Creating Inclusive Co-Founder Teams with James Oliver, Jr. of Kabila

Did you know that since 2005, 80% of all startups that reached "unicorn" status were started by more than one founder? Or that founding teams with more than one race, gender, or ethnicity on average give their investors a 30% better return? It's true, but 70% of founders surveyed say they struggle to find a co-founder.

Stats like these are what drove our guest, James Oliver, Jr., to start Kabila, an inclusive co-founder matching app. Kabila also provides minority founders with access to incredible resources including mental health therapy, discounted or free legal services, discounts on various SaaS platforms, and more. With Kabila, founders have an opportunity to build an inclusive team and thrive via Kabila's supportive ecosystem.

In this episode, James shares his vision for Kabila, talks about his recent experience of going through Techstars, and explains his "give first" mentality that drives him each day. 

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: James Oliver, Jr.

💡 What he does: James is the CEO & co-founder of Kabila

💡 Company: Kabila

💡 Noteworthy: James is obsessed with inclusion and has a strong entrepreneurial spirit. James runs several different organizations, and his focus is on supporting entrepreneurs, especially founders of color and parent founders. First, he founded WeMontage, the world's only website that lets you turn digital images into removable photo wallpaper. Then, during COVID, James started the ParentPreneur Foundation, which empowers Black parents to leave a legacy for their children. And finally, he recently started Kabila, an inclusive co-founder matching app and global community for tech startup founders.

In addition, James is the author of The More You Hustle, The Luckier You Get: You CAN Be a Successful ParentPreneur and a single dad of twins.

💡 Where to find James: Linkedin l Website

Want to bring a SaaS product to market, quickly?
Book a consultation: https://tyrannosaurustech.com/contact/

Connect with our cohosts Richard Simms & Carlos Gonzalez on Linkedin

Transcript

E661389B_23 - TT - Digital Footprint - James Oliver, Jr.

[00:00:00] James Oliver, Jr.: I would encourage anyone out there listening to us who wants to start something, to go talk to customers, right? Build a minimum viable product.

[00:00:10] James Oliver, Jr.: Emphasis on minimum, emphasis on viable. And then put it in front of some customers and don't ask them for feedback, ask them for the sale.

[00:00:54] Richard Simms: Hello, and welcome to the Digital Footprint. I'm Richard Simms. And this podcast is brought to you by Tyrannosaurus Tech, an award-winning technology partner dedicated to designing and developing high impact software products. Today I'm sitting down with James Oliver, Jr. CEO and Co-founder of Kabila, Founder of the ParentPreneur Foundation, and more. Thanks for coming on the show, James.

[00:01:19] James Oliver, Jr.: Thanks so much for having me. Well, yeah. Thank you for coming on the show. Um, so you and I first connected a few years ago. You've always been a supporter of Tyrannosaurus Tech, which of course, I really appreciate.

[00:01:31] And I've been really impressed with your entrepreneurial spirit 'cause you have a few different organizations that you're running. And it seems like a lot of your focus with those is on supporting entrepreneurs, particularly founders of color, parents that are founders, and kind of being very open about the struggles of starting a new business, which I can also appreciate, of course.

[00:01:52] So I'm excited to dig in a bit more today on what you're working on and what's driven you to be so invested in this space of supporting founders.

[00:02:01] Richard Simms: So, to start us off, if you would just briefly introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about your latest venture?

[00:02:08] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, I'm James, Co-founder of the world's cutest twins, Zoe and Thaddeus. Disagree with me, I will fight you. They'll actually be 10 years old, a single dad of twins. And I guess I'm a three-time founder. Now launched my first startup, which failed back in 2013, wemontage.com.

[00:02:28] James Oliver, Jr.: I mean, website's still around, but it's basically a zombie. You can still go and order, but it... wemontage.com is the world's only website that lets you turn your digital images into removable photo wallpaper. Brilliant product, never caught on. And then, during COVID, I started the ParentPreneur Foundation, which exists to empower black parentpreneurs so they can leave a legacy for their beautiful black children.

[00:02:49] So that's a nonprofit. And recently, I started Kabila, which is an inclusive co-founder matching app and global community for tech startup founders. So, you know, it's because of the work that I was doing in the ParentPreneur Foundation as I was sitting in these spaces with these really influential people,

[00:03:06] limited partners managing billions of dollars trying to figure out how to crack the systemic code and challenges and get more capital to emerging venture capitalists to then write checks to underrepresented founders like myself. And despite, you know, the conditions on the ground being specifically, you look at Q3

[00:03:26] black founders getting 0.43% of VC funding. Women founders continuing to get less than 2%. You know, despite that terrible news, 'cause as I like to say, you know, when, when VC gets a cold, underrepresented founders get COVID.

