 - Angel investors and board seats 32:28 - Non-monetary benefits of Angel investors 36:20 - How to keep investors updated 37:31 - How to connect with Angel investors 40:36 - Top red flags Angel investors see 46:20 - Brokers 48:04 - Why founders should consider syndicates 49:52 - Angel School overview 51:19 - Angel School acceptance criteria ________________________________________________ ℹ️ Guest & Company info 🚀 Company - Angel School 🌐 Company site - https://www.angelschool.vc/ 🧑‍💻 Investor - Jed Ng 💼 Investor's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jedng/ ________________________________________________ 👍 Liked this episode? 🎬 Like and subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@StartupScout 🎙️ Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/startup-scout/id1305855201 🎧 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LN6Bw37yNfqM9rcb0lVhr ________________________________________________ #StartupScout #NickHynes

    55 min
  5. Optimising Global Shipping With This Barrier Breaker - Sebastian Hamers (Sealution) | Startup Scout

    03/21/2023

    Optimising Global Shipping With This Barrier Breaker - Sebastian Hamers (Sealution) | Startup Scout

    Sebastian is the CEO and Founder of Sealution, a startup that aims to improve safety, health, and productivity on merchant vessels by deploying IoT solutions. As a former maritime officer, Sebastian recognized the lack of connectivity below deck, which inspired him to create Sealution. By introducing digital innovation to the maritime sector, Sealution is ushering in a new era of connectivity, making vessels safer and more productive. Sebastian is committed to finding innovative solutions to the challenges faced by the industry, and with Sealution, he is leading the way for a more connected, safe, and efficient maritime sector. Sealution is a B2B hardware-enabled software startup providing connectivity on board merchant vessels to enable data collection below deck. The collected data is used for preventive maintenance and furthermore for reselling to relevant data aggregators such as insurance companies. The system significantly reduces areas without connectivity, displays the real-time location of the crewmembers, connects the vessels internal systems to the central module and displays ship status in real life to our users ⏱️ Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 1:22 - Sebastian’s background 07:57 - Sealution origin story 15:48 - How it works 21:01 - Positioning 24:14 - Revenue model & pricing 26:58 - Ideal customer 31:05 - Security 34:29 - Raising capital 43:06 - Advice to early-stage founders 46:47 - Where founders should look for support 51:41 - Job opportunities ________________________________________________ ℹ️ Guest & Company info 🚀 Startup - Sealution 🌐 Startup's site - https://sealution.io/ 🗂️ Crunchbase - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sealution 🧑‍💻 Founder - Sebastian Hamers 💼 Founder's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamerssebastian/ ________________________________________________ 👍 Liked this episode? 🎬 Like and subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@StartupScout 🎙️ Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/startup-scout/id1305855201 🎧 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LN6Bw37yNfqM9rcb0lVhr ________________________________________________ #StartupScout #NickHynes

    54 min
  6. Empowering Sports Stars With The "Patreon For Athletes" - Stuart Thornton (heros) | Startup Scout

    03/14/2023

    Empowering Sports Stars With The "Patreon For Athletes" - Stuart Thornton (heros) | Startup Scout

    Stuart was Co-founder and CEO of hoolah, the buy-now-pay-later company that anticipated the growth in the consumer spending sector to build first-mover advantage in Asia. hoolah exited to Shopback in 2021. Prior to that Stuart had over 20 years of experience in industries ranging from telecoms to payments to eCommerce across Europe, Asia and Australasia. Originally from the UK, Stuart held leadership roles within both large enterprises and start-ups - including companies such as Verizon, Vodafone and Worldpay. Now he is embarking on startup number 2 and this time in the sports industry with heros. heroes is a membership club platform enabling athletes and fans to connect, inspire and invest in each other. The mission is to solve the unsolved issue of athlete earning, living and maximising true value. By building a community around the athletes, connecting and enabling fan engagement and rewards as well as bring brands to engage the athletes and fans, we aim to create a new ecosystem for the ever growing sports industry. Borrowing from the Patreon model - its time to level the playing field in sport, enable athletes from all sports, career stages, backgrounds and countries to earn & experience a career and achieve their dreams.  ➡️ Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:39 - Stuart's background 4:19 - Recognising a startup opportunity  7:34 - Competing against incumbents 9:38 - Experience and advice around being acquired 14:27 - Establishing relationships with potential acquirers 17:15 - Heros origin story 25:46 - How Heros works for athletes 31:24 - The Heros MVP 33:00 - Acquiring athletes to Heros 35:12 - Working with sports industry insiders 36:30 - How Heros acquires fans / consumers39:03 - The Heros team 40:51 - Financing 42:00 - Stuart’s call-to-action it’s 43:37 - Advising startups 48:21 - Top 3 pieces of advice for early-stage startup founders ________________________________________________ ℹ️ Guest & Company info 🚀 Startup - Heros 🌐  Startup's site - https://www.heros.xyz/ 🗂️ Crunchbase - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/heros-aee8 🧑‍💻 Founder - Stuart Thornton 💼 Founder's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartjthornton ________________________________________________ 👍 Liked this episode? 🎬 Like and subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@StartupScout 🎙️ Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/startup-scout/id1305855201 🎧 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LN6Bw37yNfqM9rcb0lVhr ________________________________________________ #StartupScout #NickHynes

