Triangle Tweener Talks

00:00:04 - Announcer
Welcome to Tweener Madness, the high stakes startup showdown where eight promising companies go head to head for a $25,000 investment prize from the Triangle Tweener Fund. But before the competition kicks off, let's meet the people making the tough calls. The judges. In this special meet the judges episode, we're sitting down with the investors and industry leaders who will be asking the hard hitting questions, evaluating the startups and ultimately deciding who moves forward in this bracket sty competition. Each round, three judges will vote on which startups advance leading up to the finals in early April where one company will take home the top prize from the judges. You'll hear about their backgrounds, what they look for in a winning startup, and maybe even get a little inside scoop on their decision making process. So if you're a founder looking for investment, an entrepreneur curious about what investors really want, or just someone who loves a good business battle, you are in the right place. Let's meet the judges. Here's your host, Scott Wingo.

00:01:06 - Scot Wingo
Hey everybody. I am joined by one of our prestigious selection committee members, Jen Sume. Jen, good morning.

00:01:14 - Jenn Summe
Good morning.

00:01:15 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, we're excited to have you as part of Tweener Madness. You're going to be one of the folks helping vote on the companies as we go through our 8 to 4 to the championship. We appreciate you doing that and what we want to do today is for folks that don't know the gen story, would love to kind of get your origin story and then how you got into the venture biz.

00:01:38 - Jenn Summe
Absolutely. Yeah. I'm really excited about this event. By the way, a big fan of March Madness, a little bit of the genor. I did my undergrad at UNC and then did my MBA at Duke. So I'm always really conflicted when March comes around.

00:01:53 - Scot Wingo
But this year at least you have a team that's doing well.

00:01:56 - Jenn Summe
Yes. We won't say which, but I think we all know.

00:02:01 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:04 - Jenn Summe
So the, the background of the gen story is I actually started my career at a digital marketing agency here locally. It was in Durham, then moved to to Apex, more small apex area. Did that for about four or five years before jumping into startup land. I started at a company called Windsor circle back in 2015. So I've been been at startups for about 10ish years now. Or in this.

00:02:27 - Scot Wingo
You had to wear the green pants.

00:02:28 - Jenn Summe
10. I loved the green pants.

00:02:31 - Scot Wingo
I still have some women were kind of dudes. Loved the green pants. Some of the women were divided. Like I think Caroline wasn't a huge fan but she like put a blazer and then she could deal with it.

00:02:40 - Jenn Summe
So yeah, you can dress it up, dress it down. I love the green pants. But bounced around to a couple different startups, both bootstrapped and venture backed. I did every customer facing role you could think of. Onboarding, customer success, biz, dev, partnerships, a little bit of everything. Then decided to go back and get my MBA at Duke and then switched into the VC side of things about two years ago.

00:03:07 - Scot Wingo
Cool. So going back, are you from North Carolina?

00:03:10 - Jenn Summe
Ooh, long enough to claim it. My dad was in the army, so. Army brat? No home really. But we did three tours at Bragg before it was Liberty, so. Been in North Carolina the longest.

00:03:24 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, very cool. And then what did you study at Carolina and then Duke, I imagine was a mba.

00:03:30 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, Duke, mba, Carolina was actually cognitive psychology, which is sort of a departure from anything business related. But my dad was in psychological operations and so I was a big psychology fan since I was a kid.

00:03:42 - Scot Wingo
Oh, so your dad was in Psyops? That's a, that's a interesting part of the operations. There's. I bet he couldn't tell you much about what he did, but I'm sure.

00:03:50 - Jenn Summe
It was interesting a little bit. Actually, the funnest thing that he did, which he could tell me about, was he actually did a collaboration with DC Comics to do a custom Superman comic book for South American countries that had issues with landmines that were trying to educate kids about the dangers of landmines.

00:04:08 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, very cool. Yeah, I remember that series of comic books that would kind of like teach you a little lesson and be sponsored by, you know, crust to brush your teeth or something here in the US and down there it's like, you know, sponsored by the US Army. Don't step on a landmine.

00:04:20 - Jenn Summe
Yep.

