How to make an impact with your equity

Jason Atkins: Hi, everyone, and welcome to today's Startup Equity Matters, the podcast where we talk about startup equity. Today, we're going to unpack how to have an impact with your equity, and we have the wonderful Jaime Zaporzan joining us from Canada. Welcome, Jaime.

Jaime Zaporzan: Hi, Jason. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Jason Atkins: Yeah, stoked to have you on. As you guys know, we unpack a range of different equity stories, and today is going to be a super interesting one because Jaime's startup, Kindr, is helping impact startups and businesses really communicate their story and their impact, which is such an important part of building a great company. Plus, Jaime has her own startup and has a wealth of experience when it comes to equity to unpack, so it's going to be a really fantastic discussion. Let's jump straight into it. We'd love to hear, first of all, about Kindr. What's going on? Tell us about the mission. We can jump in a little bit about what's going on this year for you guys.

Jaime Zaporzan: Absolutely. What I typically like to do, Jason, is kind of start at the beginning where the idea came from, because I think that will really kind of speak to our mission as well as our vision. You know, we discussed when we first met my background a little bit. You know, I spent most of my career in startup and growth stage companies doing product and product strategy. Right. So mostly sector-agnostic. I've done a little bit of biotech energy. I've also done blockchain traceability and sustainability. That was one of them. So that was my first taste of sustainability in terms of what do supply chains look like in animal agriculture and what is sustainability like and then how do those relationships between consumers and the companies work. That wasn't what influenced Kinder. That was quite a few years back already, but it certainly gave me a little taste of the different partners in terms of the corporates working directly with the consumers and trying to make something a little bit more sustainable in a quantifiable way. That was interesting. Now, if we fast forward, this past August, August 2023, I was working in energy and transportation technology at the executive level. I wasn't looking to start a company at that point in time, but I knew that I probably eventually would if the right idea struck me at the right time. And what I came to notice was like a perfect storm that one day. And so, as I told you, I was walking my dog and I had a conversation earlier that day with a friend who had chosen that they didn't want to have kids with their wife. They just said they don't feel optimistic about the future in terms of, for lack of a better term, I'll say it in aggregates, sustainability, right? The state of the world, state of affairs. They weren't sure if they wanted to bring life into the world right now.

Jason Atkins: I remember that. That was a big factor that I was considering, and it did have an impact on my choice of how many kids to go for, that kind of thing. It's pretty serious. Did it?

Jaime Zaporzan: So that was something that you and your wife had discussed as well, right?

Jason Atkins: Particularly me, but yeah. It was a part of my decision making process for sure. Like, where were we and what was the right decision from a sustainability perspective? Yeah, totally.

Jaime Zaporzan: Yeah, and it wasn't something at the time that I had really thought about, maybe similar to your wife. I was more in terms of you get that feeling at a certain age and I was like, “I don't want to have babies now.”

Jason Atkins: I wish that was actually in hindsight, I wish it was more about that, like I'm a little bit more on the Elon Musk, like let's all have heaps of babies and like bring life into the world. That's a little bit where my vibe is now.

Jaime Zaporzan: Well, now, I'm the opposite. Not the opposite. I mean, having children is the biggest blessing for myself and for our family, and I think for most parents. But now, it's more like you've brought life into this world and you want them to have the best life, right? And you want them to be empathetic. You want them to be kind. And you want to understand the impact of their actions on others, like on everything, right? And for life to go on. So, as I said, I was walking the dog, and at the same time, at the very same time this day, there had been an announcement that carbon tax was going up again in Canada. I won't go down that rabbit hole. So, I'm just trying to draw a picture of what was going on in my head, you know?

Jason Atkins: I'll tweet a bit of that on my Twitter feed, but let's not go too far down the road.

