Skip to main content

Prepare yourself for an unapologetic dive into the world of entrepreneurial grit and authenticity as Susan delves into the daring journey of Josh Chodniewicz, the visionary behind Fundify. In a candid dialogue, Josh unveils his revolutionary approach to startup investing, dismantling barriers and reshaping the landscape for both investors and entrepreneurs.

Topics covered in the interview

Democratizing Startup Funding and Investing

Evolution of Technology and Impact on Society

Equity Crowdfunding and Investing for Non-Accredited Individuals

Startup Funding and Investment Process

 

Josh Chodniewicz Bio

In the dynamic realm of entrepreneurship, few names resonate as powerfully as Josh Chodniewicz. Not just an entrepreneur, but a leading expert in regulations in crowdfunding, entrepreneurship and investing in startups, Josh has consistently been at the forefront of industry evolution.

His brainchild, Fundify, stands tall in the startup investment landscape. It’s not just another platform; it’s a distinctive beacon of democratization and fairness. Historically, only wealthy, accredited investors could access this asset class. But Fundify is changing that by democratizing startup investing and empowering both accredited and non-accredited investors, allowing investments starting from just $1. Fundify embodies Josh’s unwavering commitment to innovation and his ambition to empower every potential entrepreneur and investor.

To truly understand the impact of Fundify, one must look back at Josh’s journey. From humble beginnings selling chicken eggs in his neighborhood to navigating the complexities of the digital art world, every step has been marked by perseverance, vision, and an innate entrepreneurial drive.

Under his astute leadership, Art.com wasn’t merely a success; it redefined the online art space. By recognizing the potential of the internet back in 1994 and building a superior selection not found anywhere else, Josh positioned Art.com at the forefront of a new era. Forged partnerships with giants like Condé Nast, Pottery Barn and Target may have helped to propel Art.com to global acclaim, but it was the vision to see the internet as the vehicle for endless possibility that paved the way for true industry disruption.

However, every journey has its trials. When first starting Art.com, Josh was unable to raise any capital because many investors thought he was too young and inexperienced. With no funding secured, he bootstrapped the business with just $35,000. It is this perseverance in the face of adversity that has driven Josh’s unwavering commitment to innovation and ambition to empower every entrepreneur and investor.

Beyond Art.com, Josh’s influence in the entrepreneurial world is evident in ventures like Mach 10 Ventures. This initiative not only supported startups but also played a pivotal role in catapulting them to success. A prime example is Mixbook, which Josh invested in when it was just an idea starting out. That early investment and guidance on the board was pivotal, with Mixbook recently being named “The Best Online Photo Book Services for Preserving Your Memories” by the Wall Street Journal. Josh has consistently recognized potential early and provided hands-on mentorship to burgeoning startups on their journey to success.

Today, the startup ecosystem is in a state of flux, with new challenges and opportunities emerging daily. Yet, with Josh at the helm and Fundify leading the way, there’s a beacon of hope. Their commitment to fairness, transparency and inclusivity by opening up startup investing to everyday, non-accredited investors ensures the playing field remains accessible to all. Dive deeper into Josh’s vision and the transformative world of Fundify at www.fundify.com.

Follow Josh Chodniewicz

Please Note That Our Recommendations Are Based On Our Honest Opinions And Experiences. We Strive To Provide Valuable And Unbiased Information To Our Listeners. Before Making Any Purchasing Decisions, We Recommend Doing Your Own Research To Ensure That A Product Or Service Is Suitable For Your Needs. This Podcast May Contain Affiliate Links. If You Make A Purchase Through These Links, We May Earn A Small Commission At No Extra Cost To You.

