- Duration: 45 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01J6J020MY8M2DK4RE39F7M85C (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01J6J020MY8M2DK4RE39F7M85C)
Transcript
[Ben Ornstein]: All doing well. Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. [Ray Denis]: My out. Happy to chat. [Ben Ornstein]: Of course. Yeah. So you don’t, you probably don’t have too much context, right? [Ray Denis]: Uh, almost none. Um, so I’ve spoken to how a couple of times just to be, you know, that’s about it. [Ben Ornstein]: Okay, cool. So you know how that’s, that’s part of it. Um, so he wanted to create a resource for. Founders regarding fundraising. And he figured, which I agree with, the best way to do that is by talking to founders that have done it. So yeah, we are creating a resource that’s going to be payment gated with a bunch of case studies of founders with their own unique stories, insights, advice. And yeah, we do this conversation to ask those questions. We’ve got the read AI bot in here so I can generate a transcript from the conversation. Um, when it’s done, I’ll kind of send you a draft of it. You can check it out and say, Hey, I want to add this. I want to take this out, et cetera. Um, so obviously you’ll, you’ll get a chance to look at it before it goes out, um, publicly. And, um, yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s basically it, but yeah. Do you have any questions? [Ray Denis]: Okay, straightforward. I think that’s what I understood the conversation to be focused around. So that all makes sense. Happy to start wherever you’d like and offer whatever insights I can provide. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Incredible. [Ben Ornstein]: Okay. Yeah. I guess a great place to start would be if you could briefly introduce yourself and your startup. [Ray Denis]: Yes. I’m Ray Denis. I’m the founder and CEO of Sandbox Wealth. What we’re building is essentially a turnkey banking solution for independent financial advisors, insurance carriers, family offices, any sort of like bank adjacent firm or platform that doesn’t have access to a bank. So what we do enables these partners of ours to deepen their best relationships and drive organic growth by offering deposit accounts, residential mortgages, art loans, aircraft loans, all sorts of different liquidity and hedging solutions, primarily geared towards wealthy individuals. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Incredible. [Ben Ornstein]: And What can you share about the fundraising journey for your company so far? This could include like, you know, the, how many rounds you’ve raised, maybe if you’re comfortable, the valuations that those were at, um, a lot of founders have been very open to that, but no pressure, of course. Uh, and yeah, everything around that. [Ray Denis]: Yeah. So the journey has been lengthy. Uh, I think, you know, we got started in terms of just sort of like ideating and building out the wire frames and everything back in February of 23. Which was like right after the peak and basically right at the beginning of just sort of like this sort of trough that we’re in in terms of fundraising. And so it’s been slow. And, you know, it takes a while to build something that, you know, I’m sure you’ve talked to other founders that feel the same way. It just takes a while to build something that is relevant for the target client that you’re after, and despite having almost 20 years of experience in banking, primarily at large institutions, going out on your own and doing your own thing is a completely different animal. So I probably underestimated, and I’m sure a lot of first-time founders would say the same, they underestimated how long it would take to A, build the product, and B to get to a yes from an investor. And so that was something that I was like wholly unprepared for at the beginning. But as you get into it, you just sort of like, you know, you get to the point of no return almost when it comes to building and it just sort of like sets in that it’s going to be a long drawn out process and you just got to keep fighting. That’s just sort of how I’ve looked at it. And it’s, you know, you’re sort of caught in this, feedback loop between investors, clients and the product where you try to extract as much information from all those different parties as far as like, you know, where we are relative to what they want. And ultimately, you get to the point where you fit the thesis of an investor, you fit the stage that they’re after, and you sort of fit Um, you know, maybe more, um, in terms of just sort of like being able to compliment each other. Um, you know, having it be sort of a semi-symbiotic relationship instead of one side extracting value from the other. That’s sort of where we wound up when we got to our first yes. And yeah, I’m not going to sit here and tell you, we raised the time we raised a hundred thousand dollars, but, um, you know, that first, yes, met a lot more than the dollar amount associated to it just because it was validation for, sort of the trajectory we were on and what we were trying to accomplish. And it was a, you know, big name investor. We had Northwestern Mutual sort of write the check. And so they’re not just a big name investor, they’re