[man] One thing that I don't think about is failure, you know.
I don't think about the failing. There's no failing in my book.
All right? 'Cause I came with nothing.
[woman] Everybody wants their work to have a bigger purpose,
and everyone wants to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves.
[man 2] Man, when it comes to pursuing your ultimate dream--
I feel like the tech space is a great space
for creative people to keep that imagination going,
to keep that hope alive.
[Zane] You have four advisors down there.
It's about making sure they understand how passionate you are.
You have 60 seconds on the escalator
to get them to choose to be a part of your project.
You'll know because at the end of your escalator ride,
they'll either go green or red.
If you get four reds, you go home.
But if you have at least one green,
you'll get to continue your pitch and tell the story of your app,
in the hopes of partnering with one of the advisors.
If that happens, you'll spend the next six weeks honing your app
for a chance to earn a share of over ten million dollars
in venture capital investment
and featured placement on the App Store.
[pulsing techno theme]
[bell rings]
[man on PA] All right, everybody. Stand by.
[man 2] Stepping out. We good?
-Stepping out. -[man 3] All ready, guys. We're set to go.
[Zane] Wow. Tell me that you're spitting bars right now.
[laughing]
Because if you were rehearsing your pitch right now,
you'd do it like either a boxer or a battle rapper.
Battle rapper, man. That's where I'm from.
That's my background, so it's like--
My goal is to bring the music with tech and combine them together.
So that's like the ultimate goal.
It's like, yeah, I love music, but--
-Me too, by the way. -See? So you know how I feel then.
-Yeah, I do. -Yeah. [indistinct]
I am Bens Hilaire, and I'm the founder of Subway Talent.
My music career itself started back in South Florida.
It all started off from writing poetry
as a way to actually escape reality.
Because from where I came from,
from being homeless in Haiti,
to actually come to New York with nothing at all,
to my parents having cancer, both of 'em,
I've came a long way.
So I feel like I can become the one to actually inspire those watching
to say, "You know what? Maybe I can also get into tech too
without having that technical background
or without actually being raised in coding."
[man on PA] 3, 2, 1, action.
Two years ago, I came to New York to become a rapper
with zero dollar in my pocket.
And boy, it wasn't easy at all.
Matter of fact, one night, my card got declined
in front of a girl I took out for a drink. [sharp exhale]
I was, like, "Whoa! New York is real!"
But look. That same night, I came across an amazing opera singer in the subway.
So I started thinking, I bet people would spend money
to book this artist to perform for their event.
What if there was an app that could search and book
live musicians for any event?
And that same app, independent musicians
can search for and receive paid gigs
without the need of a booking agent or a manager.
I call it Subway Talent.
Yeah.
-[Gwyneth, Gary chuckle] -Boom.
[Bens] Yeah. [chuckles]
[tense, pulsing music]
So what's your name?
Bens. Bens, like the car, but with a "S."
[Jessica, Gary chuckle]
Bens. Roll down to the center then.
Yes, sir.
And Bens, is the app live, or is this in beta?
Right now it's in beta, it's in development.
So right now it's just a demo to show you how the user experience look like.
-[will.i.am] Let's check it out. -Okay. Yeah.
So let's say I'm a planner,
and I'm looking for a band to book for my festival.
You could search for talents by different categories,
such as singers, band, DJs, et cetera.
Click on them, you could read their bio,
watch some videos, hear some songs, hear how they sound like.
You could check the calendar to see if they'll be free
for the date that you have in mind for your event.
A planner can find a great quality artist starting at $99 an hour.
After that first gig, if they get a positive review and rating,
they can then increase their pricing to how much they want to charge.
Are you not taking a cut of the first transaction?
On the talent's part, no.
We charge the planners 15% service fee charge for first-time booking.
And then after that, for booking them repeatedly,
we charge 'em five percent.
Now let's take a look at the talent section, right?
So here's the dashboard, all right?
Oh. He's sexy. Who is that?
-Nah, I'm playin'. -[all laughing]
So--
So, you know, the main goal is to basically take the app
and make it become a business tool for both users.
Yes, sir.
How are you gonna get the artists on the platform?
Actual end goods in this two-way marketplace?
Yes. Before this was a app,
it used to be this website I created as an online database.
So we had artists on there already.
And our e-mail-- We have over 500 users on both sides.
How much money are you trying to raise?
The goal is to raise $800,000.
That's my main goal, is to get the fund to start hiring the engineers.
So, Bens, this exists. You have competitors.
There's Thuzio. There's tons of platforms
that do two-way marketplace for bookers and talent.
What are the other platforms, and where are they at in their life cycle?
-How big are those other platforms? -I've never heard of any of them.
-So-- -[Gary] Very honestly,
a lot of those platforms, Jess, are further along
and have some traction.
I'm just gonna say, unfortunately I'm gonna--
I didn't know there were competitors.
It does make me nervous, so I'm gonna change mine to a "no."
[pensive instrumental music]
From my standpoint, we have a first-time entrepreneur
who's got nothing but hustle, which is always the thing that I fall for,
but is he gonna go into a narrow, deep place instead of wide?
I think it's wide.
I believe in the jockey in this scenario.
But it's enough for me to be concerned,
and I'm gonna pass, but I appreciate it.
[light instrumental music]
So, we all like your idea,
but, oh, we got afraid 'cause there's competition?