agency8.com | Code: Rare

Show Notes

Read Full Transcript

Susan Sly 00:00
Hey everyone, Susan here. I am so excited for you to hear this episode. Regardless of if you've got a company going, if you're thinking of a company, this episode is hopefully going to blow your mind as much as it's blowing my mind still right now. So my guest today is the founder of Fundify, Josh Chodniewicz, and previously, his brainchild was art.com. That company was sold for an undisclosed amount to Walmart when it was doing $300 million a year. In this episode, we are going to talk about how Fundify is about to change the landscape of startup investing, where previously one had to be wealthy, you had to be a qualified investor. And they are about to totally dismantle that, disrupt it, and you will hear how which is so freakin cool. So get ready for this episode. It's absolutely, absolutely amazing. And before we jump into the episode, a couple of quick announcements number one, I want to ask you, how's your branding going? Do you feel that you are representing well on your social media, especially on LinkedIn? Do you have your own personal website, because if not, you need to go to agency8.com, get signed up with them. And full disclosure, I did found that agency, I no longer run it. But they are doing some absolutely incredible things. You can get your own personal branded website for about just over $2,500. You can get a LinkedIn basics branding kit, which includes your banner, it includes a video, your description, all the really great stuff you need for LinkedIn, which is such a key platform, and you can get that for $397. But with a code rare, r a r e, you get 50% off right now. So go over to agency8.com. And check it out because it absolutely is essential that as a founder that you do invest in your brand. So with that, let's go ahead and get started. And I'm excited for you to hear my interview with Josh Chodniewicz, founder of fundify.com.

Susan Sly 02:16
This is Raw and Real Entrepreneurship, the show that brings the no nonsense truth of what is required to start, grow and scale your business. I am your host, Susan Sly.

Susan Sly 02:30
Well, Josh, thank you so much for being here. And you and I were chatting about all sorts of things prior to, you know, jumping into the episode. And before we get into fund raising and the startup environment, like my burning question for you is, because as someone born in the 70s, you know, going through high school in the 80s, being a young adult right there on the cusp of the.com. boom, dude, 1994. And you, like you so saw it. And but, so many people didn't, What did you see was going to happen with the internet that maybe other people didn't see?

Josh Chodniewicz 03:17
It was a great time. And for me, I was the introduction came in '94. So we saw it in '92, where colleges started using email addresses. And then in '94, where a buddy of mine, who was going, ended up becoming the founder of art.com with me, he he was at Virginia Tech, and they were putting into T one line and to Virginia Tech. And he's saying listen, this, this internet is going to be huge. And I'm sitting there, well, what's the internet? And what does that mean? And so that it started on an idea that just said, Okay, so this technology is going to be written, what does it allow people to do? How does that work? And then starting to unravel the kind of what's next question? Well, then what will happen next once, because currently, you can't even talk to each other with those, with the computers that we have. And so what happens when the modem start working faster? And what kind of information could we pass? Then what happens, right? And then what happens? And then we find myself 30 years later asking myself the same questions in industries now saying, Well, okay, this is what's happening now. And then what will happen? And I think that's a tried and true method of figuring out and testing hypothesis around what might happen in the industry to try to predict what the future is going to hold. Right. Where are we going? And how will things get there? So it's, you know, came about just trying to understand the Internet and seeing the evolution of technology, and then thinking through how to capitalize on that.

Susan Sly 04:47
I love that. And then what's next, and then what's next, right, like just continuing to ask the question. As you were sharing that story, I remember the first time I saw email. Do you remember the first time you saw the first email you've ever sent, or

Josh Chodniewicz 05:04
I don't remember I, the first email I ever sent was, what I think was back in '92 or '93. I don't remember exactly what it was, do you remember yours?

Susan Sly 05:17
So I was, '92, I was working on a research project. And we were doing crime scene quantification, and building early algorithms to try and catch offenders. And so there were five universities that were involved. And so I was with the professor, the lead professors working on the project. And we were at a university in Ottawa. And the professor's like, Hey, Susan, come look at this. And what is it? He's like, You know that question you just had about quantification? I'm like, yeah, and he goes, let me ask someone in Virginia. And he starts, like, you know, doing the single, those of you who are listening, like I do that pretend like the single index finger typing. And, and then, you know, it's like, the little dots appears like, okay, or I'm like, okay, cool. And then the reply comes back, and he's like, Susan, this is email. And this is gonna be huge. Right now colleges use it, but everyone's gonna use it. So when I first got my first email account, my first email I sent to was my dad, Joe, who I talked about all the time on the show. And so, and that was my very first email that I ever sent.

