#40 Three Startups Enter. Only One Will Leave.

Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every 5 seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing and awareable. So your vitals app now with heart rate variability can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Here are the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later require based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy August 2026. Visit Apple.com/Apple Watch Series 12. Hey everybody, Cassidy Hubbard here. This week on Anne Mom, we spoke with Grammy award-winning musician Karin Bailey Ray about taking her kids on tour, becoming a widow at 29, and how she felt about having a home birth. Check out the latest episode of Anne Mom wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Josh Muccio and from Gimlett Media, this is the pitch, where relaunchpreneurs pitch to real investors. A few months back, the pitch hosted its first ever live show. It was at Gimlett Fest, Gimlett's first ever podcast festival. And at that live show, we did things a little differently. We brought three startups out on stage to pitch to two of our investors. And those investors chose one winner at the end of the show. All right, let's get to it. So without further ado, let's introduce the investors. All right, so number 11 from the Golden State, I mean structure capital, tenacious but gracious Jillian Madness. I think you have some fans here, Jillian. All right. And number zero, because in his words, he's not a real big fan of sports, but he loves video games. Long walks on the, no, that wasn't it. Video games working out and playing chess. No BS investor, Michael Hyatt. Now the moment you've all been waiting for, the real heroes in our show, introducing our first founder, Rami with Hannify. Hello. Hello, Brooklyn. So managing money with a partner is never easy. And for today's generation, it's even more complex because of the way they think about finances. Millennials are getting married later, typically dual incomes, and don't marriage or finances the same way our parents generation did. In fact, two thirds of millennials don't merge their finances even after getting married. My wife and I are a perfect example of this. We got married in our early thirties. I know I look young. We both worked and even after having kids, we never got a joint account. It was good in some ways. I could go to Wendy's without feeling guilty. But at the same time, there were some things that weren't so good. We'd occasionally miss bills because we weren't communicating with each other and who was paying what? There was also an underlying tension that who was paying enough or were we paying an equal share of the household finances and it led to some rough nights on the gouge. It's true. We looked for solutions, right? We wanted to try and find something that could help us manage our money the way we thought about it, but we couldn't. So I got together with my partners and we said, "Guess what? We've got the banking expertise. We've got the technical capability. Let's build this." That's how Hanifai was born. Hanifai is a platform to help couples integrate their finances and achieve their goals together. We launched at the end of last year in both iOS and Android. We've been growing about 30% month-over-month since January. We're raising our seed round to take Hanifai to the next level and we love if you join us to help redefine couples' finances. It's like mint. It's like mint for couples. It's like mint, but better. Okay. First of all, tight pitch. Good job. Question. There are a lot of competitions. The competitive landscape has been done. One of the best ones is Honey Do. What's your special source? What's your differentiator? That's a critical part of really this. Absolutely. One way of a better name than Honey Do. Hanifai goes much further. We actually think we're solving a different problem than Honey Do. Honey Do, from what we've seen and what we know about them, is focused more on helping couples manage build splitting at the end of the day. We're working to go much further than that. For example, we've just signed a bank partnership to integrate a savings account into the experience so we can help couples actually save for those goals, as opposed to just the accounting aspect of it. When we're also going to integrate other products as it makes sense. We're much more focused on how do we help the couples go forward together versus what they're dealing with today. How does this work? I'm going to say this early in Josh. It's going to look at me. Let's talk about the business. Are you trying to make a play on the savings? Are you getting revenue from the big data? Where are you making money? How are you making money? We have three revenue streams. Savings will be one. We'll share in the net interest with our partner, also referrals. As we understand what the challenges are couples are going through. They're about to have a kit. We talk through life insurance, 529, etc. will trust. We think we're in a very good position because these are not your millennials that are looking for avocado toast, no offense. These are people that are going through major life decisions, especially financial life decisions. Do you find that people want to share this information? I think there's probably couples who want to share it. Maybe I don't want them to know if you want to know everything in your partner's bank account. The winner side is it? Show a hand. How do we want to see what's in their partner's bank at all times? How do we want to share what's in your bank account at all times? No. There you go. Exactly. That's why we built Hanover. You get to choose what you share with your partner. That's a whole amount. You can cut out certain