Pointz: Making Biking Safer | Maggie Bachenberg, Co-Founder

Maggie Bachenberg is the Co-Founder of Pointz, a bike safety app that offers safe navigation, route customization and 24/7 emergency roadside assistance to make people feel safer on their bikes. Maggie has been grinding away at Pointz for 4 years and was part of Techstars in 2022. Maggie shares how having shared values makes her relationship with her co-founder more resilient, how former founders tend to give the best advice, and how she's learned to set boundaries after experiencing burnout. I admire her focus and love for making her customers happy and incorporating customer feedback throughout her product development process. Speaking with Maggie has encouraged me to have more confidence and conviction in my ideas and business decisions.

00:00 The Founding of Points: A Bike Safety App
02:54 Introducing Points Plus: The Premium Subscription
06:23 User Engagement and Revenue Traction
14:00 The Co-Founder Partnership: Complementary Strengths and Shared Values
23:34 Navigating the Fundraising Environment
25:31 The Power of Techstars and Networking
27:30 Personal Growth and Lessons Learned
30:09 Seeking Advice from Former Founders
38:53 Balancing Work and Self-Care
43:44 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Transcript

Rhaime Kim (00:00)
Maggie is the co -founder of Pointz, which is a bike safety app that offers services that help people feel confident on their bikes. Features include safer customized routing and 24 -7 emergency roadside assistance. Pointz uses real -time car traffic data and crowdsourced route information to help people using micro -mobility methods like bikes and scooters get around as safely as possible. Pointz is basically like Waze for micro -mobility.

You can look up your destination, adjust how safe you want your route to be, and voila, you can use it like Waze or Maps from there. Pointz was part of the cohort in Portland, Maine, two years after their founding. Maggie and I met at Brown when she was actively working on Pointz, and I was actually working on a crypto idea. So, Maggie, thank you so much for taking the time today. I really, really appreciate it.

Maggie Bachenberg (00:51)
Of course, I'm excited to chat with you.

Rhaime Kim (00:53)
walk us through like, why, what kind of prompted you to found Pointz? Why did you start Pointz? Am I correct in remembering that the initial kind of focus was biking? Like, are you a big biker? Or like, do you use a lot of micro mobility methods like scooters or ebikes?

Maggie Bachenberg (01:11)
Yeah, well the original idea was actually a long distance bicycling app because I don't know if I told this story in class at all, but during my gap year after high school, I took a long distance bike trip across the US from Virginia to California. And that was like my first introduction to using bikes as a form of transportation rather than just like recreationally. And.

On that trip, I had a bunch of people recommending different routes that the mapping apps weren't picking up on. And I thought it was kind of silly that this local knowledge wasn't captured in any routing services because a lot of the routes were a lot safer and better to ride on as somebody on a bike. And so anyway, that's kind of why I got interested in the idea.

And after that, then I got more into like urban biking and bike advocacy and started to realize how much there's a need for a safer routing service for people who bike in cities and use micro mobility. I know you mentioned, yeah, you mentioned something about micro mobility. So Pointz does work for all sorts of micro mobility. Generally our users do bike, but they use e -bikes. We have a lot of riders that use e -bikes and we do have people that use scooters.

And I actually just got a interesting message from somebody who uses like this call. It's not, it's not, they call it a scooter, but it looks kind of like a little golf cart, a mini golf cart. It's enclosed also. So anyway, all types of different vehicles on Pointz.

Rhaime Kim (02:54)
Wait, that's so funny. Is the golf cart thing a trend? I swear I, you know, I know somebody who recently went traveling in Europe and he mentioned that he wrote like wrote a golf cart around so who knows but you know, yeah, that's that's

And I totally understand the need because I think at least for example, in New York City, like a lot of people have access to a city bike, but I think a lot of people are like worried about safety. And so, you know, I checked out your app and I love that you can make it like super safe because that's the kind of knowledge that if you use a city bike often in New York City, you would eventually figure out which roads have like the actual bike lanes and which don't and which have potholes and which don't.

and maybe which avenues or something tend to be busier, but that's just knowledge that I don't have. And I think for me, I used to live in Brooklyn. because all the train routes, like many American cities, head into the center of the city, when you're in somewhere that's not really commercial, it's just hard to get around. So the best way would basically to ride a bike, especially in the summer.

But I have found that my typical navigation apps just would not tell me the right route. And I'm just so confused.

