Velocity is every thing in startups, and Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow discovered that firsthand. In simply 14 days, the 21-year-old Yale juniors raised $3 million for his or her AI-powered networking platform, Series.
However their story goes past a quick fundraising spherical — it is about two younger Black founders navigating an business the place folks like them are still underrepresented.
“We’re 6’5″, Black and technical — a direct foil to the Harvard story,” Johnson says, referencing Facebook’s origin story. “And that distinction is the explanation Sequence tells a brand new story of how folks join on-line.”
Johnson and Hargrow jumped into the world of entrepreneurship with the deep perception that synthetic intelligence can reimagine how folks construct relationships on-line. They believed that skilled networking faces a significant concern as a result of social media platforms are crammed with meaningless numbers and futile connections.
Sequence was born from that perception: a platform constructed to problem legacy social networks by facilitating significant connections by way of AI.
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‘Serendipitous’ luck
Johnson, a pc science and economics main, and Hargrow, a neuroscience main, weren’t going into entrepreneurship completely blind. They hosted The Founder Series podcast, the place they interviewed profitable founders and entrepreneurs, specializing in faculty entrepreneurship.
One frequent theme emerged in these interviews: the significance of luck.
“Luck is what led to their first funder, the primary buyer, their first investor,” Johnson tells Entrepreneur. “So we thought, that is considerably serendipitous, but it surely finally ends up being the difference-maker. How might we engineer that luck?“
That concept grew to become the foundation for Series. Their platform makes use of AI-driven brokers, or “AI pals,” to facilitate introductions. Quite than counting on cold outreach or likelihood conferences, like one would do on LinkedIn, Sequence’ customers prepare their AI brokers on iMessage to grasp their wants and join them with the appropriate folks of their prolonged community.
In different phrases, customers can textual content and prepare their “AI good friend” and describe the form of connection they want — whether or not it is a cofounder, investor, mentor or good friend — and the AI then searches the Sequence community to discover a appropriate match.
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The anti-Fb or the following metric of human connection?
Sequence affords a contemporary, “anti-Fb” answer to social networking. It is not attempting to be a more moderen, cooler Fb — it is attempting to repair what Fb and different platforms get incorrect. Whereas conventional social media focuses on sharing content material and posting about yourself, Sequence is constructed round non-public introductions. “Social media is nice for broadcasting, but it surely would not essentially make it easier to meet the appropriate folks on the proper time,” Johnson says.
Picture credit score: Sequence
Quite than broadcasting to followers or curating content material, Sequence is constructing what Johnson describes as “the following iteration of human connection.” Conventional platforms, he says, are rooted in networks and presentation.
“You are posting photos on Instagram, you are posting movies on TikTok, and also you’re posting job posts on LinkedIn… and that is the place you basically have this micro-influencer syndrome,” Johnson says.
In different phrases, present platforms — whether or not deliberately or not — stress customers to appear polished and curate posts. Sequence’ customers work together with sentient AI pals who “can get to know you on an intimate degree” and permit for true authenticity.
Quite than projecting a picture, customers can obtain steerage and assist primarily based on their true personalities. They’ll then be matched with actual individuals who would possibly grow to be mentors or pals.
“We’re not attempting to switch real-world relationships — we’re attempting to make it simpler for folks to search out the appropriate relationships within the first place,” Hargrow says.
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The fundraising battle
Johnson and Hargrow come from totally different components of the nation — Irvine, California, and Queens, New York, respectively — however discovered frequent floor at Yale, the place each have been drawn to entrepreneurship.
Johnson has been constructing issues since childhood, together with making strolling sticks for visually impaired folks when he was 8. Hargrow, a former athlete, noticed startup life because the closest factor to the grind and unpredictability of sports activities.
The 2 perceive methods to inform a compelling story in an effort to promote a startup concept. What began with chilly emails and heat intros rapidly was a crash course in pitching, studying from preliminary “nos” and determining methods to promote greater than only a product.
They caught with their core and positioned Sequence as the following step in human connection. Additionally they discovered to current Sequence with “moral confidence.”
“If I’m approaching a woman, I am not going to inform her, ‘Effectively, I am okay, however there are lots of scorching guys on the market as effectively,'” Hargrow says. “I’ll discover a solution to ethically inform her I am one of the best man ever.”
Picture credit score: Sequence
At Yale, the 2 have immersed themselves within the college’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, becoming a member of startup golf equipment and networking with different founders. They rapidly realized that success wasn’t nearly intelligence or onerous work. Entry performed an enormous function.
“Being at Yale provides us an unprecedented degree of entry to networks we would not have had in any other case,” Hargrow says.
One pivotal connection led to Anne Lee Skates, a well known Bay Space investor. After an impulsive resolution to take a flight 36 hours later to California and a dinner that sealed the deal, she grew to become their lead investor.
Then, momentum picked up. They met with VC teams within the Bay Space, and inside two weeks, they secured $3 million in funding, attracting traders desperate to guess on the way forward for AI-powered networking.
“That dinner modified every thing,” Hargrow says. “I will at all times bear in mind it as a million-dollar dinner, fairly actually.”
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‘Do not write anybody off’
For Johnson and Hargrow, two younger Black founders, constructing Sequence has at all times been about extra than simply tech. It is about illustration, entry and creating the form of connections they need they’d had as kids.
“Once I was youthful, I did not see lots of people who I might look as much as as a result of they did not appear to be me or construct what I used to be constructing,” Johnson says. “I can see my childhood self wanting as much as me now.”
As communication shifts towards AI-assisted interactions, Johnson and Hargrow are betting that individuals will embrace a platform that prioritizes real connection as a substitute of over-curated on-line personas.
“Do not write anybody off,” Hargrow says. “In constructing a platform that depends on you actually not taking somebody’s face worth however really attending to who they’re… that requires somebody who’s down with the concept of by no means writing anybody off.”
This text is a part of our ongoing Younger Entrepreneur® sequence highlighting the tales, challenges and triumphs of being a younger enterprise proprietor.
