In today’s episode we talked with Conor Lamb, Co-Founder at SkinTheory, about how he built his application and took it to market as a first-time founder.
In today’s episode we talked with Conor Lamb, Co-Founder at SkinTheory, about how he built his application and took it to market as a first-time founder.
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Hatchet Ventures website: https://www.hatchetventures.com
Hatchet Ventures LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hatchet-ventures/
Chet Lovegren’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetlovegren/
Connect with Conor Lamb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorobrienlamb
Check out SkinTheory’s Website: https://www.skintheory.app
Listen on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/36ub3fpy
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/ystuxubt
Listen on Google Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/bdee8y9h
1, 2, 3, 4. Are you a founder, co-founder, aspiring entrepreneur, or just someone who loves to hear about how companies are built? Then join us as we talk with founders and CEOs who have been there and done that. Welcome to the Founders Formula Podcast. Sponsored by Hatchet Ventures and now your host, Chet Lovegren.
[00:00:32] Chet: Hello and welcome one and welcome call to the Founders Formula podcast sponsored by Hatchet Ventures. You know it, you've heard it. This is the show that is designed to bring you the latest and greatest stories and insights from founders and CEOs world. Who have been there and done that. Anything from first time founders to series C and beyond.
I'm excited for today's guest because it's a treat to have someone that comes from the software engineering world that understands how to code and develop applications. We get a lot of go-to-market leaders, but it's always exciting when we can get. That works on the product itself. And today's guest is a former engineer from Qualtrics who has turned into a first time founder.
He's got an amazing story. His product is amazing, and I'm really excited for us to jump in today. Please welcome co-founder and CEO of SkinTheory, Conor Lamb. Conor how's it going?
[00:01:23] Conor: Hey, thanks. Chet thanks so much for having me.
[00:01:25] Chet: And I know it's, uh, it's pretty late for you, huh? It's like 7:00 PM right now.
You're over there in uh, Berlin, is that right?
[00:01:31] Conor: Yeah, it's pretty dark. It gets dark here quick too. It's dark by like four thirty, so I'm getting used to the darkness.
[00:01:37] Chet: Yeah, pretty soon you'll be able to live in Alaska there. What do they have 30 days a night up there in northern Alaska.
[00:01:42] Conor: Or in a cave.
[00:01:43] Chet: Yeah. I love it, man.
Well, hey, I'm, I'm super thrilled to have you on the show today. Um, it's, it's gonna be a great show. I'm really want to dig into, um, SkinTheory, not only what you're doing, because I don't think anything like that really exists to my knowledge after the research that I've done in your company. But I also.
there's a great mission behind what you're doing at SkinTheory, but before we get there, we're gonna pump the brakes on that, and we're gonna learn about you first. So let's, let's fill the listeners in. You can give us a 30,000 foot view. You can give us the whole narrative, whatever you prefer. Tell us about Conor Lamb.
What's your story and how did you get to this point of being a first time founder?
[00:02:21] Conor: Yeah. Um, I'm, yeah, I'm Conor. I'm just, you know, a regular, normal guy. I started, uh, as. Basically when I grew up, um, I always had like a little bit of an entrepreneurial flare. I was like an eBay seller in high school for a while selling like niche car audio kind of stuff.
Uh, like really into car high-fi. Um, and so like when I had gone to college, I. I thought I was actually gonna go into business. Uh, but then I took a Java class, um, and I really dug it. Like I always also was that guy who like, you know, was on forums and looking up like pirated software when I was in high school.
And so I always want to be the guy on the other side of the forum that like tells you what to do. And after I took this Java class, I was like, Holy crap. Like this is like very doable for me. Cuz I was like, I got like bees in math at best. So I was like, that was off the cards for me. But totally not the case.
Totally not the case. Like coding can be done for everyone. Um, you don't need to. There's a lot of learned helplessness around programming, but it's if you just like take dip your. Your big toe in the cold pool. It's quite exciting. Um, so I, I actually, uh, I'm from the states originally. I'm half Irish as well.
