How To Get Startup Funding - Growth Marketing and Hacking Ideas from YC Applications

Mikael Hugg:
I'm excited to see. This is our first podcast, well, it's a video pod podcast per se, but I'm excited to see what kind of business ideas we see and how we can scale it. Well, I think many of you know, I'm a growth hacker and also Artem is Growth Hacker and maybe even more growth marketer if I'm, if I'm correct.

Artem Daniliants:
Absolutely.

Mikael Hugg:
Exactly. And I mean, should we just go straight to the deep end and let's see what Y Combinator pitch videos, what we have and, and what's going on there?

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, so basically the idea of the format is very simple. Me and Miguel, we just look at some features on YouTube and we maybe provide some feedback in terms of, you know, business idea and so forth. And we give ideas as to how they could scale their business. Miguel has a lot of, a lot of understanding and experience with grow hacking. I'm a bit more technical and I focus on growth marketing. Those are pretty similar terms, but they have their differences. Sure. So we could give, we could share ideas and we could give our own basically view in terms of scaling the business based on our experience that we have. So it, it should be interesting. Maybe you can learn something. Please remember to learn something in the comments as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Writing comments if this is absolute rubbish. So just let us know as well, so we can cut it and delete the episode and just make sure that this, like we, we, we make it so that it's never existed. But if you like it, please let us know. Absolutely. So, alright. I'm

Mikael Hugg:
Not gonna open my

Artem Daniliants:
Miguel, should we? Oh, okay. I don't drink, so I don't have anything. I have a girly mug, like a coffee mug that my wife uses. That's the only thing that I have and it's empty. So I, I wasn't prepared as you, so,

Mikael Hugg:
But yeah, yeah, I mean, I can drink for you too, so

Artem Daniliants:
Yes, yes, yes, for sure. Please do, please do. All right. So yeah, let's, let's

Mikael Hugg:
Do the,

Artem Daniliants:
Here basically we have Y Combinator pitch videos. Y Combinator, if you don't know, is a very, very famous site accelerator. Yeah. And they have been involved in many startups such as Dropbox, I think even Facebook Ready. Absolutely. So they have been really, really successful. And people behind White Combinator are very well known in

Mikael Hugg:
The, it's super difficult to

Artem Daniliants:
Get, there's startup community.

Mikael Hugg:
Super difficult to get. I have a, I have actually friend and they got there and they, they been trying to get there I think like sixth year. And the sixth year was the one that the white Cator are like, Okay guys, just all right, you'll end, I think. And they said that probably they were just so eager to, you know, just pushing the pushing until they said like, Alright, let's give it a try. And now they're actually doing pretty well. So I think it's pretty worth it to, to apply there and get in.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. So usually what what happens is Y combiner gives you a little bit of money, right? Which is, it's not very significant, but then they also help you, they mentor you, and they also open the door for, in terms of like new investors and new opportunities. So they definitely kind of like, help you be more successful through the network that they have and the knowledge that they have. So basically, usually, usually once you get to Y Combinator, the chances of success they basically increase exponentially.

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I, I don't know the percentage per se, you know, like what is the actual success rate, but I, I think it's pretty high compared, compared to any other accelerator out there. And there's a lot of accelerate accelerators.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, for sure. But not, not many accelerators can say like, Hey, yeah, you know, Dropbox, Facebook, Reddi, you know, all all where participants of our accelerator or accelerator invested in those companies. Exactly. But without further review, you know, let's just look at some videos. So one thing about why Combinator is that you have many different companies trying to apply very, very different companies, right? And 90% of those companies are, well, they will not make the cut, let's just say that. Okay. They will not make the cut and for obvious reasons, as you will see, but maybe we'll find one that is interesting enough that we can provide feedback on and, and we can help them with some growth ideas.

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah. And, and for people, you know, who are, who are watching this, we, we haven't checked this before, Art, I think you were trying to go a little bit, but then we were just like, ah, no, let's do it together.

Artem Daniliants:
Let's just, let's just record.

Mikael Hugg:
That's always the worst idea. But we are gonna still do it anyway.

Artem Daniliants:
Usually it never ends well, but we'll see.

