On 2nd May 2022, we got the opportunity to conduct an AMA session with Tomer Garzberg, Founder and CEO of ybot. During this session, Tomer answered the Infomatix community questions that focussed explicitly on his expertise as an investor and a VC.
Below is a full recap of the AMA for all the Infomatix followers who couldn’t make it or anyone interested. Feel free to have a read!
🟢 Segment 1: Introduction and Brief about VC
🔸 Host: Good day to everyone who’s here with us today.
🔹 Tomer: Hi everyone!
🔸 Host: I’m Umesh, Community Manager for Infomatix. It is a great pleasure to host and welcome you all for today’s AMA with the AI expert, VC extraordinaire, Tomer Garzberg.
🔹 Tomer: Great to be here thanks Umesh
🔸 Host: Tomer is also the Founder and CEO of ybot.ai, and he’s also a strategic investor of Nosis-Infomatix. What a legend! 🔥
Hey Tomer, it’s a pleasure to have you with us. In this AMA, it would be great to get a better understanding of how it is that you invest, what your thesis is and where you see the opportunities on the horizon.
Can you tell us how you got into all this in the first place? Please tell us more about what a VC is and what a typical deal looks like?
🔹 Tomer: Hey Umesh, great question. I started investing as a VC almost by accident.
Well before I first invested in other tech companies, I was investing into publicly listed tech companies, so I already had an interest there. Most times, when you’re investing in a tech company in the stock market, it’s already at quite a large market cap.
I thought to myself, ‘what if I got in super early before a company was worth $1 billion when it was just an idea and worth a lot less?’
I had a group of friends in my late 20s that were all building startups at the time, and one of them came to me and said, “Hey, I have this idea that I’m going to build. Do you want to invest some money and be on my journey?” … I had no idea what I was doing at the time, no due diligence or anything like that. I said “yes,” and that was my first ever investment. I became obsessed after that and kept doing it.
🔸 Host: Thank you for the quick introduction @TOM3R
Moving on to the next question
Can you tell us about how it is that you came to invest in and co-found nosis Infomatix?
🔹 Tomer: I remember meeting with Nathan one day. We trained at the same gym together, and at first, it was just a casual friendship. We caught up for coffee and talked about a whole bunch of stuff.
One day he approached me and said, “look, I have this idea to build a unified investment platform,” and I thought it was interesting and ambitious.
It’s interesting because one of the main criteria of startup investing is that it isn’t the ‘idea’ that you invest in at first, you’re investing into the founder. You have to ask yourself the question, ‘does this person have what it takes to see through the rollercoaster ride, the tough times and the hard decisions?
I had a fair bit of experience building technology products, so I decided to join Nathan’s journey and help him build the first iteration of Nosis … the other products like Infomatix naturally evolved from that.
It takes a lot of work that no one ever sees to build something people want to use, and the result is what you have today.
Also, it’s interesting to see one’s own judgement of how a good founder looks to play out. There’s no doubt that Nathan is the right captain for this ship.
🔸 Host: “Nathan is the right captain for this ship.” There’s no doubt in that, indeed! 🔥
What other deals are you working on at the moment?
🔹 Tomer: I have a couple of other founders that I invested in the early days. One of them is this really cool alcohol-free spirits company. They went from an idea to selling millions of bottles in just two years!
🔸 Host: That is great. Good to see that you always get hands-on new stuff 🔥
🔹 Tomer: It’s a diverse selection, but as long as you have a ‘founder first’ mentality, you’re always going to feel more confident about it.
It’s the exact same criteria that other investors look for when investing in something I am personally building.
So it’s a good rule of thumb to have. Focus on the founder. The ups and downs don’t matter. Only the outcome matters.
🔸 Host: That really is a great point for all of us to keep our minds on 🔥
Moving on to the next question
What insights did you get about investing after becoming a business owner yourself with Gronade and then Ybot?
🔹 Tomer: That building something is SUPER HARD. It really is. It’s not for the faint of heart.
There are so many dynamics at play. You have customers and expectations and staff and expenses … and they all need to work in harmony. Your capital is the lifeblood of the business, and you have to watch it like a hawk. That means focusing and staying true to your vision while balancing everything else.
