RAW - Taylor Jacobs, CEO of Dabble and VoiceStar.ai - Acquired!

Speaker A: Welcome back, everybody, to Founders Forge Raw. Today we are interviewing Taylor Jacobs again. Uh, we had the privilege of interviewing Taylor. Oh, goodness. About six months ago or so. Does that sound right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: In person. I think that that might be one of the only in person interviews we ever got the privilege of doing. It was a lot of fun, uh, down at Capital Factory. So we're here to follow up with, uh, Taylor and see what she's working on. And, uh, yeah, Taylor, great to have you back.

Speaker C: Yeah, thank you all so much for having me. You, um, guys are so supportive. You're so kind, so happy to be here.

Speaker A: We're right back at you. Uh, well, last. Last we, uh, we spoke, you were talking about Dabble and what you were doing with Dabble. So as I understand it, there's some exciting updates in that space. So why don't you just kind of give us the. The general overview of what you were doing with Dabble and where that's at now, and then we can. Can roll into more of what you're doing with Voice Star.

Speaker C: Yeah. So it's funny, when I listen back to the podcast episode from when did we. Was it like. It was in December, right?

Speaker A: I think so. I think so, yeah. Six, eight months? 19. Yeah, 19 years ago.

Speaker C: Yeah. We, um, had just launched on the App Store.

Speaker A: That sounds right. Yes.

Speaker C: And it's just crazy how much changes in such a short amount of time. Um, but so, yeah, updates. Um, we. We're. We've been acquired by.

Speaker A: That is so great. Congratulations.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker A: Oh, man. I have a lot of questions.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker C: I know.

Speaker B: And I'm.

Speaker C: I may not be able to answer all of them today. I had. I got permission to be able to. That's why I pushed you all back. This was originally scheduled for June, and I needed more time to be able to get things in order before I was able to announce that.

Speaker A: For sure. For sure.

Speaker C: So to the extent that I may not be able to answer all questions.

Speaker A: No worries about that. Totally understand. Or just. We're just excited for you.

Speaker C: Yeah. So it's a. It's a venture studio, um, baileywick Ventures. Um, and it's a. It's gonna be really awesome because with this, um, comes just so many more opportunities for Dabble as a brand. Um, and one of the other companies in their studio is actually a digital marketing agency, and they solely focus on restaurants, and the studio itself only focuses on restaurant tech. Um, so they're uniquely positioned to speak into this business from an operator perspective, from a financial perspective that many folks who aren't in the restaurant industry. Can't. Um, so that's really awesome. Um, we're partnering with the, the agency, um, under their umbrella. Um, and we're, we've onboarded their clients and so, um, we're just kind of working on that front, getting everyone onboarded, getting promotions and ltos situated, um, um, so that come September, we can kind of be off to the races with this new book of restaurant, ah, business. So really exciting.

Speaker A: Oh, gosh, that's so cool. What was, what was that process like? At least I. Actually, before I get too into that, can you, can you give us a refresher on. On what Dabble is and what. What Dabble does, just in case anybody hasn't listened to our original episode?

Speaker C: Yeah. So Dabble is a, um, an app that provides exclusive promotions and limited time offers to our subscribers. Um, we partner with the restaurants to help them understand their target demographics, and then we kind of analyze the data of other restaurants and their restaurant to help them create these more specific curated promotions to help them drive more regular foot traffic and regular foot traffic of their desired target demographic. So we have a data play here. We have, um, a promotions play. The exclusivity. Um, and that's, that's kind of Dabble. And the, the way that, um, I've been trying to think about it lately. Um, I was reading, um, a book called what name doesn't matter. But I was reading a book and it talked so much about Door Dash. Um, yeah, and the movement that DoorDash kind of created for restaurants. And, um, so in the early 2000s, when people started ordering takeout and delivery more frequently, it disproportionately affected. Negatively affected independent restaurants, smaller chains, because they couldn't afford delivery drivers. They couldn't afford the drivers, they couldn't afford the cars. They couldn't, you know, afford the insurance on the cars. Um, it didn't make sense from an hourly perspective that, you know, they're going to have someone run in and out. There was no way to manage the distance that these drivers were going. And so when DoorDash came on the scene, it neutralized the playing field. Right. Everyone can now afford, although prices and what they charge might be a little egregious.