Artem Daniliants:
Just start.

Speaker:
And I'm of compan our real estate platform that allows you to purchase a second home property at a fraction cost. The reason why I wanted to start

Mikael Hugg:
Is, is there a subtitles? Can you, can you turn on I think the, maybe the sound quality or something is just,

Artem Daniliants:
Or no, it, it, it, it like, captions not available. Did you?

Mikael Hugg:
What they do ero, what they do?

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Comp Panero, I think it's a platform to help you purchase second home at fraction of the cost.

Mikael Hugg:
Ah, right. Yeah. I I didn't get,

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker:
Buyers both thes, foreign forest, it cannot acquire a property due to lack of financial capacity or home for the shape restrictions that is being implemented in the Philippines. So basically,

Artem Daniliants:
Okay, so I think it's in Philippines. Yeah, in Philippines. And then, you know, just a few points, you know, if you create a video for Y Combinator would be good, first of all, don't shake your camera.

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah, exactly. Investigate Mike. I think he's just using the parts or something like that. I see that he got airports in.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Mikael Hugg:
Is my, my road as a, as a mic though. We, we haven't planned this to talk about it, but I just wanna say that it'll be a good idea to go through your pitch, you know, go through with the other, other people's pitch and try to see that. Of course, if people who are not related to you, like they, they don't have any, you know, vested interest in your business, if they can follow your stuff more than not 10, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, then you're in a good way. But that, that's a, that's one, one thing in the crow hacking is that the pitch should be really good because when you have a good pitch, you can also use that on your websites and you can use that on your digital a advertisements and all that's stuff. So when you're creating your Yeah, you should book well where, well, yeah.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. So I completely agree. When it comes to your pitch, first five seconds, you have to give them a hook, right? You could say like, Hey, my name is Artem and we are going to, you know, create an easiest way for you to deploy. I don't know. Yeah. Docker applications in the cloud, whatever that is, like the easiest, most affordable there is. This should be some hook. And then where once you've got their

Mikael Hugg:
Good

Artem Daniliants:
Hello? Well, yes, I, I don't think, I don't think that's possible anymore, but yes, that would be definitely a hook. And then you kind of tell how you will make it happen. And then at the end, there is basically like a cta, well, not cta, we're not doing digital advertising here, but like, what is the next step, right? Yeah. Like, hey, you could find out more information on our website, You can start a free trial. Or in this case like, hey, we're looking forward to, you know, seeing why Combinator founders, you know, or something like that. So there should be also at the end, like what is, what is the next step?

Mikael Hugg:
There was this, like years back I saw this pitch and, and there this guy, you know, he got, had this like a buckets full of pigs, blood or you know, blood, but pigs

Artem Daniliants:
Blood. Wow, okay.

Mikael Hugg:
Fake. Yeah. And, and what he did is that he threw the buckets off blood on this other guy, you know, who was there as a stuntman. And then he said, you know, ask the audience that, so you guys, do you think that he got, you know, this bucket of blood, it had hiv, So do you think that this guy just got an HIV and then bill's like, not really, because that's not how, how, you know, you get infected. Yeah. So if I have, then, you know, then he had the syringe. If I just, you know, push this, this guy, do you think that he'll gonna get hiv? I was like, Yeah, like a hundred percent. And I said, Yeah, well this is our business. And, and their business was that people are nowadays just, you know, spreading all this poison to, to forest, to, you know, try to keep them safe, the trees, but it's not very effect.

Mikael Hugg:
It, it, you know, there's not much of an effect because, you know, it just spread on. And they had this like idea that they inject, I don't know how, how it was actually done, but that they inject to each of the plants or whatever they're growing and, and that's how they actually get the protection against all these vers. And it was a pretty good one. I don't know how, how, you know, I think they, they ended up getting the, the funding, and I don't remember the name of the company, but that was a pretty nice hook. You know, they demonstrated with everybody who, who know, everybody knows, you know, how, how you get infected. So they demonstrated that, and then they build the preach to what, what they're actually doing. And it just made sense, like, yeah. Okay. I I, I understand your point.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, it's definitely like the hook is very, very important. I completely agree. Completely agree. Let's see, fact land maybe.