[00:03:42] Richard Simms: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:43] James Oliver, Jr.: We don't get pneumonia, we get COVID, right? But despite all that negative information, you know, I really

[00:03:52] James Oliver, Jr.: saw there's a lot of smart, influential people working really hard to change the problem. Again, NASDAQ, IDF, IDiF, so nonprofit group of limited partners. And then look at Techstars, the J.P. Morgan partnership, 80 million dollars there. And so the other thing is that people don't necessarily know is founder teams made up of more than one gender, race, or ethnicity will actually give their investors a 30% return.

[00:04:22] James Oliver, Jr.: You know, and I was, I just had lunch today. Well, she and I were just hanging out. Anastasia, she's the Investment Principal from Techstars Atlanta. We were just talking about this and she was just like, "You know, well, LPs don't care." And I was like, "You're right. That's why we have the problem we have now, but some do."

[00:04:39] James Oliver, Jr.: Right? And more and more are, so the dam's not broken, but we're starting to see cracks in the dam. 

[00:04:45] James Oliver, Jr.: So eventually I'm, look, I'm betting the next 10 years of my life, right? I just went through Techstars Austin with Kabila. I'm betting that LPs will demand that VCs invest some of their money in these inclusive co-founder teams, 

[00:05:02] James Oliver, Jr.: right? Because if it's true that they can get higher returns, like, and you're not doing that, I mean, you know, it's a fiduciary, it's a fiduciary issue there, I believe. I'm not an expert nowadays in that space, but that, that makes sense to me. So we are skating to where we think the puck's going to be. And when things change, Kabila will be at the epicenter of the most badass, inclusive co-founder teams in the world.

[00:05:26] Richard Simms: That's awesome. Yeah, and I, you know, I know just based on what you just shared and reviewing the website, obviously, there's this fundamental kind of challenge for a lot of founders to find that right co-founder, and I meet founders as well that, you know, feel very stuck. I will say I've always had a co-founder in businesses that I've started and have found it incredibly helpful

[00:05:50] Richard Simms: along the journey. I mean, obviously, having someone who's complimentary, has complimentary skillsets, but also just someone there in the trenches with you, more or less emotional support, you know?

[00:06:02] James Oliver, Jr.: Right. And you can't do it, you can't do it all yourself. That's the other part.

[00:06:06] James Oliver, Jr.: Right? So look, I'll say this. Not everybody needs or wants a co-founder. You don't have to do that, right? You could be successful as a solo founder. You know? The, the reasons you just said, those are good reasons to get one. The other thing is, if you go back to, I think it's like 2005, and you look at all the unicorns, 80% of those were started with more than one founder.

[00:06:25] James Oliver, Jr.: So if you wanna build a billion-dollar business and make a dent in the universe from that standpoint, you actually need a co-founder. The data is pretty clear. The problem is 70% of the founders we talk to who want a co-founder, having a hard time finding one. So there are a few tools out there, but they're all just nibbling around the edges.

[00:06:45] James Oliver, Jr.: No one is focused on inclusion. So we're gonna go hard in the paint to solve this really difficult problem. And, you know, a focus on inclusion is kind of gonna be our secret sauce. We have this global community of tech startup founders in which we, you know, we pay for founder mental therapy, which I got inspired to do that from the work I do in the ParentPreneur Foundation.

[00:07:04] James Oliver, Jr.: You know, historically, mental health is stigmatized in the black community. In my ParentPreneur Foundation community, you know, we paid for 320 mental therapy sessions. And of all the things that we've done, you know, in addition to giving a hundred thousand dollars in grants and paying for virtual assistance for our members, and getting people featured in an NASDAQ Tower and Times Square and paying for virtual tutors for their kids, and all this stuff we've done is remarkable.

[00:07:30] James Oliver, Jr.: But the of all the things, the thing I'm most thankful for is the pain for the therapy because I've heard from people how that impacted their lives and how they show up as a parent and how they show up as entrepreneurs. And it's not just about, you know, leave a legacy for their beautiful black children.

[00:07:49] James Oliver, Jr.: When you say that, you're thinking financial. It's a legacy of wealth, but it's also a legacy of mental health and mental wealth that we want to pass on. Because, you know, if the theory of epigenetics is true, which is, you know, this is a theory that, you know, trauma attaches itself to your DNA, and you pass it on to your descendants. If that's true, you know, black folks, we got 400 years of trauma-based into the DNA that we need to find a way to undo so we don't continue to pass that along. So I'm just super excited about that, uh, work that we're doing. So we do that in the, uh, in Kabila community as well. And we have a great relationship with Wiggin and Dana's and national law firm. And every month, we open up for five members of our community to get free legal services for minority and women founders,

[00:08:42] you know, LGBT+ founders. And if you get accepted, like no one has not been accepted, you just, you know, you can't be in a position where you can pay for it yourself. They will take you on. Like, we just got a woman last month, she got picked up. They're gonna do about 14, $15,000 worth of trademark work for her.

