[man 1] I'm just trying to make money to support my family.
When you got a wife and kid, you gotta do what you gotta do, you know.
[man 2] A lot of what drives me is that we shouldn't be forgotten.
This needs to exist for people that are having trouble reading.
Why isn't there something for us?
[man 3] We've been practicing this. We got it.
No matter what happens, we'll do well.
[woman] I'm glad I'm not doing this alone.
[man] Yeah, me too.
[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 set?
Hey, Michael. App is called Fayr, spelled F-a-y-r. Why?
F-a-y-r. "Family Advocacy is Your Responsibility."
Love that. You are coming at this from a very honest place.
My late father had said to me,
"No success in life will ever compensate for the failure as a parent."
I'm Michael Daniels. I'm from Weston, Florida.
I'm a divorced father, and I build high end custom homes.
And I never imagined that I'd be in the app world.
I mean, I just felt like these coders cruise at an intellectual stratosphere
that I can't begin to contend with.
But I was happy to put up my hammer and hard hat and get to work.
-[man on PA] 5, 4, 3... -[bell rings]
...2, 1. Doors.
Sadly, today's divorce rate is over 50%.
So I know I'm not alone when I say that going through a divorce
hurts not only for you and your ex, but it hurts our kids.
My app, Fayr, is a tool for parents
to create a healthier co-parenting relationship
with a transparent audit trail of information between parents
that clears the air.
Fayr's key features are geo pinpoints, an involuntary expense tracker,
a co-parenting calendar, admissible messaging,
and printable reports for all of these features.
Listen, we all want the best for our kids.
So join me. Let's make it fair for them.
[tense, pulsing music]
-Michael, why don't you come down? -Okay.
And so how did we get here? Scratching your own itch?
So I've been divorced now seven years.
And needless to say, you know, you deal with so much anxiety,
and you end up wasting tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees
trying to keep your kids with you as much as possible.
And so I came up with four features
that really would have eliminated 95% of the expenses I incurred.
And how long has this been out?
No, it hasn't been out. It's still in beta testing.
I'd love to see how it works and what it looks like.
All right. So what this allows you to do
is you can go to any particular day,
see the events down here that are going on that day for the kid.
So the mom has one color, you have the other color.
Yeah, exactly. Now if you wish to forfeit a day,
like, say I'm going to be in LA on business--
So click on your day,
and then you can hit this button down here.
It gives the option to forfeit the day, add a parenting time, or a special event.
So if I choose to forfeit the day,
she would get the notification to her phone.
She can either accept or deny.
And that way you're keeping the record clear.
Because what happens is you end up going to court,
and then people can just say, "He made that up."
So I wanted to take that out of the equation.
Can you personalize that?
So I forfeit the day, add comment, "Because I have to be in business."
Yes. The reason, and in fact, my lawyer had advised me--
She said, "Communicate only in e-mail, because e-mail is admissible in court."
So let me ask you a question.
What's the business model here? How is this app gonna make money?
I currently have plans to just charge a subscription.
Michael, can you biz dev with governments and make this court ordered?
I've pitched this to the Broward County city judge of family courts.
And he said this would have saved countless millions of dollars
that should have been spent towards more noble purposes.
And is there any, um--
It's very set up negatively.
Yeah.
-Like, "This is admissible in court." -Yeah.
I'm wondering if the positioning could be more like "We are on each other's side."
And even in the most contentious divorce, it's easy to disarm somebody
with a nice message or an emoji or something.
So maybe there's some in-built way to kind of make it a little friendlier.
Yeah, I went into this knowing that it needed a woman's touch.
And I welcome-- I welcome that.
[will.i.am] How much did you spend to build this?
Almost $200,000.
And how much do you need,
and what is that money going to be used for?
Uh-- I want $150,000 more.
I've discussed marketing strategies with certain firms,
and they've said about 100,000 for that.
And I need one other 50,000, 'cause one of the things I want to do
is I want there to be a certain standard amongst our legal system.
Can I say-- I don't mean to interrupt, but this is the most...
solid idea and the most reasonable ask
on what amount of money you need.
-[Gary] So you're red. Are you switching? -I'm going from red to green.
[Gwyneth chuckles]
Thank you.
If you just get this in the right hands of judges,
even to say, "This needs to be a standard"-- Um--
I've changed my mind. I'm in.
Thank you very much, Jessica.
Okay, so you have four greens.
You know exactly what you want to do.
-You're an awesome entrepreneur. -[Jessica] Yeah.
You're coming from a great place.
-I think it's going to be amazing. -Thank you very much, Will.
-I love what you're doing. -[Michael] Thank you.
I think, you know, the best businesses come from identifying a white space
and going at it in a very specific way.
Um-- And I think you have really created an awesome solution for people.
Thank you very much, Jessica.
And Gwyneth?
Honestly, I think that as far as this subject goes,
I think I have sort of tried to redefine how one gets divorced in the country.
And I really stuck my neck out, um,
and took a lot of [bleeps] for trying to do it in a much nicer way.
And I think that I could really help you with distribution
and also giving you a bit more of a gentler UI.
-[Gwyneth chuckles] -Yeah.
Michael, uh--
I think Vayner Media people know how to build brand.
I think my work with social networks--
I just think I really am the right partner for you.
Okay, which partner are you gonna pick?
[pensive instrumental music]
I am very interested in working with, uh--
Gwyneth.
My absolute pleasure.
[will.i.am] Best decision you could make.
-Worst ever. -[will.i.am] Swear to God.
