00:00I launched a software company that allows founders like once myself and like you to build
00:08an app without needing to code. I also launched apps for hundreds of founders and a few projects
00:14myself. And I can tell you the biggest roadblock to developing tech is the tech of it all.
00:19So I founded Techquity, a subscription platform that finally lets founders build an app for their
00:24business or innovative idea without any knowledge of code, gets them into the app store, into the
00:29market fast. Techquity is an open source platform where users can select templates to give their
00:34apps a robust cutting edge feel and plugins to extend the app's functionality and access to a
00:40control panel to manage users, content and push notifications. These capabilities are a huge part
00:46of what makes us different than our competitors. Over 519 non-developers, founders, business owners,
00:54app and web development agencies have created apps that mobilize brick and mortar, launch social
00:59communities or solve problems in industries ranging from cannabis, beauty, healthcare, education or
01:04fitness and more. When building your app with Techquity, you can guarantee your app will be guaranteed
01:10accepted into the app store with our 99% success rating because our platform has a built in due
01:15diligence process to ensure that you can overcome the 42% app submission rejection rating. If you want to
01:21create an app that allows people to find opportunities, find places or connect with other people for products or
01:28services, you can do that on our platform. Users are getting results as much as a 300% business growth
01:34with a no-code app they spent a few hundred dollars on. When I first started as an app founder, I hit
01:40roadblocks with finding trustworthy developers or a non-technical co-founder. Well, Techquity makes taking
01:45that first step as a non-tech solo founder that much easier. Every day, 5 to 12 creators are joining our 54,000
01:54active users on our platform. To date, 54 apps are subscribed to our platform, paying anywhere from
01:59$79 to $299 a month to keep their apps thriving on the app marketplace. Majority of the subscribers have
02:05spent an additional $1,200 in add-on products and services. Within nine months of launching, our team
02:10of eight experts in sales, marketing and development work hard to have an amazing 101% quarterly growth with
02:17zero loans, zero debt and zero customer acquisition costs. To date, we've generated $125,000, have a
02:24quarter million of contracts in our pipeline and project to hit over half a million by end of 2021.
02:31The time for backing rapid app development is now because in five years, mobile app development is
02:35expected to be a $400 billion industry with 65% of it being no code. If we get the financial rocket fuel,
02:42we can capture 10% of that projection within the next three to five years with progressing our product
02:46roadmap building price increase and additional marketing efforts. Technology is needed and
02:51advancing invest in us so that no one is left behind. I'm Sydney, founder of Techquity, and I'm
02:56putting the equity in tech.
03:04Hi, Sydney. How are you?
03:06I'm good. How are you?
03:08I'm doing great. Your pitch was fantastic. And the name of your company, Techquity, is brilliant.
03:14It's absolutely brilliant. So congratulations on your success thus far. You used a word in
03:21or a phrase in your pitch called open source. And I want to get a little granular if you don't mind.
03:28So if the platform is built to be open source, how do you maintain competitive advantage?
03:36So open source is we actually leverage existing developers in a community who can actually build
03:42for us like a Canva model where we aren't having to work inside a box. So we're competitive and
03:49meaning that we can have new solutions all the time, just like WordPress as plugins. People are
03:53just building solutions, which makes it a bigger to do things versus where our competitors, what you see
04:00is what you get, what they have is what you can use. So this open source allows us to move faster
04:06and leverage resources that don't have to tap into our capital.
04:10Gotcha. Thank you. I'll turn it to my fellow Judge Keenan.
04:15Thank you, Robbie. So Sydney, that was absolutely fascinating for me to learn about as a non-tech
04:22person. So I was really fascinated in hearing more from you and about your company. As I thought through
04:29it, you mentioned a little bit about price points. You talked about $59 to $279. Can you tell us a little
04:37bit more about what you get at those varying price points and how you've structured yourself from a
04:43retail perspective? Yes. So, you know, you pay for the amount of access that you need. So for a lower
04:53end app, which could be just a $79 a month, you know, you just need to publish a simple app means
04:58no complex functionality. You're cool with limited plugins. You don't need to push to 10 over 10,000
05:04users a month and you don't look to use a lot of data driven features. Now, the more data and security
05:11you're looking to add to it, more premium functionality than the more you pay. And so our
05:16enterprise level customers need security, single sign on. They need in-app purchasing and they want to
05:21push to maybe 50,000 users. They need tablets, iPads, Androids, you know, all these devices. So you do
05:28pay more based on the level of access and how advanced your app is growing. So hopefully the plans
05:32grow with you as your app also advances. Thank you for explaining that. I am going to pass it to my
05:40fellow judge, Edith. Thank you. And congratulations, Sydney. Really great job. I mean, I'm also not a tech
05:48person, but just sitting and listening to you. I'm just like, this is fantastic.
