Jake Aaron Villarreal: Welcome to our podcast, From the Ground Up, where we interview startup founders exploring their journeys, their success, challenges, and lessons learned. We hope you'd be inspired in discovering what it takes to build a thriving startup. I'm your host, Jake Aaron Villarreal, and here with us today we have Jordan Scott, founder of Cobble, a startup that's raised $3.3 million in funding. Jordan, welcome to the show.
Jordan Scott: Hey, I'm excited to be here.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. Well, a little bit about Cobble. Um, Jordan Scott has built this app that's designed to help people make better, faster decisions together. Jordan graduated from NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2010. She began her career as a news associate at CBS This Morning before launching her startup. Cobble is now in seven cities and has over 100,000 people in the community and growing. What a great uh great way to start this here, Jordan, for you. Talk to us a little bit about that transition going from CBS to a startup and how did you get into technology?
Jordan Scott: Yeah, a great question. I think that so many of us study something that we don't end up doing. Um that certainly is true for me. Um I went to NYU uh and mainly focused on journalism uh and a little bit of fiction writing and screenwriting actually, so a very creative major. Um and when it came time to graduate I landed my dream job. I always have been a big fan of morning shows and very much glorified them. And essentially once I got in there, you know, CBS is a very large, very corporate company and I never stopped to think about what that meant to me. Um, at NYU you know, if you don't have an internship every single semester, you're slacking. Um I think it's something specific to city schools, but it was all about getting big names, well-known brands, and just stacking up your resume.
So when I was in NYU, I interned everywhere from Refinery29 to Cosmopolitan magazine to um, NBC Nightly was my last internship before I got the job at CBS. And all of a sudden I was in this job where I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that this was just going to go on infinitely, and I was going to show up there five days a week. And I, I just, everything had always been "work towards the next thing, work towards the next thing, work towards the next thing." And then when I landed in this job I was like, "Oh, is this the rest of my life?" Like, that was a very freaky uh recognition. And so, you know, after several months of working really hard in the news industry where you know my... it was a morning show so my hours were 3:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. It was sort of you know half overnight, half during the day, and I just had nothing outside of my work also because you didn't have your nights and you didn't have your mornings and it was just a very strange way of life.
And I've always been such a huge fan of technology, of using technology. I'm the first person to download an app. I'm the uh I, I love people creating new things. And that was part of what sparked my interest in journalism right, was telling people's stories and hearing about amazing things that people were doing. And I think I sort of had this realization that I want to do something that is newsworthy, I want to do something that is not... and uh, so I left and I started my first business which was called IDK Tonight. Um and that was really the bridge between my education in journalism and where I am today with Cobble. Um it was essentially an editorial website and Instagram that recommended date nights for people. It was focused on couples. Um and the realization I had after starting that was that there's so much great content out in the world, there's so many... there's no lack of ideas. Um but what I felt people were really struggling with was acting on those ideas and actually doing those things. And what was the issue there? Well, decision-making. Why are, why is it so hard to make decisions? Um and so that's what led me to starting Cobble.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: So when you started Cobble, when was that? Was that before COVID or after COVID, or during COVID?
Jordan Scott: Yes, great question. I uh had launched IDK Tonight in 2017 and ran that um by 2018. I was already thinking about Cobble. I was already doing like drawing rectangles on pieces of paper and being like, "What would this be in an app?" Um 2018 I spent thinking about it, designing it, you know, being so annoying talking to everyone about it. 2019 I spent developing the first version of it with an outside firm. I am not technical. Um and we were testing it in the uh winter, fall of um 2019, with the goal to have a spring launch of 2020. Um and so what happened at that point was of course I said, "Let's hold off on launching, the world is shut down. This is a product about getting into the world with other people." I mean there could not have been a worse business to launch. Um and what we did instead was help people make decisions on what to cook, and what to order in, and what to watch. And we expanded into all of these verticals that we planned on launching later, but launched much faster. And so we were ready to go by June of 2020. And uh had a pretty successful launch. People were really excited about what we were doing, there was a lot of great opportunity for pandemic-born businesses to get some news coverage, and uh we were able to raise our pre-seed round of just over $3 million by October of 2020.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Incredible. Now, if you are a startup founder and you have an idea, you're not a technical person, more of a product minded person, you have the grit and the gumption to take your idea and try and bring it to the market, it takes money to build things too. So, was your last company funded?