Um, but I grew up in Pennsylvania, uh, born in Jersey, grew up in PA and went to University of Pittsburgh, uh, for school with, uh, BS in computer science. And then after I went to Dublin in Ireland where most of my, my mom's side is from. So I thought it'd be a bit of fun to go there. And I got like this sweet gig working for Qualtrics.
Um, so I spent a few years at Qualtrics as a software engineer there. Um, and I like really just learned a lot about, um, Like it was my first experience in the corporate world, uh, which it was like amazing accomplishment to get a job. The software engineering interview is a harrowing concept. If you don't know much about it, it's a lot of studying.
Um, and then you go onsite and it's, it's a little, it's a little bit, uh, anxiety. Like this, you know, it's all live and it's like you gotta go. Whiteboard in front of someone how to like binary search through something, like something that you've never seen before. Maybe a weird data structure. Um, but yeah, so I got that job, but uh, the thing was like, I always want to do this entrepreneurial side and like I really didn't like, You very much like cog in, cog in the machine isn't like the right way.
It's more like you're very niche on what you do. Like the kind of like, you know, there's probably someone in Google who manages like two toggle switches on a website somewhere. Like it feels a bit like that and you really aren't. Connected per se, to the problem all the time. Like some, some of you are and you're very lucky.
But for me, I was, you know, um, on the, on the back end of surveys doing integrations for people that are, you know, coming into Qualtrics, like big companies working with Qualtrics. Um, so it wasn't very tangible and I couldn't feel the impact. Um, but that's like kind of like. Where SkinTheory had come out of, or we're not talking about that yet, but I had built that on the side when I was in Qualtrics.
And so, uh, when I left Qualtrics, uh, I moved to Berlin and that's where I started working on SkinTheory basically.
[00:05:31] Chet: That's awesome. And do you think, what do you think it is that kind of, you know, I mean a lot of people can show up every day, hit two toggle switches for nine hours straight, punch in, punch out, take their lunch break, like a lot of people can do that.
But what do you think it is deep down, whether it's in your past and experiences like maybe the eBay reselling that you did or just something else that just gave you a bigger passion for taking on all these hats of entrepreneurship? Cuz when you're an entrepreneur, right? , you're not just hitting a couple switches every day.
You're not just working on this one project or this one, one piece of the software. You're working on everything. And now you're oriented in the business and you're looking at finances and legal Yeah. Other things, like what do you think in your past experiences gave you that drive to, to wanna, you know, do many different things, wear many different hats and, and, and just kind of step outside the box of what traditionally software engineers are used to doing, which is like one to two baseline functions for a specific, like you said.
[00:06:25] Conor: And I like, it kind of comes down to like, there's a big question I think for engineers, scientists, uh, artisans of like, do you go for mastery in a specific, like, you know, like there's like, I, I think it's called like a t or something. It's like, do you go for one really intense, like piece of like, let's say just compilers I work on, or do you be like, the more like Renaissance man style, Little bits of knowledge and everything, and you're touching everything, and I've always fallen on like the latter side of.
You know, like just, I like to do lots of things and maybe I just, like, maybe my past experience is, is having, feeling like I have undiagnosed a d, d, but, uh, I love just trying different stuff and like, as I said, I nearly wasn't a software engineer, so I, I have definitely an interest in business. I have a huge interest in art.
Um, I'm in a band as well and like, I think like just projects are really interesting to me and like, Like the connection to like the whole, like the whole side of it. Like, I don't like just doing something just to do it. I like that the end more justifies the means for me. So like, you know, I really like, uh, like I, like, even though maybe business isn't my strong suit yet, the more I do it, the more I'm like interested in it.
I love just getting things to work. Um, whether it's through programming or through like we need to do design and like a big ui, ux push. I'm like, . That's just interesting to me. You get stuff going, get it, like get it done.
Yeah, you're a builder. That's great. Um, it's an, it's an important thing that you're gonna need, especially in a working, you know, this as a, as a startup founder, it's a, you're, it feels like you're building things every single day.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, and, and cleaning the floors as well. So it's like, I'll be happy, happy to fill in like anywhere, like as long as it's like impactful impact is probably a good word for what it is. A more eloquent word at least.
[00:08:22] Chet: There you go. So let's talk about SkinTheory. Um, let's go there. Uh, you're, you're in Berlin, you're working for Qualtrics.
