2392 - Where Expert Guidance Meets AI for Startup Founders with ThinkUp’s Ohad Shaked

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0:46Visit podverify.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now is Ohad Shaked. Ohad, you are the co-founder and CEO of ThinkUp Global. You're found on the web at thinkup.global. Ohad, it's great to have you. Thank you, Josh. It's great being here. Before we start talking about the work that you do with ThinkUp, I understand you're, I think, currently in between Israel and Switzerland, and you do a lot of traveling around. And you and I were just kind of chatting briefly before we got going. I normally ask people what they kind of geek out on, but you've been to Dubai a couple of times.

1:35I would love to visit Dubai. I'm hoping maybe you can maybe share some travel tips with us for someone because you've been there a few times now. What is it about Dubai that you enjoy? And, you know, for, you know, a Westerner, you know, what you might recommend doing? Yeah. Well, you know, you wouldn't have guessed, but Dubai today, I think, is one of the top cities in the world. As a friend said, no other city in the world can offer what Dubai can. and um you know it's just impressive um uh you know the facilities uh you know the hotels the leisure the you know the shops the malls uh restaurants nightlife um the people the atmosphere you know everything is very outgoing everything is extremely safe for everyone and it just makes you feel very relaxed, very comfortable.

2:33And they're also into, you know, progress, AI, tech, the financial industry is very strong there. So you get lots of benefits from, you know, many aspects. So I think we've got a lot more from them. Yeah. What have you done there that you think is just really, really super fun? Well, I like great hotels. So, you know, they got the Atlantis Hotel. They've got the show. It's like Cirque du Soleil, the equivalent of Cirque du Soleil in one of the hotels there. You know, got great beaches and, you know, you can just go up the I think the Burj Al Khalifa. Burj Al Khalifa, yeah. Yeah, yeah, the biggest tower.

3:21That's quite a view. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just keep going up and up in the escalator. It's never So that's an amazing and unique experience. Well, I've got your website, Ohad. It's thinkup.global. I'm just going to read what it says on the front page here and have you kind of fill in what you do. It says, build what matters. Thinkup is your all-in-one AI platform from idea validation to precede funding. All right. Tell me more. so uh you know when i created my first startup in the iot domain you know i had some struggles just like any other uh entrepreneur it's a very difficult uh journey and um i wanted to create something for other founders you know uh to help them you know make the the journey a business a bit less stressful a bit more structured you know there are best practices you can follow and that you can use to help you through the journey.

4:25It doesn't have to be an ocean of possibilities and questions. It can be a bit clearer and faster. So we're trying to pave the way to map a journey, a structured journey, step-by-step, small bites, as we like to call them, and help them along the way. So they create deliverables. They can validate the problem. that they're trying to solve. They can validate the solution. They can interview people, can analyze everything and build the business framework, the go-to-market strategy, the business model, everything in one place and prepare them for funding later on. Help me understand, Ohad, what ThinkUp does differently than let's say someone just wanting to start a project in their own ChatGPT with some prompts that they found.

5:19yeah well you know in order to create a successful startup at least in the beginning you've got hundreds of questions to ask now if you're if you're aware and if you if you know what questions uh you want to ask and you're comfortable and you know how to connect the dots you know because all the questions and answers are connected uh the question number 50 is based on the answers that you got on question number two, five, seven, and ten. And if you know all the answers, all the questions to ask, if you know how to connect the dots, what to do with the answers, not all the answers are easy to understand or provide you with clear action items.

6:03And if you're comfortable with working with a chat-based solution, then maybe that's fine. But most people don't know exactly what to ask, in what order, what to do with the answers, and how to build one on top of another. And the chat is a generic solution. It's not built specifically for founders. Yeah. And so can you make sure I understand structurally how ThinkUp works with founders from beginning all the way through funding? Okay. So through onboarding, we ask a few questions. We try to understand where you are at your journey. How knowledgeable are you in the startup life? And then obviously the first question is, what's your idea?

6:55Okay, I know this is a tough one, but we have to start there. This is the basis for all the work. And then we break it down into the solution, the problem, and we provide a few insights, market reports, suggested personas, and then we guide you step by step, module by module. We start with persona mapping, who's going to buy your product, and then we go to market analysis, how big is your market, what are the trends. Then we help you through interviews, who do you need to interview, what to ask, how to analyze. So it's a step-by-step, task-by-task process. And every time that you complete a step, you get deliverables, you get the outcomes, and these are the basis for the next step.

7:48Yeah. And so I'm a huge, by the way, I'm very bullish on platforms, tools, and services that are what I like. They're hybrid, where I think AI is fantastic. but AI, if you're inexperienced or you don't know what to ask, it's like, for example, you know, with our platform, you know, we have an AI builder that will build like 90 % of your press kit. But that said, if you don't, you know, kind of know where to push back, if you don't know where to, no, no, no, no, you need, you need an experience guide, An experience guide, like how I'm able to communicate with my AI around the areas that I'm an expert in is way different than someone saying, hey, how do I get on podcasts?