places. You can hide accounts if you'd like or you can hide transactions if it's a gift or something like that. Oh, naughty. This is getting this is much better out now. How many of you out there just curiosity hide something from your partner in terms of some of your spending? No. One guy with integrity. You want his people there with their partners? Who's going to admit that? With your partners. That's another dynamic of this. It's the behavioral piece that I worry about with this. It's really how much is really going to be honest and how much do you want to? I really like the space you're in and what you're doing. I think this is a winner. What convinced us of something that I think we're trying to get out here is how are you going to stretch out? I mean, it seems like someone can recreate the saps, get traction and the big thing's going to be marketing costs or customer acquisition costs and getting going. How do you run fast enough to get enough size to matter where I guess you get acquired by NFI or whatever it is? What's the plan here to really get this to be big and branch out? I don't think you're doing anything that's not being done. I like the name. There's other names close to yours. I'm struggling to see why it's you. No, great question. For us, our growth today has been all organic. We haven't had the funds, frankly, to spend money on it. We've been hustling essentially due to a lot of content marketing. We've done some surveys to understand the relationship between money and finance and happiness. That's gotten us into Forbes and CNN money and establishing ourselves as the financial or family financial experts. We're also starting to establish partnerships with distribution partners. I think premarital counselors. Millions of people go through religious and sometimes non-religious premarital counseling. How do we insert ourselves into that program? Really? Is that the biggest one? Not the big. Well, it's a surprising one. But then also working with employers. Creating this as an employee benefit that they can give out to their customers. Talk about your CAC. Talk about your CAC. Your call to acquisition. So, as this is, most of our acquisitions have been organic. We haven't put much into marketing. When we've done tests, it's around 10 bucks. At the previous startup period, which is also in the FinTech space, we were able to see between 7 and 8 bucks. And how much is a client worth to you? We can make an average of about 100 LTV. And how many clients do you have? We have just under 10,000. Okay. And how long has it since you've launched? Seven months. And just question, why do you think this is a product and not just a service? Because mint or any of those others could actually build this out. Correct? Yes and no. So, mint specifically, they have a challenge in that they make a lot of money today referring to banks, credit cards, deposit accounts, et cetera. And their parent company into it makes a lot of their money selling services to banks. So, the moment they start to integrate banking products, they compete with those banks. So, mint specifically, I don't think we'd do this. But it doesn't mean there won't be other competitors. How much you're raising, what are you going to do with it? We're raising a million and a half. And it goes essentially to build the team out. So today, we're not paying ourselves anything, so we need to pair ourselves. We want to hire a couple more engineers and a marketing person. And then we're also going to do some actual marketing. Okay. Josh, thoughts. Are you done? I'm not sure there's not. Surely you have more questions. I do have more questions. Your business, I just take me to one more time. Why are you over the others? Like, what are you offering? Is it just like, are you just saying, I can run faster and better to partnerships than other people? Because I'm sure I buy that. So what is it? Like, I'm actually interested in investing. I actually like the space. I like what you're doing. But why is it you? What is it? Absolutely. So I think ultimately, the problem is not a technology problem, right? This isn't. It's a banking problem. It's a psychological problem, understanding people's preferences. So our team, so myself, I've been at work to Bank of America. I've worked at Ernst New Young in management consulting, advising large banks. Prior to this, I was COO at a startup here in New York called Moven, Moven, which was one of the first alternative or digital banks. And I helped grow Moven's business from the ground up, both in the US as well as internationally. And we believe that this is a global opportunity. We have people today trying to use our app from Denmark and wherever else. And they're very angry at Canada. They're very upset that they couldn't get up. Canadians never get angry. Never get it. It's a lie. They were. They are. They just don't show it. They're very repressed. So why did you start this business? Honestly, it was a combination of personal and professional. And the personal level of my wife and I struggled with it. When we found out, we were having our third kid, nice. We suddenly realized, can we still live in New York? Can we afford to show our kids from school? Should we move out to the suburbs? And we ended up having a much bigger conversation, I'll say, then we intended. And we realized we'd never actually talked about finances together. We'd never actually come up with a plan. We'd never actually agreed on how we were going to do things. And that tension had always been underneath the service. And it bubbled up. But you did know about Honeydew or did you not at that time? Was it not around? And did you look at other apps and alternatives? Yeah. So we technically started before Honeydew did. We took a