00:04:23 - Scot Wingo
And then at the digital agency was that, you know, I imagine that was like AdWords, a little SEO, maybe some banner ads, that kind of stuff. Was that kind of like your first introduction to. Did you do that between the undergrad and MBA or like, was that post India?

00:04:38 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, no, that was between. It was right after undergrad. Went straight into marketing. It was mostly SEO. We did have paid search and adwords groups there at the agency, but I wasn't really a part of them. I was more on the SEO side. We, we created some products that would do like an SEO audit for you. Give suggestions, keyword suggestions, things like that to improve your content.

00:05:02 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, that's a good slippery slide into the world of startups because that's a, that's kind of A you now know that you're on the other side. That's pretty core. I'm sure you spent a lot of time telling people how that works now.

00:05:12 - Jenn Summe
Kind of calling back to those days.

00:05:14 - Scot Wingo
It's still. It's still an important thing, right?

00:05:16 - Jenn Summe
Very applicable.

00:05:17 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And then. So you did some startup stuff and then tell us the story of how, you know, Joe started Primordial. I don't know the origin story of that exactly, but you're. You're kind of tangled up in it, so. Tell us that story.

00:05:32 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, yeah, we. We sort of started it together. He brought me on. They didn't even know what they were going to call it yet. So my first week was figuring out what the name was going to be, building a website together, building our LinkedIn, like setting up a Gmail. So really just from the very ground up with Primordial. And so the whole backstory there was Joe co founded a company called Bronto Software, exited that, then started Gret Beat, which was a passion project, not dinosaur themed. And then with Kevin Moseley, started Jurassic Capital. And they do a little bit later stage investments, more like early growth Equity. So he had been doing some individual angel investments on his own and wanted to build out more of a program around that, so brought me on to help him build that out. And we called it Primordial because that's even earlier than the Jurassic period. So.

00:06:27 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Was that a. Was that a Joe idea? A gin idea? Did you, you know, what were some of the other names in there? Like, was there like dinosaur egg or like a.

00:06:39 - Jenn Summe
We started with a primordial soup and then that's where like, there were some, like, soup things. And I was like, look, we need to move away from soup, I think, because that's not the best visuals for early stage companies.

00:06:53 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Interesting. Cool. I like how it all ties together. And then Windsor Circle had a connection. The founder was also from. Matt Williamson was from Bronto. So there's like this whole. Yeah, Bronto. You know, I don't know if we could call it like a whole thing or not, but there's a whole Bronto set of people that have come out of that. Which is. Which is neat.

00:07:13 - Jenn Summe
Absolutely.

00:07:14 - Scot Wingo
It's not a mafia. It's a mafia with a small m. Yeah. At this point.

00:07:17 - Jenn Summe
Yeah. Matt was actually really instrumental in us getting connected. I found out about this role because Matt had reposted it on LinkedIn. And after I talked to Joe the first time, I had lunch with Matt and chatted with him a little bit More about Joe and working for Joe. And probably like a day or two later, Joe called. Matt was like, hey, I see Jen worked for you. Like, what does she like? And so we both asked Matt about each other before working working together. So it was kind of fun.

00:07:45 - Scot Wingo
Cool. Hopefully didn't throw you under the bus too hard.

00:07:48 - Jenn Summe
No, Matt's lovely. I'm just kidding.

00:07:51 - Scot Wingo
That's like so anti Matt. It's like, he's like, oh my God, she's amazing. Okay, so for folks that don't know about Primordial, what's kind of your little reverse pitch like so, so, you know, sweet spot type of where the company is in its lifestyle, check size, all those good things.

00:08:08 - Jenn Summe
Sure. Yeah, we are. We started two years ago, so we've deployed a little under a million dollars into 17 different companies. We try to keep a pace of about one new check a month. Generally what we say is we do three to five checks every quarter. So we. Very similar to the Tweener fund are structured as a rolling fund, which means we're always deploying capital and always fundraising. And we are always looking for early stage tech companies, mostly software, but we're open to looking at all things. Based in North Carolina is our big sticking point is our LPs are from this state or have ties to this state and want to make sure that we are promoting economic development and a better ecosystem here in North Carolina. Cool.