[Jessica laughs]
[will.i.am] I think this is going to be freaking amazing,
so congratulations, Mr. Daniels.
-Thank you very much, Will. -[Jessica] This is awesome.
[bell rings]
[man, indistinct]
-I'm Dante Orpilla. -My name is Thomas Scriven.
[together] And we're the cofounders of Dials.
Good job.
[Dante] My trajectory into tech is a little bit unorthodox.
I was in prison for three years.
And while I was in prison I learned how to paint as a therapy.
And doing that, I became obsessed with symbolism and iconography and color.
Dante and I are both artist creatives.
And most artist creatives don't want to read through stuff.
[Dante] Our app is unique in that it's primarily for the ADD individual.
That's who we made it for, 'cause that's us.
[woman] Let me just have you guys on this mark right here.
-[man on PA] In 5, 4, 3... -[bell rings]
...2, 1. Doors.
Both of us had this intense sense of frustration
with the state of the mobile calendar.
It's this tiny text on these small screens that was driving us mad.
So what is Dials? We ripped a page of inspiration out of Apple's playbook.
In '84, they turned text into icons.
We turn your calendar's text into these beautiful icons,
then we set them up around a 12 hour dial.
It's time management in time's native language.
The interface is almost infinitely scalable.
It can be as big as a clock tower or as small as a watch.
I would love to show it to you.
[tense, pulsing music]
All right, guys. Show us your app.
[Dante] Absolutely. So this is Dials.
This is your day. You read it like a watch.
So you see I have tasks around the clock here.
Everything that you have to do throughout your day
can basically be categorized into one of three things.
You have your meetings or your location-based events.
Anything that requires a full stop is red.
You have your calls or your communications, your Facetimes.
Any communication is yellow.
And then you have your general tasks, which are green.
So let's say we're going to go to dinner, and then we'll select a time.
We wanted to tackle time with one interaction.
To set your a.m., you drag to the left. To set your p.m., you drag to the right.
So let's say we're going to go to dinner.
[Thomas] How about sushi, Dante?
[Dante] Sushi sounds delicious. [laughing]
-How about that spot? -Sure.
[Dante] And just like that, once you get into the flow,
we've actually narrowed it down to five seconds.
A fully robust event in five seconds with one finger.
[will.i.am] Yeah, so I'm trying to figure out how the company makes money.
How does it make money?
If you are a small business,
you can put your restaurant menu around a dial
at the time they get the deal.
We're not going to charge you
if you're a mom that's running a soccer team
and you want to put your schedule around it,
and you only have 40 subscribers.
That's fine. But if you are the NFL--
So are you saying you need to go B2B to actually make this a viable business?
-'Cause it looks like an amazing product. -Yes, absolutely.
[will.i.am] How much are you guys trying to raise?
[Thomas] We're trying to raise two million dollars.
[will.i.am] And the two million dollars is for what?
We're going to beef up our development,
we're going to laser focus in on the watch.
And, um--
We're going to prove out the monetization strategy I just laid out.
What happens when a Samsung...
-Absolutely. -...makes their calendar look like that?
It doesn't need fine tuning.
I don't know how to improve it any more. It's freakin' awesome.
Coming from you, that's a big statement.
But I don't know how we're gonna get funded.
With that, I'm going to have to move from green to red.
Gwen? You are the last green. Where are you at here?
I think it's brilliant, and I think it really solves a huge problem.
The branding, the interface, it's all great.
Like, I don't know--
[stammering]
I don't know how I would help you.
So I'm gonna go to red.
-[Jessica] Okay. -Thank you so much for your time.
-[Gary] Good luck to you guys. -[Jessica] Good luck, guys.
[Thomas] Thank you.
[sighs]
I've been there before. Someone passes on your freakin' idea.
[Jessica] I know. It sucks.
[Zane] Many other developers failed to secure an advisor.
[bell rings]
[man] Everybody set.
When I was in the sixth grade, I was cut from my school's basketball team.
Yet I was determined to get better.
DribbleUp is your virtual coach.
So you can train effectively and affordably,
anytime, anywhere.
I hope that you make us feel like boneheads
when you guys create an awesome company.
What if your mobile phone let you play
multiplayer games like Call of Duty or Battlefield,
not online, but in the real world?
[Gwyneth] I'm so sorry.
I think I'm making a terrible decision, for the record.
Thank you so much.
Yix is a multiplayer game you can play with friends or strangers.
It's kind of like Cards Against Humanity,
except you play with animated gifs instead of cards.
Ixnay Yixnay.
Sorry, guys.
Thank you for coming. Good luck.
[Gwyneth sighs] This is terrible.
[man on PA] All right. We are set technically, everybody.
And we have our next six loaded.
[bell rings]
[Zane] How are you guys?
The knot in my chest is related to the fact
that we're really hoping that--
that-that at least one of them sees our vision.
My name is Alexandra.
I'm Ruben. We are both seniors at Stanford.
I met Alexandra during my freshman year.
And I thought I was good at chess.
I was, like, "Hey, Alexandra, let's play."
And then, two more moves, and I was destroyed.
Chess was actually passed on to my family
from my grandma to my dad and from my dad to me.
I played in three World Chess Olympiads.
I am the better athlete. I'm also better at basketball than her,
even though she's, like, a head taller than me.
No, it's close. He's up by one point. He's up by one point.
-[bell rings] -[man on PA] 2, 1. Pitch.
Alexandra is good at chess. Like, really good at chess.
To the point where she has an online following.
And as an influencer, she recognized a problem.