also a target partner of ours. And so it was, you know, sort of a realization at that point that, you know, A, the product can work. B, we’re headed in the right direction. And C, maybe we should have really focusing on raising from a strategic early on instead of just sort of like spraying and praying, which I think is what, again, a lot of people do, whether it’s like through cold emails or like getting lists or whatever on LinkedIn or wherever you’re sourcing like industrials from Um, there’s a huge market for that and a lot of people putting that stuff out there, but really understanding who the right investor is. It was probably something I underestimated at the very beginning that I wish I had known maybe at the start, but that’s sort of the journey. I don’t know how long I was in it, but I’m happy to dive into a little bit more detail around the pricing. I mean, it was an untapped round. I think there’s going to be a lot more to the story once we raise our larger round that we’re after, but I’m happy to pause there and see if you have any other questions. [Ben Ornstein]: No, that’s amazing. That’s a great background there. A great strategic investor too. That’s awesome. And we’re going to dive in later into like, because the cold outreach is an interesting approach. And you know, some people have varied levels of success with that. So we’ll We’ll get into that a little bit later. But when you were raising this money, what milestones were you planning to achieve to get that money? And how do you plan to allocate it when you received it? [Ray Denis]: Yeah. So, well, first, this is part of a larger round that we’re currently in the middle of raising. So we’re looking at raising $2 million in aggregate. And so this first snippet was really meant to be used to finalize our MVP. So, um, you know, we had most of our product built when we got into it, it was an accelerator program, it was a three month program. And, um, you know, the objectives through that three months was to finalize that MVP, get our first, you know, sort of like pilot users on board in terms of just sort of signing up for it, maybe not having them on the platform yet, but just getting them sort of outlined in terms of who they were. And then you know finalizing other sort of foundational things of getting our sock to compliance sorted out getting our initial team in place so hiring a couple of engineers and those are really the primary objectives so essentially getting. You know, this first check was sort of like to get the ball rolling into this larger round that we're in the middle of and I can get into like how that, you know, larger bit is going, but that was really the objective of this first check was just to get us on sort of like, you know, level playing, you know, we're level footing, maybe it's maybe the right way to put it with like, where we needed to be to raise that you know, larger and I think we just weren't quite sure what we needed to do to get there. And I think that initial check helped us outline exactly that. [Ben Ornstein]: It's so interesting, different businesses in different industries are using initial capital in the earlier stages for such different and varied things. So it's an interesting question to ask, because needs are different for different companies at different stages, right? [Ray Denis]: Yeah, and like, you know, with authentic, especially one that sort of like, you know, works with highly regulated clients, we had to, you know, sort of really focus in on those foundational things, because we can just sort of like, hand the product to an RA that's regulated by the SEC and say, like, hey, put like, you know, all your client dollars into a bank account that we offered you like, you know, that probably wasn't going to resonate, you know, with their attorneys and compliance people, right. So we wanted to make sure that we had you know, at least that foundation set and having a partner in and to sort of add that sort of level of trust behind this was, you know, just the perfect complement to what we're trying to achieve with those dollars. [Ben Ornstein]: That's awesome. And so the question, the next one's going to be pretty easy for you, but how did you decide which investors would be a good fit? [Ray Denis]: Well, maybe not quite as easy as you think. So, I mean, maybe the answer is easy, but the process wasn't. I think, you know, ultimately, like, I figured, look, I've got almost 20 years of experience in banking and lending. I was at JP Morgan for a while. Deutsche Bank and then James where I ran a lending business there for a few years and then closed out of V of A So I've got a pretty solid resume. Um, and you know, I've built and rebuilt businesses within the context of these larger firms. So I sort of figured, all right, you know, I can just sort of go to any BC and tell them that story and they'll hand me $2 million. Uh, but you know, not quite, not quite that easy. Um, and so I realized that early on and um, You know, I think, ultimately, I figured, all right, well, maybe I’ll focus in on pre-seed investors. So instead of just sort of like spraying a spray with any VC, I’ll just focus in on SAGE, specific VCs. And I think a lot of pre-seed investors, you know, first of all, pre-seed