- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01J9753256268HYQWG3RPEAJ7T (via Ben Ornstein’s account, imported 2026-08-06)
Transcript
Ben Ornstein: Hey, Corey. Corey Livingston: Let me see. Can you hear me, Ben? Ben Ornstein: Yes, I can. How you doing, Corey? Corey Livingston: I’m all right. All righty. I’m here. Okay. I’m all right. Everything’s good. How’s everything with you? Ben Ornstein: Things are great. Things are great. Um, yeah, no. Well, where are you calling in from Corey Livingston: I am in los angeles. Ben Ornstein: Oh, very nice. Awesome. Corey Livingston: Yes Yes, yes. Yes. What about you? Ben Ornstein: I am in the random random state of delaware That’s not that random. Corey Livingston: It’s a lot of companies, uh revenue and company starting comes out of there That is very true. Ben Ornstein: That’s a very good point. That’s the first thing everyone says when I tell them I’m currently in delaware Um But yeah, no, very cool. Well, you know, thanks for thanks for hopping on the call. Um, I appreciate it What um, how much context do you have for this call? Corey Livingston: Um I you know i’ve been following huck for a while. Um, he just kind of told me he’ll put me in touch with the team Mentioned that he is looking for superstars in their space And potentially being able to be featured on a podcast or some other type of content that you guys share with readers, investors, et cetera. And he thought what we were doing was great. And I told him, okay, we’ll book something and go from there. Ben Ornstein: Amazing. Okay. So you already know how you’ve been falling for a while. That’s that’s, that helps. Um, so basically a re one other resource that he wanted to create was a resource for founders, uh, for fundraising regarding like fundraising. And we figured, you know, what, what better way to do that than to speak with founders themselves who have done it. And so that’s what we’ve done. We’ve got this library of like 60 plus founders with all different industries, all different stages. And we turn this conversation, which is why I have the read AI guy in here, we turn the transcript from this call into a case study. And so you get a chance to edit it before we like push it live, but it’s going to be kind of payment gated for, you know, for founders to then pay for. And it’s been a ton of fun creating these. I think the founders like yourself have really enjoyed it. Um, and yeah, I mean, what, what questions do you have? Corey Livingston: Uh, not much outside of, I, you know, I think about being a founder and fundraising and everything else that comes with it. You have to court attention at all costs, right? Like if nobody knows you, even if you’re is something on a piece of paper, but you can make it seem like the biggest thing ever. That will help you in the road to success because people have to believe in you first before they’re going to buy your product. I don’t care what it is. So I, you know, ultimately I’m at that stage. I’ve been there for a while to where, you know, if I see other like-minded individuals, I like to get involved because relationships are reciprocal and energy begets energy. So I think that this is great. I don’t have any specific questions, just however the platform allows itself. Let’s just allow it to do that. And organically, what will be will be, right? Ben Ornstein: I love that. I mean, your mindset’s amazing. I love that. It really is all that energy. I learned from someone I’ve worked with in the past how important energy really is. And you clearly have it. I can tell just by speaking with you, which is amazing. And yes, I mean, the format of this is I have softball questions. Things that you have you have no trouble answering even if you haven’t answered them before This is obviously gonna be edited. It’s gonna be it turn into a text case study We don’t actually use this video other than the transcript. So if there’s anything you say you’re like actually wait I don’t want to say that or Afterwards after this is all done. You’ll get a chance to look at the document before I publish it so you can edit I’ve been doing pitch videos all week. Corey Livingston: So I’m not gonna be pitching here. We just have a conversation conversation, but I have some great things that, uh, let’s just say spark the interest of the ones that are following, you know, my journey and the journey of just the industry I’m in. So I’m excited. Ben Ornstein: Awesome. I’m excited too. That sounds great. Okay. So Corey, please briefly introduce yourself and your startup. Corey Livingston: What’s up everyone. I’m Corey Livingston, the CEO and co-founder of Splits, where we have develop the fastest payment system for creators on the market powered by AI. Ben Ornstein: That’s pretty, that’s pretty succinct. I love it. Awesome. Um, can you share a little bit about your fundraising journey so far? This could be, you know, how many funding rounds you’ve done, how much you’ve raised in each round. Uh, if you’re comfortable, the valuations again, this isn’t going to go public. So, uh, it will public, but behind a paywall for founders to see, um, but again, Again, no pressure on that. So yeah, funding rounds, the amounts, valuations, and maybe even how long it took to close the rounds, but all that would be great. Corey Livingston: Yeah. So we started in 2022, took in a family and friends round of about $75,000. Of course, my co-founder and I put in our own capital and then went through a couple of accelerators over the last I would say 15 months. So all in, we raised $150,000. With that, it took, I mean, it happened immediately, but