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Speaker 1: pushing your vision forward. I mean, we know the statistics.
Speaker 1: We hear about it, the percentages that minority founders you know,
Speaker 1: are able to have access to. What was that like
Speaker 1: for you, obviously being being a woman a founder talk
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: I really liked being an outsider in the sense it
Speaker 2: was similar to when I just started to start the
Speaker 2: business from NASA.
Speaker 3: At first, people were.
Speaker 2: Telling me, Hey, you've got to go with a pitch deck,
Speaker 2: go to the valley, go to vcs.
Speaker 3: But the vcs weren't trying to rock with me.
Speaker 2: They didn't think that there was a market for what
Speaker 2: I was looking to do.
Speaker 3: Business has been around for ten years.
Speaker 2: You're wrong, right, So one of the things that I'd
Speaker 2: like to say is stop taking advice from people who
Speaker 2: haven't done what you're trying to do with LINGO. I'm like, eh,
Speaker 2: I don't think I want to raise venture capital.
Speaker 3: I know what the stats are. They're terrible.
Speaker 2: How do I look at the model and how do
Speaker 2: I flip the model on its head?
Speaker 3: Because that's what I do.
Speaker 2: And when I looked at it, I said, vcs get
Speaker 2: their money from family offices.
Speaker 3: Why don't I try to hit up a couple of
Speaker 3: family offices.
Speaker 2: Now I know why people don't typically hit up family offices,
Speaker 2: but I was determined once again to try, and I
Speaker 2: had the time, and oh, by the way, I had
Speaker 2: the patience because I'm already running a business that's successful
Speaker 2: that I've had for ten years.
Speaker 3: So let's try to figure this out. So I made
Speaker 3: a list of.
Speaker 2: Family offices who were in businesses that I thought that
Speaker 2: could be strategic investors. And the gamble that I made was, well,
Speaker 2: if I can get a multi billion dollar family who
Speaker 2: has the right investment mindset and is willing to support
Speaker 2: me and understands the long term of what I'm.
Speaker 3: Looking to do. Can I also bring in traditional capital?
Speaker 3: And the answer was yes.
Speaker 2: So I did a founder led seed round where I
Speaker 2: brought in a million and a half from a family office,
Speaker 2: and then I went to the other vseas and said,
Speaker 2: do you want to play?
Speaker 4: How did that work out?
Speaker 2: It worked out well because if I've already brought in
Speaker 2: a million and a half and you're going to sip
Speaker 2: in one hundred thousand dollars, that million and a half
Speaker 2: is going to help your hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: So I basically de risked the round for you. And
Speaker 3: that's one of the.
Speaker 2: Areas that I've been big on telling other minorities to
Speaker 2: pursue was what I call friendly patient capital. I call
Speaker 2: my investors like they're my dad. I'm like, hey, what
Speaker 2: do you guys doing. Here's what I'm working on. And
Speaker 2: part of the things that were not, you know, non
Speaker 2: negotiable for this family was that you were going to
Speaker 2: do good and you were going to do well right.
Speaker 3: It's not just the dollar, It's about the legacy.
Speaker 2: And so when I tell them that kids in Ghana
Speaker 2: are doing our kids have the video, love it They're like,
Speaker 2: that's what you're supposed to do, right, go out and
Speaker 2: make that impact, whereas some people who have you know,
Speaker 2: domestic vcs are not necessarily as lucky to have people
Speaker 2: who think in that way.
Speaker 4: So, okay, so you raise the money that helps you
Speaker 4: with infrastructure and employees. I'm assuming, So are you raising
Speaker 4: more money? What's the goal?
Speaker 3: Yes, you can definitely hit me up if.
Speaker 2: You want to send a check. Check.
Speaker 4: How much are you trying to raise?
Speaker 2: I would like to raise about a million more and
Speaker 2: pot path to our Series A.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2: Some of our clients are big firms.
Speaker 3: Talking Siemens General Dynamics.
Speaker 2: General Dynamics has been a customer's ours for the last
Speaker 2: three years.
Speaker 3: Microsoft buys from us. Right, we have big companies who
Speaker 3: have engineers who buy from US.
Speaker 4: What do they buy the software?
Speaker 3: They buy the kids so they can teach employees, They have.
Speaker 2: Their employees go into the schools, or they provide it
Speaker 2: as capacity building for the schools that they sponsor. And
Speaker 2: as I started to do this, we started talking to
Speaker 2: school districts. Shout out to Syracuse School District. And I'm
Speaker 2: realizing that this mission and this need is even bigger
Speaker 2: than I knew.