break when we moved. We had a third kid and all that kind of stuff, which slowed our development down a little bit. But I don't look at competition purely as a bad thing, right? I mean, I can tell you, John Hancock spent significant sums of money trying to create this. And we talk to banks, my friends who work at banks, and they're trying to solve this problem every day. How do we capture millennials? Especially couples, because they know they are the most important customer base for them. And so for us, we think that's a great validation. Okay. So how many people in the team? Three. What's your burn? Just under 5K. 5K? Yeah. I didn't think I've ever done my life. You're not using yourself. We're selling ourselves. What is that? I just wanted to say. We're not. That's great. Coffee. Where are you? Is this out of your house? Obviously no rent. No, anything. Is it? Yeah, you guys out of your house right now? No. So we're based in Charlotte. So it's just a cheaper market. Yeah. There you go. Time is up. What? Time is up. Okay. You're just getting in. I know. I'm just getting going. I know. It's hard. All right. Rami, thank you so much. Thank you. Well done. Fantastic. All right. Our next founder is PK Banks with C-Box. Hey guys, it's great to be here. In developed economies, 70% of people know about cryptocurrency. And yet only 5% own any. There is a tremendous market gap between awareness and adoption. And there is a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on that if we can just get to the core of why that gap exists. To get most cryptocurrencies, you have to find your way to an obscure exchange. You have to probably wait on a wait list, go through some complex UI that's tailored to a trader, not to like an ordinary consumer. And the worst part about it is you can't just buy cryptocurrency with a credit card or US dollars. All right. You have to actually bring cryptocurrency from somewhere else, use it to get cryptocurrency. Well, this is way too much to ask for an ordinary person to get through. So take a moment and close your eyes. And imagine with me a world in which getting cryptocurrency is as easy and familiar as placing an order on Amazon and having it sent to your door. Well, you can open your eyes now. You don't have to imagine it because I'm holding that solution right here. We acquire five cryptocurrencies for you out of the top 100 by market cap. We secure them using military-grade encryption on this device. This is a C block. And it is the starter kit to join the cryptocurrency revolution. So we launched a pilot. And in 30 days, we generated sales of more than $30,000. We had international interest shipping to customers in eight countries on five continents. And so we're doing a seed round to launch our product in Canada and to make cryptocurrency within reach for anybody. Yeah. There you go. Okay. So let's walk through what's on that key. So I ordered that key. And is that an electronic wallet on there? And then you updated electronically. She was going to drive, right? This is a USB drive. And for those of you who aren't familiar, cryptocurrencies have wallets. And that's what describes a private key that gives you the credentials to sell cryptocurrency. And a wallet is really just that that private key. Okay, but I buy that. And you send it to me out five cryptocurrencies. This is the five top market caps. So like the top one. Top 100. Yeah, that's how I want it. Okay, so you get top 100. I bought five. You send me it. And there's 50 bucks on there. We have packages of different packages. Okay, now I got the key. Yes. Okay, you know, what do I do with it? Great. So we have clients who we've interviewed to follow up and say, what is it that you've done with your product? And the responses vary. The themes are first, they love owning it. Merely like having it allows them to be a part of it. The next response is I use this as a gateway to crypto because it was too hard to get started. So we had one particular customer say, I've joined the online communities of the currencies that I've acquired. And I've even started mine. Okay, but okay, stop there. So I've got the five. And if I want more, you can send me more electronically. Do I buy another key? This is a natural follow up request that we have from our customer. So one time by key. One time. Whatever size. Correct. Okay. Okay, so I have so many problems with this. All right, I have to be honest with you. Okay, first of all, there are huge regulatory problems, huge, which I think is probably why you had to move to Canada. Or did you start here and have to move to Canada? Or did you start in Canada? Be honest on this because the regulatory issues around this are saying. I'm not trying to be, you know, mean here. I'm just trying to be really honest on this. Sure. The reason why we're launching in Canada is we discovered that Canadian regulatory agencies are much more accessible and willing to work with businesses to make cryptocurrency and digital currencies. So let's go back to your business. How is this not a gimmick? Okay, here we go. So this is, you're selling people a key. It's almost like you're selling unsophisticated people a physical object with a randomly generated top 100. Hold on, coins. Here's the problem with the coins. The coins you're selling are, I don't know, people are buying the coins because they believe them. They have some utility. They're doing something. But I don't know what it is. I don't know what the coin does. And then I'm not even sure I'm going to get liquidity out of this coin. Like why am I buying is besides buying? I don't know. Some other trinket at a, at a, I still get it. Sure. Let me, let me take you back to how we got here. And that'll help explain how this is into gimmick. And