I think with the right developers,
you could break through other people's noise.
You have a shot.
What you said--
-In the hood-- I'm from the projects. -Yeah, yeah.
And music is not the way out, selling records.
-Doing shows, yes. -Yes.
-Performing, yes. -Yes.
But there is no performance label.
-Yes. -Doesn't exist.
-You figured out a way and a hustle... -Yes.
...to solve a problem for all the people
that are busting at 3rd Street Promenade and in the subways.
And folks that the record companies just aren't listening to.
Thank you, man.
They have no way to get into the record company.
That's what I'm saying.
He's solving a problem with people that are hurting.
And from that, I'm sticking in.
So, you-- You ain't got no choice.
The other three is red.
Wait. He can pass on you.
[will.i.am] He may not want to pass on me.
Don't listen to the hate.
-I love it. -No, I'm definitely in.
-[Gary] I love it. -Word up.
[Gary] Congrats. Congrats.
[Bens] Appreciate it, man. Appreciate it.
[Gary] Congrats.
You're very inspiring.
-[Bens] That means a lot. -[Jessica] Such great work.
[Bens, indistinct]
-[Gary] Congrats, man. -[Jessica] That's great work.
Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.
[whispering]
[will.i.am] Oh, thank you.
[man on PA] Mr. Photographer, do we have to move any cameras, or you good?
[bell rings]
Megan and Sam. The dynamic duo behind the app called Clark.
Megan, you come from a background where education played a big part in your life
Your mum's a teacher?
She's actually the ideal user of the product that we built.
She was one of our very first beta testers.
She's a frequent caller to customer support.
She really is.
My name is Megan. This is Sam.
And we're the cofounders of Clark.
[Megan] One of my big inspirations was my mom,
who was a public school teacher and a tutor.
I worked in international education, so I've traveled the world.
I've worked with educators throughout Africa, Southeast Asia,
Central America, you name it.
I've seen the power of technology in the classroom
all over the developing world.
[Sam] I've been a product manager in the New York City tech scene.
I pitched a very, very early idea of Clark to Megan.
She didn't even pitch back. She just asks, "Should we just do this?"
I was, like, "Yeah. Let's do this."
[man on PA] 3, 2, 1. Doors.
Clark is an app for parents to find tutors
and to enable tutors to run their freelancing business.
For tutors, we automate scheduling and payment,
match you with new students,
and converse with you through our always-on automated assistant.
For parents, we provide real-time progress reports on the Web.
We can't control the salaries of the 50 million educators in the US,
but we can provide them with income opportunities outside of the classroom.
[tense, pulsing music]
-Cool. -[Gary] All right, guys.
Three out of four. Really great start.
Now tell us about your app.
All of our features for a tutor running a business
are bookended on either end of the session.
And so you can see, during the course of the session,
what we do is we count down.
We do a timer.
We said, "Great. We're gonna step out of your way while you educate."
Then, once we get to the end,
we say, "Are you still working?"
This is a massive friction point in the freelance economy,
and it happens in 75% of tutors
that they go longer than the billable hour that was already prearranged.
So you could say, "Yup, we can keep going."
Or in this case, they say, "Nope. We're good.
We have completed the session."
This is cool.
Now here's what's the most important thing that Clark does.
We track student progress.
Parents simply just throw money at the problem,
and your kid comes home from tutoring and says, "That went great."
And you have no transparency into did they really progress.
Clark, in a seamless way, tracks that information
by first taking sentiment.
So how did things go, yes or no.
And then you give a brief review of the session.
So you say, "Here's how it went.
Here's what you, as a parent, need to know about how your child did today."
And then more importantly, we take a shareable moment.
A kid who's not doing well in school and who is working with a tutor
never gets celebrated in the classroom.
This can be an incredibly valuable thing for them to report back to parents,
other educators in the student's life, to explain--
"Hey, I did this. I did good in tutoring."
So if I'm a parent, and I want to get a tutor, what am I seeing?
We actually have-- It's a Web service.
And so what happens is, if you're a parent,
you would say, "Here's my intent.
My child is this age and needs help with this thing."
What's great is that you get to see
a list of tutors that have those services in your area.
And we start matching.
I see. Okay.
[Gary] The thing I'm concerned about is,
if your structure's right, it's gonna be copied.
So I think the reason that we're gonna win
is because we speak to educators
differently than any of our competitors do.
How so?
Our competitors are taking between 40 to 60% of a tutor's hourly rate.
What's your cut?
So we're taking ten percent of new business.
We will work with your Rolodex business.
The idea is that as you slowly turn your business over time,
we're there to place the new business with you.
And you're working more than you did before,
so you're not even mad that you're paying that percentage in the future.
How many users do you currently have?
Since we're a pre-product, we're at 200 right now,
and we're sitting on a pretty robust waitlist.
We haven't even opened up the funnel yet
in terms of making a debut and telling people they can use us.
-Have you raised money so far? -We raised an angel round so far. Yes.
-Of how much? -500k.
How much are you trying to raise?
We would want to raise two million dollars
for our more traditional seed round.
The two million's gonna be allocated to what?
We have all the money in the bank to get our first version of the iOS app out.
But what we would like to do is move faster.
And we'd like to put more resources behind growth.
Do you have a rating system for, um--
for mothers and students that rate their tutor?