My fans love messaging me, and I love responding back to them,
but I couldn't respond to hundreds of messages each day.
[Ruben] We realized that just like Alexandra's followers,
there are millions of people that are craving to have a conversation
with their favorite influencer,
and they just can't.
[Alexandra] Until now.
We're team CrowdAmp,
and we use machine learning to amplify an influencer's voice
so that they can respond personally to all of their fans.
Together, with your business and celebrity insight,
we're going to revolutionize social media.
Join us.
[tense, pulsing music]
-Come step down. -[Alexandra] Thank you.
-So I can create a message from me... -[Ruben] Yeah.
-...using my language... -[Alexandra] Yes.
...and it will disseminate to all the people that have a similar question.
-[Ruben] That's exactly right. -[Alexandra] Exactly.
And that's what we're going to show you.
So since you guys are all amazing influencers,
if we can have a volunteer who we will log in as.
-I'll volunteer. -[Alexandra] Gary. Wonderful.
-Gary! -Of course.
Gary!
So, Gary, what it would start off as
is you'd see how many followers here
and how many daily messages you get.
Now imagine what would happen if you told your fans,
"Hey, you guys can text me directly."
It would blow up your phone.
So we have an inbox,
and this is where you see all of the individual messages from fans.
We're not a chatbot.
The magic of CrowdAmp is
we group messages together by their common meaning.
Because what we've realized is that a lot of fans want to know similar things.
So, for example, we have the group messages.
Each group has a certain number of fans.
So the first one-- "How did you become so successful?"
-The second one, 210-- -Let's answer that one.
How did you become so successful? Okay, great.
Gary, how did you become so successful?
-Because I had amazing parents. -Okay. "Amazing parents."
[Gary] You guys didn't see that one coming.
Now what would happen
is this would be sent out to everybody who asked you a similar question.
So, for example, "You are so successful, how?"
Or, "How did you become so successful?"
-[Gary] But what about "Made it"? -[will.i.am] How about slang?
"Why you so dope?"
[Alexandra] Right.
-[will.i.am] Oh. "Amazing parents." -[Ruben] So "Amazing parents."
-[will.i.am] I like that. I like that. -Very good.
How are you planning on monetizing?
One is either help influencers
sell things directly to their fans and take a cut.
And the other option is just to ask them what sort of products they like,
and they can give recommendations.
What are you guys doing with the analytics?
I want to know who's following me. I want to know their demo.
I want to figure out how to monetize that.
Yeah. So what we want to do is give you real insight
into what the fans that are most obsessed with you want.
That is the tool.
-What country? -Yep.
How old are you? What should my next movie be?
-What would you go see me in? -Yeah, exactly.
-That's what we're working on. -[Jessica] That's what I want to see.
-[Ruben] Not yet. -[Alexandra] But that's the goal.
But yes, you have a mess--
So how much money are you trying to raise to do this?
For our Series A, we are hoping to raise between two and four million dollars.
Mmm.
I think you guys are young and scrappy and hungry.
And I-- I'm so interested in how to create real value in a real conversation
and a relationship that matters to the fan.
Okay. Um--
I mean, I'm barely on Snapchat.
I don't feel like I have enough expertise in this
to help you from the mentor side.
I'm gonna pass.
I'm gonna stay in. Um--
I can bring a ton of value to this space.
I have a 20-person influencer department inside of Vayner Media,
whose lives is looking at big data to understand who's popping.
So I think the value I can bring is extremely intense.
Okay, so it's time to choose your mentor.
[pensive instrumental music]
[whispers] You want me to start?
Jessica, thank you so much for offering to be our mentor.
The points you gave us was really useful.
And Gary, it feels like you are an expert on what we are working on.
And for that reason, thank you so much, Jessica, but...
We are going to go with Gary.
-Tremendous decision. -[Gwyneth laughs]
-[Gary] So pumped. So happy. -[Alexandra] So excited.
-I really genuinely think I can help. -We're pumped. Thank you so much.
-[Alexandra] We're excited. -[Gary] Thank you. Bye-bye.
[man on PA] Okay, you guys. Thank you. Moving on.
-[man] What up? -[Zane] How are you guys?
Good. How are you?
[Zane] What's really motivating you right now?
What is the key fire that's pushing you?
On a personal level, my family's been struggling.
You know, my parents have always been struggling.
And now I'm a newlywed.
So this is a lifeline to be able to provide for the ones I love.
-What's up? I'm David Lehre. -And I'm Stephen Mata.
And our app is called Evolve.
[Stephen] Growing up in Los Angeles, I did amateur boxing.
You know, I ended up not going to school.
Um, I never thought I'd be in a business.
But my grandfather was extremely overweight.
We did everything we could to get him to be healthy.
But what happened was, in the middle of the night, I was there--
Um--
He stopped breathing.
And I tried to resuscitate him, and it just-- it didn't work.
So--
I wish I would have built this app sooner, so it could have helped him.
But the point of this app is to give people more time.
-[woman] 3 seconds to the doors. -[man on PA] 3, 2, 1. Doors.
Evolve is a health and fitness app that makes being healthy simple.
When you log in to Evolve,
you'll be given your daily meal plan,
specifically created for your individual goals
by a registered dietitian.
Evolve also has an incredible piece of technology
that scans all the menus in nearby restaurants
and finds the best items specifically for you.
[David] One of the coolest things about Evolve
is we feature the fastest way to record your meals
via voice recognition.
So who wants to help make the world a healthier place, together with us?
[tense, pulsing music]
Oh.