Speaker A: Um, that's a different conversation.

Speaker C: Um, but, you know, they, they allowed for everyone, chains, independents, small chains alike, to be able to afford delivery. And so I want to think of Dabble as being really similar. Right. So you all have the Starbucks app, maybe the Chick Fil A app, maybe the Chipotle App on your phone. Um, what about the bakery down the street? Or what about the small coffee shop? They might send you texts. Um, but what I aspire for dabble to achieve is allowing these smaller chains or independence to be able to leverage or have a technology arm, um, and leverage our app to kind of almost act as their own, you know, their own in. In hand promotional tool.

Speaker A: Yeah. So like democratizing that platform in such a way that, you know, everybody can use it as if they were door dash. That's really, really cool. Thank you for the summary there. So, so back to, back to the acquisition again. Stop me if we can't talk about anything, but tell me what that process was like. When did you first have. Have conversations? What? Yeah, just walk me through the whole thing. That's so interesting.

Speaker C: So I was approached before the app even launched. I was approached by someone, um, in Southern California, actually. So not our market. We sit in Dallas, um, Texas, you know, at large. You know, Capital factory kind of helps us with that reach. But, um, and she called and she said, I've, I looked at your website. I see what you're trying to do. Have you ever thought about selling? And I'm like, no, I haven't even started. Like.

Speaker A: Right, yeah, no, people dream about that, but that never actually happens.

Speaker C: And she's like, well, you know, it would be, it wouldn't be much. And of course, the number that she still gave me, I'm like, whoa. Like, I wouldn't think that. Um, but you know, she said, give it a year, give it some time. Um, and so of course, my first thought was I went to one of my advisors, I called him and I'm like, you know, his name's Michael Atkinson. Um, I called Michael and I said, what do I do? And he was like, well, just wait. Like, just, just see, like, if she brings you something great. If she doesn't, like, let it go.

Speaker A: Right on.

Speaker C: Yeah. So Michael and I, He's a dear advisor, he's a mentor, he's. He's fantastic. He's been such a great influence, um, in my professional career. Um, and as we continued these conversations, he's actually the, uh, executive chairman of the venture studio that acquired us.

Speaker A: Um, okay, sweet.

Speaker C: Yeah, so it was a, it was slow and it was a, A process that was built on a relationship before. You know, they, I've been hearing that more and more specifically around raising capital, like, especially in early stages, let people get to know you before you ask for anything and. Because Michael, because that was never my intention and I truly saw Him. I never thought that we would work together in this capacity. Um, it wasn't really my thought. Um, and then it was proposed a few months ago of, well, what if we rolled Dabble? What if, what if we acquired Dabble and what if we rolled into the studio and what if I have another opportunity for you, um, where we're able to support Dabble and use the venture studios technical team and their marketing team and our restaurants as, um, you know, to kind of fill your book of business, to fill your portfolio of restaurants. Um, and what if I have another opportunity for you? And that's, that's kind of how this all came to be.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. And so once, once people started talking seriously about it, it all happened pretty fast. Or was it kind of a wait for the paperwork, wait to see what happens. Not really sure at what point. We're like, oh, man, this is actually gonna go through.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, I mean, I, I think it happened pretty quickly. I mean, once we had two. We really had two big meetings about it. One was kind of the ideating and the talking about it. The second one was, okay, no, we mean business. This is what it's going to look like. This is how it's going to function. This is kind of all the line items. That's when, um, that's when it, you know, became real. And, uh, his venture studio, Bail Studios, is, um, you know, super efficient and, and they have a great staff and so everything kind of was handled pretty quickly and efficiently from that point.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay, Right on. So tell me a little bit more about what you're working on now. Obviously still very involved with what Dabble is doing, but tell me a little bit about Voice Star.