Um, you know, you're getting, you're getting your feet in this thing. You're, as you said, you're getting your toe in the water. You're, you're doing the work. You sell this entrepreneurial spirit, and you're building this thing on this side. , what is SkinTheory? Who's it for? What's the problem it's solving?
And then let's talk a little bit about the story behind it or integrate the two. And tell me about like how this came about. How did you think of this idea? How did you end up saying, Hey, this is a, this is a thing I, a problem I wanna solve?
[00:08:55] Conor: Yeah, of course, of course. Um, I was actually in Ireland at the time when I was doing this.
I've only more recently moved to Berlin. Um, but when I was like, this is definitely not a story that just came outta nowhere, I think, um, . Like, I've always, I always have lots of ideas and like stuff that I've been writing down, but SkinTheory, like, you know, everyone has their big journal, I think of ideas, but like SkinTheory's definitely been on the longest and at the top in like the boldest writing.
Um, so that's what gets what got, uh, done first. Um, I mean, it's not done. We're in the process, but that's what I'm, I'm working with first and. Yeah, SkinTheory started out of like a real problem that I had. Um, when I first got into college. I like suddenly just got severe acne, which it was really not exciting.
You know, , it's when you like start, you're like out from under your parents and like you're talking to girls and it wasn't exciting to get severe acne at like a more adult later age than being a teenager. Uh, and so I spent like kind of two years just like really enduring it, like, just like trying a bunch of different stuff.
I went to a dermatologist a bunch and she was basically doing like, we were almost like a team together with like experimenting on what's gonna work on my skin. I did this thing called Accutane, which is like this ridiculously intense drug just to get rid of acne, which is. , literally skin deep, but you know, lots of people do it and like, uh, yeah, and I just got really fit up of it as I was getting to like my junior, senior year.
Um, and I think I was getting a bit more analytical, so I was like, you know, I just need to take my medicine and like start being a bit more like algorithmic scientific about this whole thing. And so what I did thought was, I'll act like a scientist, which is hypotheses and like watching the results. And so I'd be like, all right, today I think, or like this next four to six weeks, I'm going to try this thing.
Which would be, let's say a popular one, was the caveman routine, which is where you do nothing for your skin and everyone's like, it works. It works. And it only, I'd say for 15% of the people it works, but it's, everyone touts it as a miracle cure. So I would try something for like four to six weeks, um, see if it works.
And I would track with flicker back when that used to be free to have unlimited, uh, like private photos. Um, cause all these photos used to show up in my phone and I'd be showing people and I'd. It looks like I'm really, I have a loaded, I'm very vain cause I'm taking pictures of my face, but it was just to.
Take pictures of my acne, which was horrible. Um, and then so it was in flicker, and then I would do a Google sheet next to it of like, this is what I'm trying, here's how the skin feels. Here's the quality of the skin, of the skin. Like kind of what dermatologist might write down, um, in like more layman's terms.
Uh, and yeah, I eventually solved it after like, kind of like. Six, six to like 12 months of doing that. Um, I solved my acne, like really excitingly it with like a very simple approach, like a very simple, like one of the first routines you should try, but like, I had done it wrong because like I went to c v s and I bought, I bought like, oh, like I bought the same thing, but I bought like the really high strength version thinking like, I gotta get rid of my acne right away.
And it's like, no, that like ruined my skin. You need to. Be, I have very sensitive skin, so you gotta be, you use like lower percentages, you always gotta moisturize, which I didn't know. Um, so no one was there to teach me. And like the internet it, everyone says it's like a miracle cure. Everything that is marketed as a miracle cure.
Um, So like when I solved it with that, I was like, that was awesome. Like I think this mindset more people should use. And I just kind of sat on it cuz I was, I needed to work, I had no money as in college. Um, and then like years later I was like, all right, let's act on that idea. I'd actually tried once before to build it when I was in like an internship, but failed.
But that's, that doesn't matter. That's just. I tried to go too big, but what I did this time is like I, I was like basically a professional software engineer at this point, so I'm like, I'm gonna build this thing as an app, use React native, uh, and put it out in both the app stores and give myself like two months to build this.