-[Gary] Gwyneth saved you. -[Gwyneth] The only one.
[David] Well, thank you guys.
Do you want to walk us through the app
so we can kind of see how the experience is laid out?
-[Stephen] Definitely. -Great.
So every day you log in the app, you're given a meal plan.
And all this is created by a dietitian.
And then we end up taking the meals she creates
and auto-proportion them with our algorithm
to basically get the exact amount you need
to hit your daily goal.
Okay. Now we're going to show you something really cool.
I just had a hamburger with two pickles, onion, lettuce, and a large fry.
[Stephen] So there you go.
So typically most apps, that takes two to three minutes.
What's the voice software that's doing the--
-[will.i.am] You using Nuance? -Yes. Exactly. Nuance.
-So we're using their API. -Yep.
But whose-- What nutritional data is that pulling from?
-Where are you getting that from? -Nutritionix.
-Okay. -Now here's something really cool.
[David] When you go to your workouts, these are all personalized to you,
and you can also scan and find workouts that you just might like.
So maybe you want to do an ab workout.
So you go to your ab circuit.
Obviously, you can follow along in the gym.
And our long term goal with Evolve
is to make this the only health and fitness app you need.
[Gary] Hey, guys? Real quick.
-So it's early. -Yep.
-You're just starting. -Definitely.
You don't have anything because you're using two or three API's.
And an outsourced API gives you no protection against apps
that are much further along than you.
You know. So... help me there.
So right now, what makes us different and what gives us that edge
is the ability to process that information and seamlessly record it for you
without you having to do any of the work.
Because again, time is the biggest factor here.
-Time is the game. -[Stephen] Yeah, time's the game.
Our goal is to save time.
So, lookit. That was great.
[chuckles]
Like, that pitch and this--
I'm going from red to green.
-Yeah! -Great.
[David] Thank you. Thank you.
[Gary] Guys, can we dig into the business a little bit?
I mean, have you raised money? Is the app live?
Give me the 411 on the business, not the product.
So we're in beta phase right now.
We've done family and friends control testing.
That's what we've been doing so far at this point.
Um, as far as how much we spent, it's been roughly what?
-$5,000. -$5,000.
-That's it. -[Jessica] Okay.
-[David] All self-funded, too. -[Stephen] All self-funded.
-So you guys are really new. -[David] Yeah.
So what more features could you have added
if you would have, like, pawned your chain and used that money for it?
[Gary] Yeah, that chain is-- If that's real diamonds, that's, like--
-[will.i.am] What you need to do is-- -He could buy Google.
Don't try to raise money with blingery on.
-[Gwyneth] "Blingery"? I like that. -[laughing] Blingery.
-Yeah. Take the blingery off. -[Gwyneth laughs]
[David] There we go.
[Gary clapping]
Have you thought about how much money from the VC you would be looking for?
-[David] Yeah. -150K. Around there.
-[will.i.am] That's good. -Because we want to keep it lean.
-That's real lean. -[Stephen] That's real lean.
Health is the thing right now. It's hot.
And crowded.
It's crowded, but with the right person, you can rise above it.
A hundred percent.
I gonna change from my no to a yes.
I think you have three great potential partners here.
Um-- I'm definitely in.
I am the part owner of a fitness business.
I also have three New York Times bestselling cookbooks.
So I think I could really help you on the food side.
So I think I would be a good partner for you guys.
-Thank you. -Great. Thank you.
I'm still in because I think the team that I have
can add some awesomesauce to your meal there.
And I promise you this.
If you partner with me, and if the VC says no,
150K, I'll front it personally.
[David laughs]
Thank you.
Okay.
-[David] Rock, paper, scissors? -[Stephen] Rock, paper, scissors.
[David] Okay. Rock, paper, scissors.
[Gary] You guys did not do rock, paper, scissors.
-We're really torn. -Man, we want you all.
It's so hard.
[Jessica] Here, let me give you some advice.
If someone is telling you that they are guaranteeing
getting your ass off the ground,
don't be stupid.
You never turn down guaranteed money.
[Gary] Let me give you even better business advice.
Do not make a business decision on rock, paper, scissors.
That was insanity. I've never been happier on being no than I am right now.
Um-- Okay. Honest to God, we really are so thankful.
Gwyneth, we really respect your health and fitness space.
And Jessica is also someone who we feel really fits into the fitness space.
And Will, on a personal level, I love this guy.
So, not rock, paper, scissors--
Our decision we've made together as a team...
-Yes. -...is we're gonna go with...
[pensive instrumental music]
Jessica.
-[Gwyneth laughs] -[clapping]
-Thank you, guys. -[Gary] Congrats!
-[Gwyneth] Congrats! -[Gary] That was so awesome.
Thank you so much. Give me a hug?
[Jessica] Yeah, of course.
-Thank you so much. -Yeah.
[Stephen] I'm going to give you my all. I promise.
-Thank you guys again. -[Gary] Take care.
-[Jessica] All right. -[Stephen] Thank you.
That one I did not see.
-Their decision-making skills are-- -I think he's doing-- He's a showman.
-What's great about it is their-- -The simplicity.
I just-- You want it simple and easy.
[Stephen] We got it done.
[man on PA] Okay. You guys are done.
[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.
In their first meeting with Jessica,
Stephen and David are introduced to Kelly LeVeque,
a certified celebrity health coach, holistic nutritionist, and author.
So are you guys strictly calorie counting?
Are you doing macronutrients, micronutrients?
Definitely macronutrients.
But the point of the app is to make health and wellness simple forever.
It isn't just calories.
