- 3 months ago
Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch returns for season 13 and for our contestants the stakes are higher than ever.
Entrepreneurs have just 60 seconds to pitch to our board of investors: Kim Perell (CEO of 100.co, serial entrepreneur and investor) Dhani Jones (former NFL player and serial entrepreneur), and Jon Bier (founder, Jack Taylor PR). One wrong move, and it's game over!
Entrepreneurs have just 60 seconds to pitch to our board of investors: Kim Perell (CEO of 100.co, serial entrepreneur and investor) Dhani Jones (former NFL player and serial entrepreneur), and Jon Bier (founder, Jack Taylor PR). One wrong move, and it's game over!
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NewsTranscript
00:00going up at the top floor three titans of industry are searching for the next big idea that can rise
00:14above the rest you have two offers here what do you want to do one minute 60 seconds that's all
00:23you get one shot to change your life what's happening I'm spiciest man in the world in
00:28Texas we think big in this elevator your pitch means everything guys I'm sorry you're dead in
00:40the water we went from zero I'm out to now I'm in this is entrepreneur elevator pitch presented by
00:50Amazon business tonight in the boardroom Kim Perel CEO of 100.co Dahani Jones a former NFL player and
01:03serial entrepreneur John Beer founder of Jack Taylor PR and serial entrepreneur are you guys
01:10ready to make some deals I mean if they have some sweaters out there I want one of John's yes oh my
01:16gosh first up a pair of entrepreneurs who hope to play their cards right with their convenient
01:27solution for every occasion my name is Sammy my name is Andrew and we're in greetings we actually
01:35met through my sister I got introduced Sammy rejected me on the first date my first impression of Andrew
01:41was uh he's cute but he seems like a player but he wasn't he's not at all he sent me 22 roses on my
01:5022nd birthday so that's why I thought he was maybe a player I was like oh how many girls have you done
01:55this for but I was the first hello Andrew and Sammy welcome to the elevator your pitch begins in three
02:10two one hi I'm Sammy this is my husband Andrew and we're the founders of inked greetings Sammy loves
02:18greeting cards and I absolutely hate buying them it's a huge disorganized experience where you pay six
02:24bucks for a piece of paper and a gift card that hopefully isn't drained by fraud so we created a
02:28technology that prints greeting cards and gift cards instantly you browse thousands of designs
02:32personalize the inside with a message and a signature add a gift card and it prints in 30 seconds we also
02:38help retailers capture this 400 billion US industry in just three linear feet versus hundreds we enable
02:45unlimited inventory multi-language functionality and a fraud-free experience we started two years ago and
02:50have launched in over a hundred retailers across 30 states and signed LOI's with major retailers that
02:55do billions of dollars a year in cards we have 95% we have 90% margins we are we sell our cards for 2.99
03:02each and we're looking to take over the market we have 280,000 in annualized revenue and we're looking
03:07to partner with you we're seeking a million dollars for 5% of the company thank you greeting cards well
03:15think about the aisles when you go into the stores aisles and aisles of greeting cards this would
03:20basically displace them right they're asking for a lot of money though yeah also who else is doing
03:24this feels like an idea that maybe exists somewhere already well I love 90% margins those are great
03:30it's just paper it's just paper I think this is a good idea I thought the pitch was very informative
03:37you guys think we have enough information to vote I think so definitely okay let's do it
03:50attention Andrew and Sammy your pitch has been
03:56approved
04:01welcome to the boardroom Andrew and Sammy we're so happy to have you guys here you were unanimously voted
04:12up we were all very interested in your pitch and we wanted to learn more and the first thing that I
04:18wanted to learn is how much does something like this cost yeah great question well first of all thank you
04:25all we're super excited so the kiosk the setup installation is $7,500 one thing to keep in mind
04:32as well that I missed on the pitch I was so upset over it is we're actually growing 40% month over month
04:37as well wow and we're generating roughly between five and thirty cents per customer that walks in
04:42the door now so in high traffic locations that can scale the hundreds of thousands of dollars a
04:46location give me a little bit of context of how you guys get started I mean just what was the
04:52rationale behind starting your business yeah definitely genuinely I love greeting cards I love