And like, the timeframe was like quite important. So I just, uh, I did that. Yeah. Like, but my moonlight while I was working at Qualtrics, um, which is quite hard to do. I wouldn't like super recommend coding for eight hours a day and then coding for. Two or three every day you become like a bit of. Like , like you use bags in your eyes and you stay inside too much.
Um, but it was very, it is fruitful in the end. So I basically like, uh, I built this acne tracker, like the first version of SkinTheory that like allowed you to take pictures, all the pictures got stored in there and you could run your own experiments on your skin to see like, What would work and just track them.
And I put it out, uh, like a true engineer or probably more like a first time founder was like, I'll build it and they'll all come and download it and it'll be great. And it didn't happen like that exactly cuz there was no marketing at all. But, uh, people did eventually just start to find it on the app store and download it.
And so like that was really inspiring that like, you know, people just naturally had this problem as well. They want it solved. And so by the time I'd left Qualtrics, uh, this was. Add something like 300 monthly active users. And I was like, all right, I think it's time that like I can take some time off from the corporate world and see if we can get, get some money into this and get, and build this into like the real master plan of like for SkinTheory, more about like actively solving people's acne.
[00:14:20] Chet: That's incredible. And these, when this, the app store was, and, and let me first say actually, um, marketing, we talk about this time and time again on the podcast. It's one of the hardest things no matter what you're doing, whether you're working somewhere full-time and you're launching a little course on LinkedIn about something niche that you've discovered, or you're a full-time founder launching a product or a service like marketing.
The hardest thing, and sometimes it's a really crazy code that's tough to crack, you know? So that's, that's awesome that you've been seeing that traction. Yeah. But the application, when you were saying it got up to 300, uh, users, um, was it free or were you charging at that point?
[00:15:01] Conor: Totally free. We've only just started charging for something recently.
Um, but yeah, at that point it was just, Yeah, you could just come on and like actually even getting people to use a tracker seemed kind of insane because there wasn't anything like pushing them to do it. Like it was basically a good habit and you want your app to be like a bad habit, you know, like Instagram or Facebook, like you want it to be hard to not get on the app or like you have to hold yourself off the app.
And so it counterintuitively it does get, some people like to like set calendar invites on their. before we had notifications to like use SkinTheory, uh, which is interesting. But yeah.
[00:15:40] Chet: What was that like when you saw your first a hundred downloads? Did that start to kind of feel like. This is paying off or what?
What was the download count where you kind of felt like that moonlighting of coding and what you were building started to kind of pay off?
[00:15:52] Conor: I had no idea when I hit a hundred downloads because I, did not put any analytics into the app because I did not even think I should be doing that. On the first version.
I was just like, let's see if I can even build it. And so for a good, I would say for the first thousand downloads there was no analytics, so I just had, I was just completely flying blind and I. And like, and I think both the stores don't really tell you until you get like a thousand or maybe even like 5,000 downloads.
So, it took a while. Uh, but it was, it was incredible. I like, I've done lots of, as I said, I've lots of ideas. So I've done lots of projects and a lot of them have had zero customers or zero people ever look at it besides like friends and. So there's like something to that feeling. And I, I think that's like what drives most entrepreneurs as well is just like, this is useful for people and people are actively using it while I'm having dinner.
Like, that's crazy.
[00:16:49] Chet: Yeah. Let's talk about that. Um, let's talk about the growth since then. So tell us a little bit, you have a co-founder, Moe. , correct? Mm-hmm. I'm saying, I'm saying his name right? Mok. You got it. And how did you two meet? What is his side of the business like? What is he working on? How does that relationship work between you two?
Which sides of the business do each of you work on? Or do you, do you kind of have this perfect Venn diagram where it's kinda like, I'm here, he's here. But we do have a lot of overlap at this department. Like what does, what does that look like and how did you two meet and end up bringing 'em on?
[00:17:17] Conor: Yeah, sure. Um, I was solo founder on SkinTheory for ages. and that is really tough. I don't recommend it. A lot of people start there because, and I think most people start there because it's hard to find. It's, it is very hard to find a co-founder. And two, it's hard to share your idea and you think you can't, like give all the context that you have on your idea to someone.