Yeah. So we showed the NPS score,
sort of the thumbs-up, thumbs-down for students.
That's more of an internal thing
to make sure that students are feeling like they get what they need.
But yes, we will also have one for parents.
It's not gonna be a part of this though.
Not part of the Clark tutor app, no.
I was hoping that the tutor had a rating system that was visible.
Just like-- My music is visible on iTunes.
You know how many stars it has,
how many thumbs-up it has.
And if the app Clark was able to do that,
then I would be all in.
So for that, I'mma stay red.
That's great feedback. Thank you.
[sighs] Um--
Well, I think this is brilliant,
and as a mother...
I will sign up for this.
But I honestly think that these two are gonna be able to give you
more help and a better platform.
I'm out.
-I was tutored most of my life. -Really?
I was an actor, and I was a kid,
and this was my only option for education.
So I know how important this tool is.
It does need a bit more to it.
But I think I'd be a great partner for you guys.
Thank you.
We're living through an era right now where leaders are copying features quickly
'cause they understand what the vulnerability is.
However, I think it becomes a branding game
and a customer acquisition game.
And that's something that I think
I and the Vayner Media infrastructure brings to the table.
And for that reason, I'm gonna stay in.
[Megan] This is unbelievable. Thank you guys so much.
Jess, I mean, we are a huge fan of Honest Company.
You're a parent. You have kids. You've gone through this personally.
And I have unbelievable respect for the brand that you've built.
And Gary, I have an unbelievable amount of respect
for the empire that you have built and the brand that you have built.
And I think that you made a lot of really good points
about what our challenges are.
So, are you gonna go with Jess, or are you gonna go with me?
[softly] You wanna go with what we said before?
Okay.
Um, so we'd like to with you, Gary.
[Gary] Awesome.
-Thank you, guys. -[Megan] Thank you!
Such a pleasure. Yeah. Congrats.
Thank you so much.
-I'm so proud of you. -I really appreciate it.
So pumped to see you guys. Thank you. Take care.
[will.i.am] That was surprising.
I would actually go to all the public school administrators.
'Cause now they have to figure out a way to market,
while you would have plugged them straight into coaching.
[Jessica] Yeah.
[Zane] Megan and Sam partnered with Gary,
but not all of the developers managed to impress the advisors.
The name of my app is Delfie.
Delfie helps you take better selfies with your dog.
[chuckles]
Whoa. Bummer. All right.
-I'm so sorry, my friend. -It's okay. It's okay.
The LorLor app allows you
to virtually try on products from the chest up,
including sunglasses and jewelry.
Using math, I've created a revolutionary word cross game
that anybody can play.
Word Squares Crossword Puzzles.
When Apple Watch was released, we were inspired to create a fall detector
that will call for help even when you're unconscious.
Who's gonna help us potentially save lives?
Thank you.
All right.
Unfortunately, you didn't grab us with the pitch.
Thank you.
We just four-noed to somebody who ended with,
"Are you gonna help us save lives?"
[bell rings]
[man on PA] Okay, guys. We're starting pitches.
[Zane] Damon, your family is comedy royalty in the United States of America.
-Appreciate it. -No, it is.
I grew up watching In Living Color
and from that point forward into the movies and so forth.
This must be so cool for you to come up with this idea
and then team up with Kris and actually see it come to life.
And everything-- It's exactly what I saw in my head.
Yeah.
We have fun doing what we're doing. Right?
-Absolutely. -Right.
-So-- -It's pretty one-sided, but yeah.
-[Zane laughs] -Sure.
-I'm Damon Wayans, Jr. -And I'm Kris Jones.
-And we are Special Guest. -And we are Special Guest app.
What?
-Special Guest. -Special Guest app.
[Damon] I was born in Vermont.
I'm an actor and comedian.
But now I'm in this tech world, and it's great.
It's hard being a nerd, but I like it.
Originally, I wanted to be an animator,
so I went to art college for that.
It helped me with the ability to take what's in my brain
and draw it onto paper.
Kris and I hit it off instantly.
I do the creative parts, and he's kind of like my Miyagi
when it comes to teaching me all the stuff that I need to know.
I feel like the sky's the limit with us.
[man on PA] 3, 2, 1, doors.
Hi. I'm Damon Wayans, Jr.
And I'm very talented.
[all laughing]
But I also have a lot of very talented friends.
But they don't have the same opportunities that I do.
So I thought the fix was Special Guest.
Special Guest is a platform that makes it easy for talent to find gigs.
Say you're having a house party or a get-together,
and you want a stand-up comedian to come there
or you want a musician to come sing some songs.
You can go onto my app and hire them right there at that time.
Tag is, "Anyone anywhere can hire talent on demand."
Crushed that.
[all laughing]
[tense, pulsing music]
-Nice. -Wow. All greens.
-Sweet. -[Jessica] Come on, guys.
Tell us about your app.
The idea came from me being in this industry.
I do a lot of open mics still.
And I see a lot of people who are super talented.
I'm just, like, "How are you not a star yet?"
Like imagine having a will.i.am. in your house, performing for you,
before he became will.i.am.
Do you want to walk us through the app
so we can kind of see how the experience is laid out?
-[Damon] Absolutely. -Sure.
-[indistinct] -Oh.
This is talent profiles.
So it's like you can put your bio up,
uh, upload videos to show your talent.
Uh, talent search.