then the, of course, the accelerator programs that we were in had kind of the cohort. So that went over like an eight-week or what, 12-week program, did that, and now we are in our seed rates. So our valuation starting was about $2 million. Now we've exploded. That to $6.57 million cap. We’re raising $1.5 million and our round is coming in nicely and hope to close by the end of October to accelerate everything that we're doing as far as doubling down on user growth, personnel, and just action items of really building this business. Ben Ornstein: Amazing. And so just to clarify, that valuation of $2 million was prior to starting the seed raise. Corey Livingston: That’s correct. Ben Ornstein: Awesome. Good. That’s helpful. Very cool. Um, and so you kind of started to answer this at the end there, but what did you plan to use the money ahead of time for, you know, what milestones did you want to achieve before raising the next round? And yeah, how do you plan to allocate that cash? Corey Livingston: The way that I like to put it is that we’re putting it in the special places that really can see ROI quickly. And how that works is that doubling down on the user acquisition is really where we’re at. We’re in the creator space. So we have to build tools and get creators on our side quickly. And we have to be very, very specific about how we’re targeting each of them. So putting a robust, um, targeting programs, not even marketing, it’s a targeting program to get our creators on board it, get their feedback, and get possibly that feedback advertised is one thing. Also, personnel. We have a large network and advising group that’s with us here in Los Angeles, but I do need to bring in one or two key personnel that are going to help us expand to, you know, 50,000 users and deal with that headway that’s going to come our way. And then, of course, just making sure that our operational capital keeps, you know, under a certain burn rate. Strategic marketing, key personnel, and then just overhead for running a business of a team of seven. Ben Ornstein: Amazing. Great. So when you were finding these investors, um, how did you decide which investors would be a good fit? And I know you said accelerators, but still let’s, you chose to apply to certain accelerators, right? But that’s just me asking myself the question. How did you decide which investors would be a good fit? Corey Livingston: Well, honestly, during the pandemic, a lot of investors had some thesis that they just threw out there trying to pass the wide net because they had dry capital or whatever capital to deploy at a certain time. Of course, we were a startup that necessarily wasn’t at a stage to really grab it, but we went after it anyway, because at that time you could do it. I had to take a seat and say, OK, Corey, and my co-founder, Ashley, we said, okay, which investors can we target that are going to make sure that we accomplish our goals, but also help us reach the edges of different. Cultures and industries that are not just here in the U S so we targeted investors that are actually second generation investors here out of a Silicon Valley. We targeted investors that are from different countries. Um, we targeted investors that are specifically in the creator economy and FinTech and AI. We have three that are open to these different ideals and not something that’s just financial technology in a box. So we have to segment it and that took time, but they’re being very direct because internally we know that our user base is growing faster overseas than it is here in the U.S. As far as what our platform is delivering. So we need strategic investors to to have some of that nuance about them and some of that industry knowledge so we can touch some of those places quicker. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Cool. Ben Ornstein: And so how did you get in touch with these investors? Corey Livingston: Honestly, advisors. Advisors, people in the network. I was reaching out crazy. People were at home, so they were by their computers focused, so they were able to put us in touch. Self-submitting and coding. I mean, it was a mixture of just sales, just touching as many people as I could. Ben Ornstein: Well, that goes right into our next question of roughly how many investors did you reach out to? If you could break it out into how many investors top of the funnel did you reach out to? How many initial meetings did you get with these investors? And then ultimately how many of these turn into investments? And rock numbers, obviously it doesn’t have to Yeah. Corey Livingston: Um, I would say probably 300 to 400 investors reached out to out of those. I probably got a hundred touches back replies back. Ben Ornstein: It’s pretty good, right? Corey Livingston: Yeah, it was. I mean, you know, I know how to write exciting emails or the people that were, uh, warm introing us also are included in that. So it can be all just cold outreach. So it’s a little mixture. That 50-50. And then out of those, I, we probably had, I would say a good 20 to 25 meetings. And then the investment and the accelerator started to come in around that 25 meeting, 20, 20 meeting mark. Ben Ornstein: Cool. And then, so at the end of those 20, 20 25 meetings, there were like three investments? Four? Three investments. Three investments. Correct. Corey Livingston: the two accelerator programs that invited us in, because of course we had to pitch them. Ben Ornstein: So there’s the two accelerator program. Well, I guess maybe more than three then, right? Was there only one angel? Corey Livingston: One angel. Oh, so it