Henrik Werdelin has spent the final 15 years serving to entrepreneurs construct huge manufacturers like Barkbox by means of his startup studio Prehype. Now, together with his new, New York-based enterprise Audos, he’s betting that AI might help him scale that course of from “tens” of startups a yr to “a whole lot of hundreds” of aspiring enterprise house owners.
The timing actually 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 abilities.
Werdelin’s journey from Prehype to Audos displays the broader transformation occurring in entrepreneurship proper now. At Prehype, the main focus was on working with tech founders to construct conventional startups, the sort which may increase hundreds of thousands and goal for billion-dollar exits.
Now, he tells Trendster, “What we’re attempting to do is take all that data, all of the methodology that we’ve created over time 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 will not be eager to experiment with so-called AI brokers or know learn how to attain prospects. 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 prospects.
“Fb and lots of these platforms, they’re simply unimaginable algorithms, they usually’re unimaginable at determining [how to reach your customer] in case you outline a buyer group,” says Werdelin, who co-founded Audos together with his Prehype associate Nicholas Thorne. In truth, Audos makes use of this method to rapidly check whether or not a founder’s enterprise concept has sustainable buyer acquisition prices.
The strategy appears to be working. Audos has helped launch “low a whole lot” of companies since its beta launch, with its personal prospects discovering the platform by means of Instagram adverts asking “Have you ever ever thought of beginning one thing, however don’t know the place to go?” Amongst them, Werdelin says, are a automotive mechanic who needs to assist individuals consider restore quotes, a person who’s promoting “after loss of life 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 by means of the identical course of: they clicked on Audos’s advert, its AI agent launched a dialog to determine the issues these people wish to deal with and who they wish to serve, and, when it was glad with the solutions, Audos obtained them in entrance of potential prospects as quick as potential.
As for returns, Audos operates on a essentially 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 growth instruments, and assist with distribution, primarily by means of 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 bought. What we’re actually impressed by are the mom-and-pop retailers which are the spine of our society.”
The income share continues indefinitely, just like platform charges charged by Apple’s App Retailer. For founders, which means giving up a good portion of their income in perpetuity — a 15% lower that would price entrepreneurs a whole lot of hundreds 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 prospects, it’s unclear how a lot of that work the AI brokers can really 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 related AI capabilities with out paying a everlasting income tax?
Audos’s VCs don’t sound nervous about these eventualities. True Ventures led Audos’s $11.5 million seed spherical, with associate Tony Conrad explaining the enchantment in a Zoom name this week. Along with having confidence in Werdelin and Thorne, says Conrad, “I believe there are simply tons and many individuals” 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 workers, suggesting that AI may allow much more leverage, even when Audos — which itself employs simply 5 individuals altogether at present — isn’t chasing unicorns. As Werdelin explains it, “What we’re after right here is the hundreds of thousands of people that can create million-dollar companies or half-million greenback companies which are 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 one million corporations that do one million {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 abilities is an more and more compelling proposition as conventional employment begins to really feel much less and fewer steady. “We consider that there must be any person who goes out and actually helps these smaller entrepreneurs which are constructing one thing that’s not enterprise backable,” says Werdelin. “We consider that the world is best with extra entrepreneurship.”
Audos’s different buyers embrace 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.