is sort of like you know, it is what you make of it as an investor. You could just sort of like say your pre-seed and, um, require a client or a company to have like a million in ARR or whatever your requirements are, or you could be like, yeah, we’ll talk to anybody with a free product. It was just such a wide spectrum there. And so like that made it even more difficult. So I tried to own it on pre-seed, but pre-seed was not well defined. Um, then we got, you know, just tons of no’s like year two early’s and, You sort of take that feedback and you, again, like I was saying earlier, you sort of put that into the feedback loop and you say, all right, well, we just need to build a product and focusing on the product. This is, again, one of those things first-time investors or founders will, I guess, do a lot of is they focus in on the product. Just recently, I’ve, you know, I guess we’re probably in a good spot, so that’s part of it. But I’ve really started to hone in on the distribution part of it. I thought we had the distribution ironed out. We had these relationships just through my career. I’ve built relationships with these independent firms that were going to be users ultimately. But I think investors were looking for even a little bit more than that as far as distribution goes. And so really just recently started to hone in on actually forming legitimate partnerships with real dollars involved has been something that’s gotten us over the hump with, I think, some investors, which is making this next bit of the round that we’re raising a little bit more seamless. And it’s helped us also identify better investors because they speak the same language. They understand the market. They have relationships with RIAs or family offices that we can leverage. They have sort of subject matter experts that are either in-house or as venture partners related to these farms. And it just makes the conversation just a little bit easier when you don’t have to explain everything from, you know, sort of square one with an investor. If you’re already on the same page, you already have a thesis around what you’re building, it just makes that process run a little bit more smoothly. So it’s sort of been a natural migration towards this point where, like, you hear enough no’s from a lot of different people, it’s sort of like, you sort of veer into the right people eventually as a result of that. [Ben Ornstein]: Makes a ton of sense. And you kind of already touched on this a little bit, but maybe diving deeper in, how did you get in touch with the investors in general? [Ray Denis]: Yeah, it’s been a combination of things. So early on, despite being on Wall Street a long time, I didn’t have a ton of connections in venture. And I think a lot of what venture funds were saying was like, you need to raise from angels. And the issue with that is like a lot of angels that have been in my network. And if you’re, if you’re familiar with Wall Street at all, a lot of these firms, these major firms will not allow you to invest in a competitor. So you’re just sort of like stuck between a rock and a hard place, right? All the theoretical angels you’ve got access to can’t give you any money. And all the VC funds are saying you need to talk to these people anyway. And so you’re just sort of caught. So I started out with really just cold outreach to try to build relationships that way. And that wasn’t working. I think cold outreach maybe works if you’ve got the right sort of company. Maybe you’ve got a company that you can launch without a whole bunch of capital and you can you sort of sell traction a little bit more than you can, uh, in my space, which is again, pretty heavily regulated. You need a lot of capital to get going. Um, so it was sort of a chicken and egg thing for a while because like investors were looking for traction and, um, you know, we just weren’t able to show up because we needed capital to gain a lot of attraction that I thought we needed. So, uh, you know, we went through that for about a closer year in terms of just sort of like cold outreach, periodic, not really well-defined in terms of the process, which is probably part of our issue too, just sort of like, oh, you came across a list, let me email the designer so that makes sense on that list, and hopefully it works. Where, you know, we really, incidentally, did end up ultimately working out with Northwestern Mutual, where like, you know, it was just sort of like an application process for an accelerator, and you know, I’m just very thankful that I just sort of came across that in the course of doing research and that worked out. And in the course of being in that program, you know, we got introduced to 40 something investors plus during the course of our 12 weeks there. So that helped in terms of like, you know, having access to maybe more warm contacts. Um, you know, so that was part of like what ultimately ended up working was just sort of getting into an accelerator and having that, um, lead into those warm introductions. Separately, the other thing that kind of worked was reaching out to founders. So instead of reaching out directly to the investors, take a look at the portfolio for some investors that you were interested in, reaching out to the founders