It isn't just macronutrients.
-It's micronutrients. -As well.
You know? So, like, teach them, right?
You don't want to just be the app where they're logging
and not getting anything back.
Definitely. A lot of logic, you know, we built--
But my problem was just I didn't know how I want it to look.
Who's your core consumer? Woman or man or--
Right now, we're looking majority on women.
-So this looks really dude. -[Stephen] Yeah.
It does feel like Nike training club.
So your branding doesn't make sense to me.
Um, I think you identifying your core customer,
who she is exactly,
then you're gonna know what to build around her.
-Yeah. -So you guys got a lot of work to do.
It's a lot of design work, and it's understanding your customer.
[Zane] In an effort to improve the divorce app, Fayr's, user experience,
Gwyneth introduces Michael to Dr. Habib Sadeghi,
cofounder of the Be Hive of Healing.
Your app is brilliant, but the consciousness behind it--
There's a lot of againstness in it, you know.
Like, "You did this, so here's my proof."
-Right. -And--
You know, Habib really-- He has changed my life, and--
And my ex-husband, you know, we are closer than we've ever been, and--
-Now. -[Gwyneth] Now.
Yeah.
We have the best relationship we've ever had.
-[Habib] Yeah. -[Michael] Awesome.
Awesome. I'm glad you're here.
So where are you right now with Melissa?
What's going on? What's the dynamic?
Scale of one to ten, it's like a five.
But you always get in these arguments,
and the next thing you know, it's, "That's it.
You're going to hear from my lawyer. We're going to court." And it's like--
So here you are, and you're with your children,
but you can't really be there because you're preoccupied.
You're hurt, you're angry.
What I want you to do is I want you to put your hands together.
So make a fist and put your hands together.
-Hold it right in front of you. -[Michael] Okay. Okay.
[chuckles] I wasn't even expecting that.
-When you get tensed up... -Yeah.
-...you break. You lose it. -Yeah.
See, how you relate to the issue is the issue.
So what would it be like if the app has a component
that really brings a deeper level of self-responsibility?
You know, one feature I'm about to implement is the Fayr score.
To show, "Hey, I'm being a responsible parent."
It all helps your score improve.
-That's a great idea. -That incentivizes them to do it.
-CPE. Continuing Parenting Education. -There you go. There you go.
Continuing-- That would be the category.
So the more you're doing this, you're compensating--
-And it costs 99 cents. -[Michael] That costs 99 cents.
Look at you, you did this and you passed them.
You don't get credit unless you pass each other.
-Gamification of self-help. -Gamification of self-help. Right.
-I love it. -Yeah.
You know, my other suggestion would be, I think we should include Melissa,
we should give her some basis points in the app
as a gesture of healing and togetherness.
Because that will open up your life.
You acknowledging her in that way
and honoring her and the children that she's given you--
Your life will change if you do that.
[sighs] You know, initially, giving equity to Melissa,
it wasn't something that I was considering doing.
Um-- But look, she was a part of it. I never would have done it
had I not gone through this miserable thing.
And she's the mother of my two kids, who I care a lot about.
And so, you know, that means more to me than money.
[Zane] Having given CrowdAmp
to four of Vayner Media's most well-known influencers,
Gary invites Alexandra and Ruben to hear their feedback.
The way it works is we give influencers like you guys an app,
and this app is where you control all of the text messages.
What we share with fans is we get you guys a phone number,
and you share this on your social media.
A lot of our influencers say something like,
"I'm using this phone number only for my fans.
I'm trying to get closer to them.
If I get a lot of common messages, I can automate those.
But I also respond personally to your messages."
-And all the messages are written by you. -[Alexandra] Yeah.
So nothing comes from, like, a bot or from NLP.
Basically, what we do is, if--
For me, the first thing was, like, "Oh, crap. Eighty-nine people a day ask me
which one of my four books should they read."
And I do them one by one, but the thought was
if I actually answered The Thank You Economy--
If that actually goes to 11 people, I actually answered it.
And all it was was pipes that got it to those 11 people in an efficient way.
-[Shaun] Good news for me? -[Alexandra] Yeah.
In the past three years, the most engaged thing I've ever done
was I tried this once,
where I got a new number and I told people to actually text me.
And I received 10,000 text messages in an hour.
And it was more reach than anything I've ever had before.
I was, like, "Holy cow."
'Cause everyone feels like phone numbers are so personalized.
It was like, "I got this number just for you, fans."
Guys, what's cooler than having one of you in their phone,
-as you, 'cause it is your number. -Yeah.
And them saying, "Hey," and you writing back an emoji heart,
and they can prove that they talked to you one-on-one.
-That's what everybody wants. -[Shaun] Yeah.
Every time I talk to a real A-list celebrity,
and they text me back, I'm like-- [babbling]
-[Shaun] Yeah, exactly. -[Gary] Like, it's true. We all do it.
Look, I'm amped on this 'cause clearly I'm very deep in the influencer space.
I think influencer marketing
is one of the great frontiers of marketing over the next decade.
Building tools and services around influencers is important.
And if they can build the product that's most valuable,
I think they'll be quite successful.
Let's start with you, Shonduras. Would you use this app?
I'm a hundred percent down to use it,
once I figure out what the details are and how I would do it.
-[Gary] Cool. -I definitely think there has to be
some sort of strategy behind it, as he said.
I think it's great. I would use it from day one.
These are really big influencers, so that was great to hear
that this is something they'd be interested in.
But now we have a really small amount of time
to get that prepared for the VC pitch.