00:08:57 - Scot Wingo
And you guys kind of started Triangle Basin just recently. It seems like you've expanded the geography, which is neat.

00:09:02 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, yeah. Started in the Triangle just because that's where we're based. We're here. We do a lot of in person events. So we, we started expanding to Wilmington first about two hour drive and then Charlotte another two hour drive. So we'll probably be moving more towards the triad and the mountains here in, in the next couple of months.

00:09:20 - Scot Wingo
Nice. Yeah, yeah. We're being so focused on the Triangle, we have to say no to a lot of interesting companies just in North Carolina. That, that. So I'll send them. Have a place to send them.

00:09:29 - Jenn Summe
Absolutely.

00:09:30 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. Cool. So. So these are a little bit earlier stage. Will you go as early as no revenue Napkin, or do you want to see at least a product, some revenue? Where are you in that little continuum there?

00:09:42 - Jenn Summe
No, revenue is okay. Napkin is not so much. We're. We're pretty, pretty big sticklers about having something to at least go to market with. So whether that's a beta version or an early mvp, something that you can test the market and see if somebody's willing to, to purchase this product is where we really like to get involved. Sometimes it's even a little too early, just depending on the team and the deal generally. So we do like to start relationships as early as possible. So if you know that you're going to be building something or you're doing something low code, no code to test the market right now we want to know about you. You still might be a little early for us, but keep us in mind as you continue to grow and build out an early mvp.

00:10:27 - Scot Wingo
Yeah and we had Kevin on and he was talking at Jurassic that you know, they, they're almost kind of like the opposite of you later. Not opposite, but the very different. A little bit late, a lot later stage and then very concentrated and they get heavily involved. How involved do you guys get? I've seen you do, you know, I think you have office space that some of the companies can work out of and then you do a fair number of events where you, you kind of do some educational stuff. Share, share some of the things that you all are doing there.

00:10:53 - Jenn Summe
Absolutely. We do have this big building in downtown Durham and the first floor is a very flexible use space. And so we do offer for all the portfolio companies, a lot of them are remote first. So if they ever want to get together in person or meet with a client or do a sales call in a businessy background, we have the whole first floor available for them for open co working or if they need it for specific meetings with investors or advisors, they can use that. We get fairly involved but not on the day to day. So what we like to do is every month, this is the only thing we ask is every single month, carve out an hour, sit down, chat with us, zoom out, take some time to work on the business rather than in the business, check on the overall health of the company, tell us where you're struggling, where we could be helpful if there's connections we can make or strategies we can talk through with you. That's what we ask for. But we're also open if you need more than that from us. So we've had full sessions where we've done data room audits or like you know, long meetings going over pricing strategies and things like that with our portfolio companies. So our, our goal is to be additive like value add. But we don't want to get in the way because at the earliest stages building a business is really, really hard and you have to be very focused on that.

00:12:11 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, I've had a lot of people, we're a little later Stage. A lot of them say that you guys have done a really good job of helping them tighten up their pitch and get a lot of reps on their pitch. So, so that's a, that's another thing that every early stage company and it, it, it has two benefits. Like frequently the same pitch is what you're going to be selling to customers. I mean, you're not going to go for the ask. You know, I want you to invest X dollars, but in a way you kind of like, all right, you know, I want you to license my software for X$. So so many ways. Like working on that pitch is like many, many birds with one stone. So that's a good. That you guys help people with that. Absolutely. The. And then check size wise, the. You guys. I know the answer, but you go ahead and say it.

00:12:51 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, sure. We usually start with a small check size. So since we're getting involved, typically when the business is still pretty risky, we'll do either 25 or 50k initial check, solidify our partnership together, get to know you really well over the next year and then ideally when we're ready to follow this business, because you continue to do well, we'll have a much larger check size on the follow the capital.

00:13:15 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. When I started tween your fund, I was shocked by the number of safes that were going around. Did you have that same reaction?

00:13:21 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, we have done mostly safes. I think we've done one convertible note, one price round and a follow on and the rest have been safes.