so I have a Wall Street background before a software developer. I was a hedge fund manager for almost 10 years. Okay. So I have a lot of people and finance. They come to me saying, what is up with this crypto stuff and how do I get started? It's too hard to understand. It's too hard to get started. So I tell them, like here you go. This is how you go through the exchange. PK, would you just make it easy for me? I would love for you to just pick. I want to get started. This is how the product just first came out. Why did you just pick Bitcoin or Ether to the big ones? Or is something really big? And also, once again, why is this not a pump and dump? First of all, I mean, basically you are, and the fact that, you know, you were hedge funds, it makes a lot of sense to me, actually, but you're very bright. I mean, clearly you're super, super bright. So I'm not, I'm not negating that. I'm just saying that this seems a little bit scammy, a little bit scammy. And how do you, what's a process you go through to validate these companies? And how are you picking these for me, one, and how are you not gaming the system? He's companies, you mean these cryptocurrencies? Yeah, yeah, I mean because it can be you're elevating, right, the appetite for them. You are the appetite for them. So are they bound to suspend it, or is it an investment view? No, you can't. There isn't a way. So we view this as a product, not an investment, and it's an opportunity to get started and to learn how, like how it works, more than trying to trade. So most of the cryptocurrency businesses out there, they're either issuing their own tokens or coins, or they're facilitating the exchange of them to make money to pump and dump. With our product, we ship you the random selection to alleviate you of the need to analyze which ones you need to pick, to analyze which one is valuable more than the other, and we don't facilitate the trading of other things. Imagine you do that with stocks, would you think I was a good idea? You send me a key with five stocks, randomly SNP, do you think that's a good investment? So if we were to do that with stocks, I'm not so sure that's how that's all that different from, say, joining a new exchange that I won't name, and getting a randomly chosen stock because you signed up, right? Yeah, okay. So you're, this is random, can you just clarify what randomly choosing for that? So it is truly a random selection, there is, there is an algorithm that we write that is a random selector out of the top 100. There is no analysis provided by us, we don't give guidance on which things to buy. And so in that way, we tailor the solution to be a product, not an investment. Okay, so many coins, the one you just sent me. We provide you with the private key and an opportunity with guides that we have as content on our site that give you the instructions for how to sell it. That's a simple, you monetize some of this as well in terms of the transfer. Yeah, so it is not a natural way to use this to sell it, but you have the ability to do so because you own the private keys yourself. And I say something positive, you'll be shocked, are you shocked? Yes. Okay, there are two things. First of all, see, she doesn't like it on there, but okay, so internally that's how I'm feeling. But let me say something positive, I don't want to say something positive because I really believe that in order to work and be a good investor, you want someone to roll their eyes. Okay, you want to have a contrarian company. You don't want all of us to sit here saying, oh, this sounds fantastic, that's not what you want. You want to hear the nose, but you want to hear interesting, right, nose. That's the way that you're going to learn, that's the way you're going to evolve. So let me give you the flip side, because you heard all my nose, all right, putting aside all the regulatory issues and the fact that this may be a little bit of a pump and dump and the fact that you had to move to Canada to invert all the regulations here in the US. If you look on the flip side of this, I think utility tokens are dope. I think they are exactly where all companies should be. And I think tokenizing is going to be the path to success for a lot of companies. And so I do think this on-ramp that you're creating is a positive if you can get all these pieces. Yes? Okay. Michael, what do you think? Yeah, so I think that cryptocurrency in general is, I think a good 98% of it's going to get washed out, and I think you know that as well. I think what you're doing is cute. I think it's gimmicky. I think you can be better than this. Let me tell you how I think you can be better. I think selling people that key would make sense if you use your expertise to give them things that you thought would go up in value, at least have the equity of utility. No one in this audience should ever invest in anything unless you do the homework. And if you don't, we all deserve to lose our money. You got to do the homework and I actually believe that people should do the work behind cryptocurrency and buy things they believe in for a reason. You know, for example, you might say right now that Ethereum is really good because most developers and the world on crypto are on Ethereum. You know, so there should be reason behind the investment. So I think if your key had some things that you selected and people spend a hundred bucks or fifty something to Minimists and it was expertly curated, I think that's thoughtful. The random. You don't like it, it's random. So I don't like the randomness. Like it's kind of like it's almost like a pretend way of investing on this and I think people should do the homework. I don't think that one thing people should know about all the tokens you buy, the