But trust me, you can do it. Give yourself like two weeks and it's just so, so much nicer to have one. But, um, Just cuz there's so much to do, like there's so much to do. Anyway, so I met, um, Moe through, um, YC has this, uh, thing called like co-founder dating. And so it's just like a bunch of co-founders, like worldwide and it's a very Tinder-like of like.
This guy's into this, this guy's or like this, girl's into this. And uh, you just, you know, you find, you just like try to start chats with people who could possibly be co-founders, uh, for your startup or maybe for their startups. Depends. And so I had met him, but he wasn't in my city. Like at all at the time, he was somewhere across Germany and he said like he was gonna come to Berlin.
He was also working on his own project at the time, uh, which was kind of like a more or less like a sustainability coach where you would like, Change. Um, what was it you would like? It would like offer you different ways of like powering your house, like different providers and like, this one's more eco-friendly than this, and the cost is this versus this.
So like, kind of like a comparer there of how you could be more eco-friendly. But what happened is he ended up winding that down over like the next few months and I, he finally had come to Berlin and I was like, all right, uh, let's have coffee. Um, and like over this coffee like it. . This second meeting was like, you know, it was very serendipitous of like, you know, like I'm looking for this co-founder.
He just wound it down. He's like, he never thought he would be working on something about skincare. Um, and you know, but then he is like, I really see like, like the value of this. And you know, like he has had acne as well. And so we did this like trial run. For 30 days, which I recommend doing if you do find a, if you do find a co-founder, uh, because you don't wanna be locked in with someone without trying, trying it out And yeah, just like we've been together now for like a year and a half, like never looking back since then.
So it's been, it's been really nice. And you were talking about how do we like silo off the work? Super, like, I don't know how to say it, like non-binary, like of like, he's only on business and I'm only on product because that's just not the way the world works. Especially as like a small found like 2, 2, 3 co-founders startup.
Uh, you need to like, I need to like, We both need to jump on business. We both need to jump on fundraising. And then it's like, oh, also like we're building the product like this. He needs to talk to the users. I need, everyone should be talking to the users. I need to talk to the users. So that means he has some interest in the product and also needs to do some stuff for the product.
I think it's like he's naturally more of the business and marketing guy. He's been, you know, he is a marketer at Airbus for ages and I'm more of a tech guy and you know, I have done the, like, the tracking before. So that like makes sense. Uh, but I think, I think as time goes on, as we get bigger it'll become more siloed and I think that makes a lot more sense of like when we can like dish out responsibilities.
But for now, we just agree at the start of the week. And it also is, I think, really nice. Kind of both be working on very similar things, like you can both work on different things in parallel. I work on product, he works on fundraising, but it makes both of those, you have half as much manpower for each of those things.
And then it's harder to make progress. Uh, sometimes when it's like, if you're both working on fundraising, you can both push it, you can both push each other when you're having down days, it's, I. I think we've found that that works for us, like trying to like work together when we can and do one thing at a time. Multitasking is just not as efficient.
[00:21:22] Chet: Yeah. It that, uh, multitasking makes you stupider too, or dumber. I don't even know. Maybe I was . Maybe that was a stupid response. Maybe , . But I know I'm, I'm a huge fan of that in, um, in like sales and leadership consulting that I do. I always tell people like, You know, you need to teach your people how to stay siloed into certain tasks at certain times.
Like if you're cold calling, just do cold calling. Like, don't answer slacks from people. Don't respond to emails from prospects. Like, don't do any that, like, just do that one thing because you gotta stay in that frame of mind. It keeps you sharp, keeps you cute, your senses acute to what you're doing. All those great things.
So, and that's, that's awesome to hear. So I want to dig into your, , your experience as a first time founder, a little bit more in this regard. You have this co-founder that you brought on who comes from that business marketing, the go-to-market side, but when you were founding SkinTheory, obviously coming from a product side as opposed to, you saw that business sense in entrepreneur spirit, , but you hadn't had experience in those things.
