Startup Spotlight #140: Senpai
Senpai is a platform for requesting paid async audio responses directly from domain experts.
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I got the chance to speak with Christine Hong and Travis Fischer, founder of Senpai, about what they’re working on at their startup, and any advice they have for emerging entrepreneurs.
The founders are Travis Fischer and Christine Hong, who met through On Deck in April 2021 while both working on ideas with the same mission to help domain experts become thought leaders.
Travis had previously founded a startup in the creator economy space called Saasify and Christine had previously founded a startup in the audio space called Auby when they met to join forces for Senpai. Previously, Travis was a technical lead at companies like Amazon, Facebook, & Microsoft and Christine was a product lead at companies like Tinder & Yahoo.
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Startup Spotlight: Senpai
Problem: On the demand side, it's difficult for most people to get in touch with high-end domain experts because there's so much noise. On the supply side, domain experts gain a lot by becoming content creators, but how do we help these folks get started?
Market: The passion economy & creator economy are on the rise with Cameo hitting $100M revenue in 2020. Expert networks reached $1.3B revenue in 2019 with 20% YoY growth (source) which is relatively small as it's so high-end (we will grow this market 10x by making this type of expertise significantly less expensive and more accessible).
Solution: Senpai is a platform for requesting paid async audio responses directly from domain experts.
Team: Our team has 30+ years of experience in consumer software and 5+ years in the audio industry. We've shipped products at Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Tinder, and Yahoo and have produced audio content with hundreds of thousands of listens.
Recent Success:
Fischer and Hong: We've been really good at running quick experiments to confirm interest on both the supply and demand side. One particular success story has been Olly, a world-class marketer who runs RoastMyLandingPage.com, where he provides async feedback on landing pages. He has been extremely successful with this business model and now sustains himself full-time. He sets aside downtime once a week to respond to batches of requests back to back. He uses this service as top-of-funnel lead generation for establishing higher-paying consulting jobs.
Recent Struggle:
Fischer and Hong: We've struggled with whether to focus on supply or demand side for gaining traction. Solving the chicken & egg problem for a two-sided marketplace is always tricky. We want to make both sides happy but decided to focus on our experts first to generate demand. We have been good at sprinkling in some customer experiments as well to determine which type of experts are most requested by them.
Founder Advice:
Fischer and Hong: Start a company where the initial customers your business targets are the type of people you'd like to hang out with daily. You're going to be spending A LOT of time talking to them. It's best when these conversations naturally happen instead of in a formal user interview setting. We love talking to domain experts and empowering them to become creators so it keeps us going when the work gets hard at Senpai.
Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Hong: Here are three founders you should check out next!
Othniel Mbamalu, Founder of Advanced Rockets Corporation: creating a versatile, high utilization, and highly reusable low-cost orbital access solution.
Dalia Katan, Founder of Presently: Making group gifting & celebrations simple & easy.
Grace Chiang, Founder of Cherish Parenting: Community and personalized coaching for parents who want healthy, connected relationships with their teens.
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