00:13:30 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. And it's not just. We obviously see it at the earliest stage, but then like later on it's just like it's become like the bridge. It's like we really replaced the convertible node in all, all stages for, you know, you know, we still see the convertible notes usually driven by the investor that kind of like demands it. But yeah, if the entrepreneur has a say, they, they tend to go safe. Which I thought was really one of the big surprises for me doing this, this whole being on the other side of the table thing.

00:13:53 - Jenn Summe
Yeah. We had a, a long conversation in our last Lila session. So side note, I also am on a steering committee for a women's group. If you're interested in learning about angel investing or joining funds and want to have a bit more education around what it's like to be an angel investor. We have a women's group called Lila Ladies Investing Local Angels. And so our last session we spent like 40 minutes on a slide that was just comparing safes and convertible notes and we're like, why would you ever do a safe. And it's like, well, that's what they're reason on. So you're kind of either in or out. So it was a fun session.

00:14:26 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. If people want to learn more about Lila, I actually don't know the website or is there a LinkedIn page or how do they learn more?

00:14:32 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, so we're actually, we're setting up a website. There is a LinkedIn group, there's also a meetup group. So that's why we're setting up a website because it's kind of all over the place right now. But on Meetup it's Lila triangle. And if you join that, you'll get looped into our group. Melissa, who's also on our steering committee, will reach out to you and make sure that you're on our email list and get notified of all the new events.

00:14:54 - Scot Wingo
Cool. We'll help promote that. Is that a national thing that you guys have opened a local chapter or is it just like a local inspired thing?

00:15:01 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, we just started it brand new. It's. It's very locally focused and so we have broad big visions of potentially opening chapters in other areas or helping women open chapters in other areas. But it's just us right now.

00:15:15 - Scot Wingo
Nice. There's a lot of activity there. So we've, we've done a long form interview with Robbie Hardy and she's got Excel and a lot of different things going on, which is awesome.

00:15:25 - Jenn Summe
The.

00:15:26 - Scot Wingo
Okay, I think I asked any categories, so, you know, we don't. On the tweener fund side, we don't do things that require FDA approval, which would be drugs and devices. Do you guys some of that? And any other categories that you do or don't do?

00:15:39 - Jenn Summe
No, same. Anything that requires a lot of FDA approval or years and years and years of R and D, agtech, biotech, pharma. We're. We're not in any of those deeper tech, mostly software, like I said.

00:15:56 - Scot Wingo
Yeah. What are a couple portfolio companies that you could highlight for folks?

00:16:00 - Jenn Summe
There's so many good ones.

00:16:03 - Scot Wingo
I think you said 17, is that right?

00:16:05 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, 17. Yeah. There's like one I'm really excited about. Yeah, absolutely.

00:16:11 - Scot Wingo
To get to 19 fast so you can stay in the prime zone.

00:16:14 - Jenn Summe
It'll probably happen in the next month or two. So. Yeah, we've got. There's one company I think actually we are both invested in locally. I was just talking to Jeff yesterday of Nimble Energy. They're one of the kind of like local favorites. I think they have like four or five different local investors in their, in their various rounds. So definitely a triangle darling for sure. And Jeff has earned it for sure. He's an amazing founder. One of the other ones that has been on a really strong trajectory that I think Twitter fund is in as well is Keebler Health. And this is funny because we actually don't typically invest when they're pre product, pre revenue. But we were the first check in when they were pre product, pre revenue. We were kind of testing our thesis and really pushing in on the outliers a little bit to see what worked and what didn't. And that one has definitely worked because within 10 months I think they had moved all the way up into 1.6 million ARR, which included also a pivot. And so now they're, they're in the value based care space in health tech and yeah, just moving along very quickly.

00:17:25 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, it's interesting the, this is a bit of a sidebar, but I don't know if you guys are thinking about it. We've been writing about it so this probably won't be a surprise. This, this idea of the seed strap where like the Keebler guys, I don't think they're going to need more than like six or seven, you know, million, maybe a little bit more as a cushion and then they're kind of done right because they're so wildly efficient. They're in a fast moving space for some reason they've hit this like really elbow curve of product market fit. Nimble could be the same kind of thing. These AI enabled companies are going to have just a whole different kind of a format which you and I are biased on this. But I think it benefits the early stage people because I don't see an ABC getting a shot at a lot of these companies because I don't think they'll need the money.