    52 min
  7. Make Your App As VIRAL as TikTok With This Super Connector - Ben Gutkovich (Superlinked) | Startup Scout

    03/07/2023

    Make Your App As VIRAL as TikTok With This Super Connector - Ben Gutkovich (Superlinked) | Startup Scout

    Ben is the co-founder of Superlinked where he helps democratise access to real-time Machine Learning infrastructure. Ben is a seasoned entrepreneur, product manager and strategist, with experience building consumer products at Orange in the "golden age" of telecoms, helping Fortune 500 corporations reignite growth at McKinsey, and conducting commercial due diligence at PwC. Ben holds a BSc in Computer Science, and an MBA from London School. Superlinked makes it easy for developers to build their own scalable and real-time ML-powered personalization engine, and deliver a highly relevant user experience, driving engagement and retention.                                                                                                                                                                                            Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:40 - Ben's background 2:25 - Lessons from acquisition 3:49 - Working in startups vs larger companies 05:39 - Superlinked origin story 12:35 - How Superlinked integrates 14:14 - Beta customers / Design partners 17:09 - Model customisation 22:40 - Different use cases 22:20 - Superlinked deck presentation 42:33 - Pricing model 43:18 - Financing 44:14 - Team growth 45:40 - Ben's call-to-action ________________________________________________Guest & Company info • Startup - Superlinked • Startup's site - https://superlinked.com/ • Crunchbase - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/superlinked • Founder - Ben Gutkovich • Founder's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benben/ ________________________________________________Enjoyed this episode? • Like and subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@StartupScout • Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/startup-scout/id1305855201 • Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LN6Bw37yNfqM9rcb0lVhr ________________________________________________ #StartupScout #NickHynes

    47 min
  8. Keeping Your Dog HEALTHY With The "Apple of Pet Tech" - Richard Nilsson (MyPetGo) | Startup Scout

    03/02/2023

    Keeping Your Dog HEALTHY With The "Apple of Pet Tech" - Richard Nilsson (MyPetGo) | Startup Scout

    Richard is a serial entrepreneur and expert in the Technology, Companion Animal (Pet), Media & Lifestyle industries with over two decades of experience. Richard is currently the CEO and Founder of MyPetGo, a health and wellness monitor for dogs, coupled with decision intelligence (AI) that provides the user with next step data-driven recommendations, bridging a connection to a marketplace of locally relevant service providers. Richard co-founded, ⁠LifestyleAsia.com⁠ in 2006 to fill a void in the online luxury and lifestyle publishing space across Asia. Lifestyle Asia launched pre-Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, smartphones, tablet's and sophisticated and user-friendly digital publishing, all things we use daily and take for granted a decade later. Richard managed the sale of the company to German Media & Tech conglomerate Hubert Burda Media through their international arm, Burda International in Dec 2016. MyPetGo is the first of its kind Health and Wellness monitor (Wearable) for dogs, coupled with decision intelligence (AA/ML/AI) that provides the care taker with next step data-driven recommendations, bridging a connection to a marketplace of locally relevant service providers or products. The triaged data with the AA/ML/AI recommendations and the marketplace (link-out) forms the entire MyPetGo pet-care Ecosystem. Truly a one-stop-pet- care-shop.The aim is to improve the well-being and livelihood of pets, while simplifying the (guess)work and pet chores off being a (responsible)pet parent. Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:34 - Richard’s background 05:24 - MyPetGo origin story 09:50 - Pet ownership growth rates 11:54 - Problems MyPetGo solves 15:40 - MyPetGo’s pivot / doubling-down 19:35 - How it works 23:00 - Customer profile 26:08 - How MyPetGo acquires customers 32:31 - Upcoming roadmap items 36:00 - Raising venture capital 38:54 - Team structure & hiring 41:47 - Advice to founders looking to exit ________________________________________________Guest & Company info: Startup - MyPetGo Startup's site - https://mypetgo.com/ Founder - Richard Nilsson Founder's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-nilsson-rpn/ ________________________________________________Liked this episode? Like and subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@StartupScout Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/startup-scout/id1305855201 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LN6Bw37yNfqM9rcb0lVhr ________________________________________________ #StartupScout #NickHynes

    45 min
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About

Startup Scout is the best place to discover great early-stage startups - before everyone else! Hosted by Nick Hynes, enjoy interviews with incredible founders about their exciting businesses and innovative products. Startup Scout is perfect for you if you’re a business and tech fan keeping on top of the latest trends, an early-adopter looking to try out the newest products on the market, an investor seeking to increase dealflow, a business owner searching for partnerships, or an operator looking to join a top, high-growth startup.

Information

  • Creator
    Nick Hynes
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2023
  • Episodes
    14
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Nick Hynes
  • Show Website
    Startup Scout