Josh Komen 06:36
I love it. I love it. One kind of perspective, looking back at what's now is, what 30 years ago, that I use in relation to internet and an email is that at that time, in '94, when we started Art, one out of 800 Americans had an email address, had an email address. That means if you had one, you had nobody to email, right? Because no one else have them. And so the use of it was essentially kind of useless, right? Because you barely knew anyone that would use it, which meant if no one else used it, you would never check yours. So you had to kind of get by the whole idea of, hey, what if everybody started using that? Right? What if everybody had an account? Would that become a, you know, a way to communicate that wouldn't become huge? Of course, it is, right? And it's become a massive way, just like, you know, in the last decade or two, mobile phones have become another method of communication, right, that has transformed the world we live in. And, and it's offered so much opportunity to everyone.

Susan Sly 07:41
And thinking too, about that piece around, you know, what if everyone had one, and I've interviewed now 360 founders, and there's the first ever interview, those types of questions, Josh, no wonder you've been so successful. What if everyone had one? What happens next? What could happen next? Why wouldn't you? The question that comes to my mind, if we were just sitting having coffee, or you're in Austin, we're having, my friend lives in Austin. It's like when you have tequila and club soda, they call it ranch water there, if we're having one of those, my question that comes to mind is there are a lot of people out there when they say what happens next, they tend to go down these negative loopholes, and it's the end of humanity, and they end up being paralyzed with fear. And suddenly they're ordering like all of these supplies, because the world is going to come to an end. How do you keep your 'what happens next,' in a place that's more productive?

Josh Komen 08:46
I think that's a really interesting question. I tend to never I just, I'm not inclined to do that. Right, to think of the negatives. I'm more inclined like, to think about what could this be as from an opportunity perspective? Because if it's the end of all humanity, well, then it's kind of the What next question always leads to, well, the end of all time, right? Every single situation ends in, well, yeah, then the world is gone. You know, Elon, so that Elon Musk solution to that as well. Let's go to space. Right? So he also looks at that as opportunistic, right. But end of all time, well, let's go to Mars, interplanetary sort of evolution, right and moving into another world. It's, the world reeks of opportunity left and right. And change enables that and offers that opportunity to everyone. And so I think if you're looking for an excuse, where things will fail, you'll find. If you're looking for a reason why it will work, you can find it. So either way, whatever you think, you'll be right. So, set the mindset there.

Susan Sly 09:53
And whatever you think you'll be right. And that opportunity piece, the most successful entrepreneurs I know they look at whatever is happening in the economy, politically, whatever. And they say there is an opportunity here. And right now on the show Josh, I'm interviewing so many founders who started businesses during the pandemic. Because there they were sitting there and going, Hey, okay, I've kind of got more time on my hands down. And I you know, that if I suppress my entrepreneurial longings, I've got to like, explode with an idea of some sort. And that I predict that the next great unicorns we're hearing about in Decacorns are all going to be people who were resilient enough to raise the money, get their seed capital down and so forth during that time. Before we, before we transition. So there it is art.com, and I am, one of my good friends was a co founder at GoDaddy. And so like, you've got like, all of these people buying dot coms, just like they're buying dot ais. I own some dot ai is because my newest ventures, thepause.ai, when I went to buy it, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I got it. I felt like I was winning that day, Josh. It was like such a dopamine hit. When you bought art.com, like what, were you buying other domains too? Like how did you know that was the one?

Josh Chodniewicz 11:23
Well, interestingly enough, that was already taken when we started. So we didn't, we weren't always art.com We started out, we bought it, we there's a lot of things in that domain world that happened back in those days, because it was early. We started our business with the name pokers.com. So poker with an s.com, changed to allwall.com And then eventually bought our leading competitor, which was art.com, and then changed our name that way. And, interestingly enough, in the early days, my co founder said, Hey, listen, these domains are going to be worth a lot. This is like early, early on. We should buy a bunch of domains, and he's looking it up online. And, you know, I don't remember all them. It's like baseball.com is available, we should buy that. And I'm sitting in the other room saying it's $200. I think $180 to buy a domain at that time. Now it's 10. Right. But, but I would sit in the other room saying, We got to focus on our business. We could have bought a domain for $200 and made a fortune just sitting on that, right. But instead, we went the route of you know, the hard route, I suppose, of building a business versus buying some domains that turned out to be, you know, very expensive, very valuable. I did buy domains over the years, and I've accumulated a handful of them. And, you know, that's just the nature of Oh, like you said, Oh, this is a really good one, fundify. I got fundify.com years ago, and I wasn't building Fundify. I think it was traveling with our family or my wife and it was it was in an auction and we bought it for a few $1,000. And I thought this would be a good name. Maybe one day we'll use it. And it turns out we are now and so it's an opportunistic sort of buying situation.