[Zane] After learning Evolve's target audience is young women,
Jessica invites Stephen and David to the Honest Company
to discuss their branding.
What is your mission? Let's just make it simple.
Our mission is health made simple. That's our mission.
Who are the fitness experts or nutrition experts
that fall in line with the mission of your statement?
I have a friend who owns a supplement company, and--
Is he a workout person? What's his age? Who are his followers?
He's a big dude. He's a big guy.
-He's a muscle person. -He's a big guy. He's a big guy.
-Okay, but this is health made simple. -[Stephen] Mm-hmm.
He feels like a "health made complicated."
And who's their core? I can imagine it was probably more men.
Definitely. So, um, right now--
So you don't have anyone in your camp that knows anything about women.
I'm just kind of surprised that you still, at this point,
haven't brought in somebody
that could really help put you guys on the map.
I feel like I put a nutritional expert in front of you.
Somebody like that, you say,
"Let's partner, and let's make it a big partnership."
I'm just thinking just from a practical perspective.
I'm really concerned about where you guys are as a brand.
You don't have someone who's an influencer to differentiate you.
It's crowded. It's definitely crowded.
But they don't have someone like me that knows this,
that's been doing it for over a decade.
I can definitely get to the top of the list.
[Jessica sighs]
I'm...
[exhales]
[drumming fingers]
I don't think you guys are anywhere near sitting in front of a VC.
I think you guys are so far from that.
We-- We think we can do this. We believe in it.
I-- I think that's great, but at this phase, um,
I don't feel comfortable putting you guys in front of venture capital.
-This doesn't make any sense to me. -Mm-hmm.
So I was literally just trying to figure out, like, what had happened.
[exhales]
[Jessica narrating] That sucked.
[buzzing lips]
It's so hard.
It's hard because there's opportunity here.
There really is. It's why I chose them.
-[woman] Hey, guys. -What up?
So Jessica actually wants to speak with you guys in her office,
if you want to come with me.
Okay. We'll follow you.
Literally, everything's on the line here for this.
Like, everything. You know, my wife, my kid and my family.
So this literally means everything to me. It means everything to them.
And I have no choice but to make this work.
-[Stephen] Want to pull up the chair? -Yeah.
I wanted to work with you guys because I really believe in what you're doing.
And then when you guys come today,
and you basically didn't really take in anything that I said--
You guys are telling me conflicting things.
And the reality is you guys are even confused about who you are.
-And don't get pissed. -I'm not pissed at all.
This feedback is good. This is what you have to go through.
You think this is hard?
Wait until you take money, and you actually need to prove
the economics of the business that people have invested in.
That's why we wanted to launch and get this out there, because--
No, but you're missing the magic. The magic is the influencer.
It's understanding your audience.
So what can we do to change your mind?
What can we do to persuade you?
[sighs]
[Jessica] Um--
How open are you to not being married
to the work that you've got done?
Like if you just strip it,
and you just take the technology and everything else,
it can be branded differently.
[Stephen] Right.
How open are you to that?
I'm open to anything right now. My--
I legitimately mean it when I say
that I've been putting my blood, sweat, and tears in this
because of my grandpa.
Because of that. You know.
So as long as this actually helps people,
that's what matters to me.
[Jessica] Okay. So--
I think you need to aesthetically skin this experience so it feels right.
So then we will come back with, you know,
different iterations of the app by Friday next week.
-[Stephen] Yeah. -Okay.
But what I want to show you is that in the face of this,
that we come back, and we come back with fire.
-So that's what I want to prove to you. -Oh, good. I hope so.
-Absolutely. Thanks for your time. -[David] Thank you so much. Thank you.
[Michael] Okay, guys, is there any concern
that we might not be able to get this done
between now and the VC pitch?
I think at the end of the day, it is a matter of whether or not
a venture capital company is willing to take a bet on me.
I'm really trying to fix a real problem.
So I just hope that that they will take that into consideration.
This is extremely valuable to the influencer.
You've got to paint the narrative that I've been pounding the whole time,
which is everybody wants to take from influencers,
and we want to give to influencers.
Okay.
Wait, go back. Go back.
This is-- She's gonna tear us apart.
Yeah, yeah.
We came in with a certain confidence,
but that has completely changed.
It's been a lot of ups and downs.
This, by far, is the most important pitch of our lives.
[Zane] After six weeks of intense incubation,
Fayr, Evolve and CrowdAmp
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.
[tense, pulsing music]
-[David] How are you? -[Alex] Welcome.
[Stephen] Thank you.
All right, guys. This is Stephen and David.
Their app is called Evolve.
[Stephen] Let's get this started.
We are Evolve. Health and fitness made simple.
So we're seeking right now $650,000.
And it'll allow us to run for the next 12 months.
So the health and fitness sector in the iOS App Store
is actually growing 87% faster than any other sector.
Now this is interesting because the obesity in America continues to rise.
With all the apps of health and fitness,
this number should in theory be going down.
So wouldn't it be cool if we can actually do something like this?
I just had a hamburger with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onion, bacon.
Stephen had an omelet. Jessica had a ribeye sandwich.
And we all shared a Diet Coke.
[Stephen] So there we go. All done in less than ten seconds.
That is pretty cool. Does that work for-- I mean--
How canned was that example? Like, would that work--
Honestly, you can try it. You want to try it? Try anything.
[Nicole] By the way, just to let you know,
Alex spends a lot of time each day typing in everything he eats.
-[Alex] Yeah, I'm that guy. -[Nicole] So he needs this.
Okay, let's see here.
