These female founders have a different approach to fundraising (and they got a free booth at TechCrunch)

When we were in Moldova and we were pitching, we were good, you know, like in Moldova, there's not that many startups and you feel cool, you know, like you have a good pitch and you have a good traction, but when we came to the U S we had this shock that like, Oh my God, here we are very average and we have to really, really work hard on like.

To present ourselves in the best way and like the most clear way. So like few days before this, we've attended another conference where I was looking on how, what are the best practices from YC? Okay. So I changed everything and like I've made it accordingly to YC recommendations because here you have to compete with people that are following the best, the best practices around.

Yeah. So yeah, that pitch was a great experience for me to learn where are my strong points and where are our weakest points and how to present ourselves in a way that's showing the best of us. And it's still sincere and clear because everyone can cut through the bullshit that. You know, you can put in your pitch, at least here.

People seem so many pitches that they can see through, you know, so you have to be really good. That is Elena Oprea and Viorica Benica, two female founders of Startups Self Talk. Their mobile app allows you to generate cognitive behavioral therapy audio that feels like listening to a therapist who is talking to you about how to manage your emotions.

Their approach is based on 12 years of scientific research in the field of positive psychology. Conducted by Harvard researcher Sean Acor. And this reunion, yes reunion, because when I visited Moldova earlier this year, both Elena and Vio took me to the Krikova Winery. We had an amazing time being with them on that tour.

Really make me feel like a kid again. We had lots of laughs and of course a lot of fun. But who doesn't have fun when you're on a wine tour, right? But in this conversation, you're not going to hear about that. You will discover how they got a booth sponsored at TechCrunch. The steps they took to make a really good pitch, why other early startup founders from the Draper accelerator fear them, how they got their first users to validate their MVP.

This is an action packed conversation. All right. Okay. Let's jump into it, into the conversation with Vio and Elena. All right. I'm here with Elena Oprea and.

They've got a mobile app that allows you to generate cognitive behavioral therapy audio, and it feels like you're listening to a therapist talking about how to manage your difficult emotions. Elena Bio is so excited to chat with you today. How are you guys doing? Oh my God. It's so good to see you. It's so exciting, uh, in our, on our side to participate.

I think that's the first podcast that we are doing together. Yeah. Yeah, all right. Yeah, I'm excited to have you guys because I tell everybody about the wonderful time I had in Moldova, uh, about visiting, uh, Curicó. And I haven't had that much fun. It felt like a kid in such a long time. It was because of you both.

You made that extraordinary experience really magical for me. Uh, but now you're both in San Francisco for TechCrunch, which happened last week, I believe. And so I want to hear about your experience at TechCrunch. Feel free to, to share with, share with everybody, you know, what was that experience like?

Anything that you were surprised about, any learnings that you got from maybe, you know, managing a booth? Tell us, tell us, I want to hear about it. All right. Okay. I, I, I'm the first. So for me personally, so we got this boot because of the, because of the initiative that Elena took. She applied for a sponsorship in Moldova for the startups to, to get a boot in TechCrunch.

At that time, we didn't know that we were going to come to TechCrunch. We was just like, that's a good idea. Let's do it. And she, she applied and we got accepted for the sponsorship to have this boot. And yeah, that's how we got there, like to, to get the vote. It was free for us in terms of like, we didn't pay for it cause other people paid for it and we're very grateful for that.

The experience itself was, I guess, the best that I had so far with any conference. That we went to, because first of all, it was, we had the boot, so we just need to stand there and just wait for people to approach, but not just wait for people to approach, we needed to have something that would Invite people to like, to approach the boat.

So we have these two banners that we prepared in advance and then we had the books and then, and then I was like, Oh, we need healthy food. We need healthy snacks. We need healthy snack. So we, she, she went and bought like bananas and apples. And happened to have this conference to attend it where they don't have food.

So people were coming to our boat because they, not only that they were hungry, but Yeah, that was a, that was a bonus for us, but in terms of like business wise, I would say also it was one of the, the, the best experiences that I experienced so far in terms of like talking to customers, potential customers, and it were three days, we were two of us there, we talked nonstop, that was like what you would see from, from.

Just looking at us, you know, and I had such a, I, I had such a good feeling because people that were approaching us, they weren't interested in mental health. So it was the first thing is that they were filtered and where before, when we were going to conferences, we would go and approach other people, like how would you do it will take longer time for us, this, this case was they would.

Oh, mental health. Oh, interesting. I would love to hear more what you do. And. That's actually how we got our first potential client, which we're going to have like in two weeks, we're going to have the first workshop that we offer for, for their team. Yeah. And now is it because there's just a lot of crazy people in the tech scene, uh, that attends these events?