Speaker:
Hello, Y Combinator. My name is Evan Hanson. I am the co-founder and CEO of Fact Land. We are building a brand new solution to one of the world's oldest, oldest problems and it's reach, crisis proportions, misinformation. We have a new approach that lean into web three technologies and decentralizes the problem of verifying truths and falsity. We gamify it using tokens and we convene anonymous random sample juries to issue verdicts.

Mikael Hugg:
If you pull for a second, is it just me? Or, or maybe it's just the microphone or, or, but it's very hard to get the point, what they're saying. Kinda like lags a little bit, you know, not, it's not our system, but like theirs

Artem Daniliants:
Maybe slower. He's Yeah, and he's shaky. Cam doesn't help, but yeah, it can, this

Mikael Hugg:
Is a recorded, you know, this is a recorded video that they've could have done that.

Artem Daniliants:
Like yeah, of course,

Mikael Hugg:
10 minute times until they actually get it done. You save us like stuttering, all that. So

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. But again, you know, it kind of gives that garage feel, right? Like, Hey, we're working on this startup in a garage, you know, where like really pushing it. We're working on it ourselves and we don't have fancy tools and a lot of budget. There is some, there is some beauty in it, right? Being like raw, being very, like, not very polished, but I think still you have to manage the basics, just absolute basics. Like good mike as good quality as you can, right? Don't, don't, don't shake If you are using your phone as he does, you know, don't do this, you know, just put it on a tripod. But again, no problem.

Speaker:
Census around the outcomes that are produced as well as rewarding participants with for their, for their, for their work. And pass it out to my colleague Pam.

Speaker:
Hi, I'm Pam STAs. I'm a founding board member and chief strategy and operations at Fact Land. Skip our current beta is

Artem Daniliants:
Up. Okay, so where 3.0. Yeah. Okay, let's try this.

Speaker:
Hi there. My name's David and I'm the founder of Brick Graph. Brick Graph is a data integration tool for commercial real estate. We aim to solve the problem of information spread across multiple systems that's difficult to understand, hard to share, and really makes it a challenge for commercial real estate investors, property managers, developers to scale their business in a way that's competitive with large enterprises. The reason why I'm trying to solve this problem is because this is my day-to-day life. For the last three years I've been leading data and digitization work at a global mid-size real estate investment firm here in London, uk. And I have seen up close how challenging it is to pull data from all various systems and present it to business users in a way that helps them make a decision. The unique thing about Per Graph is that it leverages both a data ingestion engine and a graph database layer that helps to map the data across the different business in the different domains. I think, and I know that this is a really big problem for so many real estate investors, property managers and developers, because finding the information inside of your business is the key to unlocking all the value and scale these businesses are aspiring for.

Mikael Hugg:
I, I don't know, Matt, I went to see their websites and this is yeah. Pretty, pretty niche thing, you know, like, ah, you went there as well, right? You'll see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

Artem Daniliants:
Just so data connectivity and insights from vicious real estate companies.

Mikael Hugg:
Well this is, you know, I I I feel like I'm just slamming people all the time that it, it's not my, my point here, but I'm just saying that this probably is clear to them, you know, as they are just, you know, with the, with the problem and with, with their solution every day. But for me as an outsider, I like data connectivity and insights for ambitious real estate companies, for actionable insights. And I, Oh, this, it's not even, Okay, so like what, what this is actually means, this is, it's pretty awake. There should, it should be always concrete. Because the thing is that most people who come to your website, they are not very invested in, in centers and they just come there and if they don't get it immediately, like let's say in three or five minutes, there's actually this growth tech and tool that you can, there's this network of people and you can just send your website there. And if they, and there's this, it's, it's called five second test. And if in the five seconds they understand what's the, what's the, the thing what you're solving, then you know, they, you know, they just, they they is answering like, what, what is, what they think that you are solving or did they actually even get the the point? That's the thing. People don't spend more than that usually when they come to your site. And, and that's why it's super, super important. Oh, you, I don't, it's not this particular one,

Artem Daniliants:
It's, No, no, but but this is what, this is the one that I use, this is the one that I use. Usability Hub is a very good tool where actually it is one, it's