that were in that portfolio. If they ran a company that was similar or adjacent to what we were building, you could sort of like have a two for one conversation where you get a little bit of insight into, you know, their, their journey and building the company. And then if that conversation goes well, you maybe get an intro into the investor. So I’ve been able to, um, you know, work that angle, but you’re not going to hit it off with every founder. You’re not going to hit it off with every investor, but you’re probably more likely to hit it off with the founder though. And so, yeah, I’ve found maybe a little bit more luck with that route, even though it’s not 100% effective. [Ben Ornstein]: I love the reaching out to founder route because you get that, you can get the warm intros to their investors if the conversations are going well. Plus, as you said, potential partners, if it makes sense, which is such an interesting strategy that honestly can I’m confused as to why it isn’t more widely applied, you know? [Ray Denis]: Yeah, what’s fascinating about that is founders have said the same thing to me. Nobody ever reaches out to them, which I found to be interesting. I guess I wasn’t doing it early on either, so I can understand maybe why people aren’t doing it. You just sort of feel like you’re bothering somebody if that’s not their job, and you don’t feel like you should take that approach for whatever reason. [Ray Denis]: That would be old adage about asking for advice when you want money, that sort of thing. But like asking a founder, like what they think of the investor, how the process went. Um, you know, whether or not they, you know, would recommend that investor to another founder, uh, is, you know, much, much more effective than the sort of like reaching out to the founder and saying, Hey, you know, I would love an intro to that investor. Um, you know, that that’s going to be less likely to be successful. So being genuine in terms of like wanting feedback also is like a key here. I don’t, I think people are, generally pretty good at sniffing out bullshit. [Ray Denis]: If you’re not genuine in asking for advice on an investor, people will probably be less likely to help you out in those cases. If you are reaching out to somebody and you really mean it, offer some thoughts as to why you’re doing it and try to offer some value in some way. If you can do that too, I think that’d be super helpful. [Ben Ornstein]: Quickly back on, you were talking about a lot of the angel investors that you wanted to get in the early days that the VC funds had recommended. Quick anecdote on that. I remember I started my career at Morgan Stanley and I wanted to do some part-time work at a venture fund in the area. I was in Baltimore, so in the area for a little bit. And they didn’t let me they didn’t even let me part-time work at a VC firm that had nothing to do with what I was doing. That was so frustrating. So I can imagine how insane it was for you to try to get any leads. [Ray Denis]: Yeah, I already knew not to ask because like, you know, I I’d been at all the big firms and I had been one of the ones that had to approve like outside business activities for people. And like I just knew like if I had asked a you know buddy who’s a partner in Goldman and very easily could have struck you know stroke a check that I would have needed to maybe it was like months and months of runway I would have done that obviously but like I yeah but I just knew that they could the answer would have been no. And, and, you know, having been on Wall Street that long, that’s where my entire network was. And so thankfully, there were some people that had left. And I was able to just sort of like at least get some feedback or advice from them. But they weren’t like deep pocketed enough to like stroke a quarter million dollar check like the people that are making that money are still their partners at Goldman. Right. And so, um, yeah, so it really did create a whole lot of friction early on with that. But I just basically had to bootstrap the whole thing for a while, which is ultimately like, you know, I don’t know that I would have done it if I had known I had to bootstrap for two years and not earn a paycheck for two years. But, um, yeah, I’m glad I did it looking back. Cause you know, now I own, 90% of the company. And so, you know, I got a little bit more, um, you know, capital in that sense to play with when it comes to finding investors and evaluation will be better. And, um, you know, I’ll save on dilution, not just for me, but for the team. And so, um, you know, looking back on it, it’s kind of a good thing that I had to do it, but I would not have signed up for it at the same time knowing what I had to go through to do it. If that makes sense. [Ben Ornstein]: Oh, a hundred percent. No, ignorance is bliss, right? I mean, it’s great that you didn’t know that. [Ray Denis]: Right, right, right. [Ben Ornstein]: And looking back at like the cold outreach that you did, could you give like a rough subset of like, okay, so that you reached out to this many investors, you had this many meetings and then how many investors ended up investing? [Ray Denis]: So yeah, just a rough, rough I know some people love to put together flow charts