Speaker C: Yeah, so, um, Voice Star is a, um, voice inventory management platform. Um, so it's a, it's a voice and AI company that is predicated around inventory management. Um, we. It was originally built for restaurants, um, and bars. Um, and now it is. We're, we're kind of delving into surgery centers and operating rooms. Um, so a bit of a pivot.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. All right. What is, what is that? So what would you, how would you say your time is split at this point? Like, how much is Dabble? How much is that? Because working. Working one startup is, is a lot. Working two at the same time is, uh, admirable.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, so with Voice Star, so with Dabble, I'm still, yes, CEO, founder, have a small team below me, but a lot of the weight is on my shoulders still. Until we kind of are able to find new leadership for either ahead of operations or, um, a new CEO. Um, and then at Voice Star, um, Michael still sits as executive chairman, which is really helpful.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Um, I'm CEO, Co founder. CEO. And then we have a head of product. We have. We have. We have a bigger team. And so, um, we've head of products, head of partnerships and sales. We have, um, head of tech. And so being able to have those different arms to support is definitely helping. Um, how is my time split? Probably at this point like 60, 40. Okay. Uh, yeah, if that. Like 60 to voice star and 40 to dabble. Just because dabble doesn't need as much of my attention nowadays.

Speaker A: No, that totally makes sense. That's probably what I would have guessed.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay, so what is. What is that like handling. Handling both at the same time?

Speaker C: Um, it's fun. I'll start with that.

Speaker A: I

Speaker C: am really thankful to have the opportunity to have, um, a mentor that trusts me enough to take over one of his companies. I'm thankful that I get to have my hands in so many different buckets right now. I know that it's not always going to be this way. It simply can't always be this way.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And so right now it's really tiring. But I think that it's probably keeping me sharper than if I was just working on one concept. That's at least the way that I'm justifying it to myself is, you know, if I was just. Can you imagine how boring it would be if I was just working on

Speaker A: one company like the rest of us peons? Yeah.

Speaker C: My goodness.

Speaker A: Do you get to see a lot of cool synergies between the two? Like, if you're working on something for one, and then you're like, oh, man, this has applications over here and you're able to achieve more than you would otherwise.

Speaker C: Well, you know, what's so interesting is so, um, I told you, you know, my capital factory folks about this acquisition, and they're pumped. And, um, I was talking to one of the advisors, a separate advisor, um, just a, you know, a Capital Factory mentor. And, uh, he came from the healthcare background. And so the way that Voice Star was still predicated at the time was solely for bars and restaurants. And, you know, I told him, I'm like, you know, his. It's Ehab Gaber. I'm not sure if he. He's fantastic. Um, but so, um, I'm. I'm explaining Voice Star to him, and he's like, I. I told him that we have some impediments, you know, integrations with back of house and point of sale systems is really arduous and it, it just takes a lot of resources, both technically and, um, you know, just our, our sales process at that point, because now we have a few points of sale.

Speaker A: Right, right.

Speaker C: And he's like, huh, uh, yeah, integrations would suck. And then he's like, why don't you do medical? And I kind of, ah. When he first said it, I was kind of like, okay, this guy didn't get it. Like, how the heck can I position this for medical? And he's like, hear me out here. And, uh, so we spent the rest of this happy hour talking about how imperative, uh, inventory and inventory management is in surgery centers and operating rooms. Specifically that. I'm like, holy crap. I went home that night, I called our team, I had we. Within a week, we had a basic architecture layout re situated for the platform. Um, and it was off to the races. So, yeah, I mean, seeing the synergies between something like restaurants or a bar and a surgery center, like, it. It doesn't even sound like there would be similarities, but I've. I've actually seen quite a few.

Speaker A: That's super, super neat. That's super cool, man. What's, uh, what's next for. For Dabble? If you can talk about that, like, in both really, like, what's. What's on your. Your short to midterm horizon.

Speaker C: Yeah. So with Dabble, I am repositioning because we've just had this influx of restaurants. It's. It's actually really cool. Within the first four months, we had a thousand paying subscribers.

