James is building Sociable to solve a problem that’s only going to grow as the creator economy expands: protecting income when creators lose access to their accounts. Think of it as business interruption insurance, but for social media influencers. The idea was sparked when his girlfriend’s daughter had her Instagram hacked, exposing a massive gap in the market. Today, Sociable has a 3,500-person waitlist with mid-sized creators averaging 15–20K followers, each of whom has been hacked in the past two years. By focusing on this underserved tier first, James can build a product that works, prove traction, and eventually scale up to cover the biggest names in content creation.

What makes Sociable especially promising is how far James has gotten with limited resources. He’s already raised $155K in angel funding, secured an insurance carrier to underwrite policies, and built a proof of concept capable of monitoring multiple platforms. His team blends deep expertise in tech, marketing, and insurance, led by a CTO with 30+ years of app development, a CMO from Meta, and a CFO with extensive financial experience. Seeking $700K in seed funding, James could accelerate platform completion from 3–4 months down to less than two, launch with 3–4 platforms supported, and tap into creator agencies and monetization platforms for distribution.

James isn’t just selling policies; he’s embedding himself into the creator ecosystem. He’s already planning an advisory board of creators to keep the product in tune with real-world issues, while partnerships with agencies could give Sociable access to networks built over decades. The vision is big: launch, grow through these embedded channels, expand coverage tiers, and own the “income disruption insurance” category before anyone else executes it well. It’s a practical, defensible play in a rapidly growing market, and one I’m excited to follow as James moves toward launch.

Reply here if you want an intro, or have creators to send his way!

Quincy’s journey with Extra Copy is one of relentless adaptability and sharp learning. Last year, he pitched Sam Parr and Ryan Holmes on a Kernal Demo Day. They loved him. He’s pivoted eight times to find the model that works, a testament to both his resilience and his clarity in pursuing product–market fit. That kind of iteration speed, paired with his On Deck experience, has given him an almost unfair advantage in spotting opportunities, refining his offer, and connecting with the right people.

He’s not just building a company, he’s refined his vision from turning source data into social posts, to quantifiable, growth-driving content, and finally to a proactive expert system that can understand and replicate the thinking patterns of specialists. That journey, paired with $175K in angel funding, has led to a profitable $180K ARR business with $600K+ in the pipeline. By deliberately avoiding “AI” in his marketing and instead framing the product as “24/7 experts to help you grow,” he’s made the offering both approachable and compelling.

What excites me most is his growth philosophy. Quincy isn’t running traditional outbound campaign; instead, customers find him through word-of-mouth because he leads with genuine help, not hard pitches. That build-trust-first sales approach has already caught the attention of five agencies who want to use his system as an SDK, potentially tapping into decades-old client networks. With the right execution, his goal to hit $1M ARR in four months and onboard 100 agency resellers feels not just ambitious, but entirely within reach.

Even his hiring process shows a founder who thinks differently. Rather than scanning résumés for years of experience, he evaluates candidates on the strength of their portfolios and their ability to communicate clearly. His forced communication interview style is genius. That mindset, coupled with his ability to iterate quickly, scale intentionally, and keep the team lean (currently at 2 and wants less than 10), is why I’m eager to follow his journey. In four months, we’ll see if he’s hit the $1M mark, and I wouldn’t bet against him.

Quincy doesn’t want your money unless you bring operator chops or a killer network. Reply here if you want an intro or have some hiring tips for him.

“Voliro is an aerial robotics startup.

Voliro’s flagship product is the Voliro T, a drone-based robot that tests and inspects tall, hard-to-reach assets like storage tanks, chimneys, powerline towers, and wind turbines.

The drone is capable of conducting contact-based inspections via its six swappable payloads, each equipped with specialized sensors. Its tiltable rotors enable it to maintain contact even in challenging environments.

Voliro has also equipped the drone with autonomous flying modes and AI-assisted modes. 

Using aerial robots is a much safer way to conduct inspections at places like mining operations, power plants, and other dangerous environments. It’s also cheaper and faster—using Voliro’s drone is 2.5x faster than inspecting with traditional methods. 

The startup has raised $22M.”