was one angel. Okay, cool. Ben Ornstein: Awesome. No, that’s great. And so when you were pitching these investors, what do you emphasize in the pitch? Corey Livingston: I’m emphasizing the room for a billion dollar industry to have a major player that can handle payments. I emphasize data control. I emphasize financial payments. If you do that in any business, you get rich. But if I put it more in layman terms, I emphasize that at the time there was no systems available for our users to manage their business. So if you’re a creator at the time, even still now, there’s a lot of inconsistencies and a lot of Antiquated systems that don’t allow you been to just be an influencer online and just make simple money You know a thousand to twenty five hundred dollars a month because there’s just no centralized system So that’s what we conquer and if an investor understands that we’re a fintech banking application. We don’t do any marketing We don’t do any of that. We don’t we leave that to those channels, but the channel that we’re on we’re taking advantage of is more like PayPal on a robust setting, right? So I emphasize that, but I have to clean up kind of the pitch in a way that made them see why this was such an issue with the story. So, and you know, we pitched some bigger, bigger guys. I mean, we were pitching some VCs that are, you know, you can run their names and you would know that they’re in the upper echelon. So that journey allowed me to just become better. Um, and I’m, you know, I’m a natural technical sales guy. Like I understand it’s more science than, than ability. So I get it, but pitching your company and being really involved in it and selling somebody else’s thing are two different things. And you can kind of go off the rocker. So to answer your question, um, ultimately it’s just making sure that I was doubling down on where our future plans go about where this a hundred billion dollar industry is going and and we can be the mainstay in it. Ben Ornstein: Love it. Yeah. No, you clearly, you clearly can craft a story I can tell. And the only way you get better is by doing it right. Corey Livingston: Correct. And you know, Ben, we have to throw this in there for all the readers and listeners. Zoom is different than being in person. That is a whole different dynamic that most founders really didn’t realize it would have to come in so early. Because I would fly up to San Fran, I can meet an investor in LA. If I have to go to New York, I would do that. Because if they’re wanting to see you, then you have a potential to closing them. And so that interpersonal was taken out and that kind of threw off the way that you talk to people, because at the time it kind of just got thrown on us so quick that we didn’t have time to kind of really collect ourselves and figure out how this is gonna work, so. Ben Ornstein: 100%, totally different things. And you know, these investors and you were getting closer to the investments. Did you apply any urgency tactics? Did you drive urgency among investors to close the round? Corey Livingston: Of course. We need to close today, two weeks ago. Yes, yes, yes. The fear of missing out was always the tactic, but it’s really about first money in. And if you can secure that, then of course, course, the FOMO applies. And it has to be an investor that really can apply that pressure. So unfortunately, we weren’t able to kind of get that at the early stages. We’re on the verge of it now. But I do understand that, you know, nobody wants to be first money in, they want to see their friends do it first, and then tell me it was cool, then I’ll come with you. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, 100%. What has been the biggest that’s come up during fundraising. Corey Livingston: Just touching the right investors, really getting the intros. I mean, your network only goes so far and I have a pretty good network. Don’t get me wrong, but I wish I had a bigger one. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s one of those things where you’re like, look, I could reach out to 10 of my closest people on LinkedIn and email and all that. And, you know, maybe they can get you two intros, you know, cause even then they still want to protect themselves. So it’s just making sure that your network is robust enough. I know that like that takes us back We were all in the house so how can I go out to those events and reach out to these people and touch it so they can get to know Corey as a founder and not just the System I’m selling and so now we’re getting back to that and I feel like it’s turning in the right direction Absolutely, and I love this one of my favorite questions There are probably some funny Ben Ornstein: or interesting or unique stories that came up during your fundraising process. Do you have any of those that you’d like to share that maybe you haven’t touched yet? Corey Livingston: What is a good funny one? I mean, they’re all funny, right? Ben Ornstein: It doesn’t even have to be funny. It could be unique or interesting, doesn’t necessarily have to be funny, but yeah, totally up to you. Corey Livingston: We’ve got our first big check. In. I got another offer from another Accelerator program, but that Accelerator program actually didn’t offer us any money. But when I presented it to the other investors, they, you know how those Accelerator programs, but I’ll get into it, but some programs like, we’ll come on as an advising fee and then we’ll, we’ll promise. Ben Ornstein: Oh, okay. Got it. Corey Livingston: Got it. You got to be cognizant of that. So that was one of those programs. They were