Jordan Scott: Absolutely not. No. CBS was... that was laughable, I will say. Um when I left CBS, I remember going to talk to the Executive Producer, Ryan Kadro. Um and just saying like, "Hey, I'm leaving. I respect you so much. I've learned so much from you. I have this idea. I'll kick myself if I don't give it a shot." Um and I'll never forget how supportive he was. Uh he really made me feel good and validated my decision to leave and to try it, which I think is really rare. Um what he said was like, "I think it shows a lot of awareness of yourself uh that you're doing this, and not a lot of people have that awareness." And I was like, "Wow." I just, it was, it was what I needed to hear at that moment. Um but no, they... not the kind of situation where your previous company... oh, do you mean IDK Tonight, by the way? I think I might have missed your question.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Either one, yeah.
Jordan Scott: Um no, the way that I was able to sort of survive before it was a business at all was I was still taking on little side hustles. I was doing social media for some other brands. I was producing content for some other cool startups. I just was doing lots of odd jobs. Um and then I got my first angel investment from friends and family to actually build the MVP, which I understand is really rare and not available for most founders. Um so in that way I'm just really lucky um to have you know those kinds of people in my life, and that's how I built the, built the first version.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Now, starting with an outside firm to develop what you want uh can be tricky. You have to make sure that they understand really what your needs are, your requirements. It may or may not work. Did you, were you one of the lucky ones you found the right firm out of the gate and you're still... they're still with you? Or did you go through a few before you landed on the right talent?
Jordan Scott: Uh we did go through a few. Ultimately one firm built the very first version of Cobble. Um and I'd say we fell somewhere in the middle. I don't think we were like supremely lucky and I still work with them, that's certainly not the case. But I don't think we were screwed over like a lot of founders where you know the code is completely a mess and the product is like not usable. That is certainly not what happened with us. Um I got a solid version out that worked and I was able to you know build my own team from that $3 million investment um after we had built it with the firm. So at that point I just really wanted my own team in-house. Um and that was a huge jump for me because I remember talking about it with my husband when it was just me and working with this firm. I felt so lonely and alone in the business. And um it felt like I was the only one that was going to make or break it, which is the truth really when you're a founder, it is, it is that situation. But as soon as I hired my first team member, um I never said I was lonely again. Then it came with a whole new set of problems.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Well, I want to go back to your funding. $3 million... $3.3 million is a is a, is a good amount of funding. You had an MVP. What was your strategy on getting the funding? And did you go to traditional institutions? Um what was your process? How many times did you pitch? Give us the, back behind the scenes experience.