of this sort of thing. You reach out to a thousand investors and you get one yes or whatever. And I just never did that. I just sort of put my head down and said, just keep going and don’t keep track because it’ll be demoralizing probably if you do. But if I had to just sort of ballpark it, I’d say 90% were non-responses out of, let’s call it a thousand, roughly. [Ray Denis]: cold emails and that may have included some people at the same time, but you get the idea, right? There’s probably a hundred responses, you know, just even if the responses were no’s, just maybe you got a hundred responses. And, you know, let’s say I have those hundred responses, you know, let’s say 80 of those were, you know, you’re too early or this isn’t a fit. And then, You know, it’s probably more than that, or I probably had more luck than that. Let’s say 60 of those 100 responses were no’s. You know, 40 were like, you know, you’re maybe a little bit too early to keep in touch, like add us to the list or whatever. And then I probably have had, you know, 20, 25 meetings. I don’t know if that math works out, but you get the idea, like roughly kind of where we are. And then of those 25 meetings, only one sort of led to the accelerator program. So like you really had to take a lot of advance, uh, being in my seat, uh, pre-product, pre-revenue, trying to just find one person to say yes. Once you do get that first yes, um, yeah, I probably wouldn’t have believed this before I got the yes, but like it really does get a lot easier. Um, especially if you get a yes in an accelerator that’s backed by a big name, there’s just, you can use that as currency almost to get more meetings and stuff. So since then, since that first yes, I’ve probably had, you know, let’s call it, you know, I had really done a whole lot of cold outreach since then. Um, it’s all been primarily warm actually. And until you’ve been able, I’ve been able to sort of build a network out now through that accelerator, that’s just made the process just like as far smoother. I get meetings now very rarely. Do I get ghosted? And much more often are people reaching out to me as opposed to me doing the reaching out. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s amazing. Yeah, you get to that certain stage, which is really key. And when you finally get there, that’s big. [Ray Denis]: Yeah. I mean, it is sort of obvious looking back on it, but you really just can’t stop. I mean, a lot of people will just stop. And if I were smarter, I probably would have just stopped. But like you do really get like truly obsessed with getting to the yes. And that was, you know, enough for me. It was like, you know, I, I was not gonna like not succeed at this and no matter like how much it was or what, you know, the terms were, it was going to work out and just sort of how I looked at it and approached it. And once it did work out, it really is starting to just sort of like build momentum from there. [Ben Ornstein]: When you were in these meetings with investors, what did you emphasize in your pitch? [Ray Denis]: My background. So I almost always started with the context around A, who I was, what I had done, and why I’m positioned to do this. Because my background isn’t just sort of like banking. It’s also in product. I was at Bear Stearns when it collapsed and helped rebuild that business. I was at Raymond James building out their high-net-worth mining business. Focusing in on the relevant business experience that I had in terms of building or rebuilding teams. And then you get into sort of like the product, the product that’s kind of unique. So, because it, you know, you hear the thing about bundling and unbundling being the ways that you add value as a startup. And so like, I’m sort of like, you know, going in the other direction from what a lot of startups are doing, which is like unbundling from big banks, but only really focusing in on solutions, whereas we’re building more of a platform, like multi-product first sort of approach. Really focusing in on how we’re different, especially in a space like, you know, it’s kind of a neobank, it’s kind of a data aggregator reporting tool, like it’s kind of a credit, you know, solution too. So like, really showing the synergies around, you know, being able to add more value as a cohesive platform than as a standalone point solution has kind of been like the second prong of that, in addition to my background. [Ben Ornstein]: Awesome. Yeah, no, that’s all compelling, for sure. And maybe you haven’t really applied these tactics yet. But I think it’s still an interesting question to ask, like, what did you do? Or what would you do regarding driving in urgency from investors to close a round? [Ray Denis]: Uh, but they know the odds are exactly against you too. Uh, so that doesn’t really help. Ultimately you try to tell them, look, you know, we’ve got a contract we want to get signed and there’s funding requirements around that. That doesn’t always help. Um, you know, what has just recently been helpful is, you know, showing that there are maybe deadlines around deals, like actual revenue, revenue generating opportunities that require some upfront investment that has some really, um, you know, easy, easy to understand outcomes for an investor