Maggie Bachenberg (04:14)
your anecdote is a very common thing that we hear from folks because we work a lot with people who are not experienced in riding around cities and they're usually like willing to ride, but they just don't feel comfortable doing so. And so having like an extra set of information where they can see the dark green roads, which mean that, you know, it's a protected bike lane or it's a separated path, then they feel a lot more.

confident and comfortable actually trying a route out, which is pretty cool.

Rhaime Kim (04:46)
Yeah, that makes sense. So you're based in Providence. I love Providence. I miss like the food there, just good vibes. Where are you able to share just like what cities you have the most engagement?

Maggie Bachenberg (04:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. So I was looking at this yesterday and interestingly, I think our highest city in terms of number of users is Los Angeles still. And then it's, I believe Minneapolis, St. Paul after that, and then Boston, if I'm not mistaken. But we also just launched our premium subscription. And so we have more paid users now in Boston. Boston's our highest market for paid users.

And then Los Angeles and Minneapolis are kind of tied after that. But yeah, so those are kind of our three big cities. And then we do have people in other major cities as well, like New York and Chicago and San Francisco. And then some scattered around throughout the US as well in some of the smaller cities or less bike -friendly cities as well.

Rhaime Kim (05:54)
That's super cool. And I'm sure it's like, I don't know, you've been grinding away at this for four years now. And I have like so much respect for that grind. It must be like incredible, like seeing all the users in different places, like create and add, you know, information to like, what are some things to look out for on the road and all these different places. So I think that's super cool. And it's so interesting. Well, first of all, congrats on launching Pointz Plus, which is your subscription offering.

And it's very interesting to learn that LA might have the most usage, but actually for the paid program, Boston has been the focus. I wonder if it has at all to do with maybe your proximity to Boston or any of that, or do you just think maybe it's a cultural thing? I'm very curious. Well, could you first tell us about Pointz Plus and what comes with Pointz Plus and maybe just how you've navigated the whole business model aspect of your business?

Maggie Bachenberg (06:51)
Yeah, definitely. I can talk about that. So we have been thinking about doing a premium subscription since the beginning. It was like an option because that is a common way to monetize apps. And anyway, we ended up wanting to test it because we were testing out a bunch of different business models and revenue streams. And this was the one that we felt was the next most promising. And so,

What we did is we actually got the advice of a few people in our space who have launched a premium app before or who run a company that has a premium app. So the most helpful thing was talking to the founders and now the CEOs. Their titles vary basically, but we talked to CEO of Alltrails right now. We talked to...

the founder of Strava and then we talked to the founder of Transit App and they have all, or they all have premium subscriptions and they're all kind of in the recreation or the travel space and so it was really helpful to talk to them about how they think about their premium subscription and especially the Transit App founder,

He gave us a lot of information about how he went about launching the premium subscription for Transit. And I was pretty nervous going into the launch of Pointz Plus because I thought people would be upset that we were charging now for some of the services. But he recommended we write a little letter to our users and to our customers telling them like why we're doing it and explaining the decision.

and it's been really well received. I was so surprised. We've only gotten a couple angry people, which is pretty remarkable. So I was pretty happy. And most of the other people are like, the responses we've gotten are like, this is really cool. We're so happy that you put out all these new features along with the premium launch. So anyway, I should go into what those are. So when we launched the...

the Pointz Plus iteration of the app. What we wanted to do is not just limit all of the current features, we wanted to give our riders something new to look forward to and to be excited about. What we did is we included a couple of new features like route customization. We added the ability to have off -road or unpaved trails.

the ability to customize for shortcuts and for elevation and then one other, which I'm blanking on at the moment, but there were four customizations we added to the route planning section. And then we also added in bike maintenance tracking. And the biggest thing that people like is the roadside assistance component.

we partnered up with a roadside assistance provider who can pick our customers up if they break down on the side of the road. So if you get a flat tire or if your chain breaks and you don't know how to fix whatever the problem is, you call our roadside assistance partner and then somebody comes and picks you up and takes you to a bike shop or your home. It's very similar to like a AAA service.

Rhaime Kim (10:09)
That's so cool. I think it's so cool that you spoke to all those amazing founders. All trails definitely remember using that when I was going through my hiking phase. And I love the idea

that the founder of the Transit app gave you the idea of just like writing that personal note. And I think it's, you know, it's almost like, because you said that there weren't so many like angry users. And I'm guessing from what you're saying, it's not like people like stopped using your app necessarily, because of this. So, you know, it makes me think that like, maybe it's the

the users that you have like understand the value and maybe in a way they'll become even more sticky like once they kind of subscribe to your product. So yeah, that's really cool. And then with the have there been people who have like, I guess use the roadside assistance yet. You know, I think that's really cool because it makes me think about I'm not a big biker to be honest with you, but.