Jordan Scott: Well, I think you have this vision of what it looks like to raise money and it was, for me, it was walking into boardrooms in high floor offices and shaking people's hands. And of course it was, you know, the summer and fall when I was raising, of 2020. And so it was just me in a chair on a screen all day. Um and sometimes the pitches... by the way, we did all angels, so no institutional investors. It was all privately wealthy angels that you know started again from that friends and family round and just were connections of connections of connections. And um ultimately we were able to get it together, but it was a lot of figuring out how to create FOMO, how to, you know, get people to loop their other investor friends in. And um sometimes you know the pitches... my advice is like, just be passionate about what it is you're pitching. Never get sick of telling the story. Um for me you know, sometimes I'd be on a pitch call one night, I remember there was a bunch of doctors that I don't even know how I got in front of them and I don't know why they were interested in Cobble, but there was one guy like sleeping during it very clearly on the couch. And I think, you know, there's like 10 or 12 doctors on there. And a couple actually did end up throwing money in, and I was like "They hated that! Like what was that?" you know. And then other times I thought a pitch went incredibly well and never heard from them again. So all of it's to say like all you can control is yourself. And you know, try to recognize what the questions are that you're being asked over and over and over again and be prepared for them and hone those responses and see what's hitting and what's not. But at the end of the day, yeah, you can only control yourself. And so um, not to get too hung up on the responses from investors.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, I'm sure you learn how to refine and, and, and optimize what you're pitching and, you know, you probably get better as you go. So you know, we've talked to some founders that have you know created a list of 2,000 investors they're going to pitch to. And they get to 150 and they have to retool their, their pitch, and then ultimately they end up getting the funding. But you know, it's not a simple "let's make five calls and you know we'll raise our capital." It's, it's a, it's really a full-time job for a lot of founders initially, and maybe even consistently as it goes.
Jordan Scott: Well I'll say, you know, we're raising our next round right now and it is, we are going the VC route, we are going you know into a totally different world. It is different from angels. You know, it's almost like you have a really huge leg up when someone has introduced you to another angel, like they're already halfway through the door. They're like, "oh, my buddy's investing in this. I'm probably going to want to invest in this too." You're just starting from a totally different starting point. Um whereas with VCs like, you really have to pitch yourself. "This is why you should trust me, this is why you should like what I'm working on, this is..." you know. You can get a warm intro from another founder, but it's just not the same. Um so trying to figure out how to just climb a much larger mountain as we speak.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Now, you started the company and when you began creating what you built, you know, starting with the product is one thing, but then building a community is a totally different game. 100,000 people... uh that's a lot of people and sounds like you're continuing to build it. What's the process of building a community?
Jordan Scott: Yeah, well I actually would recommend a little bit of the opposite. You know, I started the community first with IDK Tonight. And I really, really recommend people try to build a community before their product is out in the world. Um whether that means it's literally just still an idea on a piece of paper or you're actually in development or you're... so just as soon as you have the idea, whip up an Instagram, whip up a newsletter, whatever it is. Start building the community because if you already have a group of people to share this with, they're going to be a little bit softer with you, they're going to be a little bit more you know willing to deal with your issues at first. And um they're going to be bought in more than just totally cold people. So I guess my advice there is as much as you can build a community before you put something out into the world, the better.
Um now of course we have our product out in the world and it's about how do we continue building a community. Um and I think that there's a, a several different ways to do that as well. The first one that comes to mind for me is we recently uh partnered with another massive brand, Girlboss, um to put together an event. And it was really cool because the Girlboss audience of over 2 million people um used Cobble's technology uh of picking a place that we all wanted to go to dinner and network together as like cool female founders and business owners whatever. Um so they all voted on a great restaurant, Cobble tech worked, it was awesome. And then we all went out to dinner and had an amazing time. And like, you don't build connection better than in person around a table, maybe with a drink. Um so that combination of partnering with a, a bigger brand, getting people to love and use your product and really solidifying um relationships with you know, maybe with 20 people. But those 20 people are forever mouthpieces of your brand now and are wanting to come to the next thing you do. And um so in that way that was a really fun uh community building experience that we had.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Partnerships are such a big part of companies that we don't even think about. For example, Microsoft, 90% of their revenue or close to that comes from partners. They don't sell direct. Um Amazon 20% of, you know, their revenue or much more than that actually, is all affiliates that are selling products on their platform. So we, we don't talk a ton about partnerships and affiliates, but that's such a big part of building a business or different revenue channels, or you know, building a community in your case and getting more awareness. Um as you talk about the company itself, what's the business model?