What were some of the challenges that you experienced as a first time founder? having been a software developer and coming from that world, cuz I know that sometimes we hear from a lot of go-to-market leaders that are turn founders like their challenges. But I would love to hear as someone that went from being a software engineer to being a founder, what was one of the biggest challenges that you had when you were standing up SkinTheory?
[00:22:38] Conor: Is a, a few bits here that like. I think software engineers like probably are worse for falling into this trap. But I think all first time founders think that you need to build some massive thing before you can like put it out and like you also, and even I should have just stopped at build, like the fact that you need to build something before you can put it out.
Um, Like, you don't really need that, and like, you don't really need as much checks and balances like software engineering. It's all about like, here's metrics here, here's alerts here. Like in case this stuff goes wrong, like, like the main thing, I think like the, the, the trap not to fall in is like, get, make sure people want what you build first.
Like go talk to the people. Like I, they say, you know, um, what first time founders build products and second time, like start with distribution. I, I butchered the quote, but it's something like that. But getting in front of people like is the most important thing. And like for example, like, . If you're like selling, let's say you wanted to sell like laptop parts or something, like that's your startup.
You're gonna sell laptop parts. You should just put up, build a site on Shopify. Don't even like build it. Like just go on Shopify, take some pictures of laptops and like, don't buy any inventory and then go see if you can get it in front of people. And like people are buying it. And even if they buy nothing, just like.
Refund. Like just refund everything. Say sorry, we're outta stock and it's called the fake door test. That kind of thing. It's one of my, I think the best things I've learned is like, make sure people want it. Do something really quick. You could even do in like a weekend before you start building some mega thing.
Um, and I think for software, like everyone does that, but software engineers especially because like there's a bit of art in the coding. It's like, I wanna learn. Ruby on Rails today. So I'm gonna build this to learn Ruby on rails and you use that as uh, as an excuse to build something. But then it's like you build something that no one needs or wants.
And that's like quite disheartening. You know, people do build things cause they want stuff to happen, uh, with it. So going from the demand first is interest is I think a good idea.
[00:24:43] Chet: I mean, it makes sense too, like you said, like you have this book of ideas, right? You had these things written and SkinTheory was, you know, the one written and bold with italics and underlined at the top of the page.
Yeah. But you had these other things, these other ideas that you were very tied to, especially in a world where we're taught that every opinion we have matters. That's why Twitter exists. My my opinion is so important. I need to publish it at any given moment, right? Instagram, my pictures are the most important, my status, all that kind of stuff.
And so I think us as humans, we just think oh, if this is something, everybody's gonna think it's something. And we get so tied to that idea that we do wanna build it to the point where it's like, well, nobody could say no because it's a fully fleshed out product that's ready to go, that's ready to be sold when it's like, I love what you were saying, like focus on the distribution first.
Um. And, and do that fake door test, which I was writing down. That's a pretty cool concept. I'm gonna, I'm gonna read into that further. Yeah. But it's a, it's a great idea because yeah, if the demand isn't there, then what's the point of spending all that time working on something that there's just not gonna be enough demand for to make it worth your time.
[00:25:46] Conor: We actually did it with like, it doesn't have to be with the full product, it can be with features. And we've actually used the fake door test, like I would say, pretty successfully in SkinTheory. Where we were first putting in our first version of a premium product, uh, was these extra trackers that you could have to track, like the most common things that could cause acne.
Uh, so like that could be like, uh, we have two trackers right now, which is, uh, diet and menstruation, and these are like two things that are like very linked to like causing acne. But we didn't know that really like what people wanted to track. Cuz even though we knew these are really important, like it matters more what people want to track, you know?
So even though those are important, it's like people might prefer to track water intake and that's just like, cuz they think that solves acne. So what we did to like decide what our first premium trackers were, is we like built like just on Figma made like a p and g of like, here's like five different trackers and.
People would like click on one of 'em and we would like mark down which one they clicked to start trying to pay for that. And so like, which ones like were the most that caused people to, uh, actually become premium users? And that ended up being diet as well as, uh, the menstruation tracker. So it's, you can use it in so many places and it's so much faster than building, you know,
[00:27:05] Chet: I love that. That's a good thing to implement. So if you're listening to this and you're either a engineer yourself or a cto co-founder or you're, you're just a founder in general, like maybe something to bring to your team as you build out product features sounds like a, sounds like that's a real founder's formula for success.