Susan Sly 13:11
Absolutely. Like one of the ones I own is end legallowes.com I am not an attorney, I'm like, but somewhere out there. And I just sit on them. Somewhere out there, there's an attorney is like, you know, Injury Attorney, they're like, I need to buy that domain and just the, like you I own some. So let's, we're gonna shift gears. There are so many things I could ask you, because anyone building in the 90s, I, my mind automatically goes to the 80s. But I'm going to resist the temptation except to ask you this. Did you play video games in the 80s? And if so, what was your favorite one?

Josh Chodniewicz 13:49
So I definitely played video games in the 80s. So that was my teenage years and I mean, I played a handful of games but I remember getting like an Atari 2600 and like, right, I upgraded to a, I think it was a 72 or 7800, and I think it was 7200 and enjoying simple games like PacMan you know or Pitfall. There were games that really simple games back in the day, some of them are coming back and are still you know, kind of interesting to see those come out. But I also enjoyed strategic type games even. I remember in middle school I started kind of engineering some, like coding some basic games that you threw in basic language. Games of like pirates and treasures and finding things but it was all no graphical interfaces. It was, it was more imaginative right? In a world like okay, attack this ship and then it would tell you okay, this many people died. This is what you got. And it was exciting and interesting because at that time that was brand new, right? That was very interesting and fascinating. And so yeah, definitely played games and enjoyed that. And my kids play games now, right, that are, right now they're very much into Polytopia and, and love that and the challenge and strategic aspect of the game and it's fun. And as fun gets our minds working.

Susan Sly 15:17
Well, the reason I asked you that is because of all of the founders that I've had who've been in our age range, they did play video games in the 80s. And I was coding like you in basic, and I took Dungeons and Dragons. And I was like, Oh, what if I could take it, you know, from the book and the dice and I couldn't make those decision trees? Because like you said, we didn't have the graphical interfaces, right? So what if I could take those? And, and it really had an effect on how I look at technology today, because our generation was the first generation to be exposed to technology truly, as young people, as children, right, so and Gen X. So that's why I asked you that. Okay, let's fast forward time. So Fundify, let's take a look at this. Last year, 2023 was one of the worst years for fundraising of all time, one of my guests called it the year of No. We saw, I saw founders, some of the companies I've invested in, I've invested in companies where I've had the founder on the show, and I'm just, you know, interview the founder. But there, I saw last year, some of the most creative fundraising, a lot of repetitive Angel rounds when they couldn't get VCs. One of my friends is a VC, he had, one of his funds is 90 million, they deployed zero capital of that particular fund last year. And then Fundify is the democratization of fundraising. And when I looked at the site, and I was researching you, and looking at all our 62 connections on LinkedIn, I'm like, thank God. So how did the idea come into fruition?

Josh Chodniewicz 17:03
I think the idea started, as I've been making, think first for a decade or so I've been making startup investments myself, like you. 60, 70, now 80 startups that I'm, that we're invested in, and watch the returns of those be quite successful, although many of them have gone completely bankrupt, right, lost all my money in those investments. But you see the positive-

Susan Sly 17:25
What percentage? What percentage have gone under, in just of the ones you've invested in?