8:44I promise you, if you just go into AI and ask questions like that, all you're going to do is just get the advice that marketers have been putting into blogs over the past number of years. And trust me when I say that ain't good advice. And I'm sure that you see, Ohad, maybe some bad answers by default without the proper guidance. They can be very costly in the long run. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, they can also be generic and they can just get you into a block or a loop that you wouldn't know how to get out of it. So, you know, everything has to be very specialized, very specialized. When you want to reach the high level, it has to be personalized.

9:32And I see. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Please. No, no. Well, I was going to ask you about. So, you know, part of, you know, I'm on ThinkUp and it says, well, you could secure up to$100 ,000 and precede funding. We don't just connect you with potential investors. We're actually investing in the most promising startup ideas. Tell me more. Tell me what you're looking for. so we're looking for founders that do uh you know a very um thorough work very structured they really go after their persona they're really trying to understand the customers for example today we just had the chat with uh an entrepreneur she's uh she's a marketer uh by experience and she's looking to break into the streaming industry with some uh interesting app.

10:22And she was going into the producers of TV shows and product managers in Netflix. And we were trying to understand the persona that she's pursuing. How will she be selling to them? What will she be selling to them? So we're trying to see founders that are truly into their target market, truly understand the target market, and that their solution resonates with their potential audience you know not just running into vibe coding you know just falling in love with their solution they have to fall in love with the problem with their target audience you know this is the main thing and and if they do the work correct you know they they follow most of the steps they they validate their idea they interview enough people they get strong signals for the need for their product.

11:19And then we can see a solid financial work, that they really understand the roadmap, the challenges ahead, how much it's going to cost to reach the next milestone, that we know that we've got someone that is not just passionate and romantic and interested, but someone that is professional. That's one we want to invest in. Well, I love this. I think it's actually quite brilliant for you as an investor. because what you've provided here is a fantastic tool that everybody can use. And, you know, you get to provide guidance and, you know, it's like you get to be a little bit of a talent scout by providing tools that are just great for everybody to use.

12:05And you kind of get to keep your eye on the, you know, the ones that really are a good fit for what your goals are. What would be, give me an example of someone who's used ThinkUp and has gotten all the way to funding and now they're, you know, really seeing some opportunity. Well, we've got actually a not so junior founder that wanted to ride on the wave of AI and created an app to build an avatar for mentors, you know, gurus like Tony Robbins, for example. And for people like that to engage with their audience. and not through a$2 ,000 per hour personal one-on-one meetings, but AI and an avatar can democratize and bring the gurus and experts to a mass audience with as much as$20 per month.

13:09And it would be the equivalent of having them for one-on-one sessions. So they used the platform, they validated their idea, They understood that their channel partners are the mentors themselves. They have to partner with them. They understood the business model and the financial model, you know, all sorts of metrics, KPI of retention and churn and what would be a reasonable financial model and a roadmap. And they went on, they raised the press seed. And, you know, we're still waiting for them to move on to round day and to get more traction. so that could be great yeah very cool i should mention that the the the plans are incredibly accessible um so the pricing is you know anywhere from 29 to 69 a month and you know on those uh you know on those plans like the on the the 39 dollar plan includes one-to-one expert consultations Do you mind maybe just sharing a little bit more about the dreamer, founder, and builder plans and who they're a good fit for?

14:21Yeah, well, we're well aware that founders in early stage don't have a lot of capital. So everything has to be, the pricing has to be founder-friendly. And the initial idea that I had when I started the company, I said, I want to sit on the beach somewhere, maybe in Thailand, maybe in Dubai. and I want to validate my idea just within one week. So we had to make everything very accessible, you know, quite cheap. And we provide also some coupons and benefits if we work through startup communities and the like. And I think it has to be very, very reasonable because at the first moment you have an idea, you're not sure if it's going to kick off or not.

15:06So you don't want to spend too much on it. so in the beginning it has to be very founder friendly and as you mentioned before the chat gpt also served as a benchmark you know if that costs 20 per month uh at least until we become a a big brand like them uh we need to uh we have a competition to that we need to beat so to our friend that's listening right now what would you recommend their next steps be. Again, your website is thinkup.global. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, log on to the website, register, you know, just start with typing in your idea. Check out, you know, the first impression, the recommendations that you receive.

15:54And we've got an AI mentor also within the platform that can answer questions. And as you mentioned before, we are here for them. You know, we're just happy, you know, to log on to one-on-one meetings, mentorship, as much as possible. We want to help them succeed. You know, it's like we're obsessed when someone has an idea and he or she wants to kick it off. You just want to make it happen. So we're here for them, to mentor them, and to help them with the structure and a clear path forward. Excellent. Ohad Shekhead, co-founder and CEO at ThinkUp, the website, thinkup.global. Ohad, thank you so much for joining us.

16:41Thank you, Josh, for the time. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. If your goal is to grow your business, increase revenue, and build authority without gimmicks, this show is designed for you. Each episode gives you practical insight from leaders who have turned trust and credibility into real business results. If you value short, thoughtful conversations that respect your time, make sure you're subscribed. We publish daily 15-minute episodes focused on growth that actually compounds. And if you're interested in being a guest or you want to turn podcast appearances into measurable business growth, visit podverified.com.

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