Jordan Scott: Yeah. So our business model, the best way you can think about it is that we are driving decisions and driving decisions drives revenue. If we are successful in helping a group of people figure out that they all want to go to a Yankee game, and then they buy Yankee tickets off of Cobble, we get a share of that revenue. Um if uh someone figures out what to watch on Netflix and they for whatever reason don't have Netflix yet and they sign up through a link in Cobble, we get a portion of that revenue. Um and on and on and on. So revenue share is really the basic uh level.
But then there's also, as you mentioned, really incredible strategic partnerships. So brands have worked with us around helping their customers or their user base make a decision on their content. Whatever that might look like using Cobble's tech. So that's us selling into another business, um which is then not only a great way to make revenue, but also another way to grow Cobble. Um because those users use it over on, you know, Altos Tequila's website um to figure out what to cook and what to watch while they're drinking, you know, their margarita. Um so then they, they come and download Cobble as well. So as much as we're huge believers in win-win, win-win opportunities, and uh it's just an exercise in creativity, which going back to my education... while I didn't take a single business class and wish that I had... uh the sort of creative education and you know how to write and how to communicate and how to convince, um that has been paramount.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Storytelling is a big part of a business too, and having a journalistic background sounds like you really are good at doing that. Um as you started your company, every organization we work with and we help build startups once they get funding and they scale up, we help recruit and find the right people, maximize the ones they have, help them drive revenue different ways. Companies always ask us, "we want to build a company that's diverse, that's got diversity of people," you know whether it's, you know, men versus women versus nationality, international, whatever it happens to be. Diversity is top of mind for a lot of companies. Talk to us about your company and the diversity of that and how you went ahead and built your company in a, in a way that's very diversified.
Jordan Scott: You know, I don't know if I have a great answer for this. I think that uh, as a female founder I've sort of naturally um drawn diverse candidates to the business. Um we're mainly female, um but at the same time, you know, it's all about hiring the best person. And I think that I'm lucky to attract the best candidates that are diverse, and you know, they're, they're harder to come by, there's fewer minorities in the world. Um and I think if you just do a really great job of branding your business and selling your business as this amazing place to work, which we did so much work on: "like what does our LinkedIn page look like? And how do we get you know these unicorns of like incredible, diverse, but the best candidates?" And so that's what we've done.
And also hiring during the pandemic allowed us to uh have the ability to hire anyone, anywhere, which is also going to contribute to having a diverse team. So, you know, our CTO is French, he's based in Paris. Um again, it's sort of like as, as the right people have fallen into our lap, it's sort of worked out. I think in this next phase of growth where we'll be hiring a lot more people and we'll be a bit bigger and it's not going to be me directly sort of doing that aspect, um we are going to work harder on you know, making sure that we're interviewing diverse folks and that we're bringing, you know, making sure that the company is diverse. Because obviously we all know the research shows that businesses are stronger and better when you have diverse opinions and um that's what we want to do.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Really nice. Um when you look at your company today and where it's at versus when you started, a lot of companies go through pivots or changes or have to redirect where they're going, navigating through the forest to, to hit their target market. Has there been one breakthrough or one change or one pivot you look back to and say "we need to figure this out or we're not going to be around"?
Jordan Scott: We were born in a pivot. Right? Like the fact that we thought we built one thing and then when we were about to launch, we couldn't launch that. Um so we had to pivot. Um I think that's just been the headline for this company. Because we're not afraid to pivot. We're not afraid to iterate and experiment, which is absolutely crucial for a startup. Um and you know the main pivot that comes to mind beyond you know, expanding our content and trying to address people who were stuck in lockdown, was moving beyond couples into uh groups of friends and all sorts of relationships. Um that was a big change that um you know I think we probably could have done more gracefully, but ultimately was the right decision and has given us so much greater of a palette to sort of work off of. Um but yeah, there's been plenty of changes. I think that'll be us forever, um is continuing to just grow. I mean, even as technology changes. Um you know, we're already using ChatGPT. If you asked me if I was using ChatGPT in 2020 I'd be like, "What is that? That doesn't, that's not a real thing." Um so in that way you're also always growing.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: You talk about ChatGPT. Is AI integrated with your platform at any capacity yet or on the roadmap?
