- Duration: 17 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01JWY88FMFYGPM30HH7T8Y2N3B (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JWY88FMFYGPM30HH7T8Y2N3B)
Transcript
[Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Please. Hey, Michael, how are you? How you doing? Doing all right. [Michael Houck]: Doing all right. Thanks for having some time. [Michael Houck]: I know you were chatting with Ben, right? [Michael Houck]: Uh, man, I don’t remember. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: I chat with so many people. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: When you throw out a name like that, I figure on it. No, you’re, you’re good. Don’t worry about it at all. [Michael Houck]: I know how it goes. Um, well, anyway, it’s good to connect. And then I, excited to learn more and see maybe how we can fit in and help if there’s an opportunity to. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Yeah, I believe that I reached out because you guys emailed me saying you guys can help us either raise funds or find investors, something like that. [Michael Houck]: We do a lot of things. So first of all, I’ll give some brief context on me and on us. So I’m Michael, I’m the founder. I’ve been a founder for a while. I was early Uber Eats back in the day, helped build that business. And for the past like six years or so, I’ve been building companies, raised funds from Andreessen Horowitz for one of my companies, then raised a venture fund. And main thing I do these days is I have a bootstrapped holding company. And so we help founders in a lot of ways. We help them get connections to investors. That’s just like something that we do with our network. And then we also have a content agency that sort of helps with creator partnerships and also with content creation for LinkedIn or X or email newsletters on Beehive or Substack or whatever the case may be. We can also help with Instagram and TikTok too. So basically content and distribution, but then anything else on the investor side, like I’m happy to chat about how we can help there too. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Yeah, very cool. So what we do, we’re a startup where I’m the founder We’re a tech company based out of the Silicon Valley, Bay Area, essentially. I’m the founder of multiple companies, but Cenex is my primary focus. So with Cenex, we have two products. One is Engage AI that I just messaged you in the chat, engageai.net. This actually we created for marketing agencies such as yourself that help you how to A-B test all the creatives that you create before spending your client’s ad spend budget to test them. It’s a really cool product we built like a survey monkey where you can put your ad creatives and send out the link to your panel, whether it’s existing customers or your client or a panel that you have. And as they watch the creative in real time, second by second, Did they laugh, cry? How do they engage with the creative that you’re showing them? And then you get a report on how people engage with it, their demographic breakdown, X, Y, Z. So then you’re able to understand how that creative move people, how they engage with it before you ask your client to spend marketing dollars to A, B test. And we created this because when we did our Indiegogo and Kickstarter or Indiegogo and WeFunder campaign, We had to spend a bunch of money marketing it right marketing the pages so we hired a digital agency and we had like a $20,000 marketing budget on one of them and like we spent or they spent ten twelve thousand dollars of that budget So it was kind of like, you know, cuz they had multiple creatives they spent a bunch of money on A B testing and in the way the system works I guess is you you put you put creatives out there and whichever is performing well, you double down on it and whatever’s not performing, you kind of take it off the table, right? So that whole process takes weeks and a bunch of money. So we created Engage AI to be able to not do that and do it in a more, uh, you know, technologically efficient way to be able to understand how your creatives are engaging with people. Then, then you can go to your client and say, Hey, well, we tested these creatives. Here’s the responses and here’s the data. Now let’s run these ads that we’ve tested with your so kind of like that and the second product is actually Venue plus which is our streaming platform that’s specifically targeted for ticketed premium Experiences like movies only playing in cinemas and live events concerts musicals operas symphonies Fashion shows things that require you to physically be at a brick-and-mortar venue and buy it per person So that’s already up and running It’s live on the App Store and Play Store. We’ve got content coming onto it. We’re slowly growing it. So that’s kind of my baby. That’s my primary focus because that’s the B2B, B2C marketplace. Engage AI, we use the same core tech, the same tech that we use in Venue Plus. We just spun it out and used it for Engage AI to be able to do that thing. So that’s what we have. And then additionally, I founded a company called, well, I didn’t really found it. I’m, I’m, I’m one of the founders on paper, but I’m really an investor, an executive advisor for him. It’s called Sentinel. And, uh, it’s a, it’s a biotech company. And, uh, these guys are really cool. They created a chewable tablet that increases your body temperature and keeps you from becoming hypothermic or frozen. And so they’re essentially anyone, everyone that lives in a cold climate that wants to, you know, stay warm. Like you’re walking the dog in Boston. It’s like negative 20 degrees. You know, you take two of these tablets, it’s called external. You take two of these tablets and within five minutes, your body temperature is high. You know, obviously you’ve got your jacket on, but you’re, you know, we’re, we’re creating this heat from within to keep you warm. And it, and it keeps you warm from six to 12 hours, depending on how many doses you take. Well, it’s really cool. It’s really, it’s really cool. [Michael Houck]: That’s super cool. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Yeah, and so they’re gonna be selling it to the military to like expedition teams People that just like doing stuff in the cold climate hikers skiers, you know Things like that go climb Everest or something. You’re going naked and afraid, you know Exactly So that’s a there’s a drug claim and there’s a supplement version of it The drug claim as you know, it takes like three to five years. Thanks to the FDA So they decided to go with the supplement version first, and then obviously they’ll roll out the drug claim version. Yeah. Well, kind of dibbling and dabbling in these things, right? As we kind of, uh, like me, man, you got a variety of different things. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: You’re you’re got your hands into, I love it. Only way to go, man. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Like you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. You gotta, if you have a mind that’s entrepreneurial, you just, you just gotta kind of, uh, multiple things. I’ve done both, man. [Michael Houck]: I’ve gone all in on something and I’ve done the sort of holding company now. Style I have more fun this way. It’s just more fun to do, you know Totally cool. Okay. So, I mean, how do you on your side see? Like content fitting it because that’s the main thing that we usually talk about on these calls is like How can we build a content strategy loop in our writing team newsletter or social media? Is that like a priority for you or how are you thinking about that? [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: It is but we do it like using AI tools. So like you’re using AI tools create these short clips of whatever the message is. And we use Blaze AI to create automated social media posts. It’s so cheap and so effective and easy with AI tools. I just don’t know if it makes sense to pay a third party with real human. What I really was interested in, we’re currently raising, we’re raising a safe note for CNEX, for Venue and Engage. We’re also raising or at least the team is raising for bio sentinel. Um, and the idea of being able to get warm intros to potential investors through you guys was really what resonated with me. Um, obviously like that’s, that could be the starting point, but you know, creating ads, I’m sure you guys are also using AI tools. Like no one’s really actually taking a camera and filming stuff, right? Like you guys are, everyone’s really using AI tools to create videos, I’m assuming. So do better than others. Obviously you guys, probably have more tools, you know, that’s what you do. So you’re more in tune with how to use them. We’re learning as we go, you know, so, um, yeah, so that’s kind of where we’re at. Okay, cool. [Michael Houck]: That makes sense. Um, well, we, we can definitely, um, like help out there too. So what I can do is, uh, we have like a form that we just like people to fill out and it was kind of annoying, but, um, just if you could share your deck through that form, um, and then we’ll take a look and we’ll come through our network can see, you know, okay, you know, we think these investors could be a fit or something like that. And then we’ll send out an email to a few of them and just sort of test the waters and see what the response is like, So if that sounds good, I can send that over, you know, later, later today and we can get started. Absolutely. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: And let’s say you do do that. You do that. And there is good, positive feedback. And we end up meeting a couple of folks and raising money. How does it look? Like, how do we make sure we all win out of this? [Michael Houck]: Like, how did this is just something like to do for founders, man, there’s we don’t take anything or anything like that. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Really? I mean, appreciate that. But yeah, I mean, I’m totally okay with, you know, whatever. [Michael Houck]: No, I wouldn’t do that. That’s that’s not our style. We make money on our services like the like content and other stuff. So that’s that’s a moneymaker. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. That’s really cool. That’s really cool of you being a founder and coming through the trenches. You know, being open to help like that. That’s really cool. That’s That’s what it’s all about. [Michael Houck]: So yeah, I’ll send over that form. Just send me send me what you’ve got through there. And my chief of staff and I will both take a look. And then we’ll make some intros or we’ll send out some feelers. And if there’s appetite, we’ll request an intro from you, basically. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Yeah, awesome, man. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: I appreciate that. Also engage AI, please check it out. If you you know, like it, don’t like it, I’d love to get your feedback. Once you sign up, there’s like a free trial period. So you don’t know. You know, nothing you got to pay for and you don’t have to pay for anything. So as someone that’s in that space, I’d love to potentially get your feedback on it. Good, good, bad, anything in between. Let me have it. And obviously making the product better. Yeah, cool. I’ll take a look. [Michael Houck]: And I’ll shoot you. [Michael Houck]: I’ll shoot you a note. Yeah, I’d really appreciate that. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: I mean, and if you don’t get to it, then it is what it is. But I’d really appreciate to hear your thoughts it. [Michael Houck]: Of course, man. Happy to help. Thanks, Michael. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: I really appreciate that. So I’ll get the form. I’ll fill it out and send it over and then we’ll just move the ball forward. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I’ll shoot you a note a couple hours probably. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, man. Anything else? [Michael Houck]: Anything I can do for you? No, I don’t think so. I mean, if you do know anybody who sort of wants the more, let’s say, human touch or working with a team or strategy. Send them my way. We’ll talk to you guys a meaningful referral fee, like somewhere in the four figures, depending on what package they pick. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: I mean, same here. I wouldn’t care about the referral. If I, if I can send you some business and help you guys, I’m happy to do it. I’ll let, I’ll let people know in my network and yeah, if something happens and I can direct some business to that’d be awesome. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: All right, man. [Cihan Fuat Atkin]: Talk soon. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Thanks, Michael. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Take care, man.