Sbur

Jared Rosen, Co-Founder, HomeScore, organized a Sbur (www.sbur.com) On-Demand Advisory Board meeting among fellow founders and industry experts. Jared is currently in the C10 Labs cohort and has received an investment from famed Jason Calacanis (Uber, Desktop Metal, Robinhood, Wealthfront, Trello). Fellow Founders and Advisors helped Jared explore, examine, evaluate the many Go-to-Market strategies and paths, given the recent dramatic changes taking place in the home buying and sale industry. The discussion has helped Jared uncover an untapped distribution channel that can potentially supercharge the market adoption and scaling without high costs. This SBUR meeting was in partnership with Venture Café Cambridge (Nathan Plummer, Alexander Cheung, Tricia Bitetto, Emmi Dolph) and Marcum LLP (Jason Moi, Jack Boyles). Thank you guys!

Giuseppe Stuto, Managing Partner, 186 Ventures hosted a Roundtable discussion on AI and its impact on the existing and new generation of SAAS companies among fellow SBUR (www.sbur.com) members/Founders at Insperity (Kenneth Levine). Giuseppe is a serial entrepreneur turned investor. 186 Ventures has more than 50 startups in its investment portfolio.

Christopher Brown, Executive Director, Schr?dinger (NASDAQ SDGR $1.6 Billion Market Cap), and sr leadership roles at Zapata Computing, Rogers Corporation, Kyulux and Kateeva. Mohan Chunduri, Co-Founder, Mallard Enterprises (recent order obtained: 80 amphibious planes) and Mesolv LLC. Sanjay Manandhar, a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits, currently at a stealth technology startup, and previously at Wicket, Aerva by Watchfire and DataLink. Chris, Sanjay and Mohan, gathered together fellow SBUR (www.sbur.com) members/founders for a Roundtable discussion. They shared their stories about the top mistakes made by early stage founders, costing tens and even hundreds of million dollars, and how to avoid making similar mistakes. Top among such mistakes are the founder team formation and misalignment of roles, responsibilities and compensation structures. They provided guidance to other founders at the meeting regarding their specific situations. The second biggest mistake is the poor assessment and execution of Product-Market-Fit and the subsequent Go-to-Market. This can lead to missed market opportunities and wasted resources that put a venture into a path of failure. The loss in sales and valuation can be staggering. They offered guidance to other founders struggling with such issues. A highly productive meeting like this is an example of what SBUR is all about. Sbur empowers founders to effortlessly access and scale three types of capital, critical to a venture’s success - knowledge capital, social capital and financial capital.

Mo Saeed, Founder, SalaryX, organized a small group discussion among fellow Sbur members about capital raising at Venture Café Cambridge and TINS: Technology Innovation Studio. The group shared with each other critical success factors and pointers. What unites all the key elements of a successful capital raising campaign is Storytelling. One member shared how his storytelling has helped other founders raise >$16 million. Another member offered to introduce Mo to a large potential customer to test-run his storytelling and validate his value proposition to this potential customer.

Jonan Junwikul, Founder, Pantheon Technologies, and member of SBUR (www.sbur.com) shared with the fellow members his AI product ideas and the initial beta launch of an AI product that gives a user valuable access to multiple AI products without having to pay a multitude of subscription fees. Fellow SBUR members provided Jonan with their feedback and ideas on LLM model gap exploration, user value discovery and creation, AI product defensibility, and user vertical product aggregation and deployment. Thank you Venture Café Cambridge and TINS: Technology Innovation Studio for your support!

Ali Mahmoud, Principal, Glasswing Ventures, and a member of SBUR (www.sbur.com) organized and facilitated a SBUR Founders’ Roundtable discussion on AI (sponsored by Kenneth Levine, Insperity). It was a thought provoking discussion touching on AI tech stacks/layers, Glasswing’s focus, AI product defensibility, Founder-Market Fit, synthetic data as moat, human and AI behavioral shaping and reshaping.

Jean Yang, Founder and CEO, LuxMea Studios , organized an On-Demand Advisory Board meeting among fellow SBUR (www.sbur.com) members/Founders, sponsored by Venture Café Cambridge (Nathan Plummer, Alexander Cheung and Tricia Bitetto) and Marcum LLP (Jason Moi and Jack Boyles). LuxMea is 3D printing two houses for Habitat for Humanity and needs to spin off its patented AI designed and 3D printed eyewear product. Jean sought advice on Product-Market-Fit for the eyewear product. The fellow members/Advisors have provided Jean with many thought provoking guidance and some are following up with personal introductions. Sbur is a Founder led and driven community with a mission to have the community come together and help one another navigate uncertainties and multitude of options and paths forward, with the understanding that future success is oftentimes path dependent.

Sage Nye, Principal Investor, Venture Guides, and a member of SBUR (www.sbur.com) conducted an Investor Workshop for SBUR members/Founders at Insperity (Kenneth Levine, sponsor) last week. Venture Guides, a $216 million fund, has achieved positive outcomes in >80% of its previous investments with 45% eventually reaching $1B+ valuations. Sage shared her insights into the current investment environment, investors interest and focus, and founders effective capital raising approaches. Sage and Venture Guides will next host SBUR members in the Venture Guides office - TBD.

Ryan Laverty (YC Alum), Co-Founder, Arist （www.arist.co with > $16 million raised), got together with fellow SBUR (www.sbur.com) members/Founders, hosted by Levon Gasparian, CEO, InfoPay. Arist is a successful remote learning platform servicing enterprise clients. Ryan shared how Arist, in its early days, deployed a 10-propects-per-domain-every-two-weeks approach to rapidly assess and determine Product-Market-Fit and Go-To-Market strategies and execution. Ryan also helped each Founder at the meeting assess their products, markets, and customer acquisition strategies. Super insightful!

Alex Bichuch, CEO and Dmitri Baliakhov, President, ByteUnited, organized a small group discussion among fellow Sbur (www.sbur.com) members, sponsored by Venture Café Cambridge & CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center). Alex and Dmitri have created an AI powered documentation collaboration tool with wide and amazing applications in many industries, such as financial services, healthcare, and legal, among many others. They are, however, grappling with too many choices, making it hard to pick a beachhead to launch its first product on. SBUR’s fellow members helped Alex and Dmitri sort through many exciting options, their pros and cons, and the most promising paths forward.