I do like running is something that I think about and I'm just like, you know, if you run like one way like a long time, because you're planning on doing a long run, then you have to run all the way back. But then if you get hurt along that like long, maybe whatever first leg of your thing, then like, you know, that could be pretty bad. And so obviously being in New York City, you can always plan for a route that kind of a circular or something, but.

I would imagine that having that roadside assistance would kind of encourage bikers to be like, okay, like they can take more confidently take like a long route. So yeah, if you, it's probably kind of a personal things. I don't know if you can reveal, but in terms of just like roadside assistance, yeah, what has the feedback been from your users? I'd be interested to hear if people have like either used it or just like you've gathered just some feedback and what that has looked like for you.

Maggie Bachenberg (12:07)
Yeah, definitely. So I don't actually get any reporting back from the users or from the roadside assistance provider about if anybody has used it. There is a way to look through our analytics, like if somebody has called the number to request it, but I haven't checked to see if people have been doing that recently. I do know from interviews with the customers that have purchased that,

Rhaime Kim (12:15)
Gotcha.

Maggie Bachenberg (12:37)
the roadside assistance piece did play into their purchasing decision for all of them that I've talked to. And so that's pretty cool because that was something that we threw in kind of at the end and we weren't sure if it would help or not. But I think what's nice about the roadside assistance piece is that people are used to paying for like AAA. And so it's not like a big jump there in terms of like, you know.

Rhaime Kim (12:42)
Wow.

Maggie Bachenberg (13:06)
This is something people are used to. They know what AAA is and they expect to like, you know, they expect a certain price range for that. And so I think that helps us like charge for the premium subscription as well.

Rhaime Kim (13:19)
Nice, nice. would love to learn about your team, in particular about working with a co co -founder is Trisha. I'm wondering how you complement each other and how you found each other. From what I saw online, it looks like you all were working on Pointz since pretty much the beginning from Brown. So.

Yeah, if you could tell us about like how you and Trisha kind of divide your work or like where your strengths lie. Trisha is the CTO, I believe. So yeah, if you could tell us more about that and how you met, that would be awesome.

Maggie Bachenberg (14:00)
Yeah, definitely. So we met through a mutual friend at the V -Dub at Brown. so we were getting breakfast together and just ran into each other. And yeah, we were on the We at Brown team together as part of the Brown entrepreneurship program. So that was like the women's entrepreneurship team. And that's where we initially got to know each other. And then Trisha joined like,

Rhaime Kim (14:06)
our cafeteria. Yeah.

Maggie Bachenberg (14:27)
She joined Pointz not as a founder at first, but she worked on the app over the summer one summer when we were doing B lab and and then I got to know her through that and eventually at the end of the summer I asked her if she wanted to to co -found the company with me and we had we've been working together since then and She is she's the technical counterpart as you mentioned so she has like the CS background and

Yeah, the more technical expertise. And so she does pretty much all of the, all of the tech. We have shared the product management role that has gone like back and forth between us throughout our time here. And now I'm working on that more. And then, yeah, and then I do like most of the business related activities. So things like marketing and business development.

Also, like a lot of the administrative stuff that we just have to do that's not really fun, like accounting and whatnot. But yeah, that's kind of how we, Trisha and I have gone about it. And yeah, it's been, I think really a learning experience to like get to know somebody and like understand what their strengths are and how you can complement each other. And yeah, I guess I understand now why,

you know, teams that have worked together in the past are more likely to be successful because you don't have to relearn how to work with somebody. Yeah.

Rhaime Kim (15:57)
It reminds me of, I think this comparison is pretty common, but like, just like a romantic partnership, just like how or like a marriage and like, you know, I don't have experience with marriage, but it's just so important. Like it sounds like that type of a dynamic where it's like you learn how to like be together, you learn how to work together. So do you, do you like personality wise, do you think you all have like certain similarities or do you find that like you all like are quite different when it comes to?

just kind of that personality aspect as well.

Maggie Bachenberg (16:29)
I don't know, I would say, like we have similarities in terms of personality. Yeah, I would say the thing that has made it easier to work together is that we both like value just kind of being a good person and that is, maybe sounds like super simple, but I feel like sometimes in the, you can get a variety of people like on your team and.