Users can search for and hire talent on demand.
How are you guys making sure you actually have talent on it?
What's your talent acquisition?
Well, I think a lot of it can be solved by marketing.
I know a lot of people that would definitely be down to do favors.
And maybe have, like, a Chris Brown
be on the app for like a day.
And him come to somebody's house. We'd record it--
-Is this out there? -Not yet. It's in beta still.
Got it. When are you guys projecting?
We're hoping in the next two to three months to set it live.
So how much money have you raised?
The app has been self-financed by Damon.
About $100,000.
And how much are you looking for?
We think that 750 to about 1.5
in the first 24 months.
-So you make apps. -Correct.
For other people or for yourself?
Um, both.
-So I'm confused about one thing. -Go ahead.
I met with two folks I believe that are like you...
-Yeah. -...for myself personally.
And I just was, like--
The fact that you took $100,000 of his money....
-Mm-hmm. -...to build something
that's only going to amplify and create another business for you
-is my disconnect. -Okay.
Because you-- You could have built this for free
and taken equity in this company.
-This is a good idea. -And, Jessica--
What is your equity split?
-[stammering] Damon-- -It's me.
Yeah. Damon owns the app.
-[Gary] 100%. -100%.
And also, while he's given us $100,000 to build the app for him,
we have put double that in without equity.
So I'm actually not the bad guy in that.
But the disconnect is, like, is this a real company?
-Absolutely. -Yeah.
It's gonna be hard for a VC to invest in this.
They're gonna look under the shell, and they're gonna say,
"I don't know if I can invest in this,
because I don't know which part I'm investing in."
[Kris] In all fairness to Damon,
when I was introduced to him, you know--
[stammers] You know, you don't pitch a celebrity right out of the gate
on "Hey, give me some of your equity."
Um, I anticipated having that conversation with Damon.
Right here on stage, it looks like we could do it right now.
But the reality-- And thank you. So if--
We're speeding [bleeps] up here on Planet of the Apps.
[Kris] If that's what comes out of this, thank you guys.
That's the thing. It's not clean enough.
I don't really understand what this is.
I hope that this just puts a fire under your ass
to make sure you get it done.
And so that's why I'm gonna go red.
When we first started doing the Special Guest app,
-it was literally just an app. -Makes sense.
We never said, "Hey, we need to come together on some paperwork [bleeps]
and, like, figure this thing out."
It was basically just, like, I know my weaknesses,
and he has his weaknesses.
Not cool. Uh--
But he knows a lot, and so he helped kind of my dream come true.
-[Gary] That's awesome. -Thanks, man.
And I feel like we have a lot of growing to do.
-Just the beginning. -[Damon] Obviously.
So with that-- I would like to see you joined and married.
It's more of a common-law marriage. My mail goes to his house. So--
I feel like we're married without the rings.
Yeah. Unfortunately, in this cutthroat tech industry,
[stammers] it's not that.
So I-I'm moving to red.
I'm out. Sorry.
[Gary] Here's my bigger concern.
I actually think social media is a dangerous place.
The amount of people that are booking through Instagram is high.
-[Damon] Mm-hmm. -And growing.
And so what I'm concerned about is you get squeezed.
And for that reason, I'm out.
[Gary] Gwyneth?
Uh--
I think that, you know--
Celebrity is very valuable, especially in this culture and in this day and age.
But there has to be another layer.
Because I'm telling you, I have sat with VCs.
They're starstruck for 30 seconds.
And then they grill you,
and I just know from experience--
-It's tough. -You're almost there.
So come back. Can you?
Uh-- Not on an escalator.
For that, I have to go to red.
Guys, thanks so much for your feedback.
We would have loved to have worked with any of you guys. Seriously.
So-- I'm sitting here, hearing all this "VCs are negative."
And I'm not gonna let a VC
dictate how I'm supposed to take care of
people that want to get in the industry that I got beat up in.
Just like when I was trying to get a record deal,
and people said my music was wack.
And then I would go back to my squad,
whether it was music and now tech,
and I would learn from it.
So I'm going back to green.
[Gwyneth laughs]
Let's go.
-[Jessica] Yeah! -Whoo!
[Gary stammers] Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
[Jessica] Yes!
First you have to accept.
-[all laughing] -Let's go.
[applause, whooping]
[Gary] I love it.
-Thank you. -That's cool.
-[will.i.am] Cool. -[Gary] Congrats, guys.
-Congrats. -[Kris] Thank you.
-[Gary] Good luck, Kris. -See you guys.
[Kris] Thanks, man.
[exhales] That was so dramatic.
Still want VCs to invest in my company. [laughs]
[whispers] So [bleeps] hard, man.
[bell rings]
Is that our last one?
[man] All righty, guys. We're set to go.
[Zane] With six weeks until their final pitch to the venture capitalists,
the developers move on to an accelerated incubation phase.
Their goal: to make their businesses bulletproof
before they ask for funding.
Since the pitch, Kris invested his capital in Special Guest.
He and Damon arrive at i.am+ as equal partners in the app.
So, uh-- Let's say they wanted to learn more about this Damon Wayans, Jr.
-Mm-hmm. -Uh, they could click on the "Read Bio."
Can I see Damon's--
Like, his booking? Can I see his calendar?
That's, uh-- [stammers]
-You would-- -For me to just see--
Say, for example,
I'm doing a party.