04:57the sentiment behind it no matter what when you receive one it makes you feel good unfortunately
05:02Andrew my husband would go into a store and it actually happened on Valentine's Day the store
05:08was totally disheveled and he comes home to me with a greeting card I loved it and he came back
05:13with an idea which was even better over 90% of our customers prefer our experience to any greeting or gift
05:19card they've ever purchased in their life I want to hear about the customization how are you guys
05:23actually doing that yeah so I can go through a quick demo if you guys would like yeah you want
05:29to come on up let's do it please do one yeah can you make me a card to honey I mean you can have you
05:35done anything nice for me lately so you just start the screen touch the start so we touch this side and we
05:43got a nice keyboard here with a ton of emojis so what would you like to say to Kim I'm gonna do
05:49laughing more laughing oh my gosh perfect and then you're gonna sign it over here perfect save it okay
05:59next this is where we add a gift card oh I'd like Sephora Sephora all right now do you all get a
06:06percentage of that oh yeah we actually engage in a revenue split with retailers so as we make money
06:11they make money so now this is an advertisement screen that pops up so it might say okay you're in a
06:17Walmart go to aisle 12 to get wine and this enables retailers to sell that ad space to third-party
06:23brands and do you get a percentage of that advertising revenue yes we do and that's split
06:26with the retailer is there any part of this process that you don't make money no
06:32Kim I got you a card thank you friend I hope you I hope you enjoy it let's check it out I hope you like
06:43the card how much have you raised today we've raised 4.5 million dollars from top tier investors
06:55so 4.5 at what valuation it was a blend over time so the very first round was 6.7 million the last was
07:02at 17 million what are you gonna do with a million dollars so we have a backlog of a hundred plus
07:08retailers that are wanting kiosks and then we're going to use it for brand awareness and marketing
07:12how did you decide on the business model you currently have the revenue split model actually
07:17works best for us for two reasons the first of which is it aligns incentives when we win the
07:21retailers win when the retailers win we win and the other reason it lets us expand into other categories
07:26we started as a greeting card company we added gift cards right to the back of it we're adding
07:30cryptocurrency to the back of it eventually we can add concert tickets we can add live events we can
07:35become a holistic future of gifting and something that's really important that we didn't mention is
07:40you can do all this on your phone or computer and pick up at any kiosk nationwide what's the revenue
07:46projected per kiosk per location per year I would say five thousand to ten thousand dollars but you're
07:53looking at a store set that might have 200 people walking in it a day versus a Walmart has five thousand
07:59five hundred people walking in it a day so we expect obviously over time as we can hit those five
08:03thousand five hundred people a day if we're doing 30 cents per day that's a six hundred thousand
08:07dollar a year kiosk but what's preventing Hallmark from just creating a kiosk I would say it's the
08:12excessive speed and execution that we've demonstrated in partnerships that we have
08:17frankly anyone can do any business idea if it's a great idea but there's very few people who can in
08:22under two years come to a fourth generation kiosk launch in a hundred retailers across 30 states and
08:28sign actual LOIs as well as future rollouts with companies that do billions of dollars in the greeting and gift
08:33part space all right well I like the idea I think it's innovative I think it's disruptive I need a
08:38few greeting cards all the time with four kids so it's a constant hassle and I'm always getting a gift
08:44card with it too so it's like all-in-one one-stop shop so I actually really like it I would be prepared
08:50to offer 250 on the current valuation round that'd be fantastic you know I'm looking at your business and
08:59I'm looking at the cards and I think to myself I really don't like going into the mall and spending
09:03a lot of time I would love to be able to go onto my phone and be able to type it in exactly so
09:09I'm gonna match Kim
09:16I love to see companies grow I love to work with founders but these are things we can talk about
09:23later once you decide on me versus Kim what about John maybe he wants to make a deal I love this I feel
09:30like it's real innovation I love that you're adding gift cards and I love that you said cryptocurrency
09:35that's where my head went and concert tickets and all that I would invest I wouldn't invest 250
09:40I would invest 100