You know, we're trying, we both try to do the right thing. We both care about each other. We care about the team and the product and our customers. And those are the things that we try to elevate. And if there's a disagreement or if we have issues, like we do try to like go back to what our principles are as people. So yeah, I would say just like a shared set of like values maybe has made it easier to, to.

to do this together.

Rhaime Kim (17:25)
I love hearing that. And it's, I think like, I think it is true that generally people are good and all of that, but I think the ethics piece and the values piece, like it can really shine through because sometimes, you know, with people, when you think people aren't looking or you think that there's an opportunity, people can act greedy.

or try to take advantage of a situation. So I think that's really refreshing to hear. And also, genuinely, you're one of the nicest people. I met at Brown. So it's really cool knowing that Trisha and you are probably on the same page about that. But from my understanding, yeah, I mean it. Yeah, I really mean it. And about working on Pointz full time, from my memory,

Maggie Bachenberg (18:03)
That's nice of you to say.

Rhaime Kim (18:14)
I think you really took Pointz on full time right after Brown as well. So if you could tell us about, was it scary making the leap to work on Pointz full time? And just what gave you that conviction? Was it just like you could not stop working on it? Or you really wanted to have something like that yourself? I'm curious what that decision making was like to develop Pointz full time.

Maggie Bachenberg (18:42)
Yeah, so we like, I'll like maybe talk, like talk a little bit about the background to like why we got to this decision. So Trisha and I were working on Pointz with a couple of student developers over the summer and before our senior year. And we had decided that, okay, we want to try to raise money if we can raise money and like continue to work on this after.

graduation, that's what we want to do. But we weren't necessarily ready to launch like a, we definitely weren't ready to launch a premium product or like generate revenue at that point, because we were still working on like an MVP or like, you know, our initial product that we were going to launch out, that was going to be a free version of Pointz. And so we knew that if we wanted to keep working on it, we would need a little bit of either grant money or venture funding. And so,

Yeah, I think the idea always was like, we want to do this after graduation, but is it financially viable, basically? Is it a financially viable option for mean, I didn't want to necessarily move back home at all. That just wasn't in the cards for me, and I didn't want to do that. So.

Rhaime Kim (19:54)
Yeah.

Maggie Bachenberg (19:58)
Anyway, that was kind of the decision or like the background is like if we had the opportunity to do it, we would do it. And then we were pitching some venture funds like during that time while we were working on Pointz. But really what led to us raising money initially was that we had worked with or we had been mentored by our current venture capitalists.

specifically Tom Sperry from Rogue Venture Partners. He mentored us for like months and like would meet with us every so often and give us advice. And then we'd follow some of his recommendations and make progress. And he invested in us when we were, it was like August or September of 2021. So going into our senior year, we got some initial venture funding from Tom and from Rogue

Yeah, once we took that on, we were not looking for a job after graduation. We were planning to continue working on Pointz full time.

Rhaime Kim (21:00)
it's so wonderful to hear about just like, working with Tom for such a long time. Tom's like a VC, but you know, I feel like I've heard a lot of the advice of like, if you work with an angel investor, for example, or you're early in your funding, like, you want to like, work with somebody who wants to help you. But in this instance, you know, sometimes it's like, there's a lot of very smart people and they can give you like, great advice, but

sometimes because they're not in the super details, like the recommendations you have to read in between the lines, but it sounds like it's been a very directly like helpful and productive mentoring like relationship as well. So that's super cool. And along that line, could you share us, share with us a little bit more about fundraising and, and you know, that is obviously a very practical and real concern for founders. So.

Yeah, what rounds of funding have you raised? Have you received any grants? And what have you learned like just from that whole experience?

Maggie Bachenberg (22:00)
Yeah, definitely. We've raised a total of $520 so we raised from Rogue Venture Partners, and they gave us a little bit of follow on capital. And then we raised from Techstars, because Techstars are awesome.

also comes with an investment. And yeah, and so that's what we've done. We also got a grant from a pitch competition that was like relatively sizable during our the end of our senior year. And yeah, I think it's been like, the 2022 was a time when it was or 2021 2022 was a time when it was a lot, quote unquote,

easier to raise capital at the moment, or there was just a lot of capital out there. And I think it has, we got to see it shift from like, okay, you can raise capital on like, this, like concept and idea with like smart founders. And like, to a certain extent, that is still the case, I think, in different areas. But now I think, from what I've seen, at least there's a bigger focus on like revenue traction and like, and you know,

getting to profitability. And so that's where we've shifted, not because of the fundraising environment directly, but it also just made sense to shift focus to trying to get to profitability. Yeah. And so that's been my experience. I mean, we've pitched a lot of VCs and have gotten a lot of feedback. And I don't know.