really hard on getting us in. And I’m thinking to myself, I’m like, we’ve got a yes. Maybe I can parlay this into an actual check. So I went back to the investor that we hadn’t heard from as far as like investors and accelerator programs and was able to kind of create that FOMO we just talked about with a smaller check. And I was able to get that done. And I had told my co-founder, I’m like, look, I have an idea. I’m just going to work it and let you know if it works. And it actually out exactly how it was supposed to, just by a couple of emails within a week. We were accepted, got money in, and I’m like, look, this is meant to be. So that was a unique story about our first fundraising juncture. Ben Ornstein: That’s cool. That’s a cool story. You really took advantage. You’re very opportunistic. Corey Livingston: You have to be. You have to pull it in. You gotta create it, it’s not gonna create itself. And knowing that I got a yes, I could parlay that into a yes that’s actually gonna have some meat behind it. And I just trusted my instincts and that’s all you really have. Ben Ornstein: I love that and you’re so right, 100%. What’s one piece of fundraising advice that you’d give to other founders? Corey Livingston: I have a two way thought process on this. In general, all founders understand it’s about your network. With us being down here in Los Angeles, it’s a little bit different investing market than being in San Francisco. It’s just point blank. So understanding that, you know, it’s going to take a little bit longer if you’re just going to be home, like based here in Los Angeles to raise your round. And if you, you know, if you’re a minority or a woman founder, you’re going to have to do 25% more reach. You’re going to have to do a 25% more work. Um, that’s just the name of the game. It doesn’t make it. Good or bad. The facts are the facts, but you just have to push through it because if you have a platform that users want, these investors will find you just have to keep it, keep the activity up and be able to focus. Like when it’s fundraising time, like right now, during the spring and the fall, those are the best times you have to have full focus and getting that. And then the other times of the year, you need to be heads down working on your platform. And just appreciate every call that you have, because these investors don’t have to take calls with you. So don’t take it personal. It’s a numbers game. And do your best, and just present to them why you are the one they should be taking their bet on. You don’t need 300 yeses. You need one, just one. And that’s it. You’ll be fine from there. So just put it in perspective. Ben Ornstein: Couldn’t agree more. Um, who’s an investor that you would recommend other founders work with? Ben Ornstein: I mean andreason horitz The biggest one in the nation, um You and and you could give it’s more of like a shout out for like the investors that you work with. Um you know if if you want to uh share that but um Yeah, I’m totally up to you. Corey Livingston: Yeah, yeah. The investors that we’re involved with now, Morrow Fund, which is out of Silicon Valley, they are really a founder first investment firm. They’re based out of Silicon Valley. I would recommend that one if you’re starting out and you just want to get your idea out and you really are still trying to hone in what you’re doing. I believe in what those investors bring table and they have a lot of different interesting ways to get capital in your hands and programs for you to accelerate. And then on the bigger scale, I would love to work with A16Z. Right now we’re on the verge of closing something with them possibly. So, you know, we’ll see what happens. I don’t want to throw too much out there, but we’re in initial talks. So that’s been good. But I think there’s pieces on where this industry is going for gamers, creators, and just the web three in a hole with AI is exactly the type of investors that we want behind us. So A16Z is another firm. Ben Ornstein: Amazing. Yeah. I’ll keep, I’ll say we’d love to work with A16Z. I’ll keep it at that for the case study. Corey Livingston: Maybe they’ll come to us naturally. Are you throwing out our name that you’re Investing in you we have it. No. No. Um, yeah, that’s great. I’m just But that’s very exciting I hope I wish all the best for that one that’s cool You just drumming up as much activity as you can be and that’s as a founder. It’s just called I mean, I don’t care what founder you are. You could be on series a B or precede You just you’re gonna have to take the calls and do the activities. Ben Ornstein: That’s the only way I Couldn’t agree more Absolutely. Are there any resources you would recommend to other founders? This could be blogs, books, podcasts, newsletters, anything. Corey Livingston: One newsletter that I would recommend is Huck’s newsletter. Am I pronouncing his name right? Huck? Huck. Huck’s newsletter is wonderful. At times when I just thought I was in between thoughts and the process, his newsletter was very succinct and just helped me through the thoughts. Even though I felt like I didn’t meet him, I met him in real life. His newsletter, I recommend to everybody to follow. And also leveraging LinkedIn. LinkedIn is where it’s at. I mean, maybe pre-pandemic, it was kind of 50-50, but now it’s more important than ever to make sure your LinkedIn profile and your presence on there is strong. So I would invest in making sure that that is polished, um, and having a clean data room and a nice deck. So resources to do that are, uh, there’s several out there, but don’t spend too much