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