Josh Chodniewicz 17:29
In mine, about a third already, I'm sure. If you look at the full data, it will end up about 50 to 60%, that don't return money, then I think the data that we looked at, and looking at all of it is that 93% of your investment returns come from 7% of the investments you make. And so what that leads you to is this world that says, hey, you need to invest in a lot of companies, frankly, to really fight. You need to develop a method that works. But even when it works, you've got to, you have to make lots of investments in order to make that happen. For me, I started off, I'm a mathematician, I love math, and so that I love statistics and things of that nature. So back six to eight years ago, I started thinking through statistics that aren't so easily kind of measured or aren't easily available, because you can't find a publicly traded startup fund, or an ETF right, an index fund for startups. You can find spy, that's an index fund for the s&p 500. But you can't buy one for early stage startup investing, let's say. And so the question then that comes to mind is, well, what are the returns of that? Everybody knows that startups are risky. And I think we all have this theory of a saying that says, well, with risk comes reward. Well, is that true? And how does that play out in the grand scheme of things? And so we gathered dozens of studies at the time. Now we have 146 studies in our database, passing over 18,000 startups inside of all those studies. And what that, what those studies show you that if you invested across the board, you would have made upwards of 25 to 28% annually, which is those are phenomenal returns as an investor right. Now, the thing that struck me here, so now at the same time, what has struck me is the fact that investments in startups are exclusively provided toward to accredited individuals. So what you can easily just call wealthier individuals are allowed. Venture funds are all capital raised from qualified individuals or organizations, right? So as an average American, you cannot invest in the stock actually, it's actually not allowed. And nor will the startup even pay attention if you wanted to put $50 or $500 into a company. That just doesn't make sense. It won't pay for the lunch that you're having sort of thing, right? So why would they kind of continue down that path? And then comes around the new, sort of I take a step back in the 30s, the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission created some laws that protected the American public by saying, Hey, listen, non accredited individuals, meaning people that don't have a lot of wealth, well, we're going to not allow them to, we're not going to allow entrepreneurs to raise capital from them, because we don't want the entrepreneurs to kind of, kind of sell them on something snake oil, if you will, right, or something that won't work. And at the same time, what ended up happening is they precluded these individuals from making investments. So therefore, the thought that the rich get richer, that is actually happening in the world we live in. And so crowdfunding has changed that. It allows the ability for non accredited to invest in companies through a reg CF or a reg A exemption. So that's the crowdfunding world that maybe equity crowdfunding world that many understand today, or are starting to see coming about. There's still a massive challenge in that world. And that is that there's a tremendous amount of work to select the startup. So Fundify is a registered funding portal with FINRA are regulated there. And we can transact these these entities and execute these transactions. At the same time, however, though, the average American that wants to invest doesn't have the time to look at hundreds of startups and decipher which ones they want to invest in, and then deploy their money in those particular ones, read all the data. And then on top of that, we just talked about having to invest in 50, or 100 companies to get the sort of returns that you'd like. That's what our new solution that we're going to be launching this really soon here in the next weeks to come is a solution. It's a subscription based product, where anyone can invest any amount of money, you can come in for $1. And for that dollar, we're going to take that, we're going to pull it with others. And we're going to source, negotiate terms of the best startups, deploy your capital on behalf of the, on behalf of you, but in a group format. And then we're going to also use our pro advisor network to support those startups over time to help them be successful, all in to get you the returns that the only, that have been afforded to only the wealthy. So that's the future of where we see the evolution of where equity crowdfunding and investing is going.

Susan Sly 22:38
That I mean, there's so much to unpack there. So the ISQ's, right? So traditionally, any of the fundraising that I've done to your point, so there's a ISQ investor suitability questionnaire, this is for the listeners who aren't familiar. And to give some perspective so, in Canada, our second biggest listening audience, your home counts toward your million dollars in that you, you would have to have in your net worth, which is great. In the United States, it doesn't. So one of the, if you have a million dollars sitting in the bank, it can also be an investment and so forth, that counts, then there's a minimum, I believe it's for a couple, it's 300,000. For an individual, it's 200,000. But then we're you know, this is Raw and Real Entrepreneurship. Thereality is, we're also seeing to your point, mass layoffs, just before we record this show, Citibank laid off 20,000 people. I just did a talk in Orlando for a group of entrepreneurs, we've got, it's estimated 2.4 million jobs are going to be gone from generative AI alone, and the average income for those jobs is $90,000 for those individuals, and that's by 2030. So when, Josh, when you're talking, and you're talking about that the rich get richer, and that there isn't an opportunity to invest in these returns 25, 20% and that your team is going to say that the startups, put them in a basket that's kind of like an ETF and then allow people to, you know, take extra money they have and to be able to invest. So will you, will you put like an ETF, will you put baskets, like will you put FinTech in one and health tech in one and dei startups and what, like how is, how is that going to work?

