Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

On the final day of Lunch Tennessee’s “3686 Conference” in Nashville, a group of early stage entrepreneurs gathered at the exclusive Soho House. The topic of the morning session was “Idea to Investible,” led by Clay Banks, the Co-Founder of Haven Lock and current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Glorilight.

“You want to name the customer. Create a profile for them and cater the product specifically to that person,” Banks said.

He did this with Haven Lock. He identified the customer that the brand was most suitable to appeal to: Moms who wanted security for themselves and their young children. So, most of the company’s marketing material and branding catered to that audience.

Banks said it’s also about finding an effective market fit.

“Before Uber, there was a taxi and rental car market. Before Airbnb, there was a hotel and couch-hopping market. even if your product doesn’t exist right now, there’s still a fit for it in the market,” he said.

He encouraged the room full of entrepreneurs to identify a “north star” goal. Something they can fixate on with their teams, and strive to succeed. Banks said a good North Star goal combines a strong narrative merged with a number.

For example, Banks said that for Haven Lock his team defined a safe night as a success point, then merged that with the number of home safety devices sold. Those goals became their “north star.”

Nikki Sanz, the Founder of GIGGS, and Aabesh De, the Founder of Flora joined us for a panel discussion about how they managed to scale from an idea to an invisible company.

Sanz said she would message 100 people each day on Facebook to encourage them to use her platform. She said it was a lot of heavy lifting on the front end to get people interested and engaged with her app’s offerings.

On the other hand, De had a product-driven start-up, which meant he had to perfect his prototype before going to market. He said it took many renderings and renditions before it was market-ready.

From there, both founders worked to price their platforms effectively and get people plugged in.

“Investors want to see that people are interested in your company before they give you money,” Sanz said. Her company, GIGGS has 17 angel investments, which she said came over several years of pitching, asking, and raising capital.

“What I’ve learned is that as soon as one investor decided to invest, many others followed. FOMO is a thing,” De said.

At the end of the panel, Sanz, De, and Banks agreed on one simple thing: entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.

“If you are ready to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the idea for the next five to 10 years, then do it,” Sanz said. “But, you are really going to have to love it, because it really becomes a part of you.”

 

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