-[Kris] Mm. -Oh, shucks.
[stammers] He--
I see that he's booked in December.
I'm moving my party to January 'cause he's free there.
-Mm-hmm. -Like, my point is,
we want to ask permission for the app to see the calendar.
-[Damon] Yeah. -[Kris] Yeah.
It's like, I'm on tour with the Black Eyed Peas.
I make my tour calendar available
for people to see.
So that if somebody wants to book me,
here's where-- here's where I'm open to play.
But I think that you're also in a more unique position
than a lot of the people that will be on this app.
No, but you want to have high-profile talent like yourself.
Mm-hmm.
You have to figure out a way that you would use it
when you're on tour.
You want your app to be a promotional tool
for folks while they're touring.
So that other folks that are comedians and aspiring to be, like, a Damon
are like, "Well, I'mma be on that app, too.
'Cause folks that are in the business that I wanna be in
-use it as well." -[Damon] I love that.
Dude, now you know why we wanted to work with you.
There's a market for Special Guest,
but I think they're missing a component in their app.
And that is not just thinking about the talent, but the calendar.
-That would be my two cents. -I agree.
What does a calendar do,
and why is it different than the calendar that's already on my phone?
[Kris laughs]
-Pratfalls. -[laughs]
[laughs] That's so messed up.
[Zane] Having discovered that Special Guest
is missing a crucial calendar component,
Will then meets with Bens from Subway Talent
to assess his progress.
[Bens] So, of course, you could view the talent.
You could see if they'll be free for the date that you're looking for.
[will.i.am] So explain the calendar.
So tell me your vision on why the calendar's there.
Whenever an artist gets booked on the platform,
it automatically updates on the calendar,
which means I book you--
There's no hassle, no back and forth. That's the main goal.
The main goal is to take away the friction--
-Who came up with this idea? -I did.
Bens has the component that's missing from Special Guest.
But he's lacking just a team.
So my idea was to put them together.
And I think he'll kick ass.
[pulsing techno music]
[Zane] With six weeks to their final pitch,
Megan and Sam meet with Gary
in hopes of nailing the branding for their tutor app.
[Gary] How many educators right now are tutoring,
based on studies that are accepted?
[Megan] So only 50% of educators.
That's insanely high.
Fifty percent of any group of doing anything is insane.
-And they're also not doing it-- -So right away, real quick?
-No more "only." -Okay.
Because "only" is hedging.
The interesting thing is, most people have that same perception that you do.
Including teachers.
They don't know that the teacher in the classroom one over from them
is also doing this.
[Megan] They talk about it in silos.
And people are kind of secretive about tutoring,
so that's another thing we need to talk to you about.
What we need to do is change the conversation around tutoring.
So own it.
Brands stand for something and never waver.
[Megan] Uh-huh.
How can we say something
what feels radical for the venture community
but have the right things to back it up?
"So we live in a world
where every teacher is also a tutor.
And we believe that world is way bigger than any of you think right now,
and that's why this tool is being built."
[Megan] Gotcha.
Now you're talking about brand.
[Megan] We've certainly never done anything brand-forward.
We were mostly always talking about kind of tutoring generally.
This will be our first time talking about Clark as a solution.
[Sam] Changing the education game is almost impossible.
It's gonna take a huge amount of work.
But if we weren't up to it, we wouldn't be here.
[pensive techno music]
[Zane] In hopes that Subway Talent will merge with Special Guest,
Will has arranged for Bens to meet with Kris and Damon.
So we're both going after the same pot of cash.
But we don't think that Lightspeed is gonna invest in two apps that are similar.
So with that said, we'd like to make an offer.
We would like to acquire Subway Talent.
We'd like to offer you $100,000 cash for you to take off the table.
We'd like to give you five percent in the new company,
which would be the merged Subway Talent and Special Guest app.
We also are really excited about
what we think you could do for us immediately,
which is to be that sort of spearheading the efforts
to grow the platform, the combined platform,
in the New York City market and beyond.
We gave it a lot of thought before we presented it to you.
We know that you put
a lot of blood, sweat and tears into Subway Talent.
-We know that you're very passionate. -Yeah.
Ultimately, whatever decision you make, man,
I'm happy for you, I'm proud of you, no matter what.
[Kris] Yeah.
Cool.
I don't know.
Uh--
I love the offer, right?
Sounds great.
Here's my counteroffer.
Okay. You can invest that $100,000 in Subway Talent.
We go in as cofounders.
So you still have that comedian side.
You conquer LA. I conquer New York.
You hear what I'm trying to say?
So we merge, as in
you bring Special Guest into Subway Talent
and become Subway Talent.
To me, it seems like that would suggest that Subway Talent
is better positioned for success.
Can you defend that?
I'm just saying--
The vision I have in my mind,
I'm seeing this in the future so much more.
It's not worth 100,000.
At all. Right?
I'm trying to shoot for the moon here. You know what I'm trying to say?
$100,000 to acquire Subway Talent?
That's a no-go for me, personally.
-No disrespect, all right? -No, no.
This is way bigger than $100,000, you know what I'm trying to say?
This is a very open market where it can probably go into the billions,
based on how much I hustle for it, which I will hustle for it.
Much love and respect, guys.
-You know it. -Thanks, dude. Absolutely.
Would have been nice if Bens had taken the offer,
or, quite honestly, tried to renegotiate it.