00:18:10 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, it's a really interesting trend. I think you brought it up originally and I started doing a little bit of digging into it of like can you be a billion dollar company with one or two employees? Right.

00:18:20 - Scot Wingo
Yeah.

00:18:20 - Jenn Summe
And it's very possible now. And I've had a lot of conversations with Jeff at Nimble Energy about this, how he, he's intentionally being very capital light as he's growing because he doesn't want to be on that fundraising hamster wheel. He rather focus on the business.

00:18:34 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, it's an interesting time to kind of watch that. Cool. So back to the contest. You've helped. You know, you guys have invested in 17 businesses. I'm sure, you've helped, you know, seen for everyone you invest in, you've probably seen 10 pitches and I'm sure you help just you guys are very open like we are to help kind of anyone. So you've given a ton of pitch advice and seen a lot of pitches. What are some of your Jen's top pitch do's and don'ts that you can share with folks that want to apply to the contest?

00:19:03 - Jenn Summe
Yeah, this is a great question. Based on this contest, it seems like they're all pretty early stage. And so if you're at that early stage, my biggest piece of advice is focus on the team. Because at this stage what I'm investing in typically is exceptional founders with a really strong founding team. You have to answer the question, why are you uniquely positioned to solve this problem that you're telling me about? So like, what is it in your background or your team members background or maybe an advisor to help fill a knowledge gap, maybe in an industry that you don't have a ton of experience in, but you really need to focus on what's particular about this team that makes it incredibly, incredibly exceptional and a great opportunity. I also like to say, if you're going to make an ask, just have that be your last slide. Like that's the one that you do your Q and A on. So it's always in front of people and it just gets to have a little air time behind you while you're doing your Q and A session, but have your contact info on there as well. So people could just quickly take a little snapshot, see what you're asking, see how to get in touch with you. And then some really great advice that I got from Lauren at Zinnia was, and I'm going to start using this because I'm horrible on stages, but just act bigger than yourself, you know, walk out and kind of feign confidence and all of a sudden you'll have more confidence and you'll, you'll look a lot more relaxed, which is always really good for founders when you're pitching.

00:20:37 - Scot Wingo
Yeah, I had the coaching one time I was doing a keynote at a thing and you know, she was like making me do this crazy stuff with my arms. And then I, I did it and watched the video and I was like, that doesn't look crazy like you're doing it. And you're like, because this is usually the context we're in. Like, you know, and like, it'd be really weird for me to be gesticulating all over the place. But yeah, it is an interesting thing that it actually does work. I can verify, so. Cool. Anything else? Last tips for folks as they think about applying and they're standing in front of you sweating bullets.

00:21:09 - Jenn Summe
Don't sweat bullets. It's all just a conversation. We're all friendly people here. Like Scott said, we're all very, very open with giving advice and helping out whether we're going to invest or not. So don't be too nervous. And you know, again, if you're applying for this, you're probably a good fit for Primordial, so reach out.

00:21:28 - Scot Wingo
Awesome. Well, thanks, Jen. We appreciate you taking time. You know, it's kind of funny. Robbie had this idea that we could have local investors as the Judges or the SEL and we needed 18. I was like, wow. And then literally in two days we had all 18. So that's just this. This community, like really steps up when you ask them to do stuff and help startups. So we appreciate all you guys do. Not only you at Primordial, but the whole call up E family told Joe, we said, hey, and we'll look forward to seeing you in the studio.

00:21:58 - Jenn Summe
All right, sounds good. Thank.

00:22:05 - Announcer
That's a wrap on this meet the judges episode. Now you know the minds behind the decisions, the investors and industry leaders who will be putting these startups to the test. As Tweener Madness kicks off. They'll be asking the tough questions, making the tough calls, and deciding who advances in the bracket, all leading up to the finals in early April. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss a single matchup. And if you want to follow along with all things Tweener Madness and the triangle startup scene, head on over to tweenertimes.com also, if you're thinking about launching your own podcast or want to bring professional production to your brand, check out earfluence.com the competition is about to begin and we'll see you soon in the next episode.