[00:08:58] James Oliver, Jr.: I mean, that's really making an impact for the entrepreneurs in our community. So super excited to be doing that work. We are building the prototype right now. So Caleb Martinez, who is my CTO, Caleb went to Georgia Tech. He actually played football for you. He was a walk, an offensive lineman.

[00:09:16] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah, he's crazy. I don't mess with him. I mean, I do mess with him. I pick, picking on is my favorite thing in the world to do, but I don't... Yeah, not too much 'cause he, he is a little crazy offensive lineman. He's, he's like the Hulk too. He looks like the Hulk. He's crazy. So, but, so we're building that. Our plan is this Friday to have it to a point where we could start getting some users on it, getting feedback. And you know, when we got to Techstars Austin back in the end of August, you know, we stopped developing our app, you know, because we were making all these assumptions about what we thought we should build.

[00:09:52] James Oliver, Jr.: And instead of making all these un, you know, with all these unvalidated assumptions, building based on app, we stopped. We spent the whole time talking to customers, which, you know, that's the right thing to do, but it's also kind of scary because... Why? Because the ground was shifting below our feet the entire time.

[00:10:09] James Oliver, Jr.: So we get out of Techstars, right, and I jokingly say, not really jokingly, but I, I tweeted it this morning, " Today's pre-seed investor is last year's seed investor."

[00:10:20] Richard Simms: Right.

[00:10:22] James Oliver, Jr.: All right, so we get out of Techstars and you know, the first thing, "What kind of track, how many users you have? What's your product?" I'm like, "I don't have a product.

[00:10:30] James Oliver, Jr.: I spent 10 weeks, 11 weeks talking to customers."

[00:10:34] James Oliver, Jr.: Right? So now we're gonna go build a kick ass product that we think people will want based on incredible user feedback we got, right? We talked to dozens and dozens and dozens of people. We did a virtual co-founded matching event, which allowed us to validate a bunch of our assumptions that we had.

[00:10:48] James Oliver, Jr.: And so now we're ready, you know, we're building and, but then when you're trying to raise money, 'cause you gotta keep eating, so you need to keep building.

[00:10:55] James Oliver, Jr.: And investors were like, "Well, how many, where's your app? How many customers? What kind of traction?" Like, bro... but I, you know, if I had to do all over again, I would, you know, do it exactly the same way, because I'm confident now that we're gonna build something that people want.

[00:11:08] Richard Simms: Yeah. Well, definitely, the extended customer discovery I think can be tedious, but certainly pays off on the back end. That's awesome. So I, I mean, I think everything you're sharing is very cool, very interesting. I think that, you know, mental health for any founder I think is a struggle and it's historically not discussed that much. But, you know, especially if you're underrepresented and having to overcome those barriers as well,

[00:11:35] Richard Simms: or you have little kids, or you're a single parent. So I think it's very cool with Kabila, just kind of multifaceted support system that you're building there. One thing coming into this, although I explored the website, I'm not very familiar with, you know, what's kind of being worked into a product versus what are, not services but just like part of the network or preferred relationships you all provide.

[00:12:01] Richard Simms: So I know obviously there's the co-founder matching aspect, which in theory, you know, could be just like curated by reviewing who else is a part of the network, but it sounds like that's probably being facilitated through the app. There's obviously, stuff like the, you know, the mental health support, access to attorneys, etc.

[00:12:21] James Oliver, Jr.: In the community. The second part of that is in the community. So it's two things. Is the co-founder matching app, which is like Bumble for co-founders, right? With a little 

[00:12:28] James Oliver, Jr.: inclusion sprinkle on top of it. And then we have a community where we have these events. Uh, we give founders access to the most influential investors and, and people in the startup ecosystem.

[00:12:38] James Oliver, Jr.: 'Cause look, here's the thing that a lot of founders, especially new founders, don't understand. They don't understand that investors invest in lines, not dots. You don't just get to show up off the street, I mean, the majority of the time, there's always some exceptions, right? But you don't just get to show up and get a check.

[00:13:00] James Oliver, Jr.: You need to build trust with people, and you need to have several touchpoints. And that's one of the things I tell people. So like last week we had Tanaka Mawindi, who's the investment associate from the Techstars, New York City, J.P. Morgan Accelerator. She was doing an, an AMA and it was, it was awesome. Like we had all these people on there.

[00:13:22] James Oliver, Jr.: It was, you know, it was livestream. And I was telling people like, "Look, guys and gals, if you wanna apply to this accelerator..." I, I asked Tanaka question. I said, "Tanaka, how many applications do you think you're gonna get for this program being in New York City?" She said, "Probably a thousand." How many people founders will, startups will you accept into your next class?" "12." So if you wanna apply, you're not just going to submit what you think is a dope application and get in.

[00:13:51] James Oliver, Jr.: Why? Because they already have relationships with founders, right? They have people from their network whom they trust, who are referring people who... and then if you're a solo founder, you probably won't get in. I mean, in my class at Techstars Austin, we had two out of 12 solo founders and they were amazing. But I'm gonna tell you, it was three of us and I was drowning

[00:14:12] James Oliver, Jr.: in terms of all the work that we had to do. So I don't know how those two solo founders did that. So, but the point is, if you go to something like that, follow up.