Josh Chodniewicz 24:34
Eventually, we hope to offer those types of products right. Initially, what we're going to do is we're going to find one startup for you this month, that we think is great. We vet it and we've thoroughly looked through and then invest your capital into that. Hopefully over time, we'll be able to invest your dollar into more than one startup, right? And then volume then we would be able to do that like, where you can actually say, I really like fintech. So I like my money to be inside of FinTech or I want biotech, right, I'm going to invest, I want to invest overseas. And that's where I want to be, I want to invest in women lead entrepreneurs, we could offer that. And but initially, without the volume, we have plenty of volume on the startup side that started to come in, that we're reviewing, and that we're looking at deal flow. At the same time, though we don't, we're building into the volume to offer a full out ETF that where you can choose what subsections you might want to put your capital into.

Susan Sly 25:33
I flipping love that. I love that. We were talking before we started the show, and just about some statistics, so less than two and a half percent of pitches by women get funded. So that's one to VCs. Number two, less than 2% of us tech companies have at least one female founder. So I've been in that rarefied air for years. And then, you know, you look at areas like AI, which is my area, and you have, you know, very few female founders in that specific area. But then I was saying to Josh too, the statistics illustrate that over 60 women-led startups are over 60% more profitable in their earlier years. And when you have a 90% failure rate, and that when you look at the data, and there's amazing data out there, when you look at the data, it's really hard to quantify for some of it why like, is it because women are more resilient in certain areas like the emotional intelligence required? I don't know. Like, it is hard to quantify, new data is coming out. But to be able to, to offer that. So what are the, what are the minimum KPIs for startups who, you know, you mentioned, you've got the deal flow coming, like, what kind of startups are you looking for?

Josh Chodniewicz 26:52
We're looking for big ideas. We're looking for entrepreneurs that want to change the world and make big things happen. And so that's what we're looking for. At the same time, we're open to investing in great ideas that are already going. And of course, I think like many, we are very, we're open to very early stage. I've invested in companies, some of my best investments have been ones where it's an idea on a napkin, and is literally Okay, I'm going to build this. So then, if that happens, will that be successful? So then the questions we're asking here, Can this entrepreneur or that group of entrepreneurs, can they build this, and if they were to build it, do we think the world would adopt it? Now, the great news about making investments at that stage is that you're getting better valuations as an investor, because there's less, right? You can also invest less often those companies, of course, are not raising $20 million, right? There, you know, a few 100,000, or a million or two to get things off the ground. And so you can make smaller investments and earn and own a bigger piece of the company. As an investor, that's not a bad way to go. At the same time, of course, we'd love to see some traction too right, where you see the traction, and hopefully, you're investing right in an inflection point where you see, oh, this company's seeing this type of revenue or customer adoption. And then they're also making some changes that are, we're now starting to see some of those changes come in, but the hockey stick isn't formed yet, right? So it looks much smaller, but you can see where the trajectory is going, of course, those are really wonderful places to, to invest as well. And that's opportunistic investing. And so we love to invest that way too. And, and so those are the types of opportunities that we're going to be looking for. Now what we'll do, is we hope to be able to deploy capital very fast, and, and be able to make decisions quickly, right. Whereas my experience has been that venture firms, they say they want to move quick, but they take an extraordinary amount of time. They lengthen things out, the lawyers stretch these things. And, and that's and with larger, with later stage and largest and larger amount investments, you can see why that might happen, why they might spend more time in due diligence, if you will. But we certainly have a diligence process that we work through, but we're at an earlier stage, there's less the diligence, right, because you're you're getting started through the product.

Susan Sly 29:16
Well, and to your point, too, we saw the founders that I interviewed on the show, and in my own experience, even last year, we were seeing longer diligence phases, and then the VCs asking for more in diligence than they had ever asked for before. And then founders would go through months and months and months of diligence, whereas before it might be two weeks, and then only to find out No, you're not getting, you're not getting funded, right. So that to your credit. So what, so when a, when a startup is looking to possibly come on the Fundify platform. What is the average length of time that your team is doing diligence before they get a either, do you have a phased out process like early Yeah, Yes, you would qualify for the next level or no, you don't like, what does that time period look like for all of the founders listening?