to like drive home the urgency. So as an example, like we are, uh, you know, thankfully right now about ready to sign documents for another accelerator program, uh, that has set out, you know, what their terms are on the, on the round. But, you know, we’re also talking to a lead investor who’s very interested. And so we’re just sort of laying out, Hey, look, you know, if you get back to us by like a certain time, Today, you can sort of dictate the terms of that investment and it’s better for everybody. And so that’s, yeah, having legitimate, you know, sort of leverage in that sense can be helpful in driving some urgency. Also helpful in that case is they introduced us to an RA and potential partner of ours. And in order to get some deals closed for that partner, we need to capital in order to facilitate a partnership with the bank. So having some legitimate urgency is really the only way to drive that urgency because a lot of people can tell if it’s not legit. If you’re just saying, I’m talking to a bunch of people, that’s not going to work. It’s really going to be like, I’ve got $180 million in loans I need to place with a lender by X date. That's legitimate. And in our case, thankfully, it's accurate. Able to use that as some leverage. But it's really hard to sort of drive urgency without either, you know, sort of fundraising related urgency, or like client and deal specific urgency. Because without that, you don't really don't have much of the way of that leverage. [Ben Ornstein]: 100%. No, that was a great answer that question. I guess I guess you guys are later because you're about to raise off the premium, you said, right? [Ray Denis]: Yeah, so we're raising $2 million now. We have that meeting with that investor who we talked to about that accelerator this afternoon. So like, literally, like, it’s a relevant question, because it’s exactly what we’re going through right now. And so I am, yeah, this afternoon, ideally going to get a yes or verbal, you know, from this potential lead investor, they’ll tell us what they want on the terms for that Accelerator program, we’ll go back to the Accelerator. We’ve already got an M sort of signed up to participate in this round and one other investor. So like, you know, this may be a very different conversation if we were to have it a week from now. So, you know, I can give you maybe a little more detail around terms and all that, but yeah, I think ultimately having that legitimate interest from investors is what people can sense or from clients is what people can sense and that’ll help expedite things dramatically. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, no, it’ll actually be really interesting because I’ll draft up like the first version of this and then we can edit it and you can add whatever relevant based on what happens here, which is kind of exciting. So, cool. You’ve already talked about a lot of the challenges that you kind of went through, but was there one singular biggest challenge that came during fundraising? [Ray Denis]: Good question. I think ultimately, Um, I had to learn a lot, um, in a very short period of time. And the biggest hurdle in terms of what I had to learn is learning how to code, which doesn’t sound like it’s relevant to fundraising, but I think ultimately it was because I had, um, I’ve had two co-founders now who dropped out, um, that were CTOs and, um, and they were obviously like taking the lead and building the product. And to have that sort of adversity that I can now sort of go to investors and say, look, I have lost two co-founders, but I learned how to code and I built out the majority of the front end of the platform myself. In the course of maybe was a month or two of effort. Like, I think that has been a the biggest hurdle I’ve had to get over, but also like the fact that I’m now on the other side of it, maybe the biggest benefit that I can now. Sort of say to people like, look, I’m maybe not a technical founder, but I’ve got technical skills that are capable of building this tool. And so that’s been equally that maybe the biggest challenge, but also maybe the biggest positive outcome that I’ve experienced throughout all this, in addition to getting over that first hurdle with NM. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s wild. I mean, that’s also if I’m an investor, and I’m hearing you say that to me to be like, wait, this guy didn’t know how to code, he learned how to and then built out part of the product after his technical co-founders left. That’s huge in saying, okay, this founder is going to be able to break through any brick wall that is in front of them. That’s awesome. That’s a really cool story. [Ray Denis]: Yeah. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. I wouldn’t recommend losing two co-founders, but like, if like, cause like that kind of thing is going to happen, I guess, to every founder, whether it’s the co-founder quitting or like, I don’t know, you could face any number of different forms of adversity, but yeah, being able to break through those barriers and be relentless in your approach, I think, A, shows investors that you’re going to get through any sort of issue, but B, it proves to yourself that you can do it. I think maybe that was the bigger concern from my end is like, man, I’m stuck. I don’t have anybody to build the product. And so I got on YouTube and, you know, learn how to code basically. And like, yeah, I was, I want to undersell my technical skills. Like I, you know, was able to learn Python in the fall or summer last year, just to like get familiar with it. Cause I knew we were going to use it for our backend. So like I had some like introduction to coding, but I definitely wasn’t technical. And so I’d really be able to dive in and learn, you know, both Python and JavaScript and being able to implement what, you know, was part of my vision and like go straight to my, you know, sort of like, you know, add to the keyboard was, um, you know, very, uh, exciting for me because I found her to like, know that I could do that. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s so cool. And so looking kind of like, it’s funny, because you’re reflecting, but you’re kind of going right through it right now. But what piece of like fundraising advice would you give to other founders? [Ray Denis]: You know, you probably hear this one a lot, but like, you have to be relentless. You know, like, this, this game, the startup game is like you’re to get funded, you really need to be in that top maybe top 10 basis points of people trying it to accomplish what you want to set out to accomplish. So you got to act like it, you know, it’s not just going to fall into your lap. So like you really got to work really, really hard, be able to endure a lot of failures. I’m lucky in a sense because like I’ve been through some hardships personally that have made the hardships in going through as part of building this seem like quaint by comparison, which, you know, I’ve heard, you know, Jensen Wang sort of say this sort of thing about, you know, you really need to be through or you need to go through a whole lot of like really bad stuff in order to be a founder. I think there’s a lot of truth in that because I’ve experienced it and by comparison, like this is nothing, but it is still like in a silo, very difficult. And so you really gotta be, able to withstand a lot of emotional damage in order to get through this, especially as a first time founder. Like if you’ve done it already and you’re like, you know, raising as a second time founder or something, I would imagine it’s far simpler, but like doing it the first time is extremely difficult. You’re, you’re going to have to go past the point of no return, uh, multiple times, uh, before you can feel like, all right, like we’re on, um, you know, a decent footing here, but then You know, within a week of that feeling, you’re going to feel the same way you did right before that. And so, like, you really got to be able to withstand that, like, emotional whiplash. [Ben Ornstein]: Going through something personally, like, unbelievably challenging, probably does make us seem like, okay, well, I mean, This is nothing, right? This is just something else. I don’t know how to put it, but I think you know what I’m saying. [Ray Denis]: Yeah, by comparison, this is literally a walk in the park. But I can also appreciate that it is incredibly difficult at the same time. [Ben Ornstein]: If there was an investor you would recommend other founders work with, who would that be? [Ray Denis]: There are a couple of folks that have said no to me. Would love to continue the conversation with, just because I really enjoyed, you know, working with them through the due diligence process. So I really love the team at Proven. Rohit Ramkumar is the investor there that we’ve been working with. Proven is the venture arm of, well, they’re not really affiliated, but you get the idea they’re backed by, uh, credential. Um, and so they’re corporate VC kind of, but not really. And, um, I really, really enjoyed working with them. Uh, also love the team at headline. Um, you know, they, they’ve been terrific. I know the CFO there for my time at RJ. And, uh, so I have a really nice relationship there going back a ways. Those would be the two investors that I would recommend to anybody. Um, even if they’re never investors in sandbox, I would recommend that folks talk to them. Um, and then, and then, you know, I, I really love the team at Northwestern. I mean, not just cause they said yes, but like they’ve been, you know, just so great and supportive throughout. And you know, the accelerator was run by generator. There’s an accelerator that like nobody talks about, but I think is awesome. Um, and you know, it’s a hundred thousand dollar check. They give you an uncapped amount, uh, on the valuation for a period of time until You know, some, you know, I guess, governors start to check in, but, you know, they, I mean, they offer really reasonable terms for a decent check to get people going. And I would recommend them to anybody too. So those would be the firms that I would highly recommend. And I’m sure there are, you know, a bunch of others that I’ve enjoyed dealing with. Those are the ones that stand out. [Ben Ornstein]: Oh, that’s awesome. I love when founders recommend the ones that didn’t actually invest in them. You’re one of the few who have done that. Yeah, which is cool. I like that a lot. [Ray Denis]: Yeah, I think ultimately, I understand. I’ve