That's maybe why they were interested in mental health. Or do you think that was the case that there was no people with so many people drawn to, to you guys and wanted to learn more? Me or Elena? Either one. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then I go ahead. Yeah, it would be risky to say that that's the case for tech people.

Hey, I'm in tech. Yeah, it's, it may be the case because in the tech sector, there's a high pressure environment. People have to. Deliver like, you know, they have to deliver high results, especially in the startup scene and TechCrunch is an event focused on startups. So most of the time, startup founders or employees that work at startups, they are quite stressed because they have to deliver and they have to be creative at the same time and find this group hacking ideas.

Um, and there is a lot of pressure. So first, it may be a case that that's specifically for the startup scene, but I would say as a, as a therapist, I would say that's not only that. Right now, the mental health crisis is, like, getting, uh, quite difficult in this area. And, um, you know, the mindfulness solutions that we are having available for everyone of us, like for this lifestyle issues, like stress, anxiety, difficult emotions, they are addressing the symptoms.

Like, they calm you down, but they do not change the way you think about things. They do not go to the root cause of you understanding why you go for those things. So, um, the mental health thing got, got, got worse, but the solutions are only addressing the symptoms that are most popular. So people are looking for deeper ways to solve their problem, to address the root causes.

And people are becoming more and more aware that that's important. Uh, so I would say that even most like hustling startup founders, they start to have conversations about that and they start to be aware that it may not be, you know, it may be beneficial for their strategy, for their Customers for their businesses to look into that side too.

One, one thing that I remember one statistic that I remember here from Deloitte is that every dollar invested in mental health brings fives in return for, for businesses. So brings an ROI of 5. So when people and entrepreneurs start to be more and more aware of that, and they're interested in solution like ours.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I believe that if you got happy employee who is not, it was not just stable, but is happy, they're going to thrive more. And they're going to have a lot more energy to contribute. So we're going to get into self talk in just a minute. But before we do that, something very interesting, Vio, you said that Elena had the idea of getting a sponsor for a booth.

Now there's a lot of people in the audience who are startup founders who attend different events. And so I was wondering, what was that approach like? Any tips for any other startup founders out there who are attending different conferences and events and may want to try to get a boot, any tips for that you can share Well, she filled the form, so I think she will be the best one to answer it.

From my perspective, I can tell you what I see when, uh, she does like a form of this. She gives the best. Like, she takes her time to fill out all the questions for, for the, for each form. And she's not like, oh, I filled it and then it's done. No, no, no, no, no. That's not Elena. It's, it's like she takes, she goes through every of the questions.

And then, like, she combines all the other forms that she, she did before, and then she sort of looks again for the research, and then she's like trying to combine them, and then make it shorter, and then. Finally, she sort of gives me like a thing on in a dog and she's like, give me the filter and I'm like, this is almost perfect.

This is both the left brain and right brain worse because when I understand it, that you have a dual degree, right? Elena, you're both marketing and law background. Is that correct? So, yeah, I do have a, I do have a marketing degree and the law degree. And, and after that I did my hypnotherapy license. But yeah, I used to work in, in, in this industry of like writing grants, but what I would suggest for other startup founders, because it's a very specific skill I have.

So, but it's common sense, mostly it's not rocket science. Like it's mostly common sense on how you would do your business plan. But what I suggest they to try is to join communities. Like special, like, you know, communities from any country that you are in. Usually these communities, they share opportunities like that, even grants or like, you know, so some sponsorships or specifically if there are female founders for female founders, there's a lot of support around where's the first industries like in tech or so it opportunities like that.

You may find out about them. If you're a part of a community, we find out about grants from other startup founders that we've, we've. Talks to, and you're like, Oh, really? You grow your startup on, on grounds. And like, yeah, that's an, that's an option. That's an option. We like, yeah, it's, and it's for each startup founder to decide what's best for them.

But us, yeah, we had plans to, to move back to the U S for a while to test how sales are growing here. And when I saw that opportunity, I was like, Oh, but this fits our strategy to, to go back to the, to San Francisco. And so I was like, let me just. Take it on. And it was one of the best decisions. Otherwise we would not have the finances to check if this is a good idea or not to get the boot at TechCrunch.

So, so checking that through a very creative way of getting, getting a local, getting someone in Moldova to, to sponsor us. It's a, it was one of, it was a good idea. Okay. To see that, you know, for the future, we would actually go for boots like that. Yeah. Are there, are there, are there a lot of female led startups coming outta Moldova right now?

