Speed is all in startups, and Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow learned that first hand. In just 14 days, 21-year-old Yale Juniors raised $ 3 million on the AI powered network platform, Number.
But their story goes beyond the fast round of obtaining funds – it is about two young black founders moving in an industry in which individuals like them are still insufficiently represented.
“We are 6’5”, black and technical – a direct foil for Harvard’s story, “says Johnson, referring to the story of Facebook’s origin.” And this difference is the reason why the series tells about the recent story about how people connect online. “
Johnson and Hargrow jumped into the world of entrepreneurship with a deep conviction that artificial intelligence can again imagine how people build online relations. They believed that skilled networks were facing a significant issue, because social media platforms are filled with senseless numbers and futile connections.
The series was born of this belief: a platform built to query older social networks by facilitating significant connections through artificial intelligence.
“Serrendipitous” happiness
Johnson, the direction of computer science and economics and Hargrow, Major Neuronauki, didn’t enter into the entrepreneurship completely blind. They visited . A series of founders podcast, Where they conducted interviews with successful founders and entrepreneurs, focusing on entrepreneurship.
One common topic appeared in these interviews: the importance of happiness.
“Happiness led to their first fund, the first client, the first investor,” says Johnson Entrepreneur. “So we thought This is a bit serious, but it ends with the creator of differences. How could we design this happiness?“
This idea has turn out to be Series Foundation. Their platform uses agents based on AI or “Ai Friends” to facilitate the introduction. Instead of relying on cold meetings or random meetings, similar to LinkedIn, users of the series train their AI agents to IMessage to grasp their needs and connect them to the appropriate people in the prolonged network.
In other words, users can write SMS – Ai to coach their “friend AI” and describe the kind of connection needed – no matter whether it is a co -founder, investor, mentor or friend – and then AI searches a series of series to search out the right match.
Anti -redevil or next human connection indicator?
The series offers fresh, “anti-chain” solutions on social networks. This is not attempting to be a newer, cooler Facebook – attempting to fix what Facebook and other platforms are mistaken. While traditional social media focus on sharing content and publishing about themselves, the series is based on private introductions. “Social media is great for broadcasting, but it does not necessarily help you meet the right people at the right time,” says Johnson.
Image loan: Series
Instead of broadcasting the observers or running content, the series builds what Johnson describes as “the next iteration of human connections.” He says that traditional platforms are rooted in networks and presentations.
“You publish photos on Instagram, publish movies on Tiktok and publish work posts on LinkedIn … And that’s where you have a microinfluencera syndrome,” says Johnson.
In other words, existing platforms – whether intentionally or not – users of pressure to look polished and violated posts. The users of the series interact with AI feeling friends who “can get to know you at an intimate level” and allow real authenticity.
Instead of prohibiting the image, users can receive suggestions and support based on their real personalities. They can then be adapted to real individuals who can turn out to be mentors or friends.
“We are not trying to replace relationships in the real world-we are to make it easier for people to find the right relationships,” says Hargrow.
Battle of Funds obtaining
Johnson and Hargrow come from various parts of the country – Irvine, California and Queens in New York respectively – but they found a common plane in Yale, where they were each interested in entrepreneurship.
Johnson has been building things since childhood, including making sticks for people with visually disorders when he was 8 years old. Hargrow, a former athlete, perceived starting life as the closest Grind and unpredictability of sport.
They each understand learn how to tell a fascinating story to sell an idea for a startup. What began with the cold e -Maili and warm lucoses quickly transformed into an emergency course in pitching, learning from the initial “noses” and wondering learn how to sell something greater than just the product.
They got stuck with the core and set the series as the next step in a human merge. They also learned to present a series with “ethical confidence.”
“If I’m approaching a girl, I won’t tell her:” Well, I’m high-quality, but there are many hot guys, “says Hargrow. “I’ll find a approach to tell her that I’m the best guy.”
Image loan: Series
In Yale, they each immersed in the university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, joining startup clubs and making contacts with other founders. They quickly realized that success is not only intelligence or labor. Access played a huge role.
“Being in Yale gives us an unprecedented level of access to networks that we would not have otherwise,” says Hargrow.
One key connection led to Anne Lee Skates, the well -known investor Bay Area. After an impulsive decision about a flight 36 hours later to California and dinner, which sealed the contract, she became their most important investor.
Then he took the rush. They met with VC groups in Bay Area, and in two weeks they secured $ 3 million financing, attracting investors willing to place AI powered networks for the future.
“This dinner changed everything,” says Hargrow. “I will always remember it as a dinner for a million dollars, literally.”
“Don’t write back anyone”
For Johnson and Hargrow two young founders Black, the Building series has all the time been greater than just technology. It is about representation, access and creation of connections that they would love to have as children.
“When I was younger, I didn’t see many people I could look at because they didn’t look like me or built what I was building,” says Johnson. “I see now that my childhood is looking at me.”
When communication changes in the direction of interactions supported by AI, Johnson and Hargrow, they bet that individuals will take a platform that priority treats a real connection as a substitute of excessively sewage.
“Do not write back anyone,” says Hargrow. “Building a platform that relies on you literally without taking someone’s nominal value But in fact reaching who they are … it requires someone who is at the idea that he never wrote back. “
This article is a part of our ongoing Young Entrepreneur® series emphasizing the stories, challenges and triumphs of being Young company owner.