Speaker A: That's incredible. Like, this is the stuff that convinces people to go start businesses and then they do it and it's like, oh, that never actually happens, but here you are. That's amazing.

Speaker C: Yeah. And so, uh, I. It's like. And everyone's. Everyone looked at me sideways when I said, yep, I'm gonna charge people 20 bucks a month. They're like, no one's gonna pay for that. And I'll take my thousand users and tell you I told you so. But, uh, I. So seeing that it had that level of success, granted, that's not huge. That's not wonderful. That's not viral. That's not. It's okay, you know, it's decent at best. Um, but seeing that it at least was decent, what my inclination is, my hunch is that if we had that much success from it being a paid subscription, well, what if we figure out a way to still make it exclusive but free to users and let's charge the restaurants.

Speaker A: Yeah. And because, because then you already have an offering to them that's valuable for them. They're only going to care because you already have a thousand users.

Speaker C: And so what we're going to do, and it just, it gets me giddy thinking about it. So what we're gonna do is because, also because um, a, we're providing a tech platform for these places that do not have a tech platform. Um, and we are um, partnered with the digital marketing agency. We're gonna have a tiered system where it's not going to be free to consumers. It's, it will ultimately be a freemium for consumers. So there'll be a free and then a paid. But I think right away I don't feel like dealing with the billing of that. So it'll just be free to consumers. And then we're working on a tiered system for restaurants of um, you know, the highest tier is going to get you some paid search, some SEO. Um, we're going to be featured on your Instagram and we're going to feature you on ours. The second tier is going to be a different price and it's, it's not going to have any of the paid search or SEO, but um, we're going to be featured on both Instagrams and of course always the app. And um, then the, the bottom tier, the, the most inexpensive tier is just going to be an in app feature and featured on our Instagram. Um, and so they're actually getting more value from um, from the product. Um, from there I could see us licensing it out to other digital marketing agencies, um, and allowing other people to kind of manage the back end themselves or um, so long as Dabble does a, uh, rev share, um, allowing other people to promote it and, and make revenues themselves for their restaurant clients, for other, you know, agencies that focus specifically on restaurants. Um, so that's kind of what's next for Dabble. Um, what's next for Voice Star is you're gonna laugh at me. We are raising a seed round of $3 million in this.

Speaker A: You know, I, I'm not gonna laugh at you. And, and mainly because see, seed rounds have inflated so much that what used to be a series A round is now like a pre seed round.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: So that, that totally makes sense in the seed perspective and also even in light of uh, economic conditions, at least from my perspective, most of the slowdown in VC is in. It's in like the series.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. So like, I think you're not crazy at all. That seems very reasonable to me.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, that's what I mean, that's, that's been my perspective as well, is all of the, the slowdown is in the later stage and are people, you know, balking a little bit more? Maybe, but I don't think it's completely inhibited.

Speaker A: No. Because the VC funds still have a lot of money, uh, that they need to, they want to give out. And there's a difference between a 3 million dollar seed round and, and you know, a 500 million dollar series, you know, D round for a company that was 10x overvalued to begin with. So. Yeah, I don't think you're crazy at all. That's, that's a whole nother conversation we could, we could hop into. Anyway. You're raising a 3 million seed round. That is super exciting.

Speaker C: Yes. Yep, we're really excited. Um, we have, um, a few, we're working on a few things, um, with, I'm trying to. So it's a voice and AI company, the voice part, obviously use your voice to take inventory. Um, the AI is, is going to come into play when we're able to launch our predictive purchasing, um, and our uh, predictive values in inventory. Um, but so, you know, most of that money right away is just going to go directly towards, um, engineering.

Speaker A: Um. Right on, right on. Yeah. Well, I know, I know some folks that would talk to you about that.

Speaker C: Well, if you know what, I, I think I tried to plug myself before for a co founder, but now if you are, um, someone who knows how to code and looking to be ahead of technology for an early stage startup, please shoot me a message on LinkedIn or Twitter. I would love to talk.