Oh yeah. I would say yes. I know a few and I'm really excited about what they're doing. Okay. Okay. And when you were at TechCrunch on the floor, you know, during the event, did you see a lot of other female led startups, like managing boots or, or on panels or anything? Be sincere. I haven't left the boot. I only left the boot to pitch.

I think I only left the boot to pitch and that was it. And then even then that time after that, we received an email. Oh, I came to your boot and there was nobody there. And I'm like, probably only came in that half an hour that I was pitched.

Well, speaking of the pitch, how did that go? How did the pitch go? Yeah, it went well. We will prepare, I prepared a lot for that pitch. It felt really important for us. So it went well. We've really changed everything because when we were in Moldova and we were pitching, we were good, you know, like in Moldova, there's not that many startups and you feel cool, you know, like you have a good pitch and you have a good traction, but when we came to the U S we had this shock that like, oh my God, here we are very average and we have to really, really work hard on like.

To present ourselves in the best way and like the most clear way. So like few days before this, we've attended another conference where I was looking on how, what are the best practices from YC? So I changed everything and like, I've made it accordingly to YC recommendations because here you have to compete with people that are following the best, the best practices around.

So, yeah, that pitch was a great experience for me to learn where are my strong points and where are our weakest points and how to present ourselves in a way that's showing the best of us. And it's still sincere and clear because everyone can cut through the bullshit. You know, you can put in your pitch, at least here, people seem so many pitches that they can see through, you know, so you have to be really good.

I love that. How you got, you know, that you take the best out of Y Combinator and made changes, what did you get any feedback from some of the pitches? And if so, what was the feedback? So we have, okay, the feedback mostly we've got, like, I think right after the pitch, we've got around 10 people connecting with me on LinkedIn, because I put it a QR code in the pitch to connect with me there.

And then like some of them, I remember one of the guy that was in the audience. He, he approached me after talked about the product, gave us feedback. Now he've introduced me to someone else that can be a potential client. So we measure the impact of the pitch and in this type of like, okay, what was the engagement from the audience?

Okay, very cool. Very cool. Can you guys tell me a little bit about the background in terms of how you guys got started working together and collaborating? And we don't need to go into too much detail, but it could just be like, Hey, I met so and so through a friend and I had this crazy idea and we felt like we connected and just walked me through the milestones.

Like, Hey, and I don't know if it was, but maybe 2019 we get this 2020 we get this just very high level. Cool. Then, then I can start that and Vio can like, I will tell you Vio from where, from what point of the story you can imagine. And I also want to hear about the, cause you guys were in San Francisco before TechCrunch and I think you attended some sort of accelerator or some event that you guys were invited to.

And so there was some, there was some crazy, I don't know what you would call it, like team building event or something, but you were the only two who were able to. Not just survive, but accomplish a task that I think most other people failed at. So I want to hear about that as well. I think you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, yeah, I, I know exactly. I will introduce the first part of the story and you can go on with the second part. That's what you're mentioning about. So, yeah, mainly for me, I used to work in a startup studio in London. One of our clients became a unicorn. I was like, Oh, that, that, that looks easy. Yeah. And when, when COVID started, I, as a hobby, I decided to do this like licensing and hypnotherapy.

It was just as a hobby. I was like, Oh, I have so much free time right now. Like I can just. Explore this curiosity of mine and therapy. And yeah, I did a one year course. And during that course, I went through lots of like therapy myself. I, at some point I decided for Vipassana meditation retreat to like think about myself, that's a 10 day silent retreat.

where you go and you only meditate for eight hours a day. So, and I, I had the idea for, it's good, your reaction on the face. So I had the idea for self talk before that I was thinking, Oh, it would be great to have this type of app. And I was talking about it to my friends. My friends said, Oh, that, that looks interesting, but I was working on something else at that point.

So I was like, Oh, at some point, maybe I will check it out. And in that retreat, because I had. 10 days with myself, no phone, no reading, no listening to anything, no talking to anyone, just like meditating eight hours a day. What inspired you to go through on this retreat? Like what, what was the, this, this, this type of retreats are taking place in like most of the countries I've been to the UK.

In the UK. So next to Bristol, somewhere in like a nice British village, there was this retreat where like around maybe 30 people came and they feed you, they take care of where to sleep, you just have a very precise schedule, you go meditate for an hour, take a break, meditate, eat, take a break, meditate, and all day like that, no talking, no doing something else except meditating.