[00:14:21] James Oliver, Jr.: She gave them her email address. And I told them, "If you're gonna send an email, put in a subject, you know, follow up from the Kabila conversation, conversation with James, whatever, something that she would open. Thank, thank her for her time. Reference something that she said that was meaningful to you, and put a link to your website and let her know you'll be applying to our program."

[00:14:39] James Oliver, Jr.: That's it. So now you're on her radar. Right? You gotta do that enough times to build trust to collect, turn the dots into lines and give yourself a chance to get to get those next opportunities.

[00:14:52] Richard Simms: For sure. And I think that, I think there is a lot of times for first-time founders, there's some naive perceptions of fundraising, right? No matter what industry you're in or in some cases 

[00:15:06] Richard Simms: even like what stage you are at with the business, you know, we know of course that, one, there's a ton of rejection, there's a ton of barriers to even get access or eyes on what you're doing. And that

[00:15:19] Richard Simms: it's also, you know, a full-time job. I mean, I think that can, of course, be a big challenge for founders is like your focus on the customer or the product or wherever you are in that journey is largely derailed for a lot of that time when, when you're looking to fundraise, you know?

[00:15:35] James Oliver, Jr.: Mm-hmm. Yeah, a hundred percent. It's, you know, it's not easy, man. We're doing it now, but this time of the year, everybody's shutting down. Right? 

[00:15:42] James Oliver, Jr.: But I'm still

[00:15:43] James Oliver, Jr.: accessing relationships, still sending emails. You know, we're talking to angels right now. You know, we think that when we get back in January, you know, the conversations with, you know, with institutional investors, we'll start to heat up again.

[00:15:54] James Oliver, Jr.: But right now, reaching out to angels.

[00:15:57] Richard Simms: Yeah. And I'm sure that, look, you know, there's of course a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about the markets next year and inflation. 

[00:16:06] Richard Simms: I feel... 

[00:16:07] James Oliver, Jr.: Man, I'm not, I'm not... 

[00:16:08] Richard Simms: Other challenging element. 

[00:16:09] James Oliver, Jr.: I'm not paying attention to any of that. I'm just not. 

[00:16:12] Richard Simms: There's noth, there's nothing we can do about it.

[00:16:14] Richard Simms: So I think, yeah, just focus on your fundamentals.

[00:16:16] James Oliver, Jr.: That's it. You know, you can't. And, you know, look, the last recession, some great companies were started from the last recession. Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber. I mean, there's a, there's a big list of companies like that that started during the last recession.

[00:16:31] James Oliver, Jr.: You know, you just gotta keep your head down. It's a numbers game. You need to have enough productive activity, productive being the key word there. You know, don't take rejection personally. Try to learn from every experience and do better the next time. And, you know, if somebody passes on you, just add them to your investor updates.

[00:16:49] James Oliver, Jr.: I did a, a Kabila conversation a couple weeks ago with Matt, who's the CEO of Paperstreet. So we use, actually use Paperstreet. paperstreet.vc, we use that for our investor updates. And we were talking about 

[00:17:03] James Oliver, Jr.: how to send good investor updates and why you should do that. And how even though people, it seems like nobody is paying attention, you actually are connecting dots and building trust with people.

[00:17:12] James Oliver, Jr.: And you will get a surprise email out the blue telling people from somebody who's been on your list saying they wanna write you a check 'cause that actually happened to me with my first startup, so I know it works. But Matt was like, "Yeah, if you meet an investor, don't even ask. Just throw them on your investor update list."

[00:17:29] James Oliver, Jr.: I love the gangster. That just do it. Don't even bother to ask. Just add them to the list. They can unsubscribe if they don't want it.

[00:17:35] Richard Simms: Right.

[00:17:36] James Oliver, Jr.: Don't ask for 

[00:17:37] James Oliver, Jr.: permission, just do it.

[00:17:40] Richard Simms: So, on your website, and then, of course, earlier you referenced this, like benefits of having a diverse set of co-founders. I've had two co-founders in the past. It has been a diverse team each time, which was not necessarily intentional, but it was great. And I've had great partners and feel like really benefited from, you know, just varied experiences or perspective.

[00:18:03] Richard Simms: But can you expand a little bit on, you know, why you believe that's so advantageous? Why the numbers tell that story? Like, what do you think that's what's really going on there that gives those folks an edge?

[00:18:15] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah, I just think it's diverse perspectives, you know? Like, if you have homogenous experiences, you're not, you're missing opportunities and perspectives and viewpoints. It just, you're not doing as great as you could be. Like, I, I mean, I love that Caleb, you know, Caleb is a significantly younger than I am.