Speaker 3: Like when I thought about it, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: we're just going to ship out.
Speaker 2: Some kids, But it's really become about how can we
Speaker 2: help make a district better?
Speaker 3: And that is a problem of a much larger.
Speaker 2: Magnitude and it takes more time. And we're also now
Speaker 2: building custom kits, like we're about to drop three holes
Speaker 2: space lessons. We got a climate satellite, we got a
Speaker 2: buggy coming out. That buggy's a moon rubber, and we
Speaker 2: also have a rocket launch. And in building all all
Speaker 2: this content, I'm like, you know what, bo, we take
Speaker 2: a little bit more capital, take our time, and really
Speaker 2: do something that is going to move the needle.
Speaker 1: How many lessons are inside these kids? Because I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: and this was an elementary middle school and obviously high
Speaker 1: school probably different, but it felt like they were just
Speaker 1: for semesters, and so there was a semester with the
Speaker 1: lessons and there was a new set of kids. So
Speaker 1: forth semesters of kids in the grade every year. How
Speaker 1: many lessons are inside of your kids right now?
Speaker 3: So it depends on what you want.
Speaker 2: And this is the beauty of it, because we designed
Speaker 2: this to be flexible. You can have two to three
Speaker 2: semesters worth in your kid if you want.
Speaker 3: It's all about what you ask us for.
Speaker 2: So we developed content for every lesson for the classroom,
Speaker 2: and you could teach that over semester.
Speaker 3: You could teach it over too.
Speaker 4: So school districts aren't really buying it for you. For
Speaker 4: the most part. Is corporations as buying it.
Speaker 3: It's mostly been corporations.
Speaker 2: If you're out in the district, yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think the challenge right is there's a lot going on
Speaker 2: in the district environment, and we've got some good connections
Speaker 2: and we're making progress. But this is where I'm not
Speaker 2: ashamed to say I need help. The people who purchase
Speaker 2: from us, they love us. But I started to realize
Speaker 2: what we were really up against when it comes to
Speaker 2: ads and marketing and all that stuff. And that's really
Speaker 2: why I was like, I got to go back to
Speaker 2: the drawing board and raise more money because I did
Speaker 2: not know how expensive it was to really advertise.
Speaker 3: And read some of these people.
Speaker 1: Is it a price point issue? Because I feel like
Speaker 1: schools wet so much money on some of the most
Speaker 1: ridiculous things, and they do it repetibly every single year,
Speaker 1: And so when you're approaching schools or school districts. Are
Speaker 1: they saying, well, it's the price point, we don't have
Speaker 1: it in the budget this year. What is the resistance
Speaker 1: you feel? Because every school has them, so I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to fig what would be the resistance.
Speaker 2: So we actually do not see resistance once we get
Speaker 2: in front of the right person. What I see is
Speaker 2: the amount of money that I have to invest to
Speaker 2: have somebody reach out, form the relationship, do the presentation,
Speaker 2: put the proposal in front of whoever has to make
Speaker 2: the decision, close the deal, and then get paid. Can
Speaker 2: be roughly six to eight months, and that's really where
Speaker 2: we have to support the operation until they can close
Speaker 2: the deal. And so the challenge in my mind is
Speaker 2: how can we do more of these deals and shorten
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 4: So what's the ultimate vision for the company.
Speaker 2: My vision for Lingo would be to not only be
Speaker 2: a global provider of immersive STEM experiences like I would
Speaker 2: like to get to the point where some of our
Speaker 2: boxes interact with Oculus, but to combine that with the
Speaker 2: entrepreneurship thing. Because when I teach the Lingo Box in
Speaker 2: the Bahamas, and I've had this camp for nearly ten years,
Speaker 2: I couple it with entrepreneurship, and then I give kids
Speaker 2: money to go out and try to run their business
Speaker 2: because I believe that you don't have to have a
Speaker 2: college degree to be a multi millionaire. You just need
Speaker 2: to have entrepreneurship skills.
Speaker 3: And it's like a muscle.
Speaker 2: The more that you exercise it, the stronger that you're
Speaker 2: gonna get. So I want students trying to build their
Speaker 2: first startup when they're twelve or their thirteen, because by
Speaker 2: the time they're twenty, they're going to be beasts.
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