Henrik Werdelin has spent the final 15 years serving to entrepreneurs construct huge manufacturers like Barkbox via his startup studio Prehype. Now, together with his new, New York-based enterprise Audos, he’s betting that AI may help him scale that course of from “tens” of startups a yr to “tons of of 1000’s” of aspiring enterprise homeowners.
The timing definitely feels proper. Mass layoffs throughout a wide range of industries have left many staff reconsidering their profession paths, whereas AI instruments have markedly lowered the barrier to constructing digital services and products. On the middle of that Venn diagram is Werdelin’s newest enterprise, with its promise to assist “on a regular basis entrepreneurs create million greenback AI corporations” with out requiring technical expertise.
Werdelin’s journey from Prehype to Audos displays the broader transformation taking place in entrepreneurship proper now. At Prehype, the main focus was on working with tech founders to construct conventional startups, the type which may elevate thousands and thousands and purpose for billion-dollar exits.
Now, he tells TechCrunch, “What we’re attempting to do is take all that data, all of the methodology that we’ve created through the years of constructing all these huge corporations, and actually attempting to democratize it.”
The thought is that “on a regular basis entrepreneurs” might sense a shift is afoot however is probably not eager to experiment with so-called AI brokers or know how you can attain clients. Audos is very happy to assist them, supplying these people with AI instruments to construct subtle merchandise utilizing pure language, and making the most of social media algorithms to seek out them their area of interest clients.
“Fb and loads of these platforms, they’re simply unbelievable algorithms, they usually’re unbelievable at determining (how you can attain your buyer) in the event you outline a buyer group,” says Werdelin, who co-founded Audos together with his Prehype accomplice Nicholas Thorne. In reality, Audos makes use of this method to rapidly check whether or not a founder’s enterprise concept has sustainable buyer acquisition prices.
The method appears to be working. Audos has helped launch “low tons of” of companies since its beta launch, with its personal clients discovering the platform via Instagram advertisements asking “Have you ever ever thought of beginning one thing, however don’t know the place to go?” Amongst them, Werdelin says, are a automobile mechanic who needs to assist folks consider restore quotes, a person who’s promoting “after demise logistics” providers, digital golf swing coaches, and AI nutritionists. In a winking reference to billion-dollar companies, or so-called unicorns, he calls these one- and two-person groups “donkeycorns.”
All went via the identical course of: they clicked on Audos’s advert, its AI agent launched a dialog to determine the issues these people wish to sort out and who they wish to serve, and, when it was glad with the solutions, Audos acquired them in entrance of potential clients as quick as potential.
As for returns, Audos operates on a basically completely different mannequin than conventional accelerators or enterprise capital. As an alternative of taking fairness, the corporate takes a 15% income share from the companies it helps launch. In return, founders stand up to $25,000 in funding, entry to these AI-powered enterprise improvement instruments, and assist with distribution, primarily via paid social media promoting.
“We’re not taking any fairness of their enterprise,” Werdelin says, partly as a result of “we don’t suppose these corporations would possibly ever get offered. What we’re actually impressed by are the mom-and-pop retailers which can be the spine of our society.”
The income share continues indefinitely, much like platform charges charged by Apple’s App Retailer. For founders, meaning giving up a good portion of their income in perpetuity — a 15% reduce that might price entrepreneurs tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} over time. Some will undoubtedly see that trade-off as worthwhile; others would possibly query whether or not the long-term prices justify the advantages.
Audos’s worth proposition raises different questions given how rapidly the panorama is altering. Whereas Werdelin emphasizes serving to founders construct relationships with clients, it’s unclear how a lot of that work the AI brokers can truly deal with. There’s additionally the matter of differentiation. As Werdelin readily acknowledges, “the world is stuffed with these instruments” they usually’re getting higher quickly. What occurs when entrepreneurs can entry comparable AI capabilities with out paying a everlasting income tax?
Audos’s VCs don’t sound nervous about these situations. True Ventures led Audos’s $11.5 million seed spherical, with accomplice Tony Conrad explaining the enchantment in a Zoom name this week. Along with having confidence in Werdelin and Thorne, says Conrad, “I feel there are simply heaps and plenty of folks” who would possibly eagerly embrace the chance to work with a platform like Audos.
Conrad attracts parallels to Instagram’s $1 billion exit with simply 13 staff, suggesting that AI may allow much more leverage, even when Audos — which itself employs simply 5 folks altogether at the moment — isn’t chasing unicorns. As Werdelin explains it, “What we’re after right here is the thousands and thousands of people that can create million-dollar companies or half-million greenback companies which can be actual and life altering.”
Provides Werdelin individually of why he spun up Audos, “What we’re attempting to do is to determine the way you make 1,000,000 corporations that do 1,000,000 {dollars} turnover. That’s a trillion greenback turnover enterprise.”
It doesn’t sound loopy. Extending the advantages of entrepreneurship to individuals who historically haven’t had entry to startup capital or technical expertise is an more and more compelling proposition as conventional employment begins to really feel much less and fewer steady. “We imagine that there ought to be any individual who goes out and actually helps these smaller entrepreneurs which can be constructing one thing that isn’t enterprise backable,” says Werdelin. “We imagine that the world is healthier with extra entrepreneurship.”
Audos’s different buyers embody Offline Enterprise and Bungalow Capital, together with quite a few high-profile angel buyers – Niklas Zennstrom and Mario Schlosser amongst them.
Pictured above, left to proper, Audos co-founders Nicholas Thorne and Henrik Werdelin.