But at the end of the day,
we're gonna be precise in our execution of what we're trying to do.
And we're making the assumption that the VC's gonna make the better investment.
[pensive techno music]
So for us I think that the biggest part is to show
that the current existence of tutoring software
is not meeting the new demand--
This is where they're gonna gloss over and be bored and not understand.
Okay.
This is a place where I've seen people lose VCs.
[Gary] I think the tutoring ecosystem that Clark is building
is very powerful and very real,
and has the potential to be a monstrous business.
But the reality is if Clark doesn't get the VCs excited about the space,
they will not get funding.
You're gonna have a hard time getting high-profile talent.
I have the plans lined up--
How are you gonna compete with Special Guest?
[Bens] I'm aware we have competitors.
It's all about who have the better product
and also who the users wanna go on board with.
Having the funds from the VC will help us out tremendously.
Right? 100%.
I have a path. I'm seeing the path.
I have to keep the vision alive,
go with that tunnel vision.
So I'm just gonna go and polish my craft
and go to the VCs and pitch my heart out
and just prove everybody wrong.
[Zane] After six weeks of intense incubation,
Clark, Subway Talent, and Special Guest
head to one of the world's premiere venture capital firms,
Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Lightspeed was the first investor in Snapchat
and currently has over four billion dollars under management.
So I took your advice,
from where we spoke last time, for the pitch day.
I'd love to hear some feedback.
Just know that when you go into all this meat here,
this meaty stuff--
-[Bens] This? -That.
[Bens] These numbers, I would say, are more on the worst case scenarios.
But I want to be as realistic as possible.
They'll pick that apart. I know for a fact.
Just prepare for that.
-Yeah. -Just in your head
anticipate the obvious questions they're gonna ask.
I'll be there to emphasize
how important this is to the market.
-Okay. -I'll do that.
-Appreciate it, man. -All right, Bens.
Will, thanks a lot for everything.
-Straight up. -Yeah.
[tense, pulsing music]
Hello. How you guys doing?
-[Alex] Hey. -Hey. How are you?
-[Bens] Doing good. -[will.i.am] Everybody, this is Bens.
Amazing entrepreneur.
Created an app called Subway Talent.
I'll let Bens take over from here.
Thanks a lot, Will.
As an artist myself,
I know how difficult it is
trying to find paid gigs as an unsigned artist.
So I decided to take the passion project into a real company,
where we became a mobile, peer-to-peer marketplace to book live musicians.
Right now, the goal is to raise $800,000.
So the main goal with the app itself
is to basically have the app to become a business tool
to replace the need of a booking agent.
Because as a talent, if you do have a booking agent,
they take away between ten to 20%.
Where us, we don't charge the artists at all.
We charge the planner 15% service fee charge for first-time booking.
Then we'll charge five percent for artists being booked repeatedly.
-And Bens... -Yes.
...I'm just trying to better understand
how you've arrived at charging them 15% for first time
and just five percent for repeat.
Good question. The main goal is to basically,
as much as possible, prevent the planners from booking outside the platform.
I like the fact you're thinking about that,
because I do think that is a key risk for the business,
that people love the artists and then just carry on using them.
[Bens] Yes. Thank you.
So, of course now, the market size itself--
Will could tell you that, you know,
album sales are not being sold like they used to,
so therefore we are relying a lot more on performance to actually bring in income.
So we want to convert that into our market, into our app.
So if you think of what the record industry used to be--
You sign a artist.
Artist sells millions of albums.
And from that millions of albums,
they bought five houses.
Nowadays, you get your album.
Your songs are streamed.
You go on tour forever...
-[Alex chuckles] -...to pay off the one house.
Because of that, you're going to have a whole bunch of artists
that wanna bypass the label
and just go straight to touring.
What Subway Talent becomes is a quick start
for artists that want to get gigs booked.
Which means Subway Talent can be that new norm.
When you have platforms like this,
-if I'm a singer, which I'm not-- -Yeah.
But if I am,
do I sign up for multiple platforms like this?
Or is there any reason why I just do Subway Talent?
So we do have competitors, which I'm glad we do,
because it's confirmed that there is a market out there
that's open, no one's conquered yet.
Until we gonna be the ones conquering. That's how I feel.
Our main competitors right now, they focus more on the planners,
where we actually focus a lot more on the talent.
We go the talent route because as a talent,
you're actually a lot more engaging within the app.
So that's some ways we're actually different from our competitors.
As you build a two-sided marketplace with event planners and talent,
what are your advantages at either side of that marketplace?
Right now, our main goal is to find out
the chicken and egg problem, who comes first.
The first two months, there won't be any revenue at all,
'cause we want to actually get the talent first.
So it's a little bit hard to read, but it looks like
-talent in month one is 75. -Yeah. It's 75.
[Jeremy] In month three is 225,
and then in month four is 125.
-Yes. -So--
The reason why? By months four and five,
we wanna slow down on actually trying to get users
but actually trying to make them get paid.
Once we solve that, then you're gonna see a lot more growth happening from there on.
I see. So you expect a lot of people to drop off
when they don't make any money in that first month.
Exactly. So we want to solve that problem first,
then start to get more users involved.
But if you look at month 18 revenue,
it's 20k.
If you're gonna spend 800k,
over a year and a half,
to get to a 20k monthly revenue number?