Vio, would you do something like this? Yeah, I would, but it's not like I would do it in somewhere in Asian countries, I think we're like in America, South America, something like that. Yeah. So yeah, most people can't even be quiet for eight minutes and meditate and you're doing it eight hours a day for an extended period.

That's. That's something as well. So yeah, okay. For me, it didn't feel like, because I needed the time to think about what I, what about my life. I was going through this like therapy thing and like learning a lot about myself. So I felt like I did not have enough time to think about myself because I was like, oh, it's busy.

London is a crazy busy city events, this and that. So, so yeah, and that retreat I've decided. I'm going to, I've, I've, I've created the, the business plan. Like the idea was so present in my mind that I was like, no way. I'm going to do it. This is my chance. I was 26 at that time. I was like, I have very few years left that I would get this chance to just be super flexible.

So like I came back. And then two weeks I've convinced one of the investors I was working with to give me the money to start. So this is how I started. So, okay. I've showed him that business plan that was on my journal. So It was written on paper. He was like just just write this on some document and show it to me And also find the co founder like we need someone for you to like work together And the first person that came to my mind Was Yurika, and Yurika can take it from here to tell you the story.

Okay. Yeah, she, she called me, but we know each other from like, uh, 2014. Yeah. We met for the first time at my brother's graduation. And then we just like said hi or something. And we got into contact again, like around. And like, after the COVID 2000, like it was the end of COVID, I would say like to 2020, yeah, winter, something like that.

And then I approached her cause I don't know, she came into my mind somehow. Like I was, I was validating the previous startup that I had then. She, she came into my line, then I texted her on LinkedIn and then we, she got to test, but like from the first call that we had. We sort of like sing, I don't know, like therapy and like, what did they do?

And what, like, there was so many things in common. And I was like, this, this girl is surreal. Something is, something is tricky here, but in a good way. So, um, so in the meantime, like we kept the conversations when she was like doing the hypnotherapy license and she would share the things that she's going through, like with the customers.

And I would share the, the things that I go through and then she's like. Uh, the, in the meantime, the startup, I quit on the, on the previous startup and I was looking for something else. And she's like, Oh, I have this idea. It's like this, then like this. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds good. Okay. And what year was this?

This is like 2019 you said? Or 2020? That was, that was the end of 2021. Okay. Wow. So in just a short timeframe, you're at TechCrunch and the products already, you know, it's already in market. Like, but you also wrote a book and this book, I think you got Mark Levy. This person helped Simon Sinek. How did, okay, let me, let me go back a little bit before then.

Yeah, what was the first investor? Like, what was that, that, what was that amount that, that he invested you in? And what did you do with that? Because I also know that you're very big on the validation process when it comes to idea validation and product validation. So you guys meet, you say, yeah, let's do something.

What did you do with your first funding? Like what were the, what was like the first, the first steps, Elena? So, yeah, with the first funding. So I took a different approach to, to fundraising and to startups, like a different from what I was seeing around. So first I had money committed from the beginning.

Like, and this was important for me. I was living in London at that time and I needed my mental health to be stable. So like, so I first committed the money and I was like, okay, look, let's agree for like 100 K, but give me just 20 because I need this four months to validate the idea. I don't know if this is, should be something we should build or not.

I was like super sincere from the beginning. I was like, look, I have this idea. I'm not sure it's going to work or something. I'm not even sure what's the idea about. But I showed him one of these audios that my therapist created for me. And I was like, look, you see this audio. I love it. I love it. And it's like, it just made such an impact for me.

I almost cried. I almost cry every time when I listen to it. And I listen to it when I want to calm down and like, when I go for hard moments. And I want an app to create such audios. And you're like, Oh yeah, okay. Makes sense. So my idea on like how to see if we can figure out an algorithm or like if how this actually look like is to create maybe 100 of these audios and see what's the feedback of people and maybe at some point start selling them and see if they come back for more audios.

So we had. Few hypotheses of like, okay, how should the app look like? And also we had a few hypotheses. Okay. If the people come back for more audios, that means that they like it and that they would maybe able, they knew they would want to pay for it. So we've, yeah, I was just like, I was creating a plan. I didn't have the proper business plan or a pitch deck to fundraise.

I only had the plan of like, okay. In September, we do this in October. We do that. I can send you a photo of that plan. Miro board. Yeah, it was a Miro board, but mainly it was like, first I will validate, I will do a research on who are competitors. Second, I will start do a website for that. I will promote that website to my network and some other people to see if they request this audios.

