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Overcoming Funding Hurdles For Entrepreneurs · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: I mean, we know statistics. We hear about it, the
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  Speaker 1: percentages that minority founders, you know, are able to have
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: access to. What was that like for you, obviously being minority,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: being a woman, a founder talk about that.
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  Speaker 2: I really liked being an outsider in the sense. It
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: was similar to when I just started to start the
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  Speaker 2: business from NASA. At first, people were telling me, Hey.
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  Speaker 3: You've got to go with a pitch deck, go to
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  Speaker 3: the valley, go to vcs.
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  Speaker 2: But the vcs weren't trying to rock with me.
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  Speaker 3: They didn't think that there was a market for what
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  Speaker 3: I was looking to do.
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  Speaker 2: Business has been around for ten years.
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  Speaker 3: You're wrong, right, So one of the things that I'd
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  Speaker 3: like to say is stop taking advice from people who
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  Speaker 3: haven't done what you're trying to do with LINGO. I'm like, eh,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think I want to raise venture capital.
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  Speaker 2: I know what the stats are. They're terrible. How do
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  Speaker 2: I look at.
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  Speaker 3: The model and how do I flip the model on
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  Speaker 3: its head? Because that's what I do. And when I
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  Speaker 3: looked at it, I said, vcs get their money from
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  Speaker 3: family offices.
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  Speaker 2: Why don't I try to hit up a couple of
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  Speaker 2: family office.
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  Speaker 3: Now I know why people don't typically hit up family offices,
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  Speaker 3: but I was determined once again to try, and I
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  Speaker 3: had the time, and oh, by the way, I had
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  Speaker 3: the patience because I'm already running a business that's successful
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  Speaker 3: that I've had for ten years, So let's try to
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  Speaker 3: figure this out.
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  Speaker 2: So I made a list of.
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  Speaker 3: Family offices who were in businesses that I thought that
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  Speaker 3: could be strategic investors. And the gamble that I made was, well,
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  Speaker 3: if I can get a multi billion dollar family who
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  Speaker 3: has the right investment mindset and is willing to support
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  Speaker 3: me and understands the long term of what I'm looking
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  Speaker 3: to do, can I also bring in traditional capital?
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  Speaker 2: And the answer was yes.
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  Speaker 3: So I did a founder led seed round where I
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  Speaker 3: brought in a million and a half from a family office,
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  Speaker 3: and then I went to the other vcas and said,
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  Speaker 3: do you want to play?
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  Speaker 2: How did that work out?
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  Speaker 3: It worked out well because if I've already brought in
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  Speaker 3: a million and a half and you're going to sip
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  Speaker 3: in one hundred thousand dollars, that million a half is
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  Speaker 3: going to help your hunred thousand dollars.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: So I basically de risked around for you. And that's
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  Speaker 2: one of the.
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  Speaker 3: Areas that I've been big on telling other minorities to
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  Speaker 3: pursue was what I call friendly patient capital.
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  Speaker 2: I call my investors like they're my dad. I'm like, hey,
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  Speaker 2: what do you guys doing. Here's what I'm working on.
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  Speaker 3: And part of the things that were not, you know,
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  Speaker 3: non negotiable for this family was that you were going
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  Speaker 3: to do good and you were going to do well right.
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  Speaker 2: It's not just the dollar, It's about the legacy.
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  Speaker 3: And so when I tell them that kids in Ghana
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  Speaker 3: are doing our kids have the video, love it. They're like,
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  Speaker 3: that's what you're supposed to do, right, go out and
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  Speaker 3: make that impact, whereas some people who have you know,
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  Speaker 3: domestic vcs are not necessarily as lucky to have people
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  Speaker 3: who think in that way.
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  Speaker 4: So, okay, so you raise the money that helps you
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  Speaker 4: with infrastructure and employees. I'm assuming, so are you raising
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  Speaker 4: more money? What's the goal?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, you can definitely hit me up if you want
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  Speaker 2: to send a check, nankcept check.
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  Speaker 4: How much are you trying to raise?
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  Speaker 3: I would like to raise about a million more and
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  Speaker 3: plot a path to our Series A.
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  Speaker 2: And I'll tell you why. Some of our clients are
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  Speaker 2: big firms talking Siemens General Dynamics.
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  Speaker 3: General Dynamics has been a customer's ours for the last
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  Speaker 3: three years. Microsoft buys from us, Right, we have big
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  Speaker 3: companies who have engineers who buy from US.
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  Speaker 4: What do they buy the software?
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  Speaker 2: They buy the kids so.
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  Speaker 4: They can teach their employees, They have.