That's 10X or 100X where it should be.
Can I--
-Can I answer to that? -[Aaron] Yes.
That was a worst case scenario projection.
'Cause we wanna start in a realistic way for the first year.
It's not saying that's what we're gonna go after,
that low an amount, of course not.
But I just wanted to be as real as possible.
But all right. Thank you, though, for the feedback. I appreciate it.
The challenge is we can only base our decision
on the numbers that you present to us.
And based on those numbers,
it's not a compelling opportunity.
All right.
So we saw some great stuff,
and we really do believe that a platform like this should exist
and that you seem like a great person to build it.
We would love to see you build this into a marketplace with real equity
that's making money for real artists.
And when you get there, and I'm confident that you will,
we hope you come back to us and pitch us again,
'cause we'd love to be involved at that point in time.
All right. Once again, guys, thank you for the feedback.
I appreciate it. And thank you very much.
-[Aaron] Best of luck. -[Nicole] Thank you, Bens.
-Thank you. -Thank you, Will.
[will.i.am] All right, guys.
-[Aaron] Appreciate it. -[Alex] Take care.
[Bens] Here's how I see it.
Where I came from,
being a homeless kid, to moving to New York with nothing at all,
to pitching to Lightspeed, there's no losing.
It's like the noes are not noes. They're just "not yet."
They even said to come back to them whenever I have the product out.
So I'm ready to just go to market, you know?
Yeah.
[tense, pulsing music]
[Sam] Let's do this.
I think you're gonna find an amazing dynamic duo here.
And I will allow them to introduce themselves and explain Clark.
We're Megan O'Connor and Sam Gimbel,
and we're the cofounders of Clark,
a virtual assistant for tutors.
We are passionate about tutors,
and we're excited to tell you why now is the time to invest in them.
We're asking for two million dollars from a lead investor
who will take a very strong mentorship role with us
as we take on this increased demand.
So we are an iOS app and platform
built to manage the full tutor-student relationship life cycle.
Our initial customers, tutors, download the app.
Which manages payments, scheduling and progress reporting.
And parents and students receive that information
via SMS, e-mail, and via the Web,
so they don't have to download anything.
So Clark happens to students and parents,
but the native app is the business management tool for tutors.
I see.
Making us the only data-centric platform specifically for tutors.
And, as evidenced by a 28% year-on-year increase
in parental tutoring demand,
the future of education is personalized learning.
Wait. You said there's a 28% year-on-year increase
in tutoring demand?
In parents demanding tutors for their students.
For a market growth rate, that's remarkable.
That means that it doubles every two years.
[Megan] Correct.
So what we're seeing with this increased demand
is that the existing tutoring market needs tools to scale,
so that way these tutors can meet this demand.
And more importantly,
we need to be able to bring in new players to the market.
We believe every teacher in America should be a tutor,
making the tutoring market much bigger in the US.
Can I just double-click on this market piece?
The publicly available statistics
on the private tutoring market in the US market
are at around between seven and 11 billion dollars currently,
as you measure it today.
I guess you're inflating 'cause you're assuming
a lot of these other people would come into that market.
Exactly.
So your kind of thesis statement is that the roughly 300,000 tutors
are gonna grow to about 600,000,
and that's gonna double the market from 11 billion to 20-ish billion.
[Sam] Our research has actually turned up
that there's over 1.7 million private tutors
who do it either part-time or full-time,
and that the full market size is actually 2.5 million if you include ESL,
and that teachers are actually external to that.
The important thing to remember here
is that similar to in the early days of any future-of-work platform,
the number of people who are off-platform and unrecognized
because they don't report as tutors
is very high.
We're not counting those at all.
[Alex] Is that actually your revenue?
It sounds like you're making money through some sort of take rate model.
[Sam] Yeah.
So what we do is we take ten percent of transaction fees.
It's free for your existing clients,
and then the first time we scale your business,
we start taking that transaction fee.
That's in comparison to these incumbents,
which are at about 40 to 50% of an hourly rate
for their business services.
So ten percent of this number is your addressable market,
-which would be about-- -2.8 billion.
But today, if you took it to the 11 billion,
it would be about a billion.
[Sam] That's correct. Yeah.
When you play out the math of 50% versus the ten percent,
then the stuff they're putting on the side comes into the Clark ecosystem,
you start creating the economics.
I think there are some interesting dynamics here in this market,
which is that every person, on both sides,
actually brings users with them.
[Alex] But the question here is, in my view,
how big is the prize at the end of the day?
When you take a ten percent take rate
to a market that you guys are claiming is 26,
the publicly available data says it's 11,
you have to really squint to get to a billion dollar TAM here.
But my gut says if we can see Clark get traction
and get that sort of network effect going, there's something interesting here.
[Nicole] Aaron, I agree with you.
I think that network effect businesses
are one of the main reasons when VC money should be put in.
I really think this is a core example
of when they're gonna grow the market.
Exactly.
The future of work is changing. This is one example.
Marketing has to go way up.
[Aaron] Marketing has to go up.
Probably their burn will go to 100, 120?
You add in a monthly payback campaign spend
that'll ramp as they mature.
Is the prize worth the fight? That's the question.
[pulsing electronic music]
[Aaron] Megan, Sam, we really loved hearing the Clark story.
I'm fascinated by building new future-of-work platforms.