[00:18:35] You know, he's raised here in the south. I'm raised in the north. You know, he's first generation Columbian American, and I'm Black American. And we have these different perspectives like all the time. I love when I, you know, we don't always agree and I love that.

[00:18:49] James Oliver, Jr.: It it just, so when we start talking about it, we end up with a richer just a more robust output after we have what I like to call this creative tension. 

[00:19:00] James Oliver, Jr.: I love the creative tension. Some people might not like it, but I love it. I think we get to a much better result when we have creative tension.

[00:19:07] Richard Simms: Yeah, for sure. So how did you two get connected? I know you said he was at Georgia Tech. Is he more of the engineering background? Like how do you all skills...?

[00:19:15] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah, he was a full stack engineer at NCR. So yeah, he's a full-stack developer. We met, you know, so look, so one of the Techstars mantras is give first. And I can tell you that the success I've enjoyed the last few years is specifically because of give first. Mean giving first is, you know, how I started the ParentPreneurs Foundation,

[00:19:37] James Oliver, Jr.: giving first is how I actually got into Techstars Austin. I was doing so when Techstars, J.P. Morgan, women's Founder Catalyst program. That's a mouthful, sorry. They came to Atlanta. I got introduced to the woman who was running that program via email. I was, and then my first thing is, "How can I help?"

[00:19:58] James Oliver, Jr.: Right? So I have this LinkedIn live show. I said, "I'll have you on my show, introduce you to my foundation community and I'll blast you out to my network on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn." So they open applications. A bunch of people from my community applied. Out of 20 women founders, I think four or five members from my community actually ended up getting in. It's amazing, right? So then, I was collaborating with that same group of people. They were doing a demo day, pitch event on stonks.com. Are you familiar with Stonks?

[00:20:25] Richard Simms: Yes, I think so. Just based on the name.

[00:20:29] James Oliver, Jr.: S t o n k s. stonks.com is like, I think they say as if Stonks is, is if Twitter, no, Shark Tank plus twitch plus something else, had a baby. Anyway, it's just live livestream, pitching to investors, you get deal flow, blah, blah, get 

[00:20:46] James Oliver, Jr.: people with commitments interests. So we were doing that over on Stonks and it was we, we called it Galentine's Day takeover of Stonks.

[00:20:56] James Oliver, Jr.: First time ever on Stonks, it was all women entrepreneurs, all black women entrepreneurs pitching on the

[00:21:03] James Oliver, Jr.: platform. So we did that, and then their program ended, and they had their Demo Day. And I went to Demo Day, and one of the women from my community who went through that program, who's like doing great right now. She's raised over a million dollars.

[00:21:15] She, I went into her room, and a guy showed up in her room. And I met him, and then a couple months later I got an email from him and I, my memory's horrible 'cause I have young kids. I'm not as smart as I used to be. My memory's terrible. And so he's like, "Oh yeah." I was like, "Oh yeah, okay." So I was like, "Well, what are you working on?"

[00:21:32] James Oliver, Jr.: He told me, I said, "Well, why don't we hop on the calls, see if I can be helpful?" I was, here I go again, being helpful." So at the time, I was looking for a technical co-founder, and he asked me, he said, "What are you working on?" I said, "I'm working on Kabila." He said, "Oh, I actually think I have the perfect person for you."

[00:21:47] James Oliver, Jr.: I'm like, "Wait, what?" Caleb used to work for him, and he was a mentor for Caleb, so he vouched for him. That's how I met Caleb.

[00:21:56] James Oliver, Jr.: Because I was helping... 

[00:21:58] Richard Simms: Yeah, that's great. And you, you kind of never know where it's gonna come from.

[00:22:02] James Oliver, Jr.: Well, that's how I met you, bro. You helped the ParentPreneur Foundation. I think you made a donation to the foundation. That's how we met.

[00:22:08] Richard Simms: Yeah. I think, I think you're right, although I don't remember the...

[00:22:11] James Oliver, Jr.: A community bucket 

[00:22:12] Richard Simms: How I was thinking, like through community 

[00:22:14] Richard Simms: bucket, or at least I connected you with them. Yeah, totally, man. And, and, and yeah, I know just the way you communicate with me periodically, I think there's never a, an angle or agenda it's just, you know, goodwill. And I think that, that stuff comes around for sure. Well, cool. So let's see here. So you, you've obviously had a business as a solo founder. You've, of course, had a business with a co-founder. 

[00:22:40] And now, of course, with Kabila, you're facilitating this kind of matchmaking. So based on your experience, what do you think are the key ingredients to a successful co-founder relationship?

[00:22:52] Richard Simms: Like what should founders be looking for 

[00:22:55] James Oliver, Jr.: That's good. 

[00:22:56] Richard Simms: in that search?

[00:22:56] James Oliver, Jr.: So if anybody, you know, if anybody's on Twitter, although I don't know how much longer I'm gonna be in that, that's just too much nonsense going on over there. But you can find me. I'm at, I'm @jamesoliverjr. James Oliver Jr. on Twitter and on post as well. But I posted this the other day on Twitter 'cause I always drop like these little things.