Jordan Scott: Yes, it's very much on the roadmap. It's a huge part of our roadmap, but we are using it in, in some senses already. As I mentioned, right now Cobble has launched in seven cities. Um but we're continuously figuring out how we can be everywhere, and so in one, one of those ways that we're doing it is people are able to add their own ideas to Cobble to make decisions on. Whether that's a restaurant or a bar or an event, um and when you add in the name of a place uh we use ChatGPT to spin up a description of that place and sort of create a beautiful Cobble card um for them, so just trying to make it easier.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Really cool. What's the biggest challenge for your company today in this market or just in general at the stage you're in?
Jordan Scott: Yeah, I mean of course fundraising is very much front of mind. It's a tough time to raise. Um and we are really excited about our future and our traction that we've gotten up until this point. But sometimes it's really not about that. It's about the conditions of the world. Um and so I'd say that's, that's our biggest challenge that we face today. Um but even so, you know, I, I believe there's always a path forward. You know, you can't be afraid to start over. Um and I don't mean like "start a new company." I mean like if it was just me again today running Cobble, what does that look like? How, how could I keep it going? How, you know, how could I attract new talent? How could I attract new investors based on what I'm doing differently? Um I just, I never will let this die essentially.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: I hear the passion. I love that. A lot of companies uh build digital platforms or SaaS platforms and the reoccurring revenues there. The models in place, they have partnerships, affiliates. But you know, we're not an online world. We also have people you shake hands with and you meet. Um what's your, s-, your process with sales? And do you have a sales team that's out trying to generate new opportunities, new partnerships, affiliates? Is it all online? What's your, what's your strategy there around sales?
Jordan Scott: We right now just have a Director of Growth um who is doing everything from growing Cobble, growing our user base, um and also growing our partnership. So we, that's one of the main things we plan on doing with our next raise is building out a business development team to uh scale all of the different revenue experiments we've done this year. Um and so yeah, it's definitely on the roadmap. But today it's, it's just me and my Director of Growth.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Really cool. Yeah, you know, we in today's market, we hear three things. We work with you know 300 plus startups today, and we always ask "what's the biggest challenge you have?" And there's really three areas. One is um, they may not be hiring new people, but how do they maximize the people they have today? What are they doing, how do they really measure it? How do they guide them or educate them? And I interviewed 200 Chief People Officers to understand what was their strategy as an HR person with your current teams. And nobody gave me one silver bullet. It wasn't like, "if you do X, Y and Z you're going to take your C players to B's or B's to A's." And so we went on this journey, and to try and figure out what was the best way to do this. And we found it. And uh it's AI and it's technology.
And it's a platform that helps you take your current team that through a browser can see through 150 points what they're doing day-to-day. And they can show the habits and the patterns that an A player is doing well versus a B player that maybe isn't quite doing everything the A player is doing. And you could take that as a tool and share that amongst your people. You can also decide what people aren't really ready to stay at your company, but you can also educate the ones that are there and move them up. So um we went out and said, "Okay, well if we understand what that is now, then we can help people make their people better."
And the second thing was, how do they generate more revenue? And so for your situation where you're now looking to, to add a team or build a team that's going to be more proactive as salespeople, um you can build a team, you can hire them, you can hope it works. If it doesn't work, there's challenges, it costs. It's like 75 grand every time to replenish a new hire. Um there's a lot of companies out there that do this as a service, it's like an augmented sales practice. And um companies like Microsoft for example will launch a new market and they'll hire a third party team, not their own team, to launch. "We want to build $50 million in this town in the next six months." That team will go out and do it. And um so we've built a lot of relationships with these types of companies that can help organizations at a lower cost point drive revenue with new strategy, maximize the people they have today, and ultimately do it in a more cost-effective way.