money. Just get a simple deck, make sure it’s designed cleanly, make sure everything is, um, neat because the investors look at that for the same way. Somebody walks in your house and understands who you are by knowing how clean you are. It’s the same way your deck. Is looked at before anybody knows you. So I would say invest in everything about your branding and make sure that you’re presenting the best product out there. Ben Ornstein: Amazing. And our last question, do you have any hot takes regarding the fundraising process? Corey Livingston: Hot takes. Corey Livingston: Yeah. I mean, one hot take is, We love what you’re doing, Corey, but we’re waiting for other money to come in. So let us know when you get that lead investor and we’ll be right there. I said, you could be that lead investor. They’re like, well, we say that, but we don’t really mean it, but it’s okay. We believe in you, but let us know once you get that first check in, we’ll be right there. I’m like, okay, I guess we’ll be in touch. So those are my hot takes. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, it’s an interesting game, right? I don’t know. I don’t get it. If I were a VC, it would be so difficult for me to be anything other than a pre-seed investor because I’d always want to be the first money in. Exactly. Corey Livingston: It’s the best term. Ben Ornstein: Right. You’re taking the highest risk, so you make lower investments in terms of size, but you’re going to make it up for volume and hope it works out because I don’t know. This is the stage I’m most excited about. I mean you’re a little bit past pre-seed, but um This is it’s yeah, it’s so exciting. But yes, I agree with your hot take for sure. Corey Livingston: It’s it’s It’s part of it and you laugh and you say okay great You did all that due diligence and you still don’t want to lead because and like I said, it’s not a personal and you say okay Maybe it’s something I did because if they didn’t believe in you enough to lead That’s it’s not on them. It’s on you. So you tweak it and you just become better you just Like I said, it’s a numbers game. You just try to get the 50 top investors you’re targeting and hope one of them give you an inkling of a yes. And then from there it opens itself up. 100%. Ben Ornstein: Really cool. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for taking the time, Corey. Yeah. Who are you guys working with? I checked out the website quickly, but I’m curious. I’m just curious. Corey Livingston: Um, so our users are independent artists and the top 25 creators on the market right now. So the website right now is going through a revamp because we’re adding the content creator piece to it. So you’re not going to see that it’s in stealth, the new build, but yeah, I mean, we’re a full creator economy. Fintech platform, you know, so we’ve had artists all the way from like 21 Savage, which I guess he would be considered a B-list hip-hop artist to Halsley. And then on the other side, not a Mr. Beast, but let me look at my list here of our current creators that are being onboarded now. There’s a TikToker named Mandy Lee. He’s in Brooklyn. We have a, there’s one more, another girl out of New York, Monet Michael. She has $3.8 TikTokers followers. So yeah, so those two, you know, those three that I threw out there are kind of the large use case, but most of our independent artists are DJs in San Diego, a DJ in Brooklyn, you know, an artist down in Philly, a creator in Michigan is a mom that is doing a health and wellness blog and she, but she has a lot of readers, right? So she’s doing a lot of because now her readers can be advertised to and she should be making money off of that. So yeah, that’s who we’re targeting. Ben Ornstein: That’s awesome. No, it sounds like you’re off to a great start. Corey Livingston: It’s getting there, man. I mean, we feel that our thesis and our value prop is still strong even after two or three years of just building and knowing that some things we might double down on, some things we had to kind of put away, but we know that our system works, if that makes sense. And we’re still kind of refining it and making it down. So making it refined. So when Ben logs on and he tells his sister to log on, you guys can get on there and make everything happen in three steps and start making money. Ben Ornstein: That’s the way to do it. 100%. Corey Livingston: That’s it. That’s it. Very cool. Ben Ornstein: That’s awesome. Well, yeah, no, I’m rooting for you guys. It sounds awesome. Probably take, I don’t know, I’ll say maybe a week to kind of send the draft to you of this case study. And yeah, feel free to edit it when I send it over and we’ll push it live shortly after that. Corey Livingston: That sounds great, Ben. I appreciate the opportunity. Tell Hook, I appreciate it. I did send him an email, but yeah, I think this would be a great opportunity and I’ll keep following you guys. So you guys keep up the good work. You guys are helping founders kind of get through the late nights with the emails that are succinct and just giving notes and Positivity and letting us know look you’re not the only one building. So just don’t complain and get to it. I Think comes to everybody a sleeper but a dream. Ben Ornstein: Oh I love that quote. That’s a great one. Corey Livingston: Yeah All good. Okay, sounds good, then. I appreciate it. I look out for that and we’ll go from there. Ben Ornstein: Sounds great. It was great meeting Best of luck, and we’ll be in touch soon. Corey Livingston: All right, Ben. Sounds good, buddy. Be safe out there. Ben Ornstein: Thanks. You as well.