likelihood that you can get liquidity on most of them is very low. For example, on the top hundred there's a whole bunch on there that only trade on certain networks and are very hard to get any money out of. Those things that people just don't know, it's easy to buy, very hard to sell. So I mean, as an investment, no, I don't like this. I think it's cute. It's almost like I tied this to be something like you'd buy it in Niagara Falls at a gift store, you know? Well, you went into something, hold it. I'm going to stop on that because you brought up something really interesting. Long time ago I had a problem with a chemical Robinhood, right? There we go. And I was so wrong. I mean, I was so wrong. So basically what Robinhood is, it's a, you know, you buy these stocks, you have no background to it. They just crushed it. They raised that. What was it? A $5 billion, basically. And so, I mean, this company went right through the roof. You had no education on this of what the stocks you were buying. And I thought that was so irresponsible, I can't tell you. I think there's irresponsible to this a little bit. And I don't know all the bits and pieces and I'd have to dive in. But I think this is one of the cases where I really didn't like this company, really didn't like them when you were first pitching it. But I think that there is something that we have to sort of opt in a bit on this in terms of where this might go. And once again, using this as an on-ramp to cryptocurrency for the expansion of what I think is going to be a very big future in blockchain. All right. Time. I'm sorry. We have to go on. We have one other company to see. Thank you very much, PK. Thank you, PK. Thank you. When we come back, one final pitch, and then the investors pick a winner. That is, if Jillian and Michael can agree. You don't understand me. Yes, yes I don't. Yes, I don't. At T-Mobile, the new iPhone 18 Pro is here with a big leap in battery life. And you can get it on us with so many reasons to choose T-Mobile you don't want to talk about it. At T-Mobile, you can get iPhone 18 Pro on them. Pass it on. My friends said you can get it on T-Mobile. Pass it on. They got the best network with the fastest speeds. Hey Mickey, pass it on. iPhone 18 Pro has the most advanced iPhone camera ever, pass it on. I heard it T-Mobile. You can get it on them, pass it on. For a limited time at T-Mobile, get the amazing iPhone 18 Pro on us. With up to 36 month of build credit, when you trade in and elevate to a device example, iPhone 16 out of qualifying plan, example $100 plus a month, plan without a pay plus taxes and fees. For well-qualified customers plus tax and $35 of price connection charge, credit is in balance, too, if you pay over a layer of cancel finance agreement $11.9999 iPhone 18 Pro 256 gigabyte to acquire the best and fastest mobile network in the US based on analysis by Uclips Speed Test Intelligence Data 1-8-2020-26 is a T-Mobile.com. Welcome back. You're listening to The Pitch Live, a startup competition. All right, finally, our last founders, Scott and Dan, with OpenBottle. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello, Josh. Hello, investors. How are you? Time for a sample. Are we trying for a drink? Ooh. Nice. A note in a bottle? We are. Where? Is that the one I tried in the green room? I was really good. Unfortunately, no. I have some nice wines. So, hello, Brooklyn. Woo! I'm psyched of beer. My name is Dan. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello, Josh. Hello, Josh. Hello, investors. How are you? I'm here. My name is Dan Roycroft. And I'm Scott Steffen. And we're the co-founders of OpenBottle. And this is an amazing bottle of wine. But what's not so important about that bottle of wine? It's how the bottle was emptied. You see a couple of weekends ago. Myself and five others, almost complete strangers, got together to share and experience that bottle. The bottle of wine, Dan, was holding, is a 1998 Penfolds Grange, amazing wine. 60-second finish, just fantastic wine. It's on my bucket list. But this is the problem. So that bottle is 400, maybe 500, plus tax and tip to buy it. And I want to taste it as an individual. And I can't do that. It's too expensive to buy the entire bottle. Well, that's not the case anymore with OpenBottle. We have a patent pending, a technology called Reserva Glass. And with Reserva Glass, users can review listings, select wines that they're interested in, and reserve one or two or three glasses of a particular bottle. For the restaurants, it's that simple as well. We can list everything on their wine list, or anything they want us to list on their wine list, in the OpenBottle app. Then they can sell these wines, by the glass. There's a reserve. Once it hits the reserve, that glass is sold for the restaurant and there's zero risk to them. Oh, ah. That was that thing. So help us and join us to encork a $14 billion industry. Open bottle is literally transforming. The way wine is purchased, shared and experienced. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. Okay. So there are so many positive things about this. Let's talk a little bit about the economics of it. I mean, I get the wine restaurants to do this. I also think hotels would do this for sure. All right. I'm an investor in Michael Meena Group. We have 20, whatever, 30 restaurants, and I get this. But tell us a little bit about the user experience. How far advanced do you have to order this? And also, is this, I mean, for the older group, the older subset, I don't know if I would spend time online. I assume taking a little. It's the first question. Go through the economics. Go through your first question. So can we reframe the economics question? I'm just trying to. Yeah. How do you make money? Well, how do you make money? Yeah. So we make money basically through the restaurant. So right now, it's a subscription fee, as well as a small percentage on top of every transaction for that glass. So walk us through that. So the restaurant subscribes your app, and users describe the app. I walk in, someone opens a bottle and I buy a glass out of it. No, no. So the restaurant pays? Walk us through this thing step by step. The restaurant pays a monthly subscription of access to the open bottle network. Right? So there are everyone carrying around a phone here. I think maybe. So everyone has the app on their phone. The restaurants can speak directly to those consumers now. They have a channel. Okay. So the restaurant pays a subscription of access to the network. How much? Every time it's $30 to $40 a month. It's around $30. Okay. 30 a month. Yep. Okay. Every time someone reserves a glass, we take a percentage of that glass price. How much? 10%. So, those are the issues. Confused why people are doing this. I go to a restaurant or a bottle of wine or buy a glass. You're saying people just reserve a glass before they get there? Absolutely. What? Really? But I mean, you have buy the glass or buy the wine. Are you saying that like because it's an unopened, it's not a normal buy the glass bottle? Correct. Correct. Yeah. One of my biggest pet peeves is going to this restaurant to have these bloody glasses of wine that are so mediocre, right? That you think you're so, okay, one have it. Where this actually restaurant would definitely be able to optimize because they'll really be able to dip into some of their big bottles. But if you open a bottle and only sold one glass, what happens to the restaurant? No, they don't. That's what they're saying is you won't be able to, am I right? You won't be able to open it up unless you reserve the restaurant as a reserve. Right. Okay. So we got to bring Michael with us. Okay. Right. Right. I don't know if the millennials will actually spend time really looking and seeing what wines are interesting or are they? So tell me about your customer acquisition right now. Can I address this? The user experience really quick? Yes, please. Okay. So think of it this way, right? We're in a boring conference room. We're listening to someone drone on about something that we're not interested about. Your phone buzzes, yep, you're the person who's looking at their phone, but should be paying attention in the meeting and it's a noise from open bottle. Your favorite restaurant or a restaurant in your area just listed a great bottle of wine. Oh. I tap on it. It's from open bottle. Holy smokes. Thursday happens. This restaurant on Thursday between six and 11 30 pm is going to make this bottle available for by the glass servings. By the way, they'll have a great pairing with it, all this other information. Reserve your glass now. I think to myself Thursday's date night. I've been looking for a reason to go here. I got my wine reserved. Now it's date night. Here's the issue, right? I mean, you're assuming that that's how people buy wine. What you're describing is a niche subset of the wine. You have to really be in a wine to do what you're doing to look at your phone, find an app, find a bottle. The average person's not going to do that. The average American consumer does not do that today. That's what I said. But I mean, like you're, but no, think you're obsessing a little too much about the wine. I don't think people go, you know, honey, we really need to go to this restaurant because I can buy this one glass of wine there. That sounds like a little bit. I'm going to so disagree with you on this. I mean, a little bit. Because I mean, this whole foodie revolution is just picking up steam. Everybody is sort of wanting to get a board. I actually think this might be becoming a way for people to enjoy wine and be able to acquaint themselves with wine better. And also, I think it's an opportunity for the labels themselves, right, to utilize you. I think you should be able to get revenues from the labels, okay, as well as the restaurants. I'm a little bit concerned about charging the restaurants. But I really do like the idea that it's driving people to the restaurants. So you're working on both ways of customers, acquiring customers, where the restaurants are working with you to drive people right to acquire. You're acquiring for the brand, for the labels. I think there's a lot of win-win-win. So tell me what keeps you up at night. What are your biggest challenges right now? For me, it's the scalability piece, the growth of both sides of this equation. So tell me about the growth. What's been going faster? What are the biggest problems there? Yeah, indeed. So chicken or egg. Do you onboard the restaurants? Do you onboard consumers? How do you incrementally achieve that? How are you doing it now? Yeah. So right now, we've been working with five core restaurants in our local area and we've been onboarding around Buffalo, New York. What's the average cost? Buffalo, New York? Yeah. Do they have wine there? Buffalo? Somebody? One? All right. I think there's some tailgate parties there. You're succeeding in Buffalo, New York? What's the average price for a glass of wine? What's the average in Buffalo, New York, and what's your average? That's awesome. Good question. That's a really good question. So our average for the old ball network is between 20 and 25 dollars for a glass of wine? That's up there. We do have some across it. You know, we do cover a range. We're definitely doing some maybe testing. You guys have been previewed. I'll disagree with me on this. You think that that's normal, that because I think that's not normal. That is not in fact. That's not normal. Normal dining