[00:23:14] James Oliver, Jr.: Although half the time on Twitter, I feel like I'm screaming into the void, but I don't care. I just say what I, said what I said. Damn it.

[00:23:21] Richard Simms: Yep.

[00:23:22] James Oliver, Jr.: So I posted on Twitterfor a co-founder, "I need to like you, I need to trust you, and we need to be able to execute well together."

[00:23:31] James Oliver, Jr.: If any one of those three things is a no, the co-founder thing is a whole no for me.

[00:23:38] James Oliver, Jr.: Like you, trust you, can we execute together? I, everything, I mean, there's lots of other things to consider, right? But for me, ages boils down to those three things.

[00:23:47] Richard Simms: Yeah. Yeah. And it's a, I mean, it's a huge decision. Like I, again, based on my experience, believe in having a co-founder, but I also think you do have to be very careful because I think it's an overused comparison, but it is kind of like going...

[00:24:04] James Oliver, Jr.: No, it is. That's where the trusting comes in. 

[00:24:06] Richard Simms: Um, yeah. And if, if it's a long-term thing in the business, that is which you hope it is. That relationship, you know, is gonna be hard at times or strained at times.

[00:24:16] Richard Simms: And, you know, there's various ways to kind of protect yourself, of course, but ultimately it's a pretty sticky thing to try to unpack

[00:24:23] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah.

[00:24:24] Richard Simms: if you can't find a way to get along, you know?

[00:24:26] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah. Do I, again, do I like you?

[00:24:30] Richard Simms: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:30] James Oliver, Jr.: Do I like you? And you know, it's trust like, man, I'm joking with Caleb this morning. He was so tired 'cause he was grinding all weekend on the app, and he said he didn't get to bed till four in the morning, which that's not normally what he does, but he was just in his zone, I guess, right?

[00:24:43] James Oliver, Jr.: So he was a little sleepy. And he was a little grumpy this morning. We had our morning stand-up, and he was grumpy, and I was like, "Man, this your side I've never seen before." But I was laughing at him. He was so grumpy. I was just like, but that's because I like him, and I trust him. Right? I didn't take any exception to that. And we, we still had a good call. We got it done, and we keep it moving, and he'll take a nap and he won't be so grumpy tomorrow.

[00:25:05] Richard Simms: Well, and you know, clearly he trusts you enough to just not hide how he's feeling either, which is...

[00:25:11] James Oliver, Jr.: I mean, I love, I love that dude. I do, you know, but we were in the trenches together at Techstars and... So the other thing I will say is in terms of a, a co-founder is it has to be like mission and values alignment.

[00:25:24] Richard Simms: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:25:25] James Oliver, Jr.: Really important.

[00:25:27] Richard Simms: That's what I was gonna say too. And I think it's not easy to nail that stuff down because some of the values stuff can be hard to put your finger on or articulate, but I think just having generally aligned values in every sense of the word is really important. And I also think some of that translates just to like, you know, kind of what you want in your lifestyle.

[00:25:50] Richard Simms: Okay. You're doing a startup, it's kind of assumed you're gonna work hard, but like, what really are the expectations there? 

[00:25:56] Richard Simms: Like, I, I will sometimes reference, and this is just kind of, happened. It, of course, wasn't intentional, but like my partner, Carlos and I, you know, when we, when we started the business, I guess he was already married, but, you know, newly married. I wasn't married yet. I got married.

[00:26:13] Richard Simms: We both started having kids like right around the same time. So we've got each two little kids that are about the same age. And again, you, you know, it wasn't planned and you can't plan for that stuff, but it's been really great having those big life changes coming alongside together. Because obviously, we understand what the other person's going through, and we have infinitely more

[00:26:36] Richard Simms: empathy for like yeah, if someone's tired or a kid is homesick. And some of those things, yeah, like even my previous founder in my old business, she had her first kid when we were still working together. And, of course, I was supportive and tried to, you know, be as accommodating as I could. But looking back, I'm like, "Oh, I had no idea, like what they were really going through with a newborn at home." You know, you just kind of don't know until you're in it. So some of that stuff, I think just where you're at in life, again, you do want to, of course, have diversity there too, but I think that can be helpful, like whatever form that takes, you know?

[00:27:12] Richard Simms: Cool. So you talked a little bit about Techstars. I know obviously, it sounds like a lot of it was hitting customer discovery, really hard. I'm sure they're, again, challenging any and all assumptions that you and Caleb came in with. But, what were kind of your biggest takeaways from that experience, either specifically about Kabila or just like how you would approach new ventures in the future?

[00:27:38] James Oliver, Jr.: I'm just doing the custom discovery thing above all else, like that was transformative for me. That is the way I would approach any new venture in the future. And I would encourage anyone out there listening to us who wants to start something to go talk to customers, right? Build a minimum viable product.