So people mainly, they were feeling a form telling me, telling us what they were struggling with, what were their negative thoughts. And we would create this audios for them. Like a friend, like I would just stay with myself. I would rewatch my psychology classes and I would say like, what would I say as a psychologist, as a therapist to these people?

So we've created this audios around, like, I think at the number around 50, we started selling them. And we've started them from a price from 9 to 79. And there are people that paid 79. And like, I was, I was so surprised. It was all out about how we've put it, you know, like we sold it to founders and we're like, yeah, this is really important.

It's programming you and, and, and, and so on. So we've, and this process too, okay. We planned four months in the beginning for this process, but it actually took us much longer because at some point we figure out what's the algorithm behind it. So I've not, we've noticed that actually we do it based on some structure.

So first we put some breathing exercise. After that, we're explaining the emotion. And after that, we are doing this and that. So we're starting to see the structure of the audios. And after that, we are like, okay, now we have this structure. We have to create content like, okay. If someone asks for, they struggle with shame, what do you tell them?

If someone struggles with disappointment, what do you tell them? If that shame is about your body, it's something different. If that shame is about in your relationship again is different. And this crazy journey started to like create an algorithm. How did you find your first users? You said, this is your network.

Did you like, you know, people individually? That's Vio's, uh, that's Vio's specialty. She's a great connector. So Vio can, can tell more about that. I'm thinking, how did we get the first ones? Cause it was so like, so, like, so for a long time, that's, that's my first impression. How we got them? I can come, I can come with some ideas.

So Vio is, I don't know, like, she's just communities, from product hunt, from, from Slack.

I don't even know where she, she, she got them into, but she posted on Reddit. And 700 people liked her Reddit posts and I was like, Oh, wow, that's, that's impressive. So like she, she was very active on these communities that she was posting on. Was it like a subreddit or something? Yeah, it was a subreddit.

And then there were like a lot of Discord groups and then Slack groups. Where like I, I was engaging before, cause yeah, like everyone in this community is, Oh, there is a number one IndieHacker too. There are a lot of communities there. Now I'm starting to remember like, what, what, what did I do there? Yeah, we're just, you just text and people reply, but it's not like you just text and you go there to take.

Like I used to also give, so I was engaging in those communities. And when I presented this, they were like, Oh, I'll have to try it. And then, yeah. And then friends and their friends, yeah, they put their friends. So, yeah, can I get one for my boyfriend? Can I get one for my, my sister? Like that's, yeah, that's how they started.

Yeah. They're like, my partner needs this. Okay. You're starting to get traction. Yeah. Proof of concept. And did you go back to the investor and say, Hey, I think we've got something here. Like where were, where were the next milestones from here? Where do you, where else did you go from here? I think the biggest milestone that we had was that like the biggest after this was that we, we came to the U S and then this pre accelerator, what we had that Draper, where we switched from B2C to B2B, that was like the main milestone that happened here.

And then we did like a test with that switch though, because. It was just a more, more valuable segment or what was the main reason behind that? I can answer that. So the main reason behind that was financial sustainability. So, but it's a, it's a tricky thing here because in the U S a business like ours would do better B2B.

In the Eastern Europe, a business like ours is just not very familiar to have it B2B. It's very B2C. So when I think with my, when we think with our Moldovian entrepreneurial minds, we think B2C. When we think with our English speaking minds, we think B2B. So, but, but here in the, in the, in Silicon Valley, having a B2B SaaS, it's just very recommended because the revenue stream is more stable than in the B2C.

Also the investment that you need to get to some good KPIs. For you to be a good fit to raise the next fundraising pound, it's just much easier to reach that through a bit to be in a bit to be context. So let's say you need at least 250 K to be a good fit to raise your in turnover to, to reach you, to be a good fit to raise seed.

Seed found reaching to that 250 K in, in, in, in revenue. It's just much easier for B two B. Maybe you have to sign up 100 or 200 clients, but if you put that B two C, you have to maybe sign up 5 million users and 3% from those to be, to be paid. So like, so just felt much easier to go B two B at that point.

Okay. And what else happened during around the time of the Draper, the Draper conference, tell us about, I know where you're going.

So, okay. I will, I will just say briefly. So we had this during this time. So it was like five weeks program where we were. Like we were engaging in different activities. The main idea was at the end to have like a demo day, but apart from like business side, they tried to, they didn't try. They did it.

Actually. The goal was for, to see how tough we are from mental point of view and how it's like, what, how would we react? Like in situations where, when we are tired, when. So they did this program, which is called survival week for five days, where they took us, we were like 70 people. They took us only with the backpacks and they just like, we had like 70 bucks for like dollars for, for, for a team to get the food for, we will need to cook by ourselves.

