Overcoming Funding Hurdles For Entrepreneurs

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
I mean, we know the statistics, we hear about it, the percentages that minority founders are able to have access to. What was that like for you, obviously, being a minority, being a woman, a founder? Talk about that.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:13)
I really liked being an outsider in the sense. It was similar to when I just started to start the business from NASA.
At first, people were telling me, hey, you've gotta go with a pitch deck, go to the Valley, go to VCs, but the VCs weren't trying to rock with me. They didn't think that there was a market for what I was looking to do. Business has been around for 10 years, you're wrong, right? So one of the things that I'd like to say is, stop taking advice from people who haven't done what you're trying to do.
With Lingo, I'm like, I don't think I want to raise venture capital. I know what the stats are, they're terrible. How do I look at the model and how do I flip the model on its head? Because that's what I do.
And when I looked at it, I said, VCs get their money from family offices. Why don't I try to hit up a couple of family offices? Now, I know why people don't typically hit up family offices, but I was determined once again to try and I had the time. And oh, by the way, I had the patience because I'm already running a business that's successful, that I've had for 10 years. So let's try to figure this out. So I made a list of family offices who were in businesses that I thought that could be strategic investors. And the gamble that I made was, well, if I can get a multi-billion-dollar family who has the right investment mindset and is willing to support me and understands the long-term of what I'm looking to do, can I also bring in traditional capital? And the answer was yes. So I did a founder-led seed round where I brought in a million and a half from a family office. And then I went to the other VCs and said, do you want to play?
How did that work out? It worked out well. Because if I've already brought in a million and a half, and you're going to chip in $100,000, that million and a half is going to help your $100,000. So I basically de-risked the round for you. And that's one of the areas that I've been big on telling other minorities to pursue, was what I call friendly patient capital. I call my investors like they're my dad. I'm like, hey, what are you guys doing? Here's what I'm working on. And part of the things that were not non-negotiable for this family was that you were going to do good and you were going to do well, right? It's not just the dollar, it's about the legacy. And so when I tell them that kids in Ghana are doing our kits, have the video, love it, they're like, that's what you're supposed to do, right? Go out and make that impact. Whereas some people who have domestic VCs are not necessarily as lucky to have people who think in that way.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:47)
So, okay, so you raise the money that helps you with infrastructure and employees, I'm assuming. So are you raising more money? What's the goal?

**SPEAKER_2** (2:54)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:55)
There's more.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:56)
You can definitely hit me up if you want to send a check. I accept checks.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:00)
New round.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:00)
How much are you trying to raise?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:02)
I would like to raise about a million more and plot a path to our Series A. And I'll tell you why.
Some of our clients are big firms. Talking Siemens, General Dynamics. General Dynamics has been a customer of ours for the last three years. Microsoft buys from us. We have big companies who have engineers who buy from us.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:27)
Do they buy the software?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:29)
They buy the kits.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:30)
So they can teach their employees?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:31)
They have their employees go into the schools, or they provide it as capacity building for the schools that they sponsor.
And as I started to do this, we started talking to school districts. Shout out to Syracuse School District. And I'm realizing that this mission and this need is even bigger than I knew. Like when I thought about it, I was like, oh, we're just going to ship out some kits. But it's really become about how can we help make a district better? And that is a problem of a much larger magnitude. And it takes more time. And we're also now building custom kits. Like we're about to drop three whole space lessons. We've got a climate satellite, we've got a buggy coming out.