There's like a process and we were doing that process for a while, but I haven't been in it for at least like probably six months now trying to do any fundraising related activities.

Rhaime Kim (23:46)
Yeah, I worked in startup environments before and I think like, you're right, it's not an excuse when people or founders, CEOs like...

say, the fundraising environment is like actually like dried up right now. Like it's a very real thing. So it's really interesting to hear just like all the things you've realized and the patterns that you've seen like over the years as well. And you mentioned you haven't been actively fundraising for like six months, thank goodness, because it takes a lot of time. And like, it's possible to just try to use the same pitch every single time. But you know, I understand that with every single pitch, like you end up needing to tailor it, you end up

wanting to switch it up at least a little bit if maybe certain conversations didn't move forward. And then you want to do research on each VC and like, it's a tedious like process. And, you know, even though I am an extrovert, I found it to be very draining because you need to talk to a lot of people to make any progress. And,

Maggie Bachenberg (24:52)
Yeah, I found it a lot more rewarding to work with our actual customers, I think. And it puts you in a better position. If we do want to go out and raise more money in the next little now we have revenue, now we have customers. We're growing. And so it just puts you in a better position. And it's more fun, in my opinion, to work with customers and to get the product better and to get some real...

revenue traction before trying to raise capital, at least in this environment. I think isn't for everybody and for our experience.

Rhaime Kim (25:25)
Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Tell us about Techstars. So you joined in 2022. What was the biggest benefit of joining Techstars and are there founders like from Techstars that you have ended up, you know, regularly keeping in touch with?

Maggie Bachenberg (25:46)
Yeah, well the biggest benefit of Techstars, I think most people will tell you this, is definitely the network that you get from the experience. They do this thing called Mentor Magic and you get to meet a ton of really cool people during that time. So you get to have like, I think it's 20 minute conversations with them in our cohort. And yeah, and then it wasn't actually those...

mentors that were, I mean, they were helpful, but I felt like it was like a layer or two after those people. So you just, I don't know, your network expands so much and you get connected to really cool people. That's what I thought was the most interesting part of Techstars. Yeah, they also have, they also do have some good content in there, better content than any other like entrepreneurial related program I've been a part of so far. So I thought that was helpful.

And then, yeah, I do keep in touch with a couple of founders from my cohort regularly. There are a few that are located in Boston. And so I've seen them a couple of times since we have been done with Techstars. And then a couple in New York that I've seen as well. Yeah.

Rhaime Kim (27:02)
Yeah, that's super cool to hear because like, it's so interesting. Like for any business you realize it's like, it's really the people like that part of everything is so important. So yeah, I can definitely see how like, with networking as well. It's like you meet one group of people and then sometimes like the best opportunities are like five times removed from the first people that you met. And it's so hard to like understand that sometimes when you're first meeting people, but then it happens so naturally. So that's very cool.

What have you, you know, you've been working on, you've been working on Pointz for, is it now four years or almost four years? Yeah, yeah. I'm curious, like, what have you learned personally and in business, like, through this whole journey?

Maggie Bachenberg (27:40)
Yeah, just about.

that's a hard question. I feel like I've learned a lot.

one of the biggest things I've learned is the importance of having confidence and conviction in what we're building. Because like you mentioned this a little bit earlier about how, like, for example, venture capitalists like to, they all have a different opinion and they're all saying something different about your pitch deck. That's also the case for customers in your product. And it's also the case for mentors and what they think your business model should be.

And so I think, you know, it's great to get a lot of people's opinion. But what I've learned throughout the journey is that you need to listen to people's opinions, but then take a step back from that and think about it from for yourself and like what makes sense for your company, what makes sense for you. You know, where do you, where do I truly see like the opportunity and what is my vision and you know.

I guess where do I have conviction in this product and in this company? And so, yeah, that's something that it took me a long time to do and to get more confident doing because, yeah, it's hard coming straight out of college and trying to found a company because you think you don't have the knowledge or the experience to do it. And so you think everybody else knows what you should do, but they don't.

You know, sometimes they're right. And another learning that I found is that the people that have the best advice are former founders. if somebody hasn't founded a company, a lot of times their advice just.