Mikael Hugg:
Very, yeah, this is exactly one. It just looked different. It's, it's been some years before last time I was using it. So they, they changed the layout a little bit. Yeah, yeah. These, yeah. Usability Hub is the one what I, what I meant.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I use it as well. Now we're doing helping customer with the redesign of their shop and we use five second tests and just in general usability hub to get real feedback from customers. Yeah. And actually we realized that the two versions of the front page didn't work at all. Okay. Customers didn't get it at all. Yeah. What the, what we are selling. So Yeah, definitely. And

Mikael Hugg:
It's a lot cheaper to just pay here and check it out than, than just publishing your side and, and putting thousands of thousands of years to our dollars to advertisement and to see nobody converts. So, so yeah, I'm like 200 or $100 is not much.

Artem Daniliants:
It's not much. And you can choose your audience as well. So you can say US parent income 100,000 or more. Yeah. So you can actually like segment it and get feedback from people that are closest to your target audience, which makes a lot of

Mikael Hugg:
Sense. This is not a page advertisements? Not

Artem Daniliants:
Yet. Not yet.

Mikael Hugg:
Not yet. But

Artem Daniliants:
Feel

Mikael Hugg:
Free to, to sponsor us. We're gonna have with

Artem Daniliants:
Yes you guys. Yes, we can. Sh we, we definitely can, you know, shell out for the right price. Just kidding. Of course. But anyway, let's see some more. First time I actually have seen somebody using YouTube shorts for their YC presentation, so pretty cool. It'll be interesting.

Speaker:
Hi everyone, my name is Ka. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Fridge. Fridge is all about making money social for Gen Z. Gen Z has no clue how to manage their money because no one has ever taught them true. And there are no great tools to access. How is everyone else around you affording their lifestyles? We help Gen Z achieve their life goals through community guidance and benchmarking data. We launched a year ago, pivoted a bunch, and right now we've hit product market fit with 35,000 active users from Ivy Leagues. Were incredibly engaged. Lot. They don't That's

Mikael Hugg:
Nice.

Speaker:
Their user. We've raised money from leading VCs such as Good Water Capital and Financial Venture studios. Our cat is under a dollar and our team has experienced working at TikTok, Acorns, Robin Hood, and leading Gen Z influencer

Mikael Hugg:
Agency. I mean, I gotta say they probably got in, I I do you know, do you know the history? Did they actually get in, make

Artem Daniliants:
No idea.

Mikael Hugg:
2023 or what, what is the, the year of

Artem Daniliants:
The, I'm trying to find out two weeks. It, I'm trying to,

Mikael Hugg:
I think it just said two weeks ago. So they're apply for for the next, just go to the next

Artem Daniliants:
Trial.

Mikael Hugg:
Two or three weeks. I dunno

Artem Daniliants:
Which one that one three weeks ago. Yes.

Mikael Hugg:
So this, it's a pretty new one.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. And it see the sign fridge. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm doing right now. So fridge. So basically that pitch I think had everything they mentioned C, which is customer acquisition cost, which is amazing if you have under a dollar C, it's awesome. Yeah, they mentioned that they already found product market feed. She mentioned that they already did pvo multiple times, so they're on the right track. Yeah. She also mentioned that she dropped some names, you know, like TikTok, yada yada, yada. She mentioned that they have a substantial user base, 35,000. So it's not just, you know, like two people and your grandmother, you know, that kind of situation.

Mikael Hugg:
And here's, you know, here we're gonna see that they actually, because they have this social proof that they have this, they have, they already have people who are interested of, of, you know, using their product. That's some uses. And also in, in the growth hack and growth marketing side, if you have these already built, even small, but already builds client base or audience, like just even just a like email list that you can, you can create this like dry wallets. And when people are coming to buy a, buy a product from your side, then you say like, Oh sorry, we are not ready yet, but leave us your email and we'll give you an early bird discount when we get it launched. Like that's, a lot of companies use it right now. I think fluoride was one of the, you know, it's a finish finished startup and they used it pretty damn well. You know, I was actually all one of the, one of the uhers there and, and they, they now are doing just huge. So yeah. Okay. Let's see. More about the fridge.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, so maybe let's give us, give our opinion of the website, right? Like maybe we, this