Josh Chodniewicz 30:07
Yeah, our process is still in the works, right? Meaning because we're launching our product next month. But as far as our, historically and how we look at things as we try to communicate with founders very quickly. We, you know, if they're open to filling out an application that would have more data, great, because that helps us put them, put it in a form that we can look at quicker and easy. At the same time, we're happy to look at a pitch deck and review that. And it might just add a day or two onto the time, right, but we're moving very quickly, and our analysts will review that. And, and so we're moving fast, and we want to make decisions fast. We don't, I mean, being an entrepreneur, myself, we don't want to string people along. I know that most of the time, when someone says hey, you know, something's not going well, or, or whatnot, they really mean they're not going to invest, right, or we'll talk next month, or I have something else going on, what they're saying is there's something else that's a higher priority than you, which means that doesn't look very sexy to them. Right? It doesn't, and they just don't want to tell you that your baby's ugly, they think that you know, and so, therefore, you're stuck in a, in a circle, and you're thinking and spending time as an entrepreneur, maybe we'll raise money from this group, or maybe I'd rather be transparent and actual and say, Okay, well, this is what we're looking for, I'd love to keep in touch, we'd love to see you. And you know, and when you, when you get this type of traction, or with you know, we're not really interested in this space, or I don't quite get it, right. Sometimes we might not see it, and entrepreneurs, of course, they're spending more time in their own businesses. But I think at the end of the day, we're trying to be really transparent, and trying to move very quickly, with entrepreneurs that come to us.

Susan Sly 31:49
I love it. So the, so people who are interested in investing or startup founders that are interested, are you, do you, because we're, we're in sort of a pre launch phase, you have like, a wait for them to get on a waiting list, like how is that working?

Josh Chodniewicz 32:04
Yeah, so Fundify is at waitlist only right now. So you can go to fundify.com, just give us your email address, you'll start, you'll join the waitlist in order to become an investor, if you will. If you're a startup, we're already looking at startups now. If you also go to fundify.com, there's a area there where the startups can apply, and say see theraising cap- click on raise capital and, and start the process and the journey of, you know, taking a look at that with us you know, and we'll take a look at it with you.

Susan Sly 32:31
Awesome. Well, Josh, thank you so much for being here. And I'm excited to invest on the platform. It's so fun, I do some other real estate, like the very sort of like a similar idea, like invest for actually and you know, and things and so forth. And then I do like the ISQ style investments too. And I, I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Because I really feel in my work in the developing world in Cambodia and Africa. And you know, in even domestically in the US and Canada, there are a lot of amazing, gritty founders, who have great ideas, and they have the determination, and they're willing to do the work and they can be successful. But what you're building hasn't existed. And I think you're going to launch the next beautiful generation of entrepreneurs who are going to solve some of our biggest problems. So thank you for being exactly as you are. And I'm so grateful to have had this time with you.

Josh Chodniewicz 33:31
Thank you, Susan for having me. Pleasure.

Susan Sly 33:33
Well, everyone, this is another episode of Raw and Real Entrepreneurship. Go to fundifycom get on the list. And with that, whatever's going on your life, I wish you the very best, God bless, go rock your day, and I will see you in the next episode.

Susan Sly 33:52
Hey, this is Susan and thanks so much for listening to this episode on Raw and Real Entrepreneurship. If this episode or any episode has been helpful to you, you've gotten at least one solid tip from myself or my guests, I would love it if you would leave a five star review where ever you listen to podcast. After you leave your review, go ahead and email reviews@Susansly.com Let us know where you left a review. And if I read your review on air, you could get a $50 amazon gift card and we would so appreciate it because reviews do help boost the show and get this message all over the world. If you're interested in any of the resources we discussed on the show, go to Susansly.com That's where all the show notes live. And with that go out there rock, your day, God bless and I will see you in the next episode

Susan Sly 34:45
Are you currently an employee looking to start your own business? Maybe you've been thinking about it for a while and you're just not sure where to start? Well my course Employee to Entrepreneur combines my decades of experience as an entrepreneur with proven methods, techniques, and skills to help you take that leap and start your own business, this course is self paced, Learn on Demand and comes with an incredible workbook. And that will allow you to go through this content piece by piece by piece, absorb it, take action, and then go on to the next module. So check out my course on Susansly.com, Employee to Entrepreneur.

Follow Susan Sly

Check on previous episodes

Susan Sly

Author Susan Sly

Susan Sly is considered a thought leader in AI, award winning entrepreneur, keynote speaker, best-selling author, and tech investor. Susan has been featured on CNN, CNBC, Fox, Lifetime, ABC Family, and quoted in Forbes Online, Marketwatch, Yahoo Finance, and more. She is the mother of four and has been working in human potential for over two decades.

More posts by Susan Sly