[00:28:00] James Oliver, Jr.: Emphasis on minimum, emphasis on viable. And then put it in front of some customers and don't ask them for feedback, ask them for the sale. So I, so I have a great relationship with, uh, Seth Godin, your marketing aficionado, just do the work that I do in the foundation. He's been very supportive of the foundation.

[00:28:19] But Seth said, "You know, don't ask for feedback. Ask for the sale." I was like mind-blowing.

[00:28:23] Richard Simms: I love that. 

[00:28:25] James Oliver, Jr.: So the... 

[00:28:25] Richard Simms: That's...

[00:28:26] James Oliver, Jr.: Build something, get it in front of them and see what they'll pay for. Like ask them to pay for something.

[00:28:33] James Oliver, Jr.: You know, but, but I will say for us, we have, so our model is just a freemium model.

[00:28:37] James Oliver, Jr.: Like, it's just like Bumble or Tinder. You can go in there, anybody can use the app, but there's this suite of premium features you can pay for. But as we're just getting this thing built and just trying to figure out how people act, interacting with it, we're gonna make all the features free to start. And we'll figure out which ones people are using the most and have conversations with them, and then determine which ones to charge for and how much to charge for them. But that, you know, that's, that's a little different. But I feel like people always want to ask for feedback, you know, but if you have something that's built already, like ask for the sale, man. 

[00:29:12] James Oliver, Jr.: You know what I mean? If you have just like a product, just ask for the sale.

[00:29:16] Richard Simms: I love that. And I think there's good, like I, I saw some in the same vein, advice like, if you're demoing something, it's like one thing you can experiment with is like never tell them the name of the product or where to get it, and then at the end, see if they ask you those things. And you can get a sense of like what their intentions really are versus, "Yeah, I would pay for this.

[00:29:41] Richard Simms: This seems great." It's like, but are you proactively trying to figure out how to make that.

[00:29:46] James Oliver, Jr.: Are there like, "Take my money."

[00:29:48] Richard Simms: Right. That, that's always, that's where you want to be. So, so shoot for the stars, land on the moon, I guess, more often than not. 

[00:29:56] Alright, cool. So with Kabila, you know, I think, I think you've been at it about a year.

[00:30:02] James Oliver, Jr.: Hmm. 

[00:30:03] Richard Simms: I mean it all dovetails into all your experience, of course, is Kabila itself older than that?

[00:30:09] James Oliver, Jr.: Not really. So I incorporated in May. Really once we got into Techstars, like this summer, is when I really started jamming on things, you know, so. So it's, it's pretty fresh, of course. 

[00:30:21] So what have been your biggest challenges so far? I mean, I'm sure the Techstars experience itself was challenging, but, you know, part of the goal of this show, of course, is for folks that might be listening and are thinking about starting a new business or a nonprofit or 

[00:30:35] Richard Simms: whatever that is, just understanding, you know, the highs, the lows, the hard parts, like what's been hardest for you so far with Kabila?

[00:30:43] James Oliver, Jr.: So, like, I have eliminated words from my vocabulary, like struggle hard because what I found is, you know, well a funny thing happened when I eliminated the word struggle from my vocabulary. I stopped struggling.

[00:30:59] Richard Simms: It was that easy? 

[00:31:00] James Oliver, Jr.: I mean, yeah. I mean, what you appreciate, appreciates, right? What you focus your attention on, it expands. So, I mean, I was traveling every single week. I would leave on Monday, and I flew back home on Thursday, and you know, to come home and co-parent children. So some people like, "Oh, that was a lot." Well, I'm not saying it was a little but a lot compared to what?

[00:31:26] James Oliver, Jr.: To not launching Kabila and not being plugged into the incredible Austin startup ecosystem and, and building an amazing relationship with the, the Techstars team there? It went by so fast. The only thing that was hard about that is the coach seats on the Delta plane was destroying my back.

[00:31:46] James Oliver, Jr.: It feels like a couple weeks when my back was just like, I was just so much pain. That was the only thing that was hard about it. But other than that, 

[00:31:53] Richard Simms: Well, that's a... 

[00:31:53] James Oliver, Jr.: it was great.

[00:31:55] Richard Simms: Well, you've got a, you've got a good attitude. I can appreciate that. So flipping the narrative, what have been some of the biggest wins, like are there folks that have met through you all that you see, you know, on the way to do big things? Like you obviously referenced, um, you know, some founders getting like that legal support. 

[00:32:13] Things like that.

[00:32:14] Richard Simms: What stands out in your mind?

[00:32:15] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah, I mean ju just that, right? And then we did, so David Cohen, who's Techstars co-founder, came and did a Kabila conversation with us. So first of all, our community is not free. It's 1979 a month, and we're probably going to be raising that price, right? Why? 'cause I like to jokingly, but not jokingly, say 'cause freedom ain't free.