They mean well, but it's not good advice. And I actually have a short list of mentors or people that I've talked to that I've gotten advice from that have really good advice. And almost all of them are former founders. Yeah, so I'll just, I'll leave it at that, but I don't know if that's what you were looking for.

Rhaime Kim (29:45)
Yeah. yeah, definitely. And it's so interesting. Do you think like from former founders and getting feedback, do you think it's, do you find that the guidance that they can give you is both like the very practical advice on like what they think about your business model or next steps or helping you think through the vision or do you think it's also in that kind of like,

team or operational or funding, like fundraising, like that type of guidance, like what type of advice do you find most helpful when you're collecting from like different mentors?

Maggie Bachenberg (30:22)
across the board former founders have the best advice that I've experienced and like whether it is fundraising or or customers or business model I feel like pretty much I've had the best advice from former founders across the board

Rhaime Kim (30:41)
how about for like VCs and fundraising? Do you find then that VCs who like maybe are former founders and have found success in those ventures, like do they also like understand your business better or is that not always necessarily the case?

Maggie Bachenberg (31:00)
Yeah, I think I've had really good experiences with VCs who have been former founders, especially around the ones that tell you no. Also with VCs that have been former founders, I love pitching them because they give you good advice and they tell you no directly if they aren't interested.

Like right away, because they don't want to waste your time. That's also been my experience with founders turned VCs. They know what the journey is like and what fundraising is like, and they're not trying to waste your time as much, basically. Yeah. I don't know if that's been your experience as well, but I've had a good time with former founder VCs.

Rhaime Kim (31:52)
Yeah, you know, that definitely makes sense. I don't know if I have the same experience that you have. So, you know, it's great hearing from like a real like founder, co -founder about that. But I do think that it's so great that once they're in the VC position, they know what you're going through. And it looks like they're kind of giving back by just being direct and like, like you're saying, like not letting just the ball roll or, you know, I know that sometimes it's about information gathering.

VCs are learning about other when they're speaking with other companies. And yeah, it's there's some tough dynamics that can happen. So it's really great to hear that that's how they're in a way kind of giving back in this whole ecosystem. I would love to understand like when doing your work, you've been working on Pointz for like many years, like, and for I'm sure your peers who ended up going to work for other people.

they might've switched their jobs a few times. And so I'm wondering like for you, do you find that like you've found some kind of intersection with your interests or passions and you're making that happen or do you think that any problem can be like interesting?

Maggie Bachenberg (33:07)
I think, I mean, I started Pointz because it was something I personally cared about. There are a lot of things that I care about and that I would love to work on solving problems in those areas. Yeah, I think you can work on anything. And if it, I mean, like we learned in at Brown, I think we've seen people.

you know, do things that they're not experts in or that they're not quote unquote passionate about and still be successful. I don't, I definitely think that is something you can do. It's just not something I want to do because I don't know, I'd rather work on something that I care about and that can make money and has impact. So that's, yeah, I think you can do it. It's just not something that I want to do in my life at the moment.

Rhaime Kim (33:58)
I love that. Yeah, you know, don't waste time. I think that's been like a common thread and I love that because like time is like, it's like what we all have equally and it's like very, it's very important to have control and to not waste time doing things that yeah, you'd rather not do. So I love that. Do you think, you know, kind of when you were younger, did you always know that, you know, you want to work on something you cared about and do you think you're always an entrepreneurial person or do you think like,

at Brown as you were working on this idea, joining the different entrepreneurial endeavors at Brown, that's when you realized, OK, actually, turns out that this is my path and I cannot see myself doing anything else or joining a large company or a startup and doing all of this.

Maggie Bachenberg (34:43)
don't know if I knew I don't think I knew what the word entrepreneur was when I was like young or anything, but I did do a lot of like Enterprising as a young child like I remember we did we when I was a kid we would sell like Like applesauce on the side of the road or whatever or like I think we did lemonade at some point like a lot of kids do and I remember like

trying to get all of my siblings to pool together money for a trampoline fund. So I guess that was my first go at fundraising to a certain extent. But yeah, so I mean, I think I have had the tendency maybe since I was younger. Yeah, and then I just wanted to do something that I liked and I cared I...

wanted to learn a lot. And I think that the best way to learn is by trying stuff. So yeah, I just started trying stuff and started learning from people at Brown and then now other founders as well.

