Day: July 17, 2024

By: Yofounder  We had the opportunity to speak with Julia Goncharov, CEO and co-founder of Unicorns Club. In this interview, we will learn how Unicorns Club helps founders overcome barriers to growth and attract investment. We will discuss Julia's strategy, vision, experience, and gather practical advice for aspiring founders.

Julia, Unicorns Club officially launched in mid-June and received the Product of the Day award on Product Hunt on its launch day. Is this a reflection of your careful planning or an indication of how much the market needs such a product right now?

Both factors played a role. I started engaging with startup founders on X (formerly Twitter) six months before we were ready to show users the first version of Unicorns Club. We used the build-in-public hashtag, and many people followed the process. I think this significantly contributed to our win. Product Hunt is a marketing story, and winning without support is quite challenging. For us, it was a very suitable platform in terms of the ideal customer profile, so from the very beginning, we knew that the first users would come from Product Hunt, and we built our interaction strategy with its audience. And, of course, we see enormous demand and interest in Unicorns Club. As you know, the venture capital market is far from its  shape right now (In 2023, the total volume of investments dropped to its lowest level since 2018). Meanwhile, the number of new startups continues to grow. Additionally, more founders are paying attention to the gap in opportunities available to those in the heart of the venture ecosystem compared to entrepreneurs outside the US. In the last two years, many products have emerged trying to solve these problems.

Who do you see as your muscular competitor right now, and how are you better?

Right after us, BuildSpace Sage launched on Product Hunt. They reinvented the online accelerator by focusing on supporting people at the idea stage of projects. During the program, you dedicated time each day to your idea, step by step, realizing your dream. I'm very fond of all products that solve problems of motivation, skill development, support, team building, and, ultimately, attracting funding as a result of this process. In my list of solutions for startups and investors, there are currently 32 products. Half of them appeared in the last three years—they all represent some way to improve the process of product creation and fundraising. There are many excellent companies, but I don't see direct competitors. Products that are indirectly suitable for early-stage startups typically revolve around networking events. This is a proven way, but we want to change this approach. We believe entrepreneurs who are truly building a business don't have much time to attend pitch meetings with investors who made their last investments in the previous century. So, you pitched for 15 minutes, then what? How do you build relationships further? What tools do you have for this? Understanding this, startups focused on business increasingly choose bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is a great path, but it also has its problems, and sometimes, it's good to have the opportunity to raise additional funds for growth. We tell such startups: even if you don't have time to seek investment, now, if you decide to be a lone hacker or develop with earned money, create and maintain a profile on Unicorns Club now to have a backup option for the future. If you decide you need funding, you'll have the opportunity to get it—on venture model terms or dividend terms.

Is the primary goal of Unicorns Club to provide startups with a pool of investors?

Statistics show that startups are less likely to die from lack of funding and more from failure to pivot or lack of motivation. As previously mentioned, funding is a direct result of a team's business activities. To achieve this outcome, we are dedicated to optimizing all processes. We aim to ensure that genuinely worthy teams find professional investors. To achieve this goal, we assist startups in evaluating their progress, staying motivated, obtaining necessary support from other founders, reaching operational milestones (revenue, users), and presenting their accomplishments as an attractive investment opportunity. We help the startup step by step achieve indicators demonstrating growth, and along the way, we introduce them to investors. Investors follow the startup, see a team's commitment to the product, users, and growth metrics, and, having verified the team over time, can decide to invest. That's why I advise everyone to create a profile as early as possible: if you think you can attract investments with the push of a button when you desperately need them, you are mistaken. Fundraising is about building trust, a process that takes time.

How is this different from startup accelerators?

I have participated in several startup programs and remember how it was the first time. Back then, I was already the Head of Product for an app with a million-user audience. By the program's second week, I felt like I knew nothing about my job. I know this feeling is familiar to many. While you work in a corporate job, no matter how high your position, you don't see the whole picture. I would love for creators from around the world to have the opportunity to go through a few months of such training with their products at least once in their lives. But, unfortunately, it remains an unattainable goal. Recently, I analyzed the LinkedIn profiles of founders who got into YCombinator. Suppose you graduated from an Ivy League university and live in the US. In that case, your chances are a hundred times higher than if you are a startup from a developing country. At the same time, investor interest in teams from developing countries is enormous. However, startups lack access to infrastructure and education, while VCs struggle to connect with startups beyond the echo chamber. I volunteer as a judge in startup competitions by the Burning Heroes Founders Association. For the last two years, Burning Heroes has held events to support founders from Africa. And, you know, I experienced a catharsis reviewing pitches from startups that don't create yet another Generative AI product but, for example, invented Android-based computers designed to consume as little electricity as possible. Or they produce fish feed from local crops, saving women from "sex for fish" (in many villages in Kenya, boats are owned by men, and for women to get fish to sell, they have to agree to sex in exchange for the opportunity to get fish).

Given your experience in launching startups and working as a Growth and Product Manager in established products, what essential qualities and skills do you consider important for successful entrepreneurs?

Remember that a startup is not a sprint but a marathon. Running this marathon alone is nearly impossible, so the key competencies here are not technical. Still, I would rather have the ability to find and unite the right people and not be afraid to take paths that others call crazy. And, of course, the ability to get up when something doesn't work again—As it is known, an experienced founder is valued for the frequency of their scraped knees. I am working on my book "Beyond the Unicorn Tale" and aim to pose essential questions to aspiring founders, the attention to which will determine the outcome. I believe that the key factor in entrepreneurial success is a symbiosis between daily work and the ability to ask yourself and others the right questions.

Has your experience with AI and MarTech solutions (Tocoway and Leadhero) influenced Unicorns Club's functionality and development strategy?

Speaking about AI, we currently avoid it in the Unicorns Club platform. For example, we now manually analyze startup profiles, fearing that matchmaking with AI could result in errors due to model undertraining. However, we use AI technologies, including Tocoway solutions, to attract startups and investors to the platform and achieve very high conversion rates, which is impossible in SEO or paid ads.

How do you see the development of Unicorns Club in the next 5 years? What goals do you set for yourself and your team?

We aim to revolutionize the relationships between global startups and investors within this timeframe. Today's product can be called a pre-launch: users see literally one-hundredth of what will be available by the end of the year. I wouldn't want to disclose specific mechanics. Still, I can undoubtedly say that users will receive evidence that our solution delivers the stated values every month. Of course, we plan to work extensively with feedback from both investors and startups. We are focused on opening more features sooner, attracting more users, ensuring everyone receives the necessary level of attention, and building a feedback channel. Unicorns Club is a large-scale story that won't succeed without close work with our users. Once, introverts and people aiming to save time invented a way not to call a taxi service and not wave their hands on the road. It's time to start a revolution in the startup ecosystem and prove that there are more effective ways to build relationships than cocktail parties in Silicon Valley. When, a year and a half ago, my co-founder and I pitched the idea of Unicorns Club to familiar founders and investors, they told us we were crazy and that everything in this industry, although working poorly, couldn't be changed, that we wouldn't succeed. Now, when I show the quality of projects, their geography, and the speed at which we are growing, the same people ask if they can invest in us. So, I once again urge everyone to register on Unicorns Club to help us change the outdated fundraising process and achieve a fairer and more convenient startup ecosystem.   Published By: Aize Perez