Jaime Zaporzan: No, I won't. I certainly won't, because I'm not. But just in terms of–it just ties to what we're trying to do, right? So, the carbon tax, where we're paying additional taxes, right, on essentially everything–putting a price on carbon that's it's not a bad thing inherently, but where it gets problematic is as I'm having this walk, I see there's plastic, single-use plastics, literally in the tree branches and all over the ground and this is in Canada, right in a nice new area and all these different things are coming together where I'm going. We have the most amazing brain trust in this world, right? We have the smartest, most intelligent people doing incredible innovations, but I don't feel like they reach capacity full scale. There have been biodegradable single-use plastic replacements for a while. Why haven't any reached critical mass, right? Not that I have all the answers, but these were the thoughts that were going on in my head. Like, why aren't we doing better? We can do better, but why aren't we doing better? We have billions going into, for example, the carbon tax. But why aren't there more? Why isn't there better reporting for the consumers, like for those who are actually paying those taxes? Do we have a vote on how those are being spent? And why aren't we having more stakeholder engagement to make sure that this impact is the best it can be? And so that was really kind of the moment of ‘aha’. This can be done with technology, and that's what I love doing–solving very complex problems with technology. And so ultimately, what we're looking to do with Kindr is we're trying to cultivate compassion through collective action, right? We want to bring three different stakeholder groups together. So impact organizations, individuals, and corporate and investor partners together to collaborate and to have more measurable impact outcomes. They're quantifiable, they're simple to understand, and we do this all with a layer of social media over top, where you have that ongoing engagement with the three stakeholder groups, not just a moment in time, a call to action, come look at this campaign and donate, and then forget about it afterwards. And then fingers crossed that we did what we set out to do. We wanna have that ongoing engagement, that sticky product, where impact organizations have a perpetual funnel of vetted donors and investors. Individuals have a greater sense of purpose with where their money is going. They can also stay more up to date on these initiatives and organizations that align with their core values, but also have those quantifiable outcomes on a per dollar SROI. If I donated $50 to an organization that aligns with my values, what impact did that have in a very simple way, right? I don't have to go deep into the trenches of a 20-page report. And then for the investors, which is very important, it's how can they more simply look at their portfolio of investments and donations and evaluate their success, but also look to de-risk through micro donations that the individuals contribute towards, right? So that's really what we're setting out to do at Kindr.

Jason Atkins: Yeah, I think it's super, super interesting. You can tell there's a lot of goodwill globally to just be more compassionate and solve real problems. I mean, it's definitely there. But I think, sometimes, people can feel a bit helpless because it's being solved by some people over there. And there's a lack of transparency about what's actually going on and the results that are occurring. So can you try and unpack a little bit more around maybe the data or the transparency element that you're working on and how you see that can solve some of this problem?

Jaime Zaporzan: Absolutely. So really, the vision is to keep it very simple, right? And then if you want to go a little deeper, you can, right? And it's not all over complicated, very simple on the interface and on the user experience, but for there to be backing if you want to do a little bit more due diligence. And so fromthe onboarding experience, what you're getting is kind of questions in terms of if you're a user, so not a non-impact organization, so an individual or a corporate partner, it's what interests you, right? And it's done in a smart way, which essentially the subsequent question is based on the previous question and gets a kind of tailored understanding of who you are and what kind of either donations, investments, or community you want to be a part of. And that is what starts to do that matching for the impact organizations, right? It uses those initial onboarding data plus the layer of ongoing behavior on the platform to do those matching. In terms of the impact organization themselves during their onboarding process, what they do is answer a series of questions, things like how they currently evaluate success or who they report to, if any, what frameworks they've used, which of the 17 sustainable development goals that they're best aligned with. And so that gets kind of quick and dirty on the organization. Now, the second part of the actual data that is down to the initiative level is what we call it, is based on the amount that they're seeking to raise. That is used as one input and then from a standardized set list of outcomes they select from. So, for example, what is the unit of impact? If I am trying to–myself and my co-founder always use this example to become an ongoing joke, if we want to save the baby penguins, right, and we're raising $100,000 to save the baby penguins, from what we've never determined, so maybe this isn't a fantastic example, but we'll use it anyway. We'll put the $100,000 into the initiative, right? Start and end date, or it can be a perpetually ongoing initiative. But based on your historical data or other framework that, again, this is the more detailed that you can upload subsequent to that. How much for one unit, right? So is it going to be $100, $150, $200 for one unit of impact? And you put that in, right? And so based on those inputs, what it does is based on a donation, it calculates that for the user. And then there are triggers for the initiative's lifecycle to update it from the impact organization's end. And so, if they, all of a sudden, have to change that unit or value for whatever reason, it updates and notifies everyone who's involved in that initiative lifecycle as well. Now, that's simplified. I don't want to go into the deeper because one of the problems is there's so many different frameworks and I think different data sets that stakeholders look at. That's a simplified version. Over time, what we're looking to do is if we're looking at some of the initiatives that are more on the innovation side, I believe that will be something that's conducted through third-party partners, so impact audits. So if you can imagine, if we're looking at something that's a little bit more experimental, say done at a third-party post-secondary education institution, and they're raising $100,000 to do a clinical trial. That could be part of something that's actually crowdfunding, they put that into the budget, right? And so that's actually a condition of this campaign is that it needs to be audited by an impact auditor. But again, that's a little bit further down on the product roadmap.

Jason Atkins: Sweet. I think connecting the parties a little bit more closely around the projects with real data.