Rhaime Kim (35:42)
Yeah, definitely. And, you know, I wanted to ask, like, you mentioned that you see, like, looking back, you know, raising your trampoline fund and doing these like different like selling different things like lemonade, you know, as a kid, you kind of see that thread. But I'm curious, like, maybe some of this, like, we touch a little bit when talking about, you know, how you and Trisha, you know, kind of work together. But what do you see your

your maybe your biggest strengths and what your weaknesses might be. I think like with strengths and weaknesses, they're pretty much always the same side of like opposite sides of the same coin. So yeah, be curious to, to hear from you what you think your largest strengths and maybe weaknesses are.

Maggie Bachenberg (36:32)
Yeah, I would say one of my biggest strengths is that I do care a lot about the customer and

We've put into place a lot of processes that help us continue to improve the product. And that's really based around like making the customer happy. And so I do feel like I've gotten pretty good at that. And our customers are generally like pretty happy. It always makes me super excited to see their feedback. But to your point, I think my weakness is that I want them to be

really happy and you can't make everybody happy. And so sometimes in the past, like I'm less likely to, I would be less likely to release a product update that isn't, you know, amazing or there's like some small bugs that maybe people care about, maybe they don't, and maybe it's going to make some people upset, but you know, generally people are going to be fine with it. So I think that's maybe a weakness is that, I don't know. I don't, I could be more.

risk taking in terms of like, yeah, like not worrying about what people, what certain people think that aren't necessarily like the core, core customer.

Rhaime Kim (37:45)
Yeah, and I think it really goes to show your love for customers. And I think it's not simple, but it is sometimes that simple. And I think it's like, it can be easy to think that.

you know, it could be easy to think that you either understand your customer or you start getting abstracted from it. If, for example, fundraising takes too much of your time and then they become your customer that you're interested in. So I think it's like amazing to hear that from you and from using just like the user experience of your whole app, I can see how much like maybe you've optimized like for your customers. So yeah, I'm curious, like tell me about your...

mindset, like do you have different like routines or do you have things that you do to take care of yourself because I'm you know, so impressed that you've been like growing and building Pointz for some years because you know, in the scheme of things maybe fourish years is like not a super long time, but I think it's incredible to just have that like grit like keep on going. So yeah, just what do you do to kind of

Yeah, like, do you go through any periods of working really hard or do you try to always keep some kind of like sustained balance?

Maggie Bachenberg (39:00)
Well, after I graduated, so yeah, like you said, we've been working on it for like four years, roughly, I have. But two of those were during my time as a college student. And so as you know, from working on a company as a college student, it is difficult to like, I mean, you're always constantly doing something and, but you're doing a variety of things. It's like, you're not only working on your company, you're also,

Like I played rugby, so I was going to rugby practice. I was taking classes. I was doing homework. You know, there were, there was a variety of things I was doing. but I was working really, really hard and I've always, I've pretty much always worked hard. I've had jobs since I was, you know, pretty young and, yeah, I don't really know anything different. So, or I didn't know anything different. So after I graduated from college, I continued to work that hard, but I only did one thing and I only did Pointz.

and I didn't have the other activities there. yeah, that basically led to major burnout. And so I did experience burnout and I have, that was the worst of it was like the summer right after graduation. Because also I had been probably burnt out from doing school and doing Pointz for so long.

and not having a break. And so, yeah, I did have burnout that summer and I read a few. So there was a there was a particular Lenny's newsletter post that helped me with this around like creating. It was around creating boundaries and noticing like when you're like, what is a I think it had like three different colors. It was like red is like this is really bad. Like I can't function. Yellow is like, OK, don't you know, you're getting close to.

Maybe don't do this very often. And green is like, this is where I feel good. This is like my happy place. And yeah, so I think I did like do a lot of learning around, okay, what is burnout for me? You know, how can I still make good progress and not get burnt out? And that has been like a long learning experience. But yeah, I would say now it's like, I try to hang out with my friends a few times a week.

because I'm a social person, I love being around people. I also do, I have hobbies and stuff, so I like to, I haven't been going surfing too much here in Rhode but when I'm in California, I love to surf. And we just got boards here, so I'm excited to go surfing here. Yeah, and then I've gotten into dancing. And so there's just like, I try to incorporate other things into my life that aren't just my work because...

At a certain point, you just feel it. You're like, okay, I could keep staring at my computer, but I know I'm not gonna get that much more done. Maybe I should go for a walk or maybe I should go do something else and then come back to it.