09:44okay so right now you have three offers on the table 100k from John 250 from Dhani the man in black or
09:54myself with 250 at the current valuation which one are you guys going to choose
10:00well
10:12we really appreciate it but we'd love to have Kim join our team
10:20we feel amazing this is fantastic oh my gosh so excited we'll be sending you a thank you card Kim
10:36entrepreneur elevator pitch is presented by Amazon business for every organization at every stage of growth
10:43our next entrepreneur hopes to roll out a deal with their transformative solution
10:56my name is HQ Wang I'm the founder of Zeny B
10:59I think the motivation for me overall is just the fact you know having a family it really changes who you are
11:05back then you always want to work work work and now you're thinking about you know what is the purpose of working right
11:10and now I think that that purpose is about family
11:15hello HQ welcome to the elevator
11:22your pitch begins in three two one
11:29hello investors my name is HQ Wang I'm the founder of Zeny B
11:32today we're seeking 350k at the valuation of 5 million US dollars
11:36about three years ago my wife and I quit our full-time job from a law firm and
11:40clinic to start the brand of Zeny B why because we're frustrated by the fact that we always had to
11:45bring different products whenever we go out with a newborn a car seat for car ride
11:49stroller for walking around the city and wagon for family gathering on top of that
11:53we are our trunk space is never big enough to carry all the belongings with our newborn
11:58so after three years testing and development we developed the first and truly five-in-one travel system
12:03which is one single piece product that can convert from a car seat to wagon how cool is that and then to
12:09a stroller as well as carrier and mobile playpen um um we now have global patent uh investment from
12:16uh VC investors with a big product portfolio as well as co-investment from our factory so investors are
12:23you on board with that to help make parents life easier
12:29you know to make our lives easier that would help because to be honest you got all these different things
12:35you got the car seat like he's talking about you got a stroller but there's also a lot of competition
12:40in this market isn't there i've gotten gifts of those that's kind of the table stakes at this point
12:46nobody really wants to actually carry 10 things they thought of that 10 years ago i agree but what
12:51was the revenue did he say his revenue i don't think he said anything about the revenue he just said how
12:55much money he was looking for what valuation he was talking very very quickly and there was a lot said and
13:02uh i didn't digest all of it so shall we let's do it
13:13attention hq your pitch has been
13:24approved yes
13:26hq welcome we really appreciate your pitch and really appreciate the effort around your business
13:34just so curious about how you got started and why you started building this business especially after
13:40you left your law firm so here's the thing so when i left law firm i also happened to have my first child
13:45zeny that's zeny b the brand so it's all about family time right we want to make newborn parents life
13:51easier by providing more quality time whenever they go out with their newborn but are you making
13:56money yet oh well no we actually had um pre-launch stage so we are ready to mess production at this
14:02stage so it's not on the market yet so you guys are the first one to see this actually what is so
14:06interesting about this that it's better than other similar things right on the market right now because
14:12there's a lot of similar things so we have the indirect competitor in the space what they call
14:16traditional travel system traditional travel system still requires you to install the carrier
14:22on top of stroller but in fact they actually two or three different products with this product is
14:27one single piece you can convert five different functions naturally you can take it to the um
14:31airplane car ride like uber right so this actually snaps into the car you don't need the
14:36to convert directly that's where i haven't seen that that would do a demo for you guys yeah
14:42back put it back
14:46whoa voila to the back seat of the uber and seat belt routing it and your baby is safe that was
14:52pretty cool that is an innovation exactly and this is not the most amazing part what the most amazing
14:57part is this is the first wow that can be
15:03oh man that was smooth as tiramisu you just basically expanded it can i come up there and look
15:13at it yeah how heavy is it check it out yeah come check it out is it heavy donny like well this is
15:17a proof hat but for the mass production model okay it will be around like uh 20 pounds how much does
15:22that cost this one cost to make it 150. and how much do you sell it for let's have 150.