Jaime Zaporzan: Love it. Exactly. And really, it's just different kinds of translation layers with the same set of data, right? One of our early customers is an impact fund, and that's something that was really interesting to me. Out of the gate, I knew that we had to decide how we were going to do go to market strategy and market penetration, right? We can't go after all three stakeholder groups at once. We were onboarding everyone at the same time, but who are we strategically pairing to bring the most value? Is it more strategic to go after the impact organizations with their value propositions plus individuals, or target the more individuals later and go after, for example, the investor persona? And what was really interesting to me is I always assumed that the investor persona would be something that would come later once we have a lot of the individuals micro donors. That would be a value proposition to go "hey they've reached critical mass or scale”. With these two groups and now, hence that unlocks some value for me where I can actually evaluate the different impact innovations, organizations, and what has de-risked this for me. But because right now, we're raising our pre-seed round, I've been meeting a lot of investors, and what was very interesting is they're all looking for that snapshot, right? Like I want a simpler way to look at not just ROI, but SROI, too, where I can evaluate my fund or my portfolio of investments in a simple way. Then I actually have a little bit more interesting updates too tied at the initiative level with the social media element, right? So I can look at fund performance, I can filter by certain things, I can look for new initiatives and I can share this. So that was interesting right out the gate and something that obviously influenced our roadmap as well.

Jason Atkins: And how about the storytelling side? I mean, I know you're putting it all together now and you're bringing together all this vision and research. I mean, what are some of the top storytelling elements that you're looking to help people, I guess, get better at when it comes to impact innovation?

Jaime Zaporzan: Oh, that's a really great question. I think it depends. You know, I think it depends on what kind of organization. Right. So when we look at small to medium sized nonprofits, some of our early clients are small to mid sized nonprofits that are based here in Alberta, Canada. And a lot of them, this isn't their primary role. So we're working with a group of doctors that are doing amazing things. all around the world. They're based out of Edmonton, but most of their work is done on a global scale. And they're doctors, full-time doctors as well. They're the primary individuals that run the organization. And so what happens is they have a lot of donors and some that would most likely be repeat donors, but they don't have the time to actually engage these donors to maximize the lifetime value of this partnership. And so what ends up happening is they end up throwing their own money and funding it. And it's kind of a lost opportunity, not just from the financial side, because they're financing it themselves usually. But on top of that, you're not actually getting people behind what you're doing, and you're not getting that feedback from people who care and people involved and getting the story out of what they're doing all around the world. And so it also comes hthe donor relationships. They haven't had time to refine their brand, their brand strategy, their messaging on their website, let alone their social media channels. So what we need to do is help them by refining that first, which is service revenue. And long-term, we're not looking to do service revenue. But small, mid-size nonprofits are one of the core target markets for our impact organization, right? We can really bring more value to them. But that starts with you having to tell your story. And so some of our partners already are really good at that. They want simply to use Kindr because they have that in-house ability to speak to what they're doing, the impact they're making and why it matters. Others haven't really done that. So what we're trying to do is leverage technology, but also in-house expertise to support our clients, get that out to the world and thus create that perpetual funnel of opportunity so that they can do what they do best.

Jason Atkins: Awesome. Yeah, I just want to dig into a little bit of the startup journey, the zero to one stuff. What's been the biggest challenge or a couple of challenges for you over the last a year or so while you've been pulling all this together?

Jaime Zaporzan: Oh god, one or two.

Jason Atkins: Yeah, I know it's like almost everything in the beginning.

Jaime Zaporzan: Yeah, do we have more time, Jason? No, I guess it depends which day you ask me on. I'd say something that's like a static component that just fluctuates a bit would be I don't want to say self-doubt. I don't want to say self-doubt. I don't think that's an accurate, perfect representation. I think, and it's not fear, but you have to be willing to get up every single day and be motivated, even when you feel like “Am I doing the right thing?” Do you know what I mean? Like, you have to always push back any kind of resistance. And I think there's a human factor that makes you question yourself sometimes. And for me, usually it's at night because every morning I wake up and I'm like, oh, feelings gone. Carpe diem. We've got this. We got this in the bag. You can do it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's the coffee. It's just the coffee.

Jason Atkins: How did you found your company?

Jaime Zaporzan:  It was coffee, 80% coffee, 20% love. Since the caffeine's in me, I'm good. But once it starts to taper off, that's when the self-doubt comes in. No, I think that's where you have to realize, sometimes it's at night and it can get like, it's an isolating experience.

Jason Atkins: It's a very isolating experience. I mean, you must straighten. I literally used to tell myself, if you just get the most basic stuff, like if today was a bad day and you probably look like a crazy person, but you got 1% better today, you can get 1% better tomorrow. And if you just keep going, you'll eventually get there. I used to tell myself that it was the simplest little mantra because if you focus on all the problems, you will drown. So you just need to create these little mantras for yourself, I think, just to keep going, because it's true. If you just persevere and you just keep going and going and going and you put all your effort in, it's amazing what you can achieve. But there's a lot of doubt to try and quell.