So it was this military guys, like ex veterans, they would take us to Marshall fields, walking. Not to the Marshall Fields, but like that we walked around San Francisco. They wanted to show us San Francisco, but they made like stops for us to do things. So we ended up selling condoms in the Union Square where like, um, we're like, just to walk the entire city with this heavy backpacks.

And it was, it was crazy. And then the moment we got there. The whole thing started because their goal was to, to push us to the limits, like physically and mentally. And we had all these five days assignments. We would need to like wake up in the morning to cook for everyone, like each person per team to cook the breakfast, dinner, and not dinner, lunch.

And then we had assignments like, so. Okay, we were a shortage of food because they gave us like 70 per team and in one day they sort of showed us like that one assignment was to kill chicken, a chicken, yeah, a chicken. I always mix this with kitchen, okay, chicken. And they were like, you have to kill one, you have to learn how to do it because if you are in like.

It's survival conditions. You need to know how to survive. So to get to hunt your food and, and, you know, all this like kid, not kid, but entrepreneurs from around the world, they were like, I, I don't know how to kill a chicken. I don't know what to do with it. Some of them were like, I'm not making love of like vegetarians, but they were like really stressed about it.

And you know, We were like, me and Elena, we grew up in like in a farm, farm sort of environment. We, we're so ducklings. We, we like, that's how we grew up. So for us. For me personally, because when we got to this task, I wasn't with her and her team. So I wanted to speed up because we were like closing time, you know, I wanted to speed up with the, okay, let's get this done and just go.

And then at some point I'm like, give me that chicken and I take the knife and I'm like doing as I used to do it, like with my mom, that would be my nightmare actually, but I wanted to like save the time because. I saw the instructor who showed us how to kill a chicken. I was like, that's not how we do it.

That's for sure not how you do it. Oh my God. No, that

was too painful. You have to get it more faster. Oh my God. No, no, no. That's, that's it's a no. So I was like, give me that chicken, you catch it, I will do it. And she, and then I did the same 'cause then I found out, 'cause she was also like, she also did like, let me do it 'cause it's gonna be faster. So did your team members, did, did your team members look at you any different after that point?

Yes. Yeah, they did. They did. I remember I had my, my manicure and they were like, I can't believe Mani. So yeah, it was crazy, but we don't, we didn't do only that. We've like tried, like they taught us how to deal with arms, like how to shoot from a Kalashnikov, how to, how to do archery. We've walked like 126 miles and like hiked most of the time during the day.

Through jungle. I like, this is what I felt. It felt for me like for some crazy. Parts of the, of the forest there. So yeah, I think they really pushed us to the limits and I felt it. I really felt it at some point disconnect from my body. And I was just telling it, just walk, like, like, just move your leg from one to another, just like, we don't talk anymore and we get home.

So they were, the only recommendation that they had was to have socks, like dry socks because. That's the only thing when you are like, your feet are wet and you have to walk so much, it's like crazy. But, but yeah, that's, I'm like, for me, thinking of that experience, so at the end of the program, they create like one day of survival for like reunion, sort of reunion Think, and we went back to that place like in, you know, in a, in like in a short.

Short time period after the traumatic. So, so it was sort of healing because most of those like veterans that they were pushing us because we were doing fire watching. It was crazy. Yeah. I'm laughing right now, but it was crazy actually. And then when we came back. They, they sort of took us with the cars because back then we were walking and they were with the cars driving and just like making fun of us, like, Oh, you have to walk more, you know?

And this time they were just like, come on, get on the car and let's go see. And I'm like, Oh my God, what, what, what's happening? So it was quite healing to see their different kind of behavior at the end. So now when I look back, I see that. I discovered a lot of things about myself during that, that experience.

Like whenever you think that you can't, you, you actually can a little bit more. You can. Yeah. And then the optimistic side kicked in and I don't know, I found like interesting parts that I like, I, I value that experience now. I valued back then, but now I even do it even more. Very, very cool. Where are you guys right now in terms of like the.

Uh, the fundraising process and what are you excited about in the next 12 months, uh, for self talk, Elena? So, yeah, so far we have raised, uh, 200, 325, 000, uh, pounds. That's around 4, 000 us dollars, 400 thousands. So right now we are not fundraising. We are, our main focus is to build traction and measure early signs of product market fit.

So we still, we still good with like the fund, like the funds that we've got main, main priority for us is to like just grow and measure how much our users like the product, how much they are willing to come back and like use it again and again. And as soon as that is like, we have a specific. Plan on how to measure product market fit.