I think our team--
We'd love the opportunity to offer you
the two million dollars you've asked for...
[Gary chuckles]
...on an eight million dollar pre,
as well as join your board and help you scale this marketplace
to a future platform
for many people to become tutors around the world.
-Wow. -That's fantastic.
Thank you guys so much.
Do you accept our offer?
-We accept your offer. -We accept your offer.
-[Gary] Yeah! -Congratulations.
[Megan] We did it! We got the investment!
I feel kind of stunned.
Like, I really right now just feel kind of in shock.
The tool that I knew that my mom needed,
it's been validated that a lot of other people need it, too.
And working with Lightspeed, one of the best VC firms in the world.
[Megan] Which means we really are going to be able
to turn every teacher in America into a tutor.
This is just the beginning.
It's going to be incredible, and--
That still hasn't sunk in.
[Gary] I am so happy for you guys!
How you guys feeling?
Feel good, man. We feel pretty confident.
We, um-- We are prepared.
But, you know, one reality is that investors say no
98% of the time.
They see a ton of deals. Uh, so--
You know, the odds are against us.
[tense, pulsing music]
Hi, guys.
These entrepreneurs here have created an awesome app called Special Guest.
I'll let them kick it off from here.
My name is Kris Jones. I'm a serial entrepreneur.
And I'm Damon Wayans, Jr.
Uh, the one and only. [chuckles]
There's two of us, but, yeah.
You know. Uh--
I'm an actor and a writer and a stand-up comedian.
Um-- Special Guest makes it extremely easy for anyone anywhere
to hire live entertainment on demand.
I'm sure we'll get more into
what we've been able to accomplish over the last three months,
but one of the things that we're most proud of
is that we've worked really hard over the last 45 days
to bring on some high profile angel investors,
which include Wilmer Valderrama,
Marlon Wayans,
-and Kevin Hart -[Nicole] That's great.
So we're looking to raise 1.5 million total.
Over the last 45 days, we've already closed 500.
So today we're asking you for one million dollars
on a 4.5 million dollar pre money valuation.
And will some of those comedians that are angels also be on the platform?
Yeah. We're gonna utilize them as much as possible.
But they're not necessarily gonna be on the platform.
I can't call you up and have you come to my dinner party.
We talked about that--
So is that-- Or maybe I can.
No. It's not just amateurs.
The pros and the folks who book pros can use this app as well.
So to answer your question, yes, we do intend to participate.
But they're two very different use cases, and we're just trying to hone in on
what the specific use case is right now.
So the goal of this app out of the gate
is to serve up-and-comers.
When we think about Will's involvement, Kevin's involvement, Wilmer's,
we're really thinking about it from the point of inspiring the aspirers.
Awesome.
-Is the app live yet? -The app is not live yet.
-It lives-- -When will it be?
Within the next few weeks.
We're at the sort of end stage of development right now.
You've been an entrepreneur before.
You know the value of getting something out there
and learning and iterating on it.
I just wonder, how do you know you've built the right thing
if no one's using it?
Yeah. You're absolutely right,
and I think there's benefit to launching it sooner than later.
We're not there today.
We are there within the next few weeks.
Damon, what is your role at the company?
Pretty much anything having to do with actual entertainment
is what I'm going to be overseeing.
Attracting more talent.
Yeah. Attracting more talent, for sure.
So talent acquisition is gonna fall under you?
[Damon] 100%. For sure.
And most of these investors that we got
were from personal relationships that I've already had.
We realize how important it is that we leave here
with you knowing wholeheartedly that we're committed to this thing.
That required me to put in
a lot more money than I was intending to put in.
Kris, how much money have you put in?
-Uh-- All in, about 300. -Okay.
-[Kris] So-- -How much have you put in?
North of 200.
Only reason why I wanted to point that out--
In Hollywood, entertainers want a check.
You guys actually do have skin in the game.
Yeah.
If you had to pick one side that you were gonna focus on first,
the demand side or the supply side--
Not even a question, the demand side.
We want more gigs in the marketplace.
I think that makes a lot of sense.
-[Alex] We agree. -Thank you.
[Jeremy] So let's double click on that for a second.
Because we just saw a company pitching the same idea,
and yet you had a dramatically different approach.
And I completely agree
that getting the demand would draw all the talent.
[Aaron] And these guys, they've got these relationships here in LA.
It's gonna help them get some talent and drive demand.
-Yeah. -[Jeremy] Yeah.
So there's a lot to like about what you guys are doing.
We believe in the market. We believe in the opportunity.
But the risk is real.
And so we're prepared to put half a million dollars,
contingent on you finding the other half a million dollars
from other investors.
I think we have a deal.
Is that acceptable to you?
-Yes, it is. -Yeah. Absolutely.
Tremendous.
It was my popped collar?
[all laughing]
[Alex] That and the pigs.
[Nicole] So excited.
I'm so excited to work together.
It's gonna be great. Will!
-[kisses] Congrats. -[Alex] Truly.
[Damon] It was a really good team effort,
and we've been studying and working on this so much,
that no matter how you came at it,
we were just, like, "What? What? What?"
But we're gonna be going hard. Now I'm excited about it.
I'm excited.
[Zane] Book an act for your next party with Special Guest
and find a tutor using Clark.
You can also download Subway Talent
and all of the apps featured in this episode on the App Store now.