Ding, ding. You know? There we go. It's got the, that's like the movie that says the movie title in the movie. You know, like if you're watch Family Guy and Peter. Oh, who said it? . Yeah, he how he said it. Yeah. . I love that. Um, Conor, we're coming up on time here, but I do want to take a moment, um, to talk about the third section of our podcast that we usually ask our founders, which is talking.
um, investing, um, fundraising and approaching investors, pitch decks, all that kind of stuff. I know that you said you're, you're in a pre-seed round, is that correct? Yep. Um, currently working on raising some, some pre-seed money there. Um, tell us a little bit about how that experience is going, how you're starting that experience, like the education you took walking into that experience versus the education you're getting now.
What's that journey been like there? This is your first time raising capital.
[00:28:09] Conor: Yeah, fundraising is completely new for me. Um, like I've been doing it for like, you know, learning about it for the last few months before and now really doing it the last like month or two, like getting ready for our pre-seed round. Um, uh, yeah, it's completely different side.
It is very much a sales side, not a software side. Uh, but it's also very, it's very exciting in a way. It's different from software in the way that software is. Incremental builds towards a goal and you have like little successes, which is really nice. That's just like A to b. I mean, it's also like less exciting where.
Fundraising is more like you do a bunch of work and then you have super high highs, and then it's like you don't get any feedback for a while and then it's like, oh, another high, high. So I, it's quite a different way to work. Um, but yeah, it's, it's great. It's like, I've just like, it's all about like expanding your network and really communicating vision.
I think that's a big learning for me. When I first started, uh, fundraising, I actually made the mistake of thinking of my business. I kind of portrayed my business more as a small, uh, a small business almost. It's like, here's what we're doing now. Here's what we're gonna do in the next month, and this is, you know, this makes sense and then we'll be at this amount of users.
And that was like the whole pitch deck. And that's like not how you. do Fundraising, especially at the pre-seed, um, you like, it's more of a vision, like here is, here's what SkinTheory is going to be, and you know, VCs look for billion dollar cases, but even if you don't want to go for that, like it's all about like getting someone to resonate with, like, this is what it's going to be and like this is what I believe it is and like I'm the person that can bring it to that.
So I think that's, that's like a new way of thinking for me, especially like. The Irish side of me, like the Irish are very humble, you know, and like that's fun. Something they take the piss out of Americans about , which is really funny of like Americans like, like myself as well. Talk more like very candidly, like what do you do for your job?
Like, who are you? And it's like Irish people wouldn't really go, they wouldn't do that as much, you know? It's a bit too direct. So becoming a bit more direct and a bit more open about my vision has been something that I've learned to do. Yeah.
[00:30:22] Chet: That's amazing. Well, I'll be, I'll be excited to see that successful round raise and continue to see the trajectory of SkinTheory and what you're doing and the, the good you're doing for people who inherently are, you know, struggling with something that is at, by no fault of their own, right.
Just completely mm-hmm. Uh, nearly randomized, you know, luck of the draw to some extent. Um, luck's probably the wrong word for it, but you, you get, you get my drift. Yeah. Um, Conor, if people are interested in engaging with you or downloading the SkinTheory app, how can they connect with you and how can they get in touch with SkinTheory?
[00:30:53] Conor: Yeah, I mean, so you can try the app on the app store, it's SkinTheory, so there's not too many, uh, not too much competition for that. So it's easy to find. Uh, with me, you can hit us up at, uh, I, my email's, Conor SkinTheory.app. Um, and you can also follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn as well. So we'd love to chat.
[00:31:12] Chet: Fantastic. And for those of you interested in engaging with the Founders Formula Podcast or Hatchet Ventures and myself further, you can get access to all of our resources and links to the show notes and the YouTube descriptions below, as well as links to SkinTheory. And Conor, if you're interested in connecting or engaging with them.
We appreciate everybody taking the time to tune in. Conor, thank you for your time sharing your founder's formula for success, and we'll catch everybody on the next episode. See you.