Mikael Hugg:
Is pretty domain cause you're, you're the coder, you actually, to me it just looks like it's, there's a lot of css so probably it's a pretty slow side. Or is this

Artem Daniliants:
Phone about pretty slow? I don't know about pretty slow, but there are some animations if that's what Yeah,

Mikael Hugg:
That's what I mean. Yeah,

Artem Daniliants:
That's for sure. So usually first thing that I do when I open any website, I go to inspect Element. Yeah. In Chrome. I go to Lighthouse and I click analyze page. Yeah. So what does, what does it do? It actually uses different tools that Google created to assess the technical implementation of the website. So basically you will be able to see right away what Google kind of thinks about or tests that Google created like basic idea of how the website is performing in terms of seo, in terms of performance, best practices, accessibility. Yeah. So you see here performance could be improved. Maybe it's that css,

Mikael Hugg:
Accessibility,

Artem Daniliants:
The best practices

Mikael Hugg:
For people who are just listening us and not seeing the video per se. You know, we to see the, the numbers. So the performance is 34, so that's not really good. But accessibility is though 98. So that's really nice.

Artem Daniliants:
And a hundred is maximum,

Mikael Hugg:
A hundred is maximum. Exactly. And you can also get that you have this pretty cool, cool inspect tool, but you can also just go to, you know, this is this page

Artem Daniliants:
Speed or

Mikael Hugg:
Dot Deb or something. Yeah, I also just have it in my bookmark always. So, so that's, I don't, but anyway, it's, it's free tools from Google so you can just take it out. But anyway, other parts super nice, but the performance at 34, I'm not sure. Are they passing the corporate vitals assessment? Does it say here

Artem Daniliants:
We, we don't, we don't know. We could test it, but again, yeah, if, if you are unsure, just use Lighthouse and see that everything is in green if possible. If not, get in touch with your coder, ask him what's up. It's not a huge thing in a sense that Google will not block you, you will not get, you know, the indexed or anything like that, but it's just a good indication of how good is your user experience.

Mikael Hugg:
Exactly. And usually you can also just, I'm gonna see how much they have traffic, but, Oh, get fridge. I probably did something wrong here. Oh, there's noy. But yeah, you can, you can just, yeah, that's, yeah, you're right. It can take away your ranking Bo boost if, if you are not passing through the Corbi vitals. But the thing is that I think they are gonna pass it anyway.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, I think they will do alright. And not amazing, but, alright. But if you go towards like lower part of the website, you will see that a animation is everywhere. It's flying. And again, they did mention that they're aiming at Gen Z, which could be interesting because yeah, there is this design would work for Gen Z, who knows. But again, I would always test design before going live just to make sure that people understand yeah, what the heck is going on. And this, this feels like here, if you think this

Mikael Hugg:
Feels like this is like optimized mobile first because the first cloud is just cutting there and, and so that's why I feel like it's probably,

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, it could be. That could be the case. And if I choose here at 12 Pro and then hundred percent, so basically this is how it looks on a mobile device. So

Mikael Hugg:
It's a mobile first for sure. It looks like that.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Yeah, Could be. Could be. But I think the big thing here is that their social proof, our users save the $3,780 annually by using our app. I think that information would be, you know, better placed somewhere above, above default so that it's visible. Cause you know, the idea is like, why should I download this? But if you display this social proof Yeah. Then you are like, well okay, I can save quite a lot of money with this tool. Yeah. But otherwise, yeah, some screenshots. Some more screenshots. Yeah. And it's hard to read because the text is kind of like sideways. Yeah. It's not very readable.

Mikael Hugg:
And also is that I, I feel like that's not very seo, like certain so friendly because kind of feel like those are just photos that are not only, it's not photos, but probably really hard to, To machine read. Yeah. Also the 307 hun 3,700 something Euros. I think that's just a, that just a photo.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, I, I think so. They have

Mikael Hugg:
A, I just, they have 1,635 organic visitors per month. So

Artem Daniliants:
How many, how

Mikael Hugg:
Many? 1,635

Artem Daniliants:
Per

Mikael Hugg:
Month. Per month. Yeah.