Speaker A: Uh, well, that's a great little segue to talk about how folks can find you. You have one of the best social presences I've ever seen.

Speaker C: Oh my gosh.

Speaker A: Really? Yeah. Well, I don't know if that's a comment on how bad I am at social media. It might be, but uh, I consistently am impressed by how many impressions you're able to get and what kind of content you're able to get out there.

Speaker C: So, you know all that said. Yeah, no, during south by Southwest, people kept coming up to me like, oh, what's your Twitter? And I'm like, I don't have Twitter. You have Twitter. Like that's weird to the end where people are like, no, you actually have to have a Twitter. Like if you're in tech, you have to have a Twitter. And I'm like, okay, fine. I'll cave. I make a Twitter. And so that is my Twitter personality is. I'm still trying to, um, figure it

Speaker A: out, but yeah, right on, right on. Well, where's, where's the easiest place for everybody to learn more and find out and be involved in this journey with you?

Speaker C: Um, I guess, yeah, yeah, probably. It's probably for more professional. Taylor is definitely LinkedIn. Um, so just Taylor Jacobs and look up Dabble, or look up Dabble app or Double Tech, whatever it's listed as on, uh, LinkedIn, um, and then on Twitter, I'm, um, at Taylor Dabbles and that will be my handle for forever because I always need a nod to my first startup.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Yeah, right on. Um, oh, great. Does anybody in the audience have any questions, uh, for Taylor, for us, Maybe?

Speaker B: I have a. I have a brief question. So now you're on the number two, right. And it seems to be going strong. Do you foresee this as like a, um, do you foresee the two working together down the line, or do you see them as you start and build this incredible thing, you're going to stay involved and however that looks, move on to the next incredible thing, etc. Or do you, do you foresee these, A lot of these technologies working together down the line?

Speaker C: Um, good question. Well, I can see the synergies, right? So if we look at. But I think it's important to look at vertical specific. So, um, of course Dabble will always have an application in bars, restaurants, and Voice Star will as well. Um, I think it's kind of going to be Dabble leading the charge on the restaurant front, and then Voice Star will follow once we have enough funding and enough revenues on the medical side to fund the integrations and APIs and that we need to build on the, on the restaurant side for back of house and point of sale integrations. Um, so they'll, they in theory could work together there. Um, but of course, inventory is more back of the house and promotions is front front of the house. Um, and then similarly, at surgery centers, um, you know, everyone can always use more promotions. So maybe do we take the same, um, kind of approach that we took on, um, you know, leveraging really salient promotions for a specified target demographic. Do we take that and try and position it for, um, surgery centers? Yeah, I mean, I absolutely could see that. And then similarly, voice inventory is always going to be back of the house, or so it's. I, to answer your question, yes, I think that they can always work in conjunction because there's a market fit for both in each vertical. But can they ever work, you know, side by side or synchronously? I'm not. Not totally sure what that would look like at this point.

Speaker B: I think the biggest thing, though, is. You're totally right. The biggest synergy between them is everything that you're learned from one to the other and just the process of being in the space to begin with. That's a huge, huge thing and incredibly valuable.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm sure.

Speaker B: Thanks.

Speaker A: Sweet. If anybody else has any questions, feel free to jump in here. Otherwise, we're more or less wrapping it up.

Speaker B: Cool.

Speaker A: Well, hey, Taylor, thank you so much for coming on again and giving us an update. And you keep slaying it out there like, this is super fun. I. I don't know. Uh, I don't think we've ever interviewed a company that's. That's had an exit, so congratulations being the first there. Uh, and apologies if I got that wrong for anybody else. Sorry, everyone, but, yeah, that's. That is super, super exciting, and we're just proud to be part of the journey with you.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker A: All right, well, to everybody else, uh, this is our last show for a little bit. We're going to take a little bit of a hiatus, and we'll keep everybody posted on Twitter, obviously, and everywhere else. Thank you, uh, to our listeners for hopping in. Thank you for being an audience, and, uh, we will see you all next time. Have a great night, everybody.