Lessons from Sugar’s Fatima Dicko | 1227

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Top Insights

• "My dad told me when I graduated, 'You know this degree is a nice pair of running shoes. But at any moment, a barefoot person can beat you in a race." That's really important because in entrepreneurship hustle beats talent when talent doesn't hustle, each and every time." - Fatima Dicko
• "Feedback is the breakfast of champions."
• "You could learn almost anything if you're dedicated to Googling and learning."

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Intro

Guest: Fatima Dicko | @FatimaDicko_

• Founder & CEO, Sugar (2019-Present)
• Website: sugarliving.com
• Fatima's background:
• Stanford MBA
• Founder/CEO mybestbox (2015-2017)
• 4 years at Proctor & Gamble (2012-2016)
• Columbia Undergrad in Chemical Engineering
• Met Jason at remotedemoday.com (Feb 24, 2021)

Sugar's Founding Story

• Sugar is all about connectivity, the name comes from this idea of borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbors.
• What Sugar does: blends residential property management (paying rent, utilities, keyless access, etc.) with consumer social (buy/sell marketplace, resident to resident messaging)

Sugar's Value is Twofold

• Property Residents: Provides connection to people in your building. Also provides a way to access building resources.
• Property managers: The more connected tenants are and the higher resident engagement is, the more likely people are to renew their lease. When people know at least two to three others in their building, they're exponentially more likely to renew their lease

The Original Company

• Began as an on-campus delivery platform (known as Jetpack), had raised $250K on a crowd SAFE note on https://republic.co/jetpack
• The average delivery time was 7 minutes. Brands actually paid Jetpack to distribute samples.
• "Distributing inventory in a hyperlocal way is the future."

The Pivot into Real Estate

• Looked at top problems for residents & managers to find overlap.
• Mangers care about increasing asset value (includes a digital reputation as well) and minimizing vacant space.
• 80% of millennials will look at Yelp or Google before renting an apartment.
• Pivoted in April 2020. Her Sugar MVP had rapid adoption: "Put a QR code in the elevator and within 2 days half the people were engaging with the app."
• Funded with customers: Used early traction in her building, created a product demo, and got upfront payments from apartment building

Sugar's Go to Market

• It's a B2B2C play. Most competitors only focus on the B2B, consumers only log in to pay their bills.

"We're integrating with a lot of the apps that property managers are already using, so that the building doesn't have to make a huge drastic change. But then we're focusing on the coolest features for the residents, such as being able to unlock doors from the phone." - Fatima Dicko

• By adding the door unlock & other features Sugar increases engagement with the Sugar app.
• People can opt in to the building directory.
• In a way, this helps building act more quickly on issues for residents.

Market Entry

• As of May 2021, Sugar operates in CA, NY, AZ & other smaller markets

"We want Sugar to be the central repository for all these things that you can do in your building." - Fatima Dicko

Apartment Amenities Roadmap

?? mobile keys + key sharing

?? community-wide on-demand events

?? product rentals

??marketplaces and rentals

?? front door / in-unit package delivery

?????♀? community fitness programs

?? on-site meals for delivery

?? food trucks & experiential pop-ups

?? communal Teslas for rentals

?? Recording studios + art rooms

• Fatima wants a way to increase the immersion into the micro-communities.

"If you asked 10, building managers, how happy and how engaged is your community? I guarantee you, most of them wouldn't be able to tell you in an informed way, who's happy, who's not and who's likely to renew their lease? Who's not? Who are like the top evangelists in the buildings, throwing events and can you incentivize them to do more? - Fatima Dicko

Pricing Strategy

Pricing

• $2.50/door for just the app
• $5/door for an integrated app with keyless access & more
• If a 100 unit building paid $5 per door per month for the highest-level product, two apartments at $3000/month being renewed would pay for the entire year

"We really care about stickiness, more than anything else." - Fatima Dicko

• Fatima assumes that apps like Sugar will lose pricing power over time, but the products people love will be able to monetize in different ways.
• Nextdoor has done this with neighborhoods.
• Managing digitally allows for better traceability & security as the sharing & delivery economy increases.
• This also helps buildings understand how much amenities are being used.

Lessons

"My dad told me when I graduated, 'You know this degree is a nice pair of running shoes. But at any moment, a barefoot person can beat you in a race." That's really important because in entrepreneurship hustle beats talent when talent doesn't hustle, each and every time." - Fatima Dicko

• Resiliency can't be learned

"Feedback is the breakfast of champions."

• Google is the great equalizer.

"You could learn almost anything if you're dedicated to Googling and learning." - Fatima Dicko

• Maximize your network and identify the thing you can do better than anybody else.

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