Artem Daniliants:
Not, not so bad. Yeah, it's, it's for a, for a startup, not too bad. Exactly.

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah.

Artem Daniliants:
But again, when you are just, you know, starting with your business, I think it makes sense to explain the product a little bit and I think video kind of makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And especially when you have a founder like that, the lady was really charismatic. She really knew what she was talking about. Yeah. She could have just created a short video like, Hey, this is why I created Fridge Fridge. Not, not Fridge, Fridge. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that would be much better if she told the story

Mikael Hugg:
That's, Yeah, sorry, I, because I just, it's built by a weeks, the CMS is

Artem Daniliants:
Weeks just R Yeah, Well VS is like, it's weird

Mikael Hugg:
Search builder and

Artem Daniliants:
Shouldn't

Mikael Hugg:
Be. That's fast though.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Yeah. WS sucks. Ah, yeah, pretty much. It's hard in my opinion. But again, yeah, it's vs for sure because you can see V started. Yeah, it's,

Mikael Hugg:
I just check the check their stack. So it's weeks.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. And they have a shop as well. They do fridge, merch. So like why would you buy merch for a company that you barely know in the beginning? Especially I think the time that they spent creating the shop, they could have used much better the time. I mean, but anyway, so here I think if I can, you know, provide a few of I ideas that in terms of scaling the business and then you can go as well. So first what I would do is, because the problem with applications is that if you collect data from users within application, the problem is Google cannot see inside the application. So what I would do is, I guess the way that it works is that people share different tips and, you know, tips on how to save money. Yeah. How to invest money and then others can like it and share it and whatnot.

Artem Daniliants:
So what I would do is I would use this crowdfunded information and I would display it on a website. Right. As a howto or something like that. So basically I would use crowdsourced information in order to increase amount of content on the website so that the Google would find it. Right. So when people start searching how to create good coffee at home or you know, like how to save money or how to start investing, oh for sure they would start seeing this content that others have added to the, to the application. Then also they have here some how-tos, but the how-to is more re regarding the application, how to use the application. And also when you use so much animations everywhere Yeah. It becomes just a mess

Mikael Hugg:
And you know Yeah.

Artem Daniliants:
Use it

Mikael Hugg:
Sparingly. Yeah. Abso yeah, exactly. And especially if you're using page builders like Wix because then it's just, just, it just makes really difficult to read and also really slow in the scalable sign. You know, you, you code your websites. Is it, is it Tailwind or something? I remember it was

Artem Daniliants:
Tailwind we used, Yeah, we used Tailwind. CSS Framework. Framework,

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah. So that would, that would make decide really fast

Artem Daniliants:
Though. Yeah, but they probably don't have the funding for that as you probably,

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah, you wouldn't do weeks if you would have funding or knowledge. Yeah, probably just put all the money to the app, which is a good, good idea. Of course, most likely the website is not the, the their the biggest traffic traffic source for their, their app. I think it's just from the Tick and all that and it's, I think it's pretty good. Good way to, to try traffic Tick is is crazy good for getting Gen Z and, And the Alphas.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. So in my opinion just, you know, fix the site, you know, get rid of the shop, who cares. And then the fridge premium, I don't really understand how that ties into it, but you know, basically in order to drive traffic, use TikTok, turn ideas from the app. Yeah. Into videos, Right. And then share it on TikTok, promote it there, fix your website, make sure that it's readable. Lighthouse is, you know, is passing and you know, get the content to the site so that you will use it as a bait in terms of search engine and yeah. And yeah, just use your founders video. Maybe if you could create a really good video, tell the story, you know, like why did you create it? Because it was a really compelling story I think. And most importantly, you know, test your design with Gen Z people. Because I have been browsing it now for like five minutes. I don't still yet understand how it works. Maybe I haven't done the reading, but readability is so poor. It, it makes it really hard. It hurts my eyes,

Mikael Hugg:
But also we not Fanta. Yeah,

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, yeah. I guess unfortunately or fortunate. I dunno depends how you look at it. But those are my tips, my thoughts. Please Mika, I'll tell me, what do you think?