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  Speaker 3: Their employees go into the schools, or they provide it
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  Speaker 3: as capacity building for the schools that they sponsor. And
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  Speaker 3: as I started to do this, we started talking to
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  Speaker 3: school districts. Shout out to Syracuse School District. And I'm
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  Speaker 3: realizing that this mission and this need is even bigger
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  Speaker 3: than I knew. Like when I thought about it, I
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  Speaker 3: was like, oh, we're just going to ship out some kids,
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  Speaker 3: But it's really become about how can we help make
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  Speaker 3: a district better?
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  Speaker 2: And that is a problem of a much larger magnitude
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  Speaker 2: and it takes more time.
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  Speaker 3: And we're also now building custom kids, Like we're about
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  Speaker 3: to drop three whole space lessons. We got a climate satellite,
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  Speaker 3: we got a buggy coming out. That buggy's a moon rubber,
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  Speaker 3: and we also have a rocket launch. And in building
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  Speaker 3: all all this content, I'm like, you know what, bo,
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  Speaker 3: we take a little bit more capital, take our time,
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  Speaker 3: and really do something that is going to.
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  Speaker 2: Move the needle.
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  Speaker 1: How many lessons are inside these kids? Because I'm thinking,
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  Speaker 1: and this was an elementary middle school and obviously high
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  Speaker 1: school probably different, but it felt like they were just
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  Speaker 1: for semesters, and so there was a semester with the
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  Speaker 1: lessons and there was a new set of kids. So
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  Speaker 1: those fourth semesters of kids in the grade every year.
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  Speaker 1: How many lessons are inside of your kids right now?
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  Speaker 2: So it depends on what you want.
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  Speaker 3: And this is the beauty of it, because we design
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  Speaker 3: this to be flexible. You can have two to three
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  Speaker 3: semesters worth in your kid if you want, all about what.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: You ask us for. So we developed content for every.
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  Speaker 3: Lesson for the classroom and you could teach that over semester.
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  Speaker 2: You could teach it over too.
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  Speaker 4: So school districts aren't really buying it for you. For
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  Speaker 4: the most part. Is corporations as buying it.
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  Speaker 2: It's mostly been corporations.
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  Speaker 3: If you're out in the district, yeah, I mean, I
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  Speaker 3: think the challenge right is there's a lot going on
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  Speaker 3: in the district environment and we've got some good connections
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  Speaker 3: and we're making progress.
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  Speaker 2: But this is where I'm.
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  Speaker 3: Not ashamed to say I need help the people who
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  Speaker 3: purchase from us. They love us, but I started to
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  Speaker 3: realize what we were really up against when it comes
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  Speaker 3: to like ads and marketing and all that stuff. And
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  Speaker 3: that's really why I was like, I got to go
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  Speaker 3: back to the drawing board and raise more money because
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  Speaker 3: I did not know how expensive it was to really advertise.
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  Speaker 2: And read some of these people.
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  Speaker 1: Is it a price point issue? Because I feel like
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  Speaker 1: schools wet so much money on some of the most
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous things, and they do it better every single year.
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  Speaker 1: And so when you're approaching schools or school districts, are
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  Speaker 1: they saying, well, it's the price point, we don't have
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  Speaker 1: it in the budget this year. What is the resistance
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  Speaker 1: you feel? Because every school has them, so I'm just
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  Speaker 1: trying to find what would be the resistance.
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  Speaker 2: So we actually do not see resistance. Once we get
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  Speaker 2: in front of the right person.
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  Speaker 3: What I see is the amount of money that I
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  Speaker 3: have to invest to have somebody reach out, form the relationship,
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  Speaker 3: do the presentation, put the proposal in front of whoever
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  Speaker 3: has to make the decision, close the deal, and then.
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  Speaker 2: Get paid can be roughly six to eight months. And
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  Speaker 2: that's really where we have to support the operation until
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  Speaker 2: they can close the deal.
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  Speaker 3: And so the challenge in my mind is how can
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  Speaker 3: we do more of these deals and shorten the time.
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  Speaker 4: So what's the ultimate vision for the company.
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  Speaker 3: My vision for Lingo would be to not only be
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  Speaker 3: a global provider of immersive STEM experiences. I would like
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  Speaker 3: to get to the point where some of our boxes
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  Speaker 3: interact with Oculus, but to combine that with the entrepreneurship thing.
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  Speaker 3: Because when I teach the Lingo Box in the Bahamas,
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  Speaker 3: and I've had this camp for nearly ten years, I
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  Speaker 3: couple it with entrepreneurship, and then I give kids money
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  Speaker 3: to go out and try to run their business, because
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  Speaker 3: I believe that you don't have to have a college
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  Speaker 3: degree to be a multimillionaire. You just need to have
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  Speaker 3: entrepreneurship skills.
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  Speaker 2: And it's like a muscle.
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  Speaker 3: The more that you exercise it, the stronger that you're
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  Speaker 3: going to get. So I want students trying to build
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  Speaker 3: their first startup when they're twelve or they're thirteen, because
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  Speaker 3: by the time they're twenty, they're going to be beasts.