Velocity is all the pieces 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, Sequence.
However their story goes past a quick fundraising spherical — it is about two younger Black founders navigating an trade the place folks like them are nonetheless underrepresented.
“We’re 6’5″, Black and technical — a direct foil to the Harvard story,” Johnson says, referencing Fb’s origin story. “And that distinction is the rationale Sequence tells a brand new story of how folks join on-line.”
Johnson and Hargrow jumped into the world of entrepreneurship with the deep perception that synthetic intelligence can reimagine how folks construct relationships on-line. They believed that skilled networking faces a significant subject 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 Sequence 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, nevertheless it finally ends up being the difference-maker. How might we engineer that luck?“
That concept grew to become the basis for Sequence. Their platform makes use of AI-driven brokers, or “AI mates,” to facilitate introductions. Reasonably than counting on chilly 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 appropriate folks of their prolonged community.
In different phrases, customers can textual content and prepare their “AI good friend” and describe the type of connection they want — whether or not it is a cofounder, investor, mentor or good friend — 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 attempting to be a more recent, cooler Fb — it is attempting to repair what Fb and different platforms get fallacious. Whereas conventional social media focuses on sharing content material and posting about your self, Sequence is constructed round non-public introductions. “Social media is nice for broadcasting, nevertheless it does not essentially enable you to meet the appropriate folks on the proper time,” Johnson says.
Picture credit score: Sequence
Reasonably 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, present platforms — whether or not deliberately or not — strain customers to seem polished and curate posts. Sequence’ customers work together with sentient AI mates who “can get to know you on an intimate stage” and permit for true authenticity.
Reasonably than projecting a picture, customers can obtain steerage and help primarily based on their true personalities. They will then be matched with actual individuals who would possibly develop into mentors or mates.
“We’re not attempting to switch real-world relationships — we’re attempting to make it simpler for folks to seek out the appropriate 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 have been drawn to entrepreneurship.
Johnson has been constructing issues since childhood, together with making strolling sticks for visually impaired folks 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 how one can inform a compelling story to be able to promote a startup thought. What began with chilly emails and heat intros rapidly become a crash course in pitching, studying from preliminary “nos” and determining how one can 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 woman, I am not going to inform her, ‘Properly, I am okay, however there are a whole lot 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 laborious work. Entry performed an enormous function.
“Being at Yale offers us an unprecedented stage of entry to networks we would not have had in any other case,” Hargrow says.
One pivotal connection led to Anne Lee Skates, a widely 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 buyers desirous to guess on the way forward for AI-powered networking.
“That dinner modified all the pieces,” Hargrow says. “I am going to all the time 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 all the time been about extra than simply tech. It is about illustration, entry and creating the type of connections they want they’d had as youngsters.
“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 wanting as much as me now.”
As communication shifts towards AI-assisted interactions, Johnson and Hargrow are betting that folks 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.