been in finance a while. I understand a no isn’t personal. I mean, most of the time it’s not personal. Sometimes it might be, but I don’t get that impression with most of the investors that say no. [Ray Denis]: They’ve got their hurdles they got to hit. And they’ve got target outcomes they need to hit within a certain timeframe. So like, you know, it’s math at the end of the day, it’s not really a personal thing. And so, you know, but like at the same time, there are people that go above and beyond and, you know, teams that have proven and have gone sick out because of this. [Ben Ornstein]: 100%. Are there any resources that you would recommend to founders? So this could be books, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, anything. [Ray Denis]: Everything. I really like everything because you don’t want just like good advice. Um, if that makes sense, you really need to understand what bad advice is. Um, and so you need to digest everything. Um, so I hesitate to just give people like you know, the really good advice, which is like, you know, there’s Y Combinators, a YouTube channel. I guess a lot of people probably look at that. You know, A6MZ has a great, you know, FinTech blog. You know, FinTech Cake is a, you know, FinTech related blog that I, you know, read, that’s Jason Mikula. There’s also different like newsletters and blogs out there and this ecosystem. I just encourage people to digest all of it. Follow everybody on Twitter, follow everybody on LinkedIn. People are going to give really bad advice. Don’t take all the advice that you get. Take the advice that fits for you and your situation. As an example, people will tell you as a founder, you need to launch fast. Get the product out there into the world. And as I mentioned with our product, that’s just not going to work in finance. You know, it’s highly regulated. Like if I were to launch fast, it would be the death knell of the company very quickly if the number’s up. So like, you know, you’ve really got to be thoughtful about how we launch. And so, you know, there’s advice you’re going to get that might be right for some people, uh, but may not be right for you. So digest everything, decide what it is that’s right for you, and then pick and choose amongst that, you know, sort of universe of options out there. [Ben Ornstein]: I love that answer. That’s a great one. And the last question is, do you have any hot takes regarding the fundraising process? [Ray Denis]: It’s not as bad as, and this might tie into my answer, having been through a lot of really bad things. But if you treat it like a competitive sport, it can be fun. [Ray Denis]: you know, and you really need to be able to sort of withstand those sort of like, you’re getting cut from the team or, you know, maybe not being a starter or whatever, right? Like those are the things that happen in competitive athletics, especially in sports. And if you can sort of look at it that way, you know, the best athletes are the ones that, you know, like Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round, right? Like, you know, they’ve been through some adversity and they’ve gone over the hump. So, like, embrace the, you know, really difficult parts of this process because it will be difficult. And if you don’t embrace it, you’re not going to make it. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s awesome. That’s a great one. Ray, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for taking the time. Quick question, are you guys hiring at all for like lenders or like, yeah, any help? [Ray Denis]: Possibly soon. So I have focused on building out the technical team first. So we’ve got offers out to, or soon to have offers out to a head of engineering and a couple of engineers. But we do need to fill out the, maybe not the sales team, but maybe the product side of it, or maybe it’s a hybrid product and sales. So we are very soon going to be doing like a head of business operations, salesperson, probably somebody who’s focusing on product operations. So yeah, soon, but not quite yet. [Ben Ornstein]: I know some people that could be a decent fit that have lending experience. So it’s something we could talk about later on when you’re hiring. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Ray Denis]: Yeah. I mean, even just the network is like, you probably know, like, it just takes a long time. I’ve been talking to some of these engineers for months now, and they’re still sort of waiting in the wings waiting for the right thing. So happy to kick off the conversation whenever and see where it goes. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, I’ll reach out to them. I’ll send them your website. And if they’re interested in kind of having the conversation, I’ll connect you to them. [Ray Denis]: Perfect. Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Amazing. [Ben Ornstein]: Best of luck on the call later today. Yeah, it’s going to be really interesting to see the updates that are in this study after I get the initial draft done. And yeah, I’m sure we’ll be chatting. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Awesome. [Ray Denis]: Sounds good. We’ll talk soon. Have a good one. Yep. See ya. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Bye.