America doesn't spend 20, 25 bucks a glass of wine. Your five point is not. How many people here want to pick a restaurant by 20, 25 dollar glass of wine? Use this app. Not going to happen. Oh, I got one. I got two, three. I'm just I all I'm trying to make the point is I like what you're doing. I just think it's Nishi. Well, I think the price point is really problematic. And I think we're going to we can work on we can work on driving the price points down as we demonstrate value of the restaurant value of the restaurant value to the brand 1000 bucks on a bottle of wine. That's fine, but that's not normal. That's also not the market that we're after. Even 200 bucks. I mean, the one we just had back there is probably 200 bucks. That's no kidding. So I'm not I would say the average glass of wine in in Buffalo is eight bucks. So the price of the house wine. Absolutely. It's eight dollars. So the house wine is garbage. So how much traction do you have on this? How many customers do you have? We've got five restaurants. Yeah, in Buffalo five restaurants. We sold over 200 glasses of high quality wine over the last three months. Three months? Yeah. It's on five. Buffalo, New York. That's that's sorry. I'm sure it's a lovely plan. This is my point. It is just right. I think this is a very thin slice of the wine market. It's a very thin slice of the upper it's it's for pretty rich people. You know what? If you can get the pricing right? They don't they don't control the price. Don't you doesn't that's in the restaurant control it? So it is it is a good point. We work with a restaurant to set a glass price. We have a glass price calculator that helps them so that we've found over these 200 glasses. It drives a volume into the restaurant or not. So there's some hits or misses and we're optimizing that pricing over time though. I think when we really start to demonstrate the value to the restaurant that no one number one they're taking that locked up inventory some restaurants have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of of wine in their sellers and we're turning that inventory into cash. So it's a way cheaper as a loss leader to get them in. That's an option for the restaurant as well. That's a great that's a great but way cheaper doesn't buy it. I think we can do some things with the sharing economy that your proposition is you're going to get a glass an expensive glass for most people of a great bottle of wine. I'm not sure there's that many people that want that in a mass market. I mean as you rise up to how many people here spend 20, 25 bucks a glass when you go out and have a glass of wine. But I think the price is very very thin. I mean right here that was like 2% of the audience. I'm telling you it's a very, very thin. I think the pricing is a big issue. But Michael respectfully truly we are we move 200 classes high-end glasses. Nothing but nothing but nothing. No buff there's nothing wrong with what we've shown before. What were these restaurants seen before? Yes. And then after with your solution. Yeah what are they? What are they? How much of the int was there in an increase in sales between what they were doing before? Was this a new business? No, so thank you Josh. That's what matters, right? It's a new business. What's that? And you know so the availability of a 20, 25 dollar glasses isn't there today. Today you have to buy that bottle. Today that's a 150, 100, 75 dollar bottle. But you boys that bottle today. I mean who goes in and buys 100 it's not all you do like I but I don't but I mean I'm telling you like not many people do I'm trying to make the point is your like people who go to wine clubs love you. Okay, so here's the thing She's like this one of the biggest we have to go. I got I got one. I don't think this is gonna slow down It's okay. I have to cut it right here It's good. I have one if you open the app today there's $12 and $14 glass in there as well. Okay Okay $12 $14 glasses include taxant tips. So that's all in there already You should have said that before when we said that's that's the price thing you want right? One of the more interested right you should be saying we have the range between the 14 and the 25 Thank you Jillian and free wine for everybody One of them's a wine spectator top 50 as well You've got to like them though, right? Nice guys Can I make a comment on on on on the people that came out the number one thing you look for in these startups Because of the very early stage is can they are can you work with them and can they pivot all companies pivot? No matter what they'll pivot all these companies gonna pivot five times But can you work with them as a person are they likeable and will they pivot that's it? Yeah, you're betting on the person you're betting on the founders because whatever you're starting with here Ink on in which end he's not going to end with yeah, you've got to like the party. Let's recap these companies Okay, lay it on the line. Go ahead. So we had honey five first the app that lets couples manage finances together one person likes that C blocks a website This is not correct. It's not a website a USB stick that hopes to be people's gateway into crypto Michael's rolling his eyes and open bottle the app that gives people access to otherwise unaffordable fine wine Can we cheat a bit and actually say okay? How many people would use honey five razor hands Wait, how many people use honey five? They're not here for the founders. Hey guy Okay, no crypto how many people gonna use a crypto key who's buying it? I see and who's buying a glass in Buffalo. Let's say it was here Yeah, let's say forget about Buffalo who would buy who would use this to kind of Buy a glass that maybe they haven't tried before for 25 bucks. No for 14 