Jaime Zaporzan: There is, right? And I think what's helped me anyways, and something I've come to realize, I've been part of a few different groups and part of a community here called Platform Calgary. And essentially, it's a beautiful office space and resources for founders here locally. And so you can actually go and meet people and work from there. It's like for free, right? And you get to actually pick each other's brains and have less isolation, instead of being by yourself in your house all the time, through all the hours, not sleeping and working, you at least have people around you. And what I've come to realize from being around other founders, some who have done this many times, some who are first time founders like myself, is that what someone might think is, “Oh, I can't do that.”, “I have this idea, but I can't do that.” You, not me, but someone else has more experience. They've worked in tech, or they have more money, whatever it may be. They might put someone on a pedestal saying, I can't possibly. I'm not deserving enough to do this. I'm not good enough to do this. But what was so interesting is all the different individuals who I've met who are amazing and humble and giving of their time despite not having any is that they're average people. They're like me and you and they're–don't get me wrong, they're all extraordinary, but they're all also normal, right? If I could go to my best friend or anyone who's having self-doubt that they have an idea, they're no different than you. All they're doing is putting any doubt to the back of the mind and one foot in front of the other, like you said, just one foot. They're consistently showing up, not 100% every day, because that's impossible and unsustainable in my mind anyway, but at least a percent every day and then more on the days that they have more to give. And it's that consistency and that willingness to put one foot in front of the other that gets them to eventual success, presumably.

Jason Atkins: I love that. Yeah, you touched on some cool stuff there. Yeah, just perseverance. We're all just people. The successful people are just people that never gave up in a lot of ways and perhaps had a little bit more opportunity or took their opportunity with a bit more and slightly better perspective and mindset, but they're just people at the end of the day, and it's an important realization everyone needs to sort of come to, especially if they want to achieve that potential. And then the other thing is community. Community is so critical for everyone, but particularly if you're doing something extremely hard and you're out of your comfort zone almost all day, every day, it's really important to have people around you that kind of get that.

Jaime Zaporzan: Definitely. I like to take that time even when you're like, “Oh, I haven't seen my friends forever and I want to do this thing.” Sometimes, your productivity goes up 10x by taking that break. You need to take that break sometimes.

Jason Atkins: Totally, totally. Well, let's talk a bit about our health. We normally do that at the end, but I'm going to jump in now because we just touched on it. So, for me and what we talk about at Cake and I've learned this time and time again. Whenever I'm having my worst period, I always–Well, it took a couple of times that I had to go see someone because I was so burnt out. And they said to me, “What are you doing?” “Are you exercising?” “Are you sleeping?” “Are you eating well?” And I was like, “Well, no, because I'm so stressed.” And then they're like, “Oh, well, it's not rocket science.” And so, over the years, it's been reinforced to me time and time again, how important my health and my mental health is and what a pillar it is. At Cake, we call it Creative Healthy Lifestyle. So how do you see that for yourself and from your entrepreneurial journey?

Jaime Zaporzan: Oh, I'm glad that you're bringing this up, Jason, because I think that it is something that we need to talk about more. So for the last 10 years or more, whenever I've been at a company that I've been passionate about, and that's when I work best, I get into my work as part of my reward system, and I work crazy hours. Not just when I need to, but sometimes if I just, if I know it's going to make all the difference, or I love a certain feature that we're doing, or I'm really trying to help a client get to a solution, right? But now that I'm getting older, I don't bounce back like I used to. I could go, you know, five, seven years ago, maybe even less than that. I could go off of very little sleep and be fine. You know, I'd be fine the next day and I could get my workout in and be a super mom and do all the things and just kind of bounce back, but I'm not elastic anymore. I've just come to that. I'm not elastic anymore. And I've specifically noticed it for the last year, is that when I'm not sleeping and I'm not prioritizing my workouts and eating well, like you said, it's not just I'm a little extra sleepy or a little extra cranky. It's everything. It's the mental fog. You're not firing in all synapses. You're not as present with your loved ones, and you're not able to put your best into your work. So it affects every part of you, right? Every single part of you. And so I've really tried to take a step back and make sure I am prioritizing those things to get proper sleep. Not every night, but something my founder, my co-founder and I spoke about was, you know, how about at least commit to three nights a week where you're in bed by this time, right? And those three days, you're going to get to bed by this time and try to get at least six or seven hours of sleep on those nights, which doesn't sound like a lot, but you know what I mean? It's committing to those things. And especially now that I'm working more remotely more often, it's getting my steps in, like wearing my watch. I caught the habit of not really wearing it much previously. Like it was never something I was wearing all the time. But my step count went way down when I started working remotely. And then I would start compromising on my workouts. And then, I'm vegan, my husband's Russian, and he's a carnivore, like he eats meat, dairy, all the things. So I'd cook their meals for the kids and him, and I'd eat protein bars and protein shakes. And I think that went on for two weeks where I was like, I feel like crap, what's going on? Am I sick? And my husband's like, you've been living off of protein bars and no sleep. And I'm like, and I haven't been getting my steps in and I have not worked out. Like there is no balance and you break down. And so now, what I do is I've always been pretty consistent. My workouts for most of my life now, it's every day I move my body no matter what. Right. It's not only my dog for three walks a day, but something for me whether it's yoga or my Peloton. I've recently got back into journaling, too, with a really good app called Penzu, actually. I'm a big fan of it. And so it's not perfect. I can't say that I've mastered it. And, you know, I'm on a tight, tight schedule. But it's a lot better than it was for a little while after starting Kindr, because you don't feel good. You know what I mean? You almost feel like I looked for this freedom and to do this thing, this amazing thing, but I feel worse now than when I was doing my nine to five, if that makes sense.

