Contrarian Thinking Capital

AI spending will reach $154B this year. But small businesses may get left behind... 5 reasons why SMB owners are hesitant about AI (and a company I found that might change their minds): 40% of small business owners with <100 employees don’t plan on using AI at all. Yet studies have shown workers who integrate AI in their workflow can do: - 12% more tasks - 25% faster - with 40% higher quality results So why are owners so wary? 5 reasons: 1. Cost 44% of owners cite cost as a barrier to AI. Interestingly, the biz's most turned off by the cost are ones with <10 employees. Wouldn’t these be the ones in the best position to leverage AI? 2. Data privacy & security concerns 35% worry AI will expose sensitive data. Big Tech hasn’t convinced Main Street they won’t lose or misuse their data. 3. Lack of Understanding 31% say they plain don’t “get” AI or how it would benefit their business. 4. Job Displacement For years we said, “AI will steal your job." Now the time’s come to adopt AI, it’s no wonder 28% of owners don’t really want that for their employees. 5. ROI 29% simply aren’t convinced the benefits will be worth the cost of implementing AI. One last data point to note: As expected, the biggest signifier of whether or not a business will adopt AI is the AGE of the owner. I think these concerns are valid. But I also think SMB operations will completely change in the next decade. Which is why I try to find & invest in the best tools that help bring Main Street businesses into the 21st century... One tool Contrarian Thinking Capital has been using (and invested in!) recently is Ambient. It does some amazing things I haven’t seen before and now can’t live without... First, it takes notes on your meetings & emails. Which is where most AI tools stop. But Ambient also: - extracts action-items & next steps - answers questions about mtgs & emails - drafts follow-up emails & agendas - acts as a consultant who knows your biz The tasks are a game-changer. You can seamlessly organize & prioritize in an Eisenhower matrix. Or roll them up into projects. Or route to your project management system of choice (we use Notion, but Asana, Monday, ClickUp, etc also work) If you want to give it a try, Ambient hooked ya'll up with a free 30 days: https://lnkd.in/e4J63cCZ

We just raised a $10M Series A at Carry! Carry exists to help business owners grow their net worth by saving money on taxes In less than 2 years, we've grown to 1400+ customers, ~$900K in ARR and $35M+ in assets on our platform... and we're just getting started. --- What exactly does Carry do? - The best platform for tax-advantaged accounts for biz owners like a Solo 401k, IRA's & Defined Benefit Plans - An asset-agnostic investment platform to invest in stocks / ETF's or alternatives from the same place - Best in-class tax planning & education --- Here's how our metrics have grown since our Seed announcement 14 months ago: ARR: $80K -> ~$900K Assets on Platform: $1.5M -> $35M Customers: 350 -> 1,400 We raised the round at $65M pre-money valuation led by Accomplice VC, who was the same lead as my last company Teachable We also brought in lots of helpful individual investors like Balaji S. Kamal Ravikant Matthew Brezina Brianne Kimmel Eric Feldman Sophia Amoruso Codie A. Sanchez Sam Parr Sahil Lavingia Avlok K. Nuseir Yassin & 50+ others --- We also did something I've long wanted to do & left open a $1M allocation for the community! If you are an accredited investor, you have the opportunity to invest at the exact same terms in this financing More details in our announcement blog post here: https://lnkd.in/evY2U-pV

I found a company that’s disrupting a $10B/year industry. ? The market: Pool cleaning ? The target: Fragmented small biz’s ? The plan: Scale them. Big. Here’s the breakdown: There are 11 million pools in the US. 30% of the owners of those pools use a cleaning service. But the weirdest part? There’s no clear national brand for swimming pool cleaning. And boy is it ripe for the picking... Think about it: 1. The customers are sticky. If a cleaning company does a good job, why change? The frictionless option is to get on a plan with a company, then forget about it. 2. The customers are recurring. Not because they WANT to, but because they need to. Pools need cleaned. For as long as you own a pool (aka, decades), this won’t change. So, why have no national brands taken off? Because the industry is hyper-fragmented & operationally intensive. It requires someone with deep operating experience, access to capital, & the ability to leverage with tech... Like Jeremy Yamaguchi & Splash – the first national brand in pool cleaning. Splash's plan is to roll up pool cleaning SMBs across the Sun Belt. Here’s what they're looking for: ? Established co w/ great local reputation ? $300k+ in cashflow ? Owner operated – and preferably from a retiring owner Now let me tell you why that last bullet is so fascinating… Maybe you’ve heard of the Silver Tsunami. The logic goes: ? 10,000 boomers retire per day ? Boomers own the majority of SMBs ? So, someone needs to buy retirees' biz's But there's one tiny detail... Many boomer businesses aren’t widely considered “sellable.” Part of the appeal of acquisitions is you can swoop in as the new owner, hire an operator, use all the existing systems, and stay out of the day-to-day. But most boomer biz’s look more like this: - Paper invoices - Inconsistent pricing - No website, no marketing - SOPs are: however the owner does it - Vendor relationships w nothing on paper - The CRM only exists in the owner’s head It’s hard to come into a business like that and turn it into something that can run well without the original owner... But Splash is intentionally seeking this type of biz in the pool cleaning industry. Why? The answer’s simple: Scale. Step 1 of Splash’s plan is to buy loads of these pool cleaning businesses. Step 2? Build the software to support 'em. They'll add specialized tech, create the best systems, make it easy on operators.. So any owner-operated biz suddenly becomes streamlined & simple w/ Splash. And this ain't the founder's first rodeo... Jeremy has already founded, scaled, & exited 2 home services companies. Excited for him go even further w/ pools.. Learn more about Splash here → splashventures.com Check out our VC fund here → Contrarian Thinking Capital