Rhaime Kim (41:55)
Yeah, thanks for sharing just kind of like your journey and how you've kind of done different things to like get yourself out of that. I think it's really hard because I don't know, like from my experience working on different things that I care about, I think it's really hard to shut that switch off. And of course, if for somebody who's working a more like corporate job,

I'm sure sometimes when they take a shower, they think about some conflict they had at work. So it's not that, you know, it's, but I think when you're a founder and you're really working on something, I'm sure like, I don't know, do you find yourself just like thinking about Pointz all the time or have you gotten better at that?

Maggie Bachenberg (42:36)
No, I mean, I do think about it all the time. I'm thinking about something like all the time. My brain is always going. It doesn't really shut off. So yeah, a lot of times it is about Pointz. I'm thinking about, you know, our customers, what we can do to get more people on the platform, things like that. But I would say like when I'm in a good spot, like it's a happy thing for me. Like it's a good thing to like, like I find it really enjoyable and I really do love working on it. It's just when you get

I think when I had too much of it at a certain point, it was just like not productive and not fun, honestly, like when I didn't have a break from it at all.

Rhaime Kim (43:14)
it's tough because I think when you're in that position, like even if you objectively know this, it's something that you love and you're passionate about and you're eager to create, I think it's like really tough because you don't get to choose when the burnout ends and when that switch when you go from like red to yellow to red or when you go from red to green like early, I don't even I mean, maybe I got the colors mixed up. But so yeah, it's just this tough thing. And I think like it's kind of as we get older,

there could be other conflicts or challenges that come up. So I think it's just a lifelong journey of like figuring that out. One of the last questions I wanted to ask you is what advice would you give to your younger self if you could meet yourself and talk to yourself when you were beginning your entrepreneurial journey?

Maggie Bachenberg (44:03)
Yeah, I would kind of related to what I said earlier, I would say I would encourage myself to just have more conviction in what my opinion is and to trust my gut more because I think that has been something that I wish I would have done in a lot of different scenarios. Like if something, you know, have conviction, but also like if something feels off, like it probably is off and you should like.

examine that and figure out what's wrong and not just like do what somebody else tells you to do because they're like pressuring you into it. Yeah, not a good way to make business decisions is to have other people like kind of push you into them. I don't think that's a good idea for founders.

Rhaime Kim (44:48)
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And like on a smaller scale, like, yeah, I think you're right. When making like for me and my day job, just like as a product manager, it's like you and then when things like get bad or something, you're like, you know, I knew that was going to be the case or I should have looked into it or you propose something, you change it because somebody said something and then you change it back to your original idea. And then, you know, boom, like some time has now passed and all this and.

I do wonder if also like finding that voice and that conviction, you know, being a woman, I think it's just important to kind of unlearn or be aware of the different ways that we like may have faced kind of society encouraging us to not be that way. And so I wonder if there's some unlearning on that front as well. At least I think that's something that I have thought about.

Okay, well, Maggie, thank you so there anything that you'd like to share with the audience? Like, where can the audience find you and how can the audience help you?

Maggie Bachenberg (45:48)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so they can find us at our website. It's bike Pointz dot com Pointz with a Z. And then also you can just search for Pointz on the App Store or Google Play. And we'd love to have you try out the apps and feedback. And yeah, the ways you can help are give feedback for the app and then also.

If you're not into riding bikes, but you know somebody that you'd like to stay safe that does ride a bike or a scooter or an e -bike, send them to us because we're, yeah, we're trying to expand. That's the focus right now is getting more people aware of what we're doing. So that would be helpful.

Rhaime Kim (46:28)
Yeah, that's awesome. And then one last question. Who else do you think we should interview next? Is there like a founder entrepreneur type of company or industry that you think would be super interesting for our next conversation?

Maggie Bachenberg (46:41)
Yeah, there's a couple people that I am friends with in the entrepreneurship community in Rhode Island. You might know them actually. Do you know Lindsey Kuhn from Wingspans by chance?

Rhaime Kim (46:58)
Wingspans? That sounds familiar. I'm not sure. Yeah, but I'd love to reach out to Lindsay.

Maggie Bachenberg (47:04)
Yeah. And then also Dana from Atomics, they won the Brown Venture prize like, I think two years ago. So they're doing really cool and have gotten like some impressive SBIR grants. And I think that would be cool to have on the podcast as well.

Rhaime Kim (47:12)
cool. Yeah.

Ooh, yeah, that sounds good. I'll have to reach out to Lindsay and Dana. Maggie, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Maggie Bachenberg (47:28)
Thank you so much, Rhaime Good to chat and thank you for the thoughtful questions.

Rhaime Kim (47:33)
Thanks.