Jason Atkins: Yeah. I think it's like, it becomes all consuming to a degree. And, if you're thinking about the same thing all day, every day, and your health isn't there, you're in a slump and then that's going to affect your performance. It's going to affect your relationships and decision-making–everything. And so for me, I feel like it's a little investment every day, or it can even be more than a little investment because by the time you work out and journal and whatever you do, meditate, eat well, it's a real commitment. But I think it gives you better energy, more consistent energy, less slumps, better decision making, better relationships, and all those things that come with it. And I think most founders these days are in their 30s or 40s, so we all need to be looking after ourselves. I know for sure I can't just pound away the hours I could when I was in my early 20s
.

Jaime Zaporzan: It's true, right? Like this thing my mom warned me about was she was right. She wasn't lying. She'll be able to do that forever. And I'm like, yes, I will, watch me. It's like, no, I can't. I do need sleep.

Jason Atkins: On the flip side, I drink a lot less too so I have a lot less hangovers. So that's a nice balance.

Jaime Zaporzan: Because you probably don't metabolize it that well anymore either, right?

Jason Atkins: It's not worth it for me at the moment with all the cool stuff I've got going on. But look, thanks a lot for sharing. And, we do like to unpack these things and hear how people do it. You know, we don't want to be like Instagram where like everyone's a bloody fitness model or anything, but we do need to sort of unpack people's journey and where they get their energy from and how their habits are and sort of what keeps them strong for their journey, because building a startup is a seven to 10 year thing to get where you need to get to, and it's a bit like being an Olympian to some, in some ways. I used to regularly say to myself, “If you were trying to win a gold medal at the Olympics, what would you do?” You know, just say that to myself. And I'll be looking after my health, I'd be sleeping well, I'd be eating well, I'd be showing up every day with max potential. I wouldn't be partying, I'd be sacrificing. And so, you know, there's a lot in the mindset. Getting a startup to 100 million or whatever, or whatever huge impact everybody's trying to have. I mean, it's got to be on par with an Olympic outcome.

Jaime Zaporzan: So that's a good way of putting it. I actually love that. I'm going to put that in my back pocket and use it, and it's a good way to look at it. You know what I mean? I would have never looked at it from that angle, but it's completely true. You're putting your mind and body. Like, don't get me wrong. I'm not in felt shape or anything like that.

Jason Atkins: No, it's different. It's different. But if you think about the achievement and how rare it is and how hard it is and how long it takes, you have to really think what does it take to do something that's so, so, so exceptional, while also being humble and not thinking “I am exceptional, but how do I make sure I have an exceptional outcome?” You know, it's good to have these little mental models and tricks, I think, to help you get through it all, like you were saying, even just the 1% better or or whatever. So yeah, thanks for sharing. Hey, let's dig into the equity component, because when we caught up previously, you've got a wealth of experience and insights, and I'd just love to unpack a little bit about how equities worked for you in the past, some lessons you have, how you're doing it now, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, tell us a bit about–I know you've been in startups for a long time. Give us a few stories or a few insights into some of the various things you've seen over the years.

Jaime Zaporzan: Okay, so I'm not going to name company names and I'll try to be kind of vague because–okay, I'll preface it. It sounds like I'm saying something bad from people I've worked with and that's not the case. I'm trying to share some things I learned up to the point of founderhood. Clearly, the organizations I've worked for in the past were doing incredible things, right? Or else, I wouldn't have worked there. They wouldn't have the capacity to hire staff and to have a product team and corporate partners using their products and whatnot. However, there were some things that I learned. At one organization, I'll talk about this briefly, they went public way too soon, like way, way too soon. And the impact that had on growth was really bad, right? So as you're probably aware, the cost of even doing your accounting and audits and reporting is significant when you're publicly traded and to the tune of between 150 to 300,000 Canadian a year, right? I know it depends on various factors, but when you're a startup, this was a startup, they went public from day one. They did a takeover from a shell company and that's how they went public. I never understood the strategy and given it might not have been shared with me, but it didn't make sense because we were spending so much money that could have been used in other ways. It could have been something that had been strategic originally and just didn't pan out the way that it was intended. But that was something that really has stuck with me. You want to be lean, as lean as you can be and spend the money where it counts because once you've committed to that kind of a strategy, it's not easy to get out of. And that's a lot of money to commit to when you're still trying to figure out product market fit.

