Michael Hyatt

There’s a tried and true playbook in tech: get a ton of users, then figure out how to monetize them. Today’s founder, Ofo Ezeugwu, has plenty of users on his site, but the investors press Ofo about his plans to monetize. And then, complications arise when coronavirus enters the scene. 

This is how much of a go-getter Bobbie Racette is: when she got laid off, she started a business to help thousands of other people who were out of work. Now, she has so many customers, she can’t keep up. And Michael Hyatt, our most ruthless investor, was like putty in her hands.

During our last call-in show, Thor Wood wowed us with his 30-second elevator pitch for SnapShyft, a company that matches workers with open shifts at restaurants. Now Thor will have to convince a much tougher crowd, the investors.

Ben Trenda thinks he can stop the trolls on Twitter and other social spaces. He’s building Goodtalk, where famous people can have public one-on-one conversations without interruption. But if you strip away the bad, will you also lose the things that people really like about social? And if you don’t have enough people, your social network is worth nothing.

The 2.4 trillion dollar fashion industry is due for a makeover, according to Andrea Madho. She says her company, Lab141, will be the biggest change to the way clothes are made in over a century. But it’s a moonshot and she knows it, now the investors know it too and will have to decide whether or not they think Andrea can get it done.

For businesses, the process of buying software is brutal. Founder Andrew Hoagland launched his company to make it a breeze. In fact, he says that his startup Vetd has made it so easy that he can’t keep up with the demand he’s created … without the $2m he’s here to raise. Luckily for him, the investors get the problem. But he’ll have to convince them that his solution is the right one. 

When founder Jen Saxton landed a partnership with a big name retailer in the baby industry, she thought her startup, Tot Squad, was on the way to startup stardom. But five years into the deal, things just weren’t working out. In fact, they were a disaster. But that’s a good thing if you ask her. Jen says a stronger company has risen out of the ashes of that fiasco and she’s here to convince the inv...

What if you could listen to the exact same music as your favorite celebrities, at exactly the same time? That’s the question that drove NFL lineman Jason Fox to build an app for that. An app called Earbuds. Now if Jason can just cash in enough star power to secure the bag. 

A little over a year ago, Xiao Wang came on the show to pitch his startup, Boundless. He told investors that his company was going to help immigrants cut through all the bureaucracy and paperwork required to get legal status. Today, the stakes around immigration are even higher than they were a year ago, so we wanted to see how Boundless is faring in this new world. 

Founder Rahul Jindal might be the king of bootstrapping. And when investors see similarities between his startup, Hyde Closet, and a billion dollar business known as Rent the Runway, they start dreaming of unicorns. Until a wrinkle in the plan, snaps them back to reality. 

Back in May we asked entrepreneurs to call in and give us their best pitches. The winner was Leigh Isaacson and her startup Dig — a dating app for people who love dogs. In this episode, Leigh enters the pitch room and asks for $1.5 million to help get 1,000,000 new users on her app. Now Leigh just has to convince the investors that dogs and dating are a match made in Heaven. 

Dennis Meng’s first company was a major flop. So he started another one that could’ve saved the first. It’s called User Interviews, and he needs $4 million to get it into the hands of big companies. Will investors buy into what he’s selling now? 

Ramya Possett and Rachel Lee founded BlueFoot to make tracking the competition easy for massive companies. And they think that what they’ve created is so powerful, it demands a premium price tag. One that takes the investors completely by surprise. 

Jonathan Kumar pitches his startup, Samaritan, which aims to help people who’ve lost their homes. But can he convince the investors it’s OK to earn a profit off of homelessness? 

Ben Walters came on the show to sell the investors on Feedback, an app that lets restaurants change their prices on the fly. But when Ben shows up in the pitch room, he’s already decided that it’s time to make some changes to the business. Can he get the investors salivating over a startup that’s mid-pivot? 

Jennifer Brandel of Hearken is pitching a new kind of business. She calls it a zebra: a company that’s driven by a mission — but still wants to make money. And Jennifer’s mission with Hearken is to help journalists do their jobs better. But can she and the investors get on the same page? 

Ryan Husk wants to take your workplace culture up a notch. His startup, Culture Force, matches companies to “experiences” designed to improve community at work. He says it can be a huge business, but the investors want to know why it’s more than just a cool way to plan work parties. 

Chelsea Brownridge wants to help dog owners keep their pooches safe when they’re out running errands together. Her startup, DogSpot, makes internet-connected dog houses, with features like webcams and A/C, and puts them in front of retail stores that don’t allow pets. Can Chelsea convince our investors that her dog houses are a must-have? 

After losing his shirt on sports betting sites DraftKings and FanDuel, Adam Weinstein decided to flip the script on daily fantasy sports and give everyone a better shot at winning. He’s changing things up using prop bets instead of traditional fantasy teams. But the question remains: Is this a gamble investors are willing to take? 

Tom Impallomeni is here to pitch Tribe XR, a VR app that teaches people to DJ. He’s got a vision for using virtual reality to teach creative skills — but the investors are skeptical. Can Tom convince them he’s putting the right spin on VR?