And as soon as that we have early signs of product market fit, we would look for like a scaling in different languages and also doing a fundraise, another fundraise. So we are taking a very, I would say it's a sustainable approach to business. We don't want to like, we want to make sure it's a useful product and people are coming back to use it.

And we have product market fit. So that's our main focus for next year, for this year and for next year. And by. By middle of next year, maybe end of next year, we'll do another fundraise to scale. So this is what are we most excited about. Also, we, we are excited about integrating more AI into our product.

So we are able to scale and like personalize and bring more features that can make the interaction as close to a therapy session that we can do at the moment with the current technology. All right. Interesting. And I know VO, you said that you got a lot of your first users through communities like Reddit.

IndieHacker and Slack, are there any other tactics and strategies that you're trying right now to bring on more, more customers? Yeah, we have a different approach. So we have one approach that we actually take, but it's different every time. So this, this approach is used in YC where they, they're like, they have, there's not just like one day of launching and then that's it.

It's like launch again and again and again. So we created this concept of momentum campaigns where, um, we approach for B2B and then when the B2C is going to be ready, then it's going to be a different kind of momentum campaigns. So the first momentum campaign that we have right now is to approach the clients that we had.

And also the clients from the, our personal network, which we create like a personalized offer for them in terms of like teams, then it will be the second momentum campaign because we measure. So it's, it's the first momentum campaign. Then we see the results in terms of cash, and then we see what we can improve.

And then we take the learnings from this momentum campaign to the next, to the second one, where we approach thirder. No one like people, let's say people of the people that we know. So, and then we take like another one, which is the cold email. That's going to be the third momentum campaign in terms of B2B.

For the B2C, I would first see them our momentum company. We did it actually with the previous users that we had, that was sort of the first one. Where we gave them access, early access to the app to see, uh, cause they, they, they tried our, like the content. I want to mention something here. So like we've, we've opened the beta, we've had a closed beta from February to August.

And this is what Vio is talking about, that our previous users also, we had, we had clients when we had no product, we were selling this audios for, for manually, manually made audios. So that was our proof of concept stage that we've, we've like worked with companies also, we had the company that was subscribing to us, paying us on a monthly basis to, for us to create this audios manually.

And also we had a closed beta. That's, that's, we was mentioning about that. We also talked to companies and like they gave, gave them access, like users. We had B2C users testing that. And now we've opened that beta and like, we are ready to sell like a really good, I would say quite a good MVP that we've had.

It's a, most people said, I would not say this is an MVP. I would say this is the material product and we hope that's so. But yeah, the, the, the, the, the product market fit measurements will show on that. So yeah, just like measure that. So it's clear what periods is Vio talking about. All right. Yeah. Okay.

Well, we're coming to the end of the, the interview here. I've got some rapid fire questions. The first question that I have, and Elena, I, I read a post that Vio made recently and she met Nathan Lottke at TechCrunch and you mentioned that you read his book, How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital. It was very influential and inspiring.

I also read that book. It's one of the books that I go back to frequently, uh, because there's a lot of good ideas in there, uh, that he talks about. Elena, is there a book that you read that has been very inspiring or influential, uh, in regards to entrepreneurship that you would recommend? In regards to entrepreneurship.

Yes. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm not sure if like, there's not like I'm a, I'm a bookworm. Do you read a lot? And that's, and I've read quite a few books that were quite good. So one that I would recommend. Okay. So Buddha and the Badass by Vishen Lakhiani. It was something that I really liked. And I would recommend for it.

It's about how do you bring your full self to work? And how do you do high performance? I do perform at the top level while you're still maintaining your mental health and kind of explore who you are as a human being. So that was something that I really liked in like at that stage. But also like I've read, like, I, I do follow this, uh, book recommendation.

So, and some of them, I really read them. Another one that was really useful was a fundraising by, yeah, I forgot the author. I will send it to you later so you can put it on the, on the screen. It's really short and good one about fundraising and the one that's more crazy and like, maybe I'm reading it right now.

It's Transurfing Reality. It's about how you perceive reality and how you can bend reality. Uh, same that Steve Jobs was doing. Like, I'm not sure if like it's same, but, uh, this, this concept of bending reality, it's, it's quite popular here in the Bay area. So a book that I'm, I'm quite fascinated with right now.

And I saw other entrepreneurs reading it. It's trans surfing reality. Okay. Very interested. And I'll share that with the other and the show notes. Other question, Leo. Uh, this is a question really about Elena. What do you think her third most unique street is? Maybe her first and second, or maybe hardworking and ambition.