So there's a lot of innovative things happening out there in the marketplace. In this, in these market conditions today I think it's really important to really understand what's working for other companies and, and, and try things out. But takes funding. Sounds like you're in a good position as you start to, to kind of build to explore these as well. You know, as a leader of your company and there's ups and downs in your organization, what do you do to stay positive? Is there any sort of tools that you use to keep your morale up or keep the morale up of the company?
Jordan Scott: Oh, it's such a relevant question. I think this week especially has been, been really tough, not only with what's going on in the world, but just being in this phase of growth and having runway only another few months. And what, how do you you know both keep your team inspired and prepare them for worst-case scenario, which they need to be completely aware and prepared for worst-case scenario. Um and I think that the way that I get out of serious slumps when you're just like, "Damn. Like why are we in this position? Could I have raised earlier?" you know any of these questions, is just to sit down at your desk and like do what you need to do. You know what you need to do. You need to talk to people. You need to reach out to people. Like in our case right, it's fundraising. Um and again complete transparency. So there's no doubt in my mind that I'm dropping this bomb on everyone at the end of the year or anything like that. It's like, everyone knows what the deal is. Um and let's, let's just have that be the worst case, and we'll figure it out. Um so it's a fine line to walk, and I'm definitely still navigating it. But as I speak to you in this moment, I actually do feel really excited and positive about our prospects um to get funded, and um I'm just really proud of having a team that's willing to you know, take the risk with me.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, it's trying times for a lot of companies and there's also opportunities for a lot of companies. It sounds like you've got a great platform, you've got a good team in place and things are moving in the right direction. Um where does Cobble go from here? You're building it, you're getting funding. What's, what do things look like over the next six, 12 months?
Jordan Scott: Yeah, I mean as I mentioned we're going to build out that business development team to really scale our revenue. Um but we're also going to continue changing the product's functionality to account for decisions beyond you know, "what do you want to do for dinner tonight?" It's, it's really whatever you make decisions on with other people, um whether that's picking an Airbnb for a bachelorette party or you know booking flights somewhere. We want Cobble to be the technology that people turn to to make decisions. Um and so it's just going to be a lot of product work, a lot of hiring, um and figuring out how to get to that next phase of growth where you know everything is running smoothly and now we just need to be everywhere.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Sounds great. Well Jordan, um I guess as we wrap up here, if someone wants to find out about you, connect with you, potentially invest in your company, or just in general connect with your community, where do they find you? Where do they find Cobble?
Jordan Scott: Yeah, you uh can find me on LinkedIn of course, Jordan Scott. Um and Cobble is TryCobble on every social media platform. If you DM us, our social media manager will get back to you and, and the message will be uh passed on to me as well. Um but yeah, would love to connect whether that's about hiring, because we're going to make this raise happen in 2024, um or you know uh want to use Cobble. We're in New York, LA, Miami, Austin, Dallas, Chicago... I think I'm forgetting one. I, I should know all seven cities we're in, but we've been waterfalling these new launches so quickly it's hard to keep them straight.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. Well, thank you so much for joining here today. And thank all our listeners for listening. Uh it really means the world to us that you've taken your time to spend it with us today. And uh, as your host Jake Aaron Villarreal, excited to catch up with you, Jordan, in the future and our listeners on the next episode. Thanks so much for joining.
Jordan Scott: Thanks for having me.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Before we wrap up I want to give a big shout out to all the entrepreneurs that have joined to make this podcast possible, and for all the listeners for listening. It means the world to me that you chose to spend your time with us today. I'm your host Jake Aaron Villarreal signing off for now. We can't wait to connect with you all soon on the next episode. Take care.
This show is sponsored by Match Relevant, a company that helps venture-backed startups find the best people in the market and they do it in three simple steps. First, they sit down with founders to understand their story. Second, they tell their story into multiple candidate channels. And third, they schedule interviews within 48 hours. Find us at matchrelevant.com to learn more about how we do it.
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