15:26i mean look at that you might be able to put two small ones in there look at that yeah could you
15:33i got twins well there's a there's a we have different variation we can play around it
15:40so where are you gonna sell these so we start with dtc and then later on we have like different
15:44retailers we're talking and also um other mall as your product is evolved how are you thinking about
15:50these adaptations so this is just generation one we have different variation on it we can have the two
15:55twin one and also we have a second generation ai feature so actually very practical but it says
16:00durable i mean kids are pretty oh trust me we spent a lot of money to test the product even for the
16:05prototype they have full lab testing can you turn it back to the car seat for a second so
16:10actually see wow voila nope i'm not a germaphobe but the wheels near the baby
16:19we spent a lot of money actually to hire one of the top like a regulation expert to help us make
16:26sure everything's safe for the babies so have you raised more than the capital that your partner has put
16:33in um so yes well no yes and no because i bootstrapped the project by myself from the beginning so i
16:39probably probably half million u.s dollar because research and development cost a lot of money for
16:42this project wow that's that's a big commitment i mean i love that you kind of quit your job and went
16:50all in like that's the type of entrepreneur that i want to bet on unfortunately because we haven't
16:58gotten to market i know it's going to take a lot more capital to really make this take off
17:03so unfortunately i'm going to pass thank you thank you but thank you for the support
17:12you guys have a great product it's it's innovative i'm a young dad and so i i'm educated on this
17:19you do have a brand problem and you can solve that with a an amazing product an incredible story but
17:26that is a really really tough hill to climb so i'm gonna pass okay you almost had me
17:40i keep going back to one thing that's really really challenging right and i think john you pointed out
17:46and the one thing that i thought about the wheels and i think about cleanliness
17:51and the second part is anything having to do with children i get really really nervous about because
18:00all it does is take one issue and you're dead in the water and so for that reason i'm going to step
18:10away i'm sorry no it's okay i appreciate that hq thank you for being here today we appreciate it
18:18good luck good luck thank you thank you for your time well feel great actually you know although we
18:24didn't get a capital today we needed it but also you know we're here to share the story of our
18:28startup story as well as you know um the product we're building i think he's doing a great job i just
18:33think for me he's a little bit early in the stage of his development me too i thought he was very
18:39innovative but it was too early because i'd like to see a little bit of traction and to john's point
18:44it's going to take a lot of capital to create the brand yeah the baby market overall people want an
18:49essentialist type of product less but better and that does tick those boxes but you know we mentioned
18:55the wheels those wheels are right next to the baby but i do think he's on to something so maybe there's
19:01something we can do for him oh no i mean this project is not easy actually um because we're trying
19:05to break through a market that is really hard to break through which one of the judge actually
19:08mentioned about that attention hq your presence has been requested back in the boardroom i'll go
19:16for real okay
19:22what he's back he's back everyone again we thought about it we love your passion
19:28thank you yeah we're supportive of what you're building we're going to be cheering you along
19:32and we have a little something for you so on behalf of amazon business we'd like to give to you
19:36ten thousand dollars cash to help you propel and grow your business so congratulations thank you
19:44thank you guys so much thank you i'm just um especially i'm hotter congratulations i'm feeling
19:50great actually you know um the fact you know i got called back and you know got recognized by all the
19:54judge for what we've done uh even though they couldn't give out the capital we needed but no that's
19:58definitely a good learning experience for us right after this i'm gonna call my wife um and telling her
20:02um the good news we got a little bit something and also all the inside information we got from the
20:06investors there
20:11our next entrepreneur turns any messy moment into a sparkling success with their revolutionary platform
20:20my name is demi aloyde and the name of my company is called limpiar
20:24i grew up in lagos nigeria me and my dad were very very close growing up i would go everywhere with him
20:31in 2013 he got diagnosed with parkinson's he passed away in 2018 um i was 17 at the time
20:39i think about him all the time he's literally my hero he had his own business