I had a salad with grilled chicken,
hard boiled eggs, bacon, and olive oil,
as well as vinegar on the salad.
-[Alex] Oh. And there we go. -[David] There you go.
-[Alex] That says-- -[Jeremy] That's easier than typing.
That's actually pretty good.
-Thank you. -Yeah, it's great. Great job.
So that was an impressive demo.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
How did that work? Talk me through the tech stack.
So basically we built our own natural language processing library.
And this is actually all in the front end. So it saves us a query.
You're not using any third party service like Hound or something?
[stammers] Nuance. That's Nuance. Excuse me.
Okay. Sorry.
-It's a Nuance SDK. -Yes.
Got it. You didn't write your own classifier.
Uh-- Actually, I believe we did.
I believe so. My team--
-You don't remember? -You should know.
[stammers] Really sorry about that.
There's lots of classifiers off the shelf.
You didn't have to build your own classifier.
So to continue, to take the next steps here--
Yeah, go ahead.
We've been working with Jessica to really figure out
how it should look and feel.
Because before, it was extremely masculine.
And we've made a lot of changes--
They basically built an app
for people who eat creatine and go to the gym all day long.
And I said, "But your demo is a 18- to 35-year-old woman."
That was good advice.
If this is going to become part of popular culture,
it's got to appeal to young women.
They're going to be the early adopters, and everyone will follow them.
I think that's what's interesting here, is this is a home screen app.
This is something I use not every day, but probably multiple times a day.
Uh, the question is can you drive enough users quickly enough
and build this moat before someone else just adds in the voice features
via someone else's SDK?
Right. So we're about three weeks away from actually launching this thing.
Obviously, we're going to be driving home that main feature,
which is we make it simple to record your food.
The magic comes in in actually breaking apart what they're saying
and actually taking that and recording it for them.
That's the hard part.
So sure, they can get voice in there, but--
Well, that's the part that you did that was hard,
but it's not that hard.
You're dealing with pretty constrained domain.
It's not everything that someone might say.
You're just looking for food.
-Right. -So it's a much easier problem.
How many developers do you have?
So right now, there's a total four of us.
And we have a fifth guy who's a technical advisor.
And how many of them worked on the NLP?
-Three of the four. -How long did they work on it for?
Um, it took us about three months.
Three months. So it's nine developer months?
It's-- By definition, that's not that hard.
Right. Gotcha.
[Alex] So, guys, we've all been very impressed
with the product experience you guys have delivered,
so kudos to you on that.
However, as you said,
we're just weeks away from really launching
the real version of the product that you guys are proud of.
And so, unfortunately,
we just don't think it makes sense at this time for us to get involved.
Even though it wasn't a yes now, honestly, I feel like we still won
because of all the knowledge and stuff that we got-- this experience.
So, thank you, guys.
-[Jeremy] Thank you. -[Stephen] Appreciate it.
-[Aaron] Nice meeting you both. -[Jeremy] Thanks, guys.
-[Nicole] Bye, guys. -[Alex] Good luck.
[tense, pulsing music]
Hey, guys. This is Alexandra and Ruben, and this is CrowdAmp,
and we're excited to pitch to you.
We're team CrowdAmp,
and we use direct messaging to turn fans into super fans
and to make influencers better at their current social media.
So right now, we want to raise $250,000.
And we're going to use that money to hire people from Stanford.
And then in four months,
when we actually have six months' retention data,
to show that our product is sticky,
then we're going to ask for a full seed round.
Across social media,
super fans are the most passionate, engaged, and loyal of all fans.
So, what's the problem?
The problem is that fans really want more one-on-one time with their idols.
However, right now there's no effective tools
designed to help influencers have relationships with individual fans.
Or at least not until now.
So we let any regular person
have a personalized conversation over text message with their idols.
We do this with a really cool NLP model that we built
that groups messages by meaning.
So that when an influencer replies to one fan personally,
they're actually replying to hundreds of people.
So what kind of lift have you seen between fans versus super fans?
Let me tell you about an experiment that we made.
We got all of one of our influencers' commenting data from Musical.ly.
And we compared how her fans commented on her posts
before using CrowdAmp and after using CrowdAmp.
And then we compared that group of users against just regular fans.
So the green line are fans that use CrowdAmp,
and the red line are fans that don't use CrowdAmp.
And you can see that immediately, right when they begin using CrowdAmp,
which is the black line,
the amount of comments that they post on the influencer's account
go up exponentially.
And this is really good for two reasons.
Most products that work with influencers, they tell them,
"Hey, Snapchat and Instagram, they're not treating you well enough.
Come to our platform instead of Instagram."
But we don't do that.
We tell them, "Come to CrowdAmp, and your Instagram will be much better."
Like we augment what they already have.
And this is not likes, these are actually comments.
-[Alexandra, Ruben] Actual comments. -Which is harder.
Where I really went pot committed with these guys,
once we understood, let's bring more value to the influencers
instead of siphoning value out of the influencers--
It's impacting the other platforms.
You can think of it as a fan's phone,
and here they receive a text from their influencer saying,
"I'm selling the necklace I wore in my last video."
And this is a test we actually did with one of our influencers.
If the fan says they like it, they can tell them more about it.
If they say they're not interested, the conversation stops there.
And in the future, we're going to try to track and save
what types of things the fan likes more,
to be able to iterate on top of that.
And we are way in the beginning of our sales,
but what we've seen so far was a one percent conversion,
which was already ten times higher
than the standard for influencer marketing campaigns.
I just don't believe that you have any signal about monetization.