[00:32:34] Richard Simms: There you go.

[00:32:36] James Oliver, Jr.: No, but all seriously, you know, we're doing amazing work in that community, building community important into founders. And I learned from my work with the ParentPreneur Foundation is that people value what they spend their money on. So you send a signal with your pricing, and you know, if you're gonna be delivering excellence, you know, your pricing should reflect that.

[00:32:53] So one of the things, so David came, and we did a Kabila conversation, and he did this talk about how to overcome investor objections. And actually, the replay is in the community. If you're a founder and you're raising capital from like institutional angel investors, like you gotta tap in and watch that thing.

[00:33:10] James Oliver, Jr.: And he did role-playing. And after he left, we did some role-playing on our, on our own and just overcoming investor objections. And like two days later, I got a text message from somebody who was in the role-playing, said she used the techniques we were practicing, and she got a $250,000 commitment from an investor.

[00:33:29] Richard Simms: Wow, that's awesome.

[00:33:30] James Oliver, Jr.: So stuff like that is just, it's so good, man.

[00:33:33] James Oliver, Jr.: So good. 

[00:33:34] Richard Simms: Well, obviously, there's such potential implications for helping some of these founders get over a particular hurdle. I'm sure they have big visions. So it's like one difference in that conversation could make such a big difference long term, you know? 

[00:33:50] That's awesome. So where do you see Kabila in 5 years, 10 years?

[00:33:55] James Oliver, Jr.: Man, bro. Woo, boy, we will, as I, as I said at the top, you know, this is all changing, the landscape. We're skating to where the puck is going to be, where we think the puck is going to be. And when we get there, and things change, and inclusive co-founders are just like killing it around the world, we're gonna be at the, in the middle of it, connecting them, investing in them. And getting acquired, you know, I envision we'll get to a hundred million dollars in revenue or more and, you know, get acquired for hopefully a billion dollars. So there you go.

[00:34:29] Richard Simms: Mm-hmm. That's awesome. Well, I believe it and, uh, I'm excited to see it happen. So, last thing I'll ask you 'cause I always like to ask this of founders. First-time founder thinking about, you know, taking on something new, what's like the, the one or two pieces of advice that you think is applicable to anyone kind of at that crossroads?

[00:34:51] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah, don't chase money 'cause if you think you're gonna start a startup, 'cause you're gonna get rich, you're gonna be sadly mistaken. So I, so the very first Kabila conversation we did was with Brad Feld, who is Techstars co-founder and managing partner at Foundry group. And Brad was talking about, he invests in...

[00:35:08] James Oliver, Jr.: A lot of people say, "You know, what's your passion? What's your passion?" Brad says, "No," he's not interested in your passion because passion is emotion, and emotions wane. He said he wants to know what are you obsessed about. What are you losing sleep over? Right? So what are you obsessed about?

[00:35:26] James Oliver, Jr.: And like for me, I always like to say, you know, the two, Mark Twain said, "The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why." So like, go figure out why you were born and go do that.

[00:35:40] Richard Simms: That's great. That's great advice. Well, looks like we're about out of time. I really appreciate it. This has been fun. Thanks for coming on. So before we sign off, where can listeners go to connect with you and, uh, learn more about Kabila and what can they do to support your mission?

[00:35:55] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah, I appreciate that. So I'm @jamesoliverjr on Twitter. Kabila is @joinkabila on Twitter. Join Kabila on Instagram, Kabila on LinkedIn. We're, join Kabila on TikTok, which is kind of nuts. I'm doing some funny stuff over in TikTok. I have this, uh, segments called "Talking Tech With Tyrone," and Tyrone's, like talking, Tyrone's my drunk alter ego.

[00:36:16] James Oliver, Jr.: It's like I got this crazy Afro wig on. And 

[00:36:19] James Oliver, Jr.: Tyrone... Oh, bro, like Tyrone is the managing director of the StarTech, not Techstar, StarTech Decelerator program. And he is giving founders advice to decelerate their startups.

[00:36:32] Richard Simms: Awesome. This is, this might be... 

[00:36:34] James Oliver, Jr.: Yeah. 

[00:36:34] Richard Simms: to get me on TikTok once and once and for all.

[00:36:37] James Oliver, Jr.: The last one I gave Elon Musk advice about who she/he hires his next CEO and that was two weeks ago. 

[00:36:44] James Oliver, Jr.: Silly, but yeah, you could find us over there. Oh, you could go to join kabila.com. It's the website. And if you're looking for a co-founder, you can click on the the app page there and get on our waitlist to get notified when we launched the app, which will be pretty soon here. So there's that.

[00:36:59] Richard Simms: Awesome. Well, this is great. I think it's awesome what you all are working on, and wishing you nothing but success. And I'll keep an eye on as you all are progressing, how it's going. So thanks so much, James, and um, I'll talk to you soon.

[00:37:10] James Oliver, Jr.: Awesome. Thanks for having me, Richard.