But what do you think her third most unique trait is? The third one. Okay. The third one. Oh my God. How come? That's an interesting question. Yeah, because you have to put like in the first second and you have to say the third.

The third, I would say the, the skill that she has, where she's, she said, like, I'm going to figure it out. Like, it's sort of like an inner resource that she taps into whenever things are not easy. And she's like, I see her struggling. Like I see the internal conflict that she goes through, but every time she goes, like every time she has this like exit room towards the, the resource, I'm going to figure it out and then she stresses and then she figures out something like that.

Okay. Very cool. Very cool. All right. Last question. Question, Elena. If Rio had a hundred million dollars, but still had to work 40 hours a week. What would Beyo be doing? I think she's going to be doing the same thing. Like I, I kind of, I'm kind of like sure about that. But yeah, she was really excited about our mission to like transform one billion minds, one self talk audio at a time.

She wrote like, she was the one that was putting this number on. I was like, no, no, no. Put one million. I put one million like, no, no. And she was like, no, no, no. I want something big. Let's go for something big. Let's do it. Yeah. So like, and in the beginning I was like, this guy is crazy. You're way too ambitious.

Yeah, no, that's, that's. I started to go into it too. And I was like, maybe there is a chance for us to do that, but if we don't even set it up, like if you don't even plan for that, there is no chance it will happen. So at least let's, let's hit, let's, let's hope for the stars and like, see where we get.

Ladies, I am very excited for you and I wish you all the best. And I, I just think this is an amazing, amazing service and product that you guys are offering. And I will put links to self talk and your LinkedIn profiles and the show notes. Okay. And the last question for you both. What is one piece of advice that you would, you would give?

To any, any person that's thinking about launching their own startup. And specifically, if they're from the Eastern European region.

Should I start? Yeah, go, go, go, go. Just very, very short. For me, the one that is like most important, I usually tend to not give advice, but this is the why, why I, why I want to do that is that because everyone has to listen to their gut feelings. Most of the time, our gut feelings are so right, but we've been trained to not listen to them because like we, ourself, it's in the way.

So pay attention to yourself, talk and listen to your gut feelings. They may not be right all the time, or they may not, they, you may not know enough information about that, but the direction on, on where to go. It's just, it's in, it's inside us. There's no one outside that knows what's best for you. So, so from my side, it would be listened to your, your gut feelings and, and feel that this observe the self talk you've got.

'cause most of the time that self-talk is not coming from you. It's something you've listened to, you've onboarded from your parents, from your friends, from from the media. So most of the time those are not even your fears. That that would be from my side. Alright, thank you. I'm thinking like when you asked, I was thinking to talk to myself like at that time when before like, and I think that the.

The only thing I would tell is just do what you set yourself to do. And it's just like, don't, like, it's not, don't, it's not like, don't be afraid or, no, even if you're afraid. Just do it, just like take the time to understand yourself, not rush to complying to someone, but like understand what you want to give.

Like, what is your real passion? What is it that you want? Go find that out. Like just be bold with this, just go and find it, expose yourself in so many contexts so that you understand more about yourself and then you can start something, that's what I would say. All right, ladies, thank you so much for coming on Innovators Collab.

It's quite apparent that you guys are, have a very good chemistry, a work chemistry, and I saw that firsthand when we went out and had the wine together. Was not the wine. Unless you've been drinking right now before the interview. It's still very occurring. Again, working relationship and, and that's, that's something that you don't see quite often.

So thank you so much for coming on the show for everybody listening. This is Elena Alpreia and Bia Benica from self talk. Thank you for having us. Thank you. I had a fabulous time chatting with Elena and Beyo. They are both a bundle of smarts, ambition, and curiosity. And quite honestly, I think they have a shot at being Moldova's first unicorn founders.

Their upbringing, having to tend to animals on a farm and kill chickens and other things like that, that kind of stuff, it builds tenacity, something that most people don't have. And they just had this unparalleled drive. To do things with perfection. I am certain their self talk app is going to be a hit.

Thank you to Elena and Vio for being on the show. If you like this episode, send me a note on LinkedIn and let me know that you're listening and subscribe on Apple and Spotify or here on YouTube. Also, don't forget recently launched the Innovators Can Laugh podcast media network. So any brands that are trying to reach tech founders or people in the B2B or SaaS space in the United States or through Europe, through podcasts and newsletters.

It can work with me directly and I can help spread their message across multiple podcasts. Okay. Thank you for tuning in. See you next week. This is Eric from Innovators Can Laugh signing off.