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah, I, you know, I told you my, my text also totally agree with you. That's like they should just take the data out of, out of the app for sure. This is just, they're just starting out. So if they get the funding then they can continue. And I think this is more just like a proof of concept than actual business. So, or MSP meaning liable sellable products. So they have the clients but they, I don't know. Yeah, I think, I think they, they should get into the Y Combinator just because it's Gen Z. It's very interesting and they're using social media for getting the traffic so that they should at least get a time for, for from the guys

Artem Daniliants:
Anyway. So I just thought that, you know, I just thought that I could, I could show the application, but I actually searched for it on App store and it's nowhere to be found. I think they locked the application to us only maybe cause here it is, but I don't see it. I don't see, Yeah, it's in my app store. Yeah, yeah, it's for the, So from that perspective, I just thought that maybe I could show the application itself and we could provide some feedback, but I can't install it. But there have some good reviews, Some good reviews. But again, I just think they're not really good at driving the kind of the idea and benefits home on the website. They could have actually created like a video here. So the video could show short video could show the functionality of the application within like 10 seconds. But that, that's beside the point anyway.

Mikael Hugg:
Let's see if I can just see the, their TikTok stuff, you know, what they make there. I think that's, that would be interesting to

Artem Daniliants:
See. Oh, like do they have TikTok?

Mikael Hugg:
I, they said they using TikTok for Oh you have their

Artem Daniliants:
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, here it is. Here it is. I found it. It's already on the screen. Miguel.

Mikael Hugg:
Yep. Yeah, I was

Artem Daniliants:
So

Mikael Hugg:
Too

Artem Daniliants:
Slow. So here the app that rewards you for saving money and then there is, okay, so do they have, I don't, I don't think I can see

Mikael Hugg:
There's some,

Artem Daniliants:
Like

Mikael Hugg:
There's not much view there though, so

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, there is not a lot of views. Definitely. Yeah.

Mikael Hugg:
I think she actually made it sound better in the pitch than now that we see the, Yeah, and, and all the YC combiner guy, white combiner guys, they probably just come here to check it out and it's

Artem Daniliants:
Umt.

Mikael Hugg:
Maybe get like influencer detect influencer to get great content for them we use because that's, that's not how it should have been.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah.

Speaker:
Go, go, go, go, go.

Artem Daniliants:
So basically

Artem Daniliants:
This, this got some views, which is good. So definitely partner up with an influencer that, you know, has engaged audience but doesn't have too many views so they're not too expensive. Partner up with them. An influencer who already talks about saving money, right? Not the one that ones, Yeah. You know, talks about cats and dogs and then all of a sudden it's money, you know, saving content. So influencer who you know is, you know, creating content related to personal finance anyway and just kind of like empower that influencer and that would be a much, much better outcome. Yeah,

Mikael Hugg:
You could also, I don't know these Yeah, are these people, they actually users because there's this like, it looks like a little bit of user created confidence, which is huge in the social media era right now. So they look are they the same people? There's a lot of,

Artem Daniliants:
Or Yeah, I think it's a few young ladies and I think there was a guy as well.

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah. But they, they should generate more of this like user created, user generated content, you gc. So that's what they should create. That would help a lot. And that, that's the next movement in the, in the social media area

Artem Daniliants:
And, and check out, this is also my idea, they go in New York City, they go, you know, outside and interview people and ask them about saving money. I think that's cool idea. Cause you can do it forever. Like what's your favorite tip when it comes to saving money or something

Speaker:
Like that? Very expensive. Do you have any budgeting tips for New York City students? Dollar slice.

Speaker:
Oh, the dollar slice. I've been, I've been trying to walk more. Stay indoors.

Speaker:
Don't take Ubers. Go on the subway. 2 75. Come on. Sell drugs. Sell drugs.

Mikael Hugg:
This a solid.

Artem Daniliants:
Okay, so that could be fun, fun content. I think it could be

Mikael Hugg:
How much they there?

Artem Daniliants:
I think for this video it was like 389.