Jason Atkins: I tell people all the time, keep your accounting and your legalities absolutely as simple as possible. So it's got to be the simplest corporate structure, the simplest accounting, the simplest tax, the simplest ESOP. To use templates, just because if you try and solve all those hectic admin and corporate problems, three years up front, it's going to create such a huge drag on the company and the overhead, and it's always the most senior people that have to go and deal with all those problems. And they're getting dragged away from the critical product market fit stuff.

Jaime Zaporzan: It's a nightmare. Absolutely. Completely agree with you. And I think that probably for people who are founder-type individuals, you want to do things right out the gate. Like you said, keep it simple. And the individual that you hire to master this will come up with their own system and structure, and that's the reason that you're going to hire them to do that. Right. Keep it as simple as you can early on. And that's what I've done here. The other thing which is definitely influencing us right now with our pre-seed round is what I learned at another organization is to not dilute more than you need to, right? And I want to be kind of particularly vague about this, but someone that I had worked with who, true visionary, like true visionary, this person, and I know that term is thrown around and I don't throw it around because I think a lot of people self-proclaim it or it's overused sometimes. So this individual, I have a lot of respect for him in terms of Jaime what he dreamed up like seven to 10 years ago without any tech experience, right? Like, you know, high school dropout, self-proclaimed, no tech background, dreamt something up that he saw was a gap in the market and executed on it. And going strong, really good, likely will be acquired by a larger organization soon, right? Like a very strong company. But I believe what happened was you get to a place where if you've diluted yourself so much, where you don't have much stake in the organization, not only do you lose control, but also I think there was a little bit of trying to either recover that in some way, or lack of motivation can probably come as well, right? And that would be really hard. I think that would be very hard, especially if you're not quite ready for it. I think it's different if you're ready for your exit strategy, you think you've gotten it to a place you're happy with, this was part of the plan, and then you're able to kind of create that mental divide of, and now it's passed on. But if you're not ready for it, I think that would be very hard, right? If now you're having only a little bit of–

Jason Atkins: It's like I've been through this and lots of founders go through this. It's extremely difficult to navigate that path because you might need capital to execute. And sometimes, it takes more capital than you think. And then, you don't know exactly how cap tables work or how voting works or how your investors are going to behave. And seeing forward through all that, the future is really challenging, especially for, as you say, visionaries that might not have financial legal background. So it's really cool that you call that out just to maybe just talk to other founders. If you're in that first couple of years or just talk to founders that have done it before or that are sort of three, four, five years down the track and get a bit of intel to help you make the right decision. It's never easy. And there's always trade offs because I sometimes see the opposite where it's like, I really want to retain control. And it's like, well, that's fine, but are you ever going to make it if you retain too much control? So it's always trying to work out how much dilution you can have and what's SAFE and how you can achieve your mission.

Jaime Zaporzan: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the landscape has changed a lot. Like, that was something that was interesting. I had gone to a roundtable hosted by my legal team. It was a really good one, but it was a group of founders, everyone who had done a round already, right? So they were either seed or pre-seed or Series A that were looking to either get to a Series A or Series B, right? And what was interesting was two of the three were trying to get to their Series A, but they didn't raise. They said they wish they had raised more because now they're having to pivot and go from pure SaaS or tech to service to get payroll and to bring in that service component where they didn't want to originally, but they're not getting that recurring revenue to get to the Series A or priced round at that point. And the third founder, this is his fourth or fifth gig. And he's good at what he does. But what he said was, “I miss the days of handshake deals in cafes, terms written on the back of the napkin, and not really any terms, no data rooms. It was like, handshake, money transferred. You do not get that anymore. Those days are gone. I wish this still happened.” Oh, me too. I'm like, I miss that out. I should have started that right out of high school. I could do a cafe deal with an idea. Absolutely. No. But I think there's always pros and cons to everything, right? I think back then it was probably sexier to be like, I got all this money and I can fly first class and I can have these big events as a startup with no traction and have a cool logo and a cool t-shirt. But now, it's like you need to actually have a responsible business, a stable business. You have to generate revenue. You have to make sure that you're trying to get towards profitability or product market fit or market penetration or market share. You're trying to create a stable, viable, sustainable business. And that's what's sexy now. And I think that's just following the fundamentals of business. I think it was just different times and we might not get back there again, and I think it's a better way of doing business. At the end of the day, we're supposed to be creating value for our shareholders and our stakeholders, right? So that would be the pro is that you should be a little bit more business-minded and make some better decisions, right?

Jason Atkins: Absolutely not. It's about building real businesses. It can't be just all froth. But I think we do need a little bit of balance. I think at the moment, the investment landscape is very difficult, very risk-averse, with huge amounts of data and DD and then still no money. You know, like napkin deals are probably uncool as well. Definitely like 100 billion pre-rev napkins precedes, like definitely uncool, but somewhere in the middle where the founder's effort is not totally out of control and still not getting funded. I think we need to find a balance, so that'll probably come through in the next couple of years as things unfold.

Jaime Zaporzan: I will have it known though, Jason, since I still have the mic on. I'm not above a napkin deal for anyone who's listening.

Jason Atkins: I'm kidding. I totally agree. I hope, I wish you well with that. Everybody needs a bit of a backer. Well, tell us about your round. I think you're raising. Tell us what's going on for 2024 and let's talk about getting you funded and kicking some goals. What's on the agenda for you for the rest of the year?

Jaime Zaporzan: Yeah, no, it's pretty exciting. So I think things have probably changed since last time we spoke, so I'll take you through that. Leading into it, I told you this last time, but I have my technical co-founder, which is really exciting. For those of your listeners who are just starting out or it's their first time doing this and if they're just a single founder right now, and they're not sure if they want a co-founder. My experience was, I was told, “Are you going to have a technical co-founder?” And I'm like, “Well, kind of technical. I'm half technical. I don't code, but I've done product for a long time.” And it's like, well, statistically, you'll do better if you have a technical co-founder. You're more likely to be invested in, but not just invested in. You're more likely to succeed. And as I got started, I'm like, I think I do need one and I want one. And so I found my unicorn. His name is Sid and he's fantastic. I met him through, I told you this, the Y Combinator matchmaker tool. It's like Tinder for founders and co-founders looking to pair together. It's fantastic. And so we met each other. He's a previous founder. This is his fourth startup. He has one notable ex under his belt. He's worked at some really large financial institutions at leadership level, so I won't name drop them, but some big companies. He's done some incredible things. And so we're working together. And the impact that's had on our raise is originally I was looking to do a SAFE at a higher valuation for the company. And I hadn't circulated it too much. I had actually–I think I told you this.=, and I don't know if I should be embarrassed about it or not, but I had hired someone to help me with that round without feeling out the climate on people's thoughts and feelings. And when I say people, investors, right? At the time, I didn't have a co-founder and I was still at the executive level of another tech company with two kids at home. And I was like, perfect. If I can outsource this, why wouldn't I? Right. I'll come up with a pitch deck. This person will be well-connected and I'll give them a piece of the pie because I don't have time right now. Since you know, having more time under my belt now, a lot of investors have told me that that is a hard no for them. If someone reaches out on their behalf, it's like an instant no. And I'm sure that's not for everybody. And did they say why? I've heard that as well. They just said that. You've heard that, too?

Jason Atkins: Yeah. I haven't gotten–I think like post Series A, it's like more common to have an advisor for the later-stage rounds because you're working towards bigger deals and M&A, private equity, listing, all that kind of stuff. So the advisors sort of kicks in and become, it's a bit more normalized, but it seems like pre-seed and seed, it's really, really hard to use to outsource and VC particularly don't seem to want to engage.

Jaime Zaporzan: The only direct feedback I had as to why, the individuals who had told me this, it was a hard one. When I asked why, they just said, number one, that it's a waste of money and that they need deal flow. They're not going to close the door to meeting with you or to looking at your pitch deck if it just comes from you. They need deal flow to be successful and to provide those returns. It should be easy enough for you to do it. I didn't get a really great answer to be honest, Jason, but it was just kind of like a no from certain people. And I understand that. I'm sure it's not for everybody, and I think maybe, it makes sense if it's a broker or an agent that is very tied into your industry or niche, right? Because then, it's like a warmer introduction. It's not like this person has paid me or retained me to send out their pitch deck and put a cover on it and then take 5% to 13% of the money, then it's more of like, I believe in this person and project. I think it's aligned with your investment thesis. Does this make sense to you? Right?

Jason Atkins: Yeah. I think if it's an advisor and it's on a reasonable advisory cost, like a regular advisor, like under the Foundry Institute Fast or just a regular reasonable sort of monthly fee or something like that, and they're advising you and you're doing the raise, I feel like that dynamic is more effective and is much more widely accepted. But if it's fully outsourced and there's a fee and there's a bigger commission, that seems to be where they don't want to see a big chunk of their money going to these advisors. So anyway, that's an interesting insight there for everyone.

