My phone rang as I received a message from a friend who is a partner in a VC firm. Here’s a screenshot of the Venmo notification just entered. “My 2 cents on why you should invest in my company,” read the message she received with a $0.02 transfer. I tracked down and emailed the founder who sent the transfer to find out what they were doing.
“Over the past two and a half weeks, I’ve reached out to over a hundred VCs, angels, celebrities, athletes and influencers through Venmo,” Chatterbox CEO and co-founder Chip Herndon said in an interview with TechCrunch. He says his unusual marketing campaign was very successful. “I received several responses, two of which were of extremely high quality. The first one was a partner [a venture firm]He was another angel investor.
Herndon said these messages were the start of a series of meetings with potential investors.
Chatterbox is a platform that describes itself as Nextdoor for Gen Z. It connects young people in their local communities through a medium they understand – group chats.
Screenshot from Chatterbox website. Image creditChatterbox.
“Initially, we are targeting college campuses. We have three main features: User Generated Chats, Emergency Chats and Permanent Chats. For example, this October we will be launching UCLA in partnership with the USAC president,” says Herndon. “As part of the MVP, we will have ongoing discussions for each dormitory building, library and other high-use areas. We allow users to create chats for fun events, and finally create chats for emergencies.
The founder says the outreach campaign explored by Venmo stemmed from a desire to stand out in a highly competitive landscape.
“I should have been upset. “I spent 4 hours with just a pen and paper in front of me, and I wouldn’t allow myself to do anything but think until I had a strategy,” says Herndon. “At that time, I thought of many unusual ways to meet someone, but in the end I decided that Venmo would be the best.”
Using the search and profile picture features of the Venmo platform, he set out to find the investors he was looking for, which he says allowed him to “capture their attention in a subtle way.”
Not all investors agree on this particular point. “I feel a little creepy,” said one investor who received one of the Venmo transfers.
But this may not be the case for everyone.
“You have to do everything you can to stand out,” said another venture fund associate I spoke to for this story, and for a moment he seemed impressed by the innovation. “For starters, do I like receiving tons of $0.02 donations with lots of random lines? No, but the first one or two might stand out enough that I pay attention.”
Thanks for trying something new, I think, but be aware that gimmicks often backfire.
So is this the next big way to reach investors? Personally, I think it comes across as pretty spam. Let’s put it this way: the first PR person who tries to tell me a story via Venmo will get banned and blacklisted themselves. My email address is easy to find, and in my opinion, trying to navigate through the channels to get yourself to the front of the list feels overwhelming. But then I’m a little OldManYellsAtCloud.gif about these things; Your mileage may vary. Just be aware of the first impression you are making; It may not be as positive as you think.