05:52Two questions. Well, I have a number of questions, but if I were to drill them down,
05:58one, perhaps you can just speak a bit to who you consider your competitors. There are a bunch
06:02of platforms out there where you can hire a developer on a contract basis, or you can hire a
06:08team on a contract basis to build an app. So if you can just speak to who you believe your competitors
06:14are, you mentioned that you have currently zero acquisition costs. So how do you see your
06:18customer acquisition costs growing as you try to take a bit more of this opportunity?
06:25A great question. So our consumers do not want to hire developers because they don't have the
06:31capital because developers are very expensive. And as a app founder myself, for your first product,
06:38if you never built an app, you should not put much investment to validate your idea and your concept.
06:42And this is really why our platform is great for that first MVP. And our competitors would be
06:46people like Bubble or Glide who have really dominated the no-code mobile app development
06:52space. Although the only issue is that you cannot actually publish to the App Store because
06:58Apple has very strong guidelines on what can be published and they don't actually qualify
07:04because they're so flexible that they can breach security and security requirements. Whereas our model,
07:09although we are no drag and drop, we actually render apps in native language, meaning
07:16iPhone language, we're able to publish an iPhone app, and we also generate apps in Android language so
07:21you can publish an Android app. Whereas other no-codes, they try to use more flexible programming
07:26languages that render in an app form like mobile responsiveness, and that is not accepted. So that's
07:31how we get that competitive advantage around that space. And that's where our users or people like
07:38trying to build directory apps, food apps, health and fitness, wellness, and they would choose us
07:46because they're not looking to spend a lot of money, they don't know how to code, and they want to
07:50actually have ownership of what they're building. It means if something goes wrong and they advance it,
07:54they don't want to keep hiring and managing developers where that drives up their capital resources.
08:01So Sydney, is there any element of the platform that you've built that's proprietary?
08:08Yeah, so what's proprietary is our framework and how the app is called an Mbass system,
08:13mobile business as a service. This is where you can build an app one time and we publish it straight
08:17to the App Store. And what's proprietary about is this due diligence process that automatically audits
08:22your app to ensure it is approved to meet the guidelines. And as iPhone 14 and 18, all these
08:27privacy policy changes, so does our framework read it to make sure your app gets approved and it stays
08:32in compliance. Gotcha. So effectively, you guys understand the differentiation is you guys stay in
08:41front of what the diligence needs to look like. And so therefore, it accelerates or ensures the
08:48approval process. Absolutely. Fascinating. I got one more question. I'm sorry. So
08:57what do you really need in order to blow this out of the water? Yeah, and it kind of speaks other
09:03question about the customer acquisition costs. We've been really great word of mouth. That's been helpful
09:08for us. But we need to also progress our product roadmap. We do feel that people have really great ideas
09:14and building the software is expensive as well. In order to stay and stay competitive and keep
09:19building things that people need to build, we need capital to front that expense because we're
09:24we're one year in. So we're in beta ourselves, right? So we're just validating as we're learning.
09:28So we're going to increase that acquisition cost to do more go to market to service more of our
09:34consumers who come from incubators and accelerator programs, and then move that product development
09:38forward so we can service them and get them what they need to do. It's fascinating. It's a brilliant
09:46idea. My wife and I developed, she really, I helped. I didn't really help. Maybe I just advised on the side.
09:54And eight or nine years ago, and we just found a developer. It was actually another parent in our
10:00kids' school. And it was a rewarding experience, but it was very expensive. And I think a lot of people
10:06people probably have to navigate that unknown, uncharted waters. And so this is a brilliant idea.
10:14Unless my fellow judges have any other questions, congratulations on your success thus far. Keep
10:20pushing forward. This is super smart. And we'll move on to the next pitch. Thank you for your time.
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