That's the starter You're gonna spend 25 bucks in a glass tonight. Yeah, you know this Sharaz. This is an excellent bottle Sharaz Does he does he really spend 25 bucks? Yes, you're gonna have a great dinner tonight. Yeah, this is this is gonna work So if you already made up your minds you guys don't need to chat this out anymore. I made up my mind. I made up my mind Okay, I know he's gonna go for honey pot honey five It really needs a better branding. Don't respond to that. I know what she's gonna pick. Oh, yeah, absolutely. He knows what I'm She started knowing is she White me this happens all right. Let's bring the founders back out. Yes. Yes. I don't Yes, I don't Good answer. That's right. Now there does Here we go All right. This is the moment of truth Who wants to go first? Jillian does No, she doesn't Okay, I mean, I'll go first because I'm courageous um So uh The honey fire I think is inherent. There are a lot of complications in it and I really do see That it it might be more of a service than a product. I worry about Honeydew being out so far and I don't he I haven't heard a total differentiator But on the other side you have such a deep banking and you're Your acumen your expertise. So as a team I would put your team probably first because of your background and the fact that I know you're gonna do this well So you're picking honey fire? No so um But um okay I Still see this as a slightly Dump okay, it could be perceived as that I do realize that you had to move to Canada that you must have because there are too many gray areas regulatory here in the United States Um, I actually think you're on to something really amazing, okay And for the same reasons I didn't like Robin Hood. I don't like this because I think there's a lot of irresponsibility in this But I also believe that you Need to keep going and people need to have better engagement with crypto I think it says blockchain is not going to be just a disruptive technology I think it's going to be a foundational one for this world And so I'd like the fact that you're giving people on unwrap I'm still very worried about how the process you're using so for that reason I'm going to pass on you So open bottle you know what guys? I kind of love this And maybe it's because I am invested in so many restaurants. I see this really doing well I know there are a lot of wines that I always want to try I have to cut you off because we are at time and we have I'm feeling like I have a tiebreaker here. Yeah, so Sorry, I didn't mean to open bottle I really like you guys as founders. I could work with you. You guys are great guys I think that you are going to pivot this I don't think the business model as it is works I think it's too nichey too expensive I think there's a way to get people into expensive bottles on the cheap somehow And I think you're going to figure that out I'm actually interested in the business and I want to have a conversation with you after I'm not uninterested investing I actually like you guys and think you have something and I like the factor in Buffalo actually I like the fact you're starting there crypto I like the space a lot. I think what you're selling the products wrong I think you're going into an interesting direction the proxies and right for me I think you make a lot of good points I think you can probably just sell a Bitcoin key to a lot of people and you're probably doing them a favor or something maybe But I don't like the randomness Michael turns to honey-fi If I would invest in a company today and I think I can scale it and sell it It's yours. Let me tell you why I'd invest in you such as I like you a lot. I think you're a great guy I like the reason you started the business Entrepreneurs that start businesses because they have a need are the best and you guys too And I think that what you're doing is that you can scale quick and if I invest it in you I bet you we could sell you to an fi when the next three years and do terrifically well I think I can make a lot of money out of you. That's why I'd probably invest So it's you All right We have a tiebreaker on our hands so I think we're gonna have to have the audience choose the winner totally How do you guys feel about this? all right Who thinks honey-fi should take on the prize today make it up All right, who thinks open bottle should take on the prize Folks, it's pretty clear the winner is honey-fi Robbie Hey, congratulations guys How do you feel awesome? It's awesome. Thank you and thank you. Did you think you'd win? Uh, I don't know not really, but I mean, yes, of course Just edit that please I will absolutely not All right guys. Thank you so much for coming out. Thank you. Thank you all the founders for coming out Jillian Michael you guys are legends as always. I do want to say thank you to my team Kareem molly blight and those who aren't here Lisa and Ena Kim We've fantastic team was working hard weekend and week out to bring these episodes out So anyway, and thank you all for coming out. It's been a blast the pitch will be back August 15th Don't miss it. See you guys You So what you just heard was the very first live show for the pitch We had a great time and we think the audience did too But I want to know what do you think we're thinking about doing more live shows in the future So we want to know did you like it and would you come to one of our live shows in person Let us know on Twitter at the pitch show or send a quick email to the pitch at gimletmedia.com If you're an entrepreneur raising money for your startup you can apply to pitch on our show by going to the pitch.show/apply Our next taping will be this November in New York City and as always Thanks for listening. We'll be back with our new season in two weeks on August 15th. Get ready.