I'm unconvinced that this spam
that you're going to be blasting out
to the very best fans of an influencer--
That has the potential to annoy them over time.
So I'm unconvinced about this e-commerce method for monetization.
[Alex] You have to believe that you're going to be able to monetize that.
It's just a function of scale.
I think retention and engagement in these SMS conversations
gets probably pretty high.
When you get a message from someone you already follow,
you've already opted into being interested in what that person has to say.
[Aaron] Yeah, the thesis is interesting.
And whether the monetization is on SMS or the monetization is somewhere else,
I believe they can prove that CrowdAmp actually amps the crowd.
[Jeremy] Fair enough.
[pulsing electronic music]
Alexandra, Ruben--
We would be delighted to invest $250,000,
the amount you asked for, in CrowdAmp.
-Thank you. -Thank you very much.
Thank you.
-[Gary] Congrats. Amazing. -[Ruben] Yeah.
-[Gary] Congrats. -[Alex] Thank you so much.
[Nicole] Congrats, Ruben.
[Ruben narrating] Breathing a big sigh of relief.
I think it doesn't feel real quite yet.
Maybe tomorrow we're going to celebrate.
[Gary] I'm so pumped. So happy.
But we're very happy.
-I'm so proud of you guys. -[Alexandra] Thank you, Gary.
-Congratulations. Such a big deal. -[Alexandra] Yes. It was huge.
Yeah. Awesome.
[tense, pulsing music]
-Guys, this is Michael. -[Alex] Hey, Michael. Good to meet you.
And Michael's very close to my heart,
because he decided to create a platform of communication
between parents who are no longer together.
With that, I'll give you Michael and Fayr.
Fayr-- Family Advocacy, Your Responsibility.
So I'm asking for 1.5 million now,
with a follow-on once I hit a certain amount of users.
Anyone who's been through it would tell you
that going through divorce is absolutely awful.
And it's never fair.
1.5 million children in 2016 saw their parents divorce.
Those parents paid an average of $22,500.
I spent two years and a lot of money going through my divorce proceedings.
Fayr is a sincere effort to make things as amicable as possible
and save a lot of time, a lot of money,
and a lot of the anxiety that our kids go through,
as well as ourselves.
-Michael, we'd love to hear the idea. -Okay.
These were my four features that I focused in on
that I needed help on in my own situation.
My scheduling, as you can see here--
Dad's days are in one color, Mom's days are in another color.
Dad, if he wants to go out of town to give a VC pitch,
he need only click on the day and say, "Request to forfeit the day."
Mom gets a notification to her phone saying, "He's going to be out of town."
You can see notes there. "Okay, I'll accept."
The day turns to her color,
and it doesn't turn back unless she releases it again.
Do you feel like in most situations where there's been a divorce
that both people will actually be amenable
to having all their stuff documented?
That's an excellent point, Alex.
And I can't see why anyone wouldn't do this
knowing that the other parent is doing it.
And it sort of encourages you to be your best self, right,
because if you know that this is admissible in court,
and your husband's doing it and you're not doing it,
I think you're sort of encouraged to participate.
So I guess the question is
if you had every divorced couple in America using your app,
what would your revenue be?
[Michael] At 4.99 a month,
given the assumption of just getting, in the first year, 30,000 users--
That's ten percent of the newly divorced couples.
Let's just pull on that thread for a second.
You're saying there's 300,000 divorces a year.
And assuming that you keep every single user from 2017 to 2018,
then you're adding 110,000 new family subscribers in that second year.
-[Michael] Yes. -[Jeremy] Right?
Of the 300,000 divorces, you're going to get 110,000 of them.
I'm assuming a lot of growth once I grab traction here.
[Nicole] But Michael, I question whether
perhaps people go to a physical lawyer in this case,
because they don't want to use an app.
[stammering] This is what I-I would say. I mean, I-I'm literally--
It sounds awful to say this. I wish I had a better way to say it.
I'm going to gamify this thing.
I'm going to make you say, "I want a good Fayr score.
I want a good parenting score." I'm going to call it my Fayr score.
And every time I respond with a kind thing, it ups my score.
It's encouraging a relationship. And so that's where I'm going with this.
I love the place that this is coming from.
You are trying to create better behavior,
the sort of conscious uncoupling that you've talked about in the past.
That is a wonderful, wonderful sentiment.
But not every idea can be a big company.
Divorce is a tricky topic for people to talk about.
Yes.
We really respect that you wear your heart on your sleeve,
driven by your own personal experience.
But the reality is,
if you want to get something that spreads through word of mouth,
it has to be something people want to talk about.
At Lightspeed, we look for a company that has a huge market opportunity.
And we just don't believe that this is a big business.
So for those reasons, we won't be investing today.
-Okay. -[Nicole] Thank you so much for your time.
-Thank you all very much. -[Alex] Thank you.
-Thanks, guys. -[Alex] Appreciate it.
Thanks for the opportunity.
[Michael narrating] I'm grateful for this experience.
I'm appreciative of the feedback.
But look. They are business minded people. None of them are divorced.
I don't know that they can totally relate like Gwyneth can.
[Gwyneth] I'm still going to be your partner,
and I'm still going to help you in any way I can.
[Michael narrating] But that's fine. There's a big market out there,
and I'm just going to keep building out exactly the same plan I had.
I'll just fund it myself.
[Zane] You've heard their story.
Now's your chance to get the renamed SuperFan app.
You can also download Fayr,
Evolve,
and all the other apps featured in this episode
on the App Store now.