Mikael Hugg:
Oh, what's wrong with that one? They should, they should use the trending sounds. There's this app called, oh I got check it out because TE is using a lot of this, like if you have a trending sound that just, I dunno, this is probably very common knowledge to most of the people, but I'm just saying it's called the trend talk and that's where you can see the, the music that is trending now and what is Trend Talk. Yeah, Trend talk. So tick but trend, Trend

Artem Daniliants:
Talk dot, that's,

Mikael Hugg:
It's an for, it's happened for at least

Artem Daniliants:
An app. Okay.

Mikael Hugg:
Okay. Yeah. And there you can see the songs that are trending in US, in Europe, globally, all, all, all the parts of the world. And you can

Artem Daniliants:
Just see not trend talk. Okay. Yeah.

Mikael Hugg:
When you use those, those songs that they are just trending usually just get a lot more of use. Like in my own TikTok, I've been just using it now and the both of them, they've generated like almost 100,000 of views within like a two days. So it, it really affects a lot. You know what, what kind of sounds you use, you just, you get, you can just take the sound away, just put to 1% are zero, but just keep it there because people are chosen through the sun and you'll get a lot of use.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, yeah. Very, very good tip. Okay, so I think for the first episode, we've been talking nonstop for quite some time, so we're going to soon, you know, get close to like 40 minutes or something. But any closing words from you Miguel?

Mikael Hugg:
Yeah, I, I think the key takeaways from this video is that people should put a lot more effort on their pitch because it's not just pitch for the X letter and in this case it should be everything. You should just put everything to that pitch because that is the make or break moment for you to get there. So you should put there a lot. But even if you're not applying for the Y company area, you would just create a pitch for your clients or for the investors, et cetera. You know, a lot of money stuff, you should always put a lot of effort there because that really makes you, you can, you can repurpose that stuff, but you create there on your website, you can also, when people understand your idea and your your products, then it also help, you know, you get a lot of feedback from people who are not even going to invest, but they just hear your idea and then they are making questions and then you're like, oh shit, we should actually aim our product. That's specific audience or to that. So, but if nobody understands your pitch, it's really hard to get good feedback and then everybody just say like, Oh yeah, I'm like it. Like good idea and yeah, I'm not gonna invest. So I think that's the key takeaway from these videos.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, yeah. In my opinion, basically what did we learn? Pitch is really important. You can see good pitch from a mile away. Once you direct people to your website, make sure your technical implementation is in order. Just check lighthouse or just make sure that you know, you adhere to the best practices when it comes to web development. And also test, test, test and test your design and your idea. Try to get as much feedback as possible, especially in the beginning. You definitely need to get as much feedback as possible because you are, you know, you might have an idea in your head, but once people actually see your product or service, they might not even understand it. So test, test, test. Another thing is if you have a community that you foster, make sure to use the content they create in order to get visibility on search engine, right?

Artem Daniliants:
So in this case, you know, push content from the app to the site. Of course if you use something like Vis, you will not be able to do that. So again, there are some limitations, you know, if you are aiming at Gen Z, TikTok is really cool, utilize influencers. Miguel did mention a really great tool called Trend Talk. You can use that, not sponsor it, rank better when it comes to TikTok for sure. For sure. And just, you know, people say growth marketing, growth hacking, but in the end 80% of it is just doing basic stuff well and then the 20% is doing crazy innovative stuff. Exactly. So yeah, again here I think the founder of the company did a really good job when it comes to pitch itself. So I think they could definitely go places. And yeah, in terms of the format, hopefully this was interesting. Again, we're still learning and we're still going to improve and evolve the formats. So if you have any ideas, good or bad, especially bad ones, you know, write them in the comment box. Yeah. Below you'll find it somewhere under the video, whatever

Mikael Hugg:
It is you have like crazy, crazy good or crazy bad pitch videos. Also feel free to send it to the comments and we're gonna, we're gonna definitely review it, but don't tell us it's not good or bad. Let us, let us find out and it'll be,

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah, or or if you have like a website you want us to review and provide feedback, maybe we could take those in as well. Yeah. And see just random websites that people suggest. But otherwise it's been fun. Thank you very much guys. And we will probably do another one and a few more as well. Absolutely. All right, Miguel, it was a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank.