A Yale Student Raised $3.1M in 2 Weeks for an AI Social App | Series, Nathaneo Johnson

1. 0:00 – 0:43

   Intro

   1. NJNathaneo Johnson0:00

      Hey, I'm Nathaneo Johnson. I'm the co-founder and CEO here at Series. I'm 21 years old. I'm currently a junior at Yale University studying computer science and economics. I love playing basketball on the side, of course. I also love power lifting, but most importantly, startups, which is why I'm here. Series is the first AI social network. We are essentially using AI friends to make warm introductions via iMessage to help you meet new people based on a want or need you have. For message count, I think we're at around, like, a quarter of a million, which is really exciting to see. We raised $3.1 million in 14 days, which is now the largest round, uh, of any startup that is currently in the Ivy League. [upbeat music]

2. 0:43 – 2:31

   Why We Build Social Media

   1. NJNathaneo Johnson0:46

      Series was honestly a really, I think, interesting story, and actually started when Sean, my co-founder, and I started a podcast our freshman year at Yale. This was interviewing founders and CEOs from 23andMe to Genius Lyrics to Runway. We were very actually curious on how exactly they used their own warm network to build successful businesses. We know how hard it is to get access to the right people, especially for professional reasons. Whether that is raising f- capital or that's getting a new job, I'd imagine that anyone who goes to a SWE or IAB internship, there's definitely five people that were probably just as equal if not better of a candidate that didn't make it. College internship that aren't able to have, say, like, dad's golf buddy to get them into the IAB internship. I'd say connections, but more importantly, I guess perceived value is something that usually requires a warm network to be able to get into. This is a problem that we need to be able to help solve, and that can be solved through essentially using agentic matchmaking to make those connections more accessible. So what happened is we ended up experimenting with AI, right? I come from a CS background and was able to initially construct this, like, early version chatbot that used emails to make warm intros. We blast that to Yale's email list, to Princeton, I think, a day later, and it kind of had some sort of virality, kind of blew up within that student community. People were using this for, like, startup ideas, art gallery ideas, kinda a specific range of, like, mainly professional reasons to realize that this should be the future of how we network. Yeah, I don't think we're competing against anyone, and the most common reason why is all of them have in common a number, a number of your immediate follower, connection, like count. We have no numbers on this platform because it's purely agent to agent. That's something that I think Series will actually solve and then hopefully myself can solve as well. [upbeat music]

3. 2:31 – 3:57

   Do the Unconventional

   1. NJNathaneo Johnson2:32

      Cool thing about what we're doing with this Series raise, which obviously a lot of people are talking about, is we're doing something a bit unconventional, right? By creating this house, what we did is we figured out a way to incentivize people to, one, of course, grow our product and use that, but, two, tie to something that I think is a bit social. Instead of us trying to focus on organic way of having interns be paid remotely and organic way of being able to market your product with UGC content, which everyone does, why not have our interns come into a house, right, instead of them just being online, to do the same work they were going to do previously? That's kinda how the idea occurred, and I think what makes a company go viral is doing something a bit controversial, but having the right facts behind what they're doing. If you do something controversial that was stupid, right, it's not gonna go viral for the right reason, nor is it gonna make you a... called a viral company. You're gonna just look stupid in public. I think if you build something, product or a system, and you have some sort of, like, underlying reason that people can pick up on, even if it's, like, 5%, 10%, that's what creates a virality because then it's like, "Okay, why do they actually do this? Was this for a reason?" Like, it creates this, like, cool spiral of thought, and that's what leads people to share that because there's sort of uncertainty, which people like to see, right? That's what gets them excited. Even if it is controversial or crazy, I don't think it matters. Take what they have, amplify the depth of what they're doing and how it's unique, and then use that as a base on the controversial. Then you get eyes on you, and, like, it all supports back a reason that you intentionally have.

4. 3:57 – 6:47

   When Everyone Doubts I Break the Norm

   1. NJNathaneo Johnson4:00

      [upbeat music] Grew up with a single mom in Irvine, California. I would say very much grew up with, like, a inclination towards obviously, like, doing things on the technological side. So, like, this was building, like, a walking stick called Smart Step, I called it in eighth grade. These ultrasonic sensors and Arduino microprocessors in order to essentially scan objects in front of it. But of course, you know, I was playing varsity basketball, right? So, like, I love the kinda duality. I think that was my biggest thing around growing up was, like, can I really do things that maybe are expected of me around, like, you know, being able to hoop, being able to dunk, all those fun things, but, like, also at the same time balancing that with the duality of, like, being the most crack in the room. I think after especially becoming a valedictorian in my high school, like, that was where I realized that, yeah, I think I can change the norm. I think that although Yale University does have a few famous entrepreneurs, there wasn't much. That was, like, one of the bigger problems, and I think that's because there's a big encouragement to rather wait until you finish school to start building a company, or there's this notion that you immediately have to drop out to do so. It's very rare to be able to kinda pair both together. Now that Series has been able to raise the largest round in the current Ivy League of students, we're trying to stand for the point that you can build a successful venture, right, maybe while staying in class or at least while keeping things that are closer to you, and that's because you can use them as an advantage instead of a disadvantage. A lot of people see school as something that takes time away, which maybe it does for late homework assignments or tests, but the benefit is you're able to connect with your community, especially if that's who you're marketing to. And we recently did a marketing initiative that I think being a student has a tremendous impact on in a positive direction because we know the value of staying in school and being able to communicate with these people while being in class with them.

   2. SPSpeaker5:44

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5. 6:47 – 10:05

   How We Raised $3.1M in 14 Days

   1. NJNathaneo Johnson6:49

      We've had talks with VCs, of course, before the raise of like, "What do you think about this idea? What do you think about this MVP we made?" But oftentimes people were very skeptical. Actually, funny enough, said this wouldn't work. This is not an industry that will be able to proliferate long term because we weren't building something that people have seen before. This wasn't like, uh, anything on the B2B side, which was, like, very hot I think around like January, which is when, like, we were thinking about actually seriously pitching. We actually had, I think, a meeting with a former Andreessen Horowitz partner, decided to take the trip to SF just to pitch it for the second time, which ended up into a million-dollar dinner. One of the biggest, most important things is really just, like, focusing on how you tell the story. Here's what's happening in the market. Here's why it's changing. Here's why I'm gonna be on top of that change. Or even better, here's how I'm creating a new market on top of that. That was a story that we pitched, that we are creating a new market and we'd be the first industry standard of that market. We knew there was a shift in consumer AI. There was a shift in, like, this... call it a technology window, that people are more enticed to invest or, more importantly than that, I guess, give AI a chance in the social space. This has not been done before, two Black guys who go to an Ivy League to raise this amount of capital. After that, we've seen so many other companies raise money very fast because, okay, if those guys can do it, I definitely can do it, which is another norm to break. So it's like whenever you do something first, it's like equally fun and exciting as fruitful because you don't know how the world's gonna take it, but shouldn't stop you from doing it. Speed has been our biggest asset. A lot of people are scared to move at fast speeds because things break. We're not scared of that. It's not about a certain battle. It's about, like, you know, the war, right? It's about you being able to, like, all time have sort of a capture or share around your own industry and your own niche. The faster you do that, you gotta do that at all costs. But building something that has, like, depth, right? And that can be depth through how you have innovated some sort of, like, unique technology. That can be depth of how you're approaching, like, your consumerism. Once you can, like, amplify that depth and showcase that to the world through your marketing, that's what makes something stick because that's something that people will remember as a new iteration of whatever industry they're in. The perfect example is, of course, I love the analogy of, like, the horses to cars. People always say they want a faster horse. Maybe some people heard that quote before. It's because, like, they're very used to, like, a 10X of what they have instead of going in the next iteration of what's actually needed. I think that's, like, something that at least we pride ourselves in is, like, we're not thinking of, like, a better LinkedIn or a better social platform. We're thinking of what's the next iteration of what can actually be a useful product for people to utilize to build better relationships and connections. Putting yourself in a position where you look up to say, "I wanna be like that one day," it's not a bad thing to do. That's like having some sort of, like, idol or role block. But I like to have a variety of, like, saying, "I've seen these different trends from companies that are doing things like SpaceX to Facebook to, like, all these different social platforms. How can I take all that knowledge and go in a new direction?" Because that's how you really build innovation. I think all the stories of all the social platforms inspire me in some way, but to take all that together leads me to say, "I want the story to inspire myself in the next 10 years," versus saying, "I see one company that I wanna straight shoot for and become that in the next 10 years." [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 10:06