20:43like a lot of times when i'm in doubt i just think about him and he's like
20:47keep going and just keep doing it
20:49hello demi welcome to the elevator
20:59your pitch begins in three two one imagine a world where buildings could run themselves that's
21:08the future we're building at limpiar hi everyone my name is demi aloyde and eight years ago i moved
21:13here from lagos nigeria to pursue my american dreams i overestimated how expensive it was going
21:19to be so i spent a block of my college years doing cleaning and maintenance jobs to put myself through
21:23school after graduating i joined the united states navy and i led product at a couple tech startups
21:29i was able to save up enough money to buy my first commercial and multi-family property units and
21:34that's when i discovered how fragmented operations were so we launched limpiar limpiar is a platform
21:39it's an ai platform that helps commercial property managers streamline facility maintenance we launched
21:44our platform in july of last year since then we've done over seven figures in revenue and have live
21:49enterprise customers on our platform we're on elevator pitch today seeking a million dollars for
21:54four percent equity to make the beauty to make the future of smart buildings a reality today thank you guys
22:01wow i love stories like that stories that begin with uh experience right at the the core of the
22:14problem that they're solving and then more experience happens from life and you connect those two things
22:20a frankenstein type of thing if you will but in a in a good way and using ai for all of this like this
22:27is you know this is a pretty powerful thing for me i got a little bit of information and insights
22:33i'm not too sure i got the full story so in my head i'm trying to just piece the rest of it seeds
22:38planted though i mean it's planted i'm honestly curious about the team because she doesn't have
22:44the experience from a technical perspective to build this type of platform so how is she actually
22:50bringing this to life a million dollars over seven figures is great but how that's a lot of money to ask
22:55as well and she's only saying she's got a couple a couple hundred thousand dollars in in in
22:59reoccurring revenue to this point also ai very powerful but very difficult to predict right now
23:06shall we vote let's do it let's do it
23:15attention demi
23:19your pitch has been
23:25approved
23:31hello demi welcome welcome to the boardroom hi guys how are you today i am doing good how are you guys
23:39we are really good that pitch was just enough thank you you connected a lot of dots but we didn't hear
23:48really that much more than that you're asking a lot of money for this could you give us a bit more
23:52detail and background on it definitely definitely so our target market is the facility management
23:59industry it's valued at over 1.7 trillion dollars in the us and pretty much what our platform does
24:05is it comes in and it helps facility managers automate a lot of the processes that they're doing
24:10today manually how did you get to the valuation so we got to the valuation by comparing what ai
24:16startups are going forward these days and also by comparing what the industry looks like what our
24:20pipeline looks like and what we hope to do with this and have you raised any money at that valuation
24:25so far we have not raised any money so far and do you have a technical co-founder i do have a
24:30technical co-founder yes his name's alex and he also has 15 years in the facility management industry
24:35how did you all sit and sort of decide on this specific sector definitely so on this sector it was
24:42my pain point so when i first came to this country i was cleaning houses and i was doing maintenance
24:47work and the first rendition of this product was on-demand cleaning which hence the name so when we
24:53started this it was hey we'll do an uber for cleaning right and in doing that i got to meet a lot of these
24:58facility managers and understood that their paint point was not cleaning but was operations but you've
25:03transacted over seven figures on the current platform that's correct and what's the revenue model
25:08so our revenue model is a sas model so it's a subscription so we charge 125 dollars per location
25:14what's your current arr last year we did 193k in revenue and this year we're going to do over
25:213 million in revenue what have you done so far so so far we've done a little over a million so about
25:27a million point two so far this year on our platform but we're expanding our product the idea
25:33here is smart facilities right so we're actually doing ai and iot products which is sensors that
25:39are powered by ai so things along the lines of predictive maintenance that's what those iot
25:44sensors are going to allow for and that's pretty much why we're raising to be able to develop that
25:50can you give me a favor because i'm a little lost i mean the name limpiar just suggests to me clean