Jaime Zaporzan: Yeah, think harder about it because I think it makes sense for some industries, like you said, or maybe different grounds, right? But now with Sid, technically when I started working, this individual was back in at the end of Q1, I believe. But then we kind of paused. I was so busy with product and onboarding my co-founder, and I had been accepted at a couple of incubators. And more so working on the business, I kind of paused on that. And so during that quarter, I'd say, we were finalizing some of the beta features, the roadmap to pass on to our new developers, all of that, and I kept hearing from different founders and a couple of my advisors that I should think about, or am I thinking, they didn't tell me I should, was I thinking about doing a price round? And I said, at this stage, “No, I think that there's gonna be money left on the table, that this is simpler. But given the landscape, it kind of kept coming back to that conversation. And so I sat down with Sid and I said, listen, we had talked about doing a SAFE originally, but I'm getting some feedback from the market and from people I really respect who have done this before that think it might be easier to close if we just do a priced round. Like people know exactly what they're getting. We know exactly how much we're giving away. And maybe we should try that because every minute I'm spending on fundraising or raising equity, it's time away from building the business, right? Haven't you done this before? It's very time consuming.

Jason Atkins: It's a lot of energy. Way too much. I think you've articulated it very well. Their SAFEs can be better because they can be a little bit faster and easier and the valuation sort of gets kicked down the road. But at the same time, Doing an equity round can be great because everyone knows what they get and you don't have the ambiguity and you don't have down round risk if you don't hit the valve cap on the next round. Sometimes, it's just nicer to have it all squared away, so more awesome insights there for everyone. So thanks for sharing your experience on that one as well.

Jaime Zaporzan: Yeah, and I think it's also like we just kind of looked at what we need right in terms of let's revisit our budget. And let's do some math right and so what do we for sure need and then let's assume like no revenue for a little bit right let's look at our runway. Before we were at 1.8, how low can we get it, right? And having some padding. And so we kind of re-looked at where we were at, the cost of what we've already committed to for the beta platform development. And then really where it gets a little bit more hard to gauge for us is like the actual business development and go-to-market rate on the marketing side, because that gets really costly. And so, we'll likely have to raise more then because we just simply know at this point the amount that we're going to need to put into that will likely be another raise. But we got it down to a million Canadian, right? So more around 750k USD for our pre-seed round. And yeah, that's kind of what we're raising right now. And it'll end up being a dilution of around 15% if there isn't too much negotiation on that.

Jason Atkins: Awesome. Well, good luck locking that in. What's going to happen in 2024 when you're getting all this capital allocated? What should people be, how can they get involved? What should they be looking for?

Jaime Zaporzan: That's a great question. So right now we are, I think you, you know, that's we're completely bootstrapped. And so we've already like used our money to do everything that we've done to date. And we have enough to cover like the beta platform as well. And we've got those developers hired and whatnot. not. But what you should look for is the beta platform is on target to go live in fall. So at Q4, start of Q4, it'll go live. And that is what we're going to be able to scale with. And that's kind of where we're going to be having all of those different social features that we can push to the different social media platforms, integrate the different fundraising tools and really have that dynamic and engaging environment. So the best of both worlds for crowdfunding, social media and big campaigns. And what you should also be looking for is we're doing a two-pronged strategy, so we're working with select clients that we've already got from the different personas. So some of the impact investors and funds and of course, impact organizations that really need our help to start benefiting from a more digital campaign or fundraising style. But we're also cherry picking a couple of very interesting initiatives and campaigns to go live across the three Kindr pillars. And so we started off with three Kindr pillars from the get go to really kind of simplify impact and ESG, and that's just animal, people, environment, right? And from there, you can spiral off a million different ways. And so we've cherry picked a couple of initiatives that we want to do across each of the pillars that really tend to speak to a lot of engagement. And so those are ones that will hopefully really garner interest from our target audience, and they can get involved. And we'll be announcing that later on this quarter on kindrworld.com and across our socials as well.

Jason Atkins: Amazing. Well, look, we love it here on Startup Equity Matters. We talk a lot about creating real value from your equity and with the types of problems that you're tackling, you're absolutely going to have a huge impact. So excited to hear your story andhelp share it. And thanks for your insights on how equity works and some of the lessons you have as well. So look, absolutely awesome. So glad to learn more and share your story with the audience. Thanks for coming on. I think we better wrap up. We've just hit time, so I better let you go.

Jaime Zaporzan: Thanks so much, Jason. I appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast and getting to know you. You're a really awesome person and I hope we keep in contact and maybe when I become unicorn status, you'll have me. No, I'm just kidding.

Jason Atkins: Totally. Come back again. And yeah, if I'm ever up in Alberta, I'll definitely come and say g'day.

Jaime Zaporzan: Come to Stampede next year. You just missed Stampede.

Jason Atkins: We can chat about that. I'll get it on my travel plan. All right.

Jaime Zaporzan: Sounds great. All right. Thanks, Jason. Bye.