It makes you focus on metrics that matter, which is revenue at the end of the day, so really, it becomes two main things.
- Can the founder make their vision happen?
- Will be business make substantial revenue to justify an acquisition or an IPO.
If you can answer yes to both, then it’s worth the risk for an ROI
🔸 Host: Perfect! 🔥
Down to our last question of the segment
Do you have any advice on how someone with a smaller portfolio can start to get experience with these early-stage deals?
🔹 Tomer: The perception is that you need a lot of money to invest in startups, but that’s not the case. The main problem that needs solving is quality deal-flow.
Most startups won’t ever approach random people, and they first look to their friends and family, so that’s where you should look first.
Most times, you might need to invest several thousand in an early stage idea, however, the world is changing rapidly.
There are now crowdfunding websites where you can participate as a smaller investor in a larger pool. Things like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been around for ages.
Here are some links that might be interesting:
- https://www.venturecrowd.com.au/s/?source=google&medium=cpc&utm_campaign=11300918791&utm_content=127725718689&utm_keyword=crowdfunding&gclid=CjwKCAjwgr6TBhAGEiwA3aVuIQT6nYi0l0HVQuCFl-tLlSbrT4NBjnDQtNQdJdxK1W_gpBTyi09dNBoCDXkQAvD_BwE
- https://equitise.com/
- https://www.fundable.com/
- https://www.seedrs.com/
That should get everyone started!
🔸 Host: Thank you, @TOM3R, for the links and for answering all the questions in the first segment of our AMA today.
We are moving to our last segment of today’s AMA. Live Q&A.
Chat! Get ready with your questions 🔥
Are you ready @TOM3R? You can pick five questions from the audience and answer them.
🔹 Tomer: Let’s go!
🔸 Host: Here we go! Chat unmuting in…. 5…. 4…. 3…. 2…. 1….
🟢 Segment 2: Community Live Q & A
🔸 Host: Woah! That was a lot 😅
It’s your chance, @TOM3R 🔥
🔹 Tomer: Ok, checking now
Sifting through for relevant questions, bear with me
Q1. What is your strategy to attract new users and investors to your project and keep them long term because Marketing is a central element for every project so that everyone knows the potential that a project can bring is vital to achieving the goals set?
🔹 Tomer: The product is key; as the utility and users of the platform grows, more people will use the platform, and it will organically grow, alongside marketing plans
Q2. What is your strongest advantage that you think will make your team lead the market?
🔹 Tomer: Technical proficiency and a lot of experience. That’s something traditional and crypto investors look for when supporting a project.
Q3. What thing do you most look into a person who is the head of a project in which you are going to invest or co-found?
🔹 Tomer: Iteration is the backbone of every startup. It’s critical that user feedback is taken into consideration, and the product should evolve with those adaptations.
🔸 Host: 2 more to go! That’s a lot of questions to go through. Bear with us, everyone 🔥
Q4: Did you consider community feedback/requests during the creation of your product in order to expand on fresh ideas for your project? Many projects fail because the target audience and clients are not understood. So I’d like to know who your ideal consumer is for your product?
🔹 Tomer: Iteration is the backbone of every startup. It’s critical that user feedback is taken into consideration, and the product should evolve with those adaptations.
Q5: Too many projects promise magic but never release any working product or prove any revenue, Within a short/long time of release. Is your project also like this? If not, can you tell us, What makes your project different from other projects?
🔹 Tomer: Well, you only have to look at both Nosis and Infomatix and the Metaverse product to see there’s a working product. Revenue is the next focal point, so it is an exciting time to support this project.
🔸 Host: Thank you, @TOM3R, for going through and selecting the best questions.
Congratulations to all Winners 👏
It was a pleasure to host Tomer in the AMA today, and a huge thank you for spending your valuable time with our community. We really appreciate it.
🔹 Tomer: Thank you, everyone. It was great to hang out!
🔸 Host: We will be wrapping this up in an article on medium with more info on Tomer for anyone who wants to dig deeper. Stay tuned!
Infomatix x Nosis bridge launching on the 16th of May 2022. Users will soon be able to get their assets valued from the Infomatix platform and add those assets directly to their Nosis portfolio.