25:57i like i know spanish pretty well so i'm just thinking it's clean and then you're saying that we're
26:02going to place artificial intelligence around iot devices that are sensors of things that might
26:07happen a long way so if you could just take 20 seconds and take me through the process i want
26:13to understand like okay limpiar provides x is it cleaning services that's what i thought i thought it
26:20was cleaning services also so if you could take us through in a very very simplistic manner what is
26:27exactly that limpiar does limpiar helps manage um helps with maintenance or helps manage um property
26:37portfolios for facility managers so pretty much everything that has to do with compliance vendor
26:42management work orders um make fixing maintenance all of that all through one platform plus aggregates
26:50data um in terms of the assets when they're live and down as well was that helpful
27:04what do you think guys i mean it sounds really impressive i really like you i also like the story
27:13of why you created it but there was like a disconnect between cleaning and then cleaning for facilities and
27:20then where we are today as an investor i need it simple so i can invest money so if all of us are
27:26confused unfortunately it's very hard to make a bet for that reason i'm going to pass unfortunately
27:34of course thank you if it was just cleaning i would get it but i think there's a lot more things within
27:42this business that i'm confused by the same way and i would just say just a little bit of advice
27:48because ai is demanding so much of that multiple sometimes that too as an investor can be a little
27:55bit you know you just you just look at it you just say to yourself everybody's not going to get that same
28:01type of valuation with those two things and those challenges i too will pass okay thank you guys
28:10i think it's a complicated thing and i understood it better at least i thought i did from the elevator
28:19pitch than i do right now this is something that when you pitch it to someone who's in this space and
28:26looking for these services they're going to understand all of this but i don't fully understand
28:32your business i'm gonna pass also of course thank you guys very much well congratulations on how far
28:41you've come and we wish you the best of luck thank you guys thank you thank you
28:48i felt really good um my thing was i wanted to make it past the elevator and that's exactly what happened
28:55based off of what i was thinking is as long as we get off the elevator and we get some time to
28:59show what the business says then that's a win that's tough honestly she's impressive though you
29:05all were both thumbs up the entire time i like the pitch i like the pitch it came out it got a little
29:10more complicated she lost me on a lot of things but it is just based on the numbers very impressive
29:17maybe she's so impressive that we invite her to be a founding member of the boardroom that would be
29:22an incredible opportunity i think the difficulties were like a lack of understanding of the space
29:28facility management attention demi your presence has been requested back in the boardroom
29:43demi welcome back to the boardroom hi guys we were all very impressed we just couldn't get a deal
29:51over the line but on behalf of entrepreneur media we want to invite you to be part of the founding
29:59membership of the boardroom which is a unique opportunity for you to spend time with me and
30:06other experts like these guys to help refine your pitch to make sure that you have the mentorship that
30:13is needed to take your business to the next level are you in i'm in thank you guys so amazing
30:19thanks so excited thank you i'm excited i feel good i feel really good i've never seen that happen in
30:26like the history of the show and i've watched a lot of episodes of this um so i feel just really great
30:32and blessed to be one of the first recipients of this are you looking to take your business to the next
30:40level entrepreneur has created a new six month accelerator program you'll meet with me and other
30:49world-class entrepreneurs each month and we'll help you strategize how you're going to make bold moves no one is
30:58successful alone and it's important to make sure that you're surrounding yourself with great mentors
31:04amazing peers and world-class experts so if this sounds like something that you are interested in
31:10joining apply now to be a part of entrepreneurs boardroom
31:19none of our entrepreneurs went home empty-handed today as andrew and sammy from inked greetings
31:26secured a massive deal with our kim demi from limpy r was granted exclusive access to entrepreneur
31:34media's the boardroom and hq from zeneby was awarded a ten thousand dollar prize courtesy of amazon business
31:45tune in next week as entrepreneur elevator pitch continues oh she was getting to the good part
31:52and to apply for the next season go to entrepreneur dot com slash elevator pitch
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