From Teenage Tech Dreams to US Takeover: Roei Samuel is Back to Speak on his Master Plan for Connectd by 2025 | S2 Ep. 167
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Top Leader. I'm your host Nadia Atwar. Today we are joined by a very unique CEO who has a history as a serial entrepreneur, as an innovator and a startup mentor. Welcome to the show, Roy Samuels. Nadia, thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. Roy, it is so fascinating. I read a little bit about your bio.

And there are people that are diverse and very diverse on many levels, but they don't really use their knowledge the way you have done it to then empower others with it, especially in the world of startup where everybody needs it. But tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey.

- Yeah, so I started playing around with technology when I was 13, 14 years old. YouTube came out around that time, so video content creation was very much the obsession, as you can imagine. And then in 2013, I founded my first tech company. I was 23 years old, really wanted to go deeper into video content creation.

So I developed some tools that help people create videos, podcasts, giving them tools to optimize that content for social, which is really ahead of its time back in 2013. And we got super fortunate with that. We scaled it up to about 8 million monthly users. Yeah, really exciting journey. We applied it to the world of sports and gaming, ended up working with the NBA, NFL, Premier League, real dream come true for me. And then we were

by a gaming company called Gfinity in 2018. Off the back of that, was fortunate enough to start investing in some startups and advising startups as well.

And I could see with the companies that I was working with a really clear, strong, positive correlation between specific behaviors those businesses were making and the outcomes they were having in terms of their performance, in terms of their growth, and in terms of their funding. And those behaviors were really twofold. One was the quality and frequency of their investor reporting.

and by extension, their hyper focus on the core metrics that go into those reports. And the second was their ability to access expert networks of talent. Neither of these things are rocket science by any means, but amazing to see how many businesses take those behaviors for granted, even though they seem to predicate success. So now with Connected, I've started to build tools that we've been building for the last five years, tools that enable the businesses, the investors, and the talent

to make their lives as easy as possible and get the most successful outcomes that they can. That's your new company, Connected. Exactly. So we started building that in late 2019. We launched in late 2020, so about four years ago now, and had a really exciting growth journey. We're now servicing about 4,500 customers, including about 800 in the US since we launched here last January. How do you start the collaborations with a startup company?

So the way that our system works is a business who is looking to grow, looking to follow that best practice, becomes a customer, becomes a subscriber, and they're plugging in their data. So they're plugging in their banking, their accounting, their payment data. So for example, their HSBC, their QuickBooks, their Stripe.

And the connected system ingests their entire transactional level history and automatically generates that reporting environment. So often these early stage businesses don't even know what to report on, let alone how to calculate those metrics. It's done instantly on their behalf from the ingestion of that data. And where we're really helping those businesses is we use that same data to help them find the right talent.

So for example, if the system can understand that your revenue is increasing, but your cost of acquisition is increasing, here's your performance marketing expert with a background in financial services if you're a fintech company. So by building this really holistic system, we've been able to grow in a really fast way. Wow. When you are...

the startups that you're working with, when you're analyzing the good, the bad, the ugly, what do you detect as one of the biggest mistakes that startups are making? I think one of the biggest mistakes that startups make when they're growing is they go to insular when things get difficult. I think founders have an idea that they have to try and be perfect early on. And

and almost that their investors, their stakeholders are expecting perfection. But if investors were looking for a perfect investment, they're not going for a risky startup. So I think the biggest mistake that they make is they try to solve all the problems themselves. They don't work on building out the network, getting that expert advice, working with their investors, working with their stakeholders to solve problems. So I see that's one of the biggest mistakes they make. And I think they don't

have the focus on the things that are really going to move the needle. Startups get distracted. They start going for all these accelerators, incubators, awards, things which seem great, but don't really move the needle. So again, having that hyper focus, working closely with your investors, with your stakeholders to make sure that you're solving problems, focusing on those core areas, that's really where we see startups win.

How much emphasis do you put on an advisory board early on? Yeah, I think it's huge. You know, especially if you are a small team, which most startups are, you're going to be brilliant at some things and have total blind spots, weaknesses in other areas. Your ability to fill out the people around you

with the skill sets that you need, again, it's so life and death. I meet these amazing, brilliant technologists. I'm sure you're the same. And you're like, wow, what they have built is amazing, but they couldn't market it if it was, you know, water in a desert, right? So you see this all the time. So your ability to be cognizant, and we were talking about founders before, where they don't necessarily have that level of awareness

awareness they need to realize, oh, actually we're weak here. Again, that's where they get in trouble. So the advisory board who can guide, who can steer, who can fill in those gaps, it's, it's so important. I'm sure you've seen that with, uh, we were talking before about some of the businesses you've been working with where that advisory board has been so key. Absolutely. Absolutely. I always say very underrated. It's the same with, uh,

marketing, public relations, you know, as I told you, often I'm being asked when is the right time to start with PR and I say yesterday. - Right. - You know, so you don't need to have even a ready product. You can create a bus without even a product.

100%. That's the beauty. It has actually happened. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There are great stories about that, where a company was just launching a campaign, created a buzz, and there was no product. And then they had such a big interest, and they had to come up with one, which sold out very quickly. I thought that was a hilarious story. Incredible, incredible. But I definitely think today, with routes to market being as open as they are, there's an expectation that you should have built distribution, that you should have built ways to reach your audience, even pre-products.

And there's also nothing stopping you monetizing pre-products with pre-sales, pre-orders, all of these things. And really, I think the whole idea of taking years of building without trying to get in front of people, it's so old school. It's so out of date. So I agree. Yeah, I agree with you on the marketing side, definitely. Well, a new year, new plans. So what is in stock for Connected? What are...

your aspirations and expectations and concrete plans? Yeah, so we've been really lucky over the last few years to grow in the way that we have. We've gone from zero to nine million ARR in just over three and a half years. We launched in Miami this time last year, now launching in New York, and then by the end of 2025, we want to be nationwide.

So we're really, really blessed that with the market that we're in, advisors, investors, it's not like ordering an Uber or a pizza where it has to be hyperlocal. Actually, people are open to working cross-border. We were talking before about your arrangement working through all time zones around the world. We're very much the same. Startups are the same. So we're blessed that if you are an early stage startup within...

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six time zones away, working with you as an advisor, it doesn't matter. We really benefit from those asynchronous relationships. So we have massive ambitions and this year will be the year that we are on all four corners of the state. Love it. So how can people start to get involved with your company?

will definitely come follow me on LinkedIn. I share all of this knowledge. Of course, you can become a customer of Connected, but I really believe in giving as much value and as much, you know, giving away as much as possible. So definitely follow me on LinkedIn to get all the advice that goes into what we've built. And then have a look at connected.com. We've built something really, really awesome. And, you know, we're,

just motivated by getting the best outcomes possible for startups. Well, you definitely believe in giving back. You're leading by example. And with that, you are definitely also a thought leader, not just a leader. Wonderful. Well, it was such a pleasure having you on the show, Roy. And this was another episode of Top Leaders. Join us again next time. Are you ready to take your small biz to the next level? At the UPS Store, we have the key to unlock the worlds of possibilities.

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