The Founder Roundup

Welcome back to the Founder Roundup! A big thank you and welcome to all our new subscribers. If you haven’t reached out and introduced yourself yet, please do! I’d love to meet you.

Last week, we kicked off a new initiative letting our community vote on their favorite companies. I’d say 600+ votes was a successful first week! If you’d like to hear which companies are under consideration each week, you can opt-in to the weekly digest here.

– Luke

On the latest episode of the Backseat Startup Podcast, I had Jason Sharp, Founder of Umi on the show. In perhaps the craziest post I’ve seen on r/Startups, a user shared how they built their company’s entire app with the promise of 1% equity. Not only is that way too low– there were no contracts of any kind. If you haven’t listened to an episode of the Backseat Startup yet, this is the one to start with!

Our friend Justin Gordon at Vitalize VC writes a fantastic newsletter breaking down how legendary founders built their businesses. Hit the link below to subscribe!

Daniel Fayle of Chekkit

Helping local businesses step up their digital game. Chekkit is a platform that allows local businesses to interact with customers through text, email, and payments, as well as providing web chat, video chat, and Omni Channel messaging.

Additional services such as SEO optimization, website design, and social media management are also available.

Founded in 2017, Chekkit has experienced 20% month over month growth, with an annual recurring revenue of 2.2 million, and works with over 2,000 local brands and businesses.

Their customer acquisition strategy consists of cold emailing, outreach methods, word of mouth advertising, and videos. Referrals have also been key, with customers able to earn 30% commission when their friends sign up with Chekkit.

Through connecting with customers, Chekkit has also grown into the review management space, allowing clients to manage reviews from multiple accounts in one place.

Head over to Chekkit to learn more, and read the full feature below👇️ 

Jason Sharp of Umi

Learning languages is now as fun as watching your favorite shows. Umi is a free app that utilizes AI to help users learn languages. With Umi, users can learn phrases from popular movies and TV shows, gain real world context, and have access to conversation practice, pronunciation, and translation tools.

The app also sends users notifications to remind them to review the material before they forget it. The importance of reinforcement is an aspect that is overlooked by many of the existing language learning platforms.

Co-Founded by polyglot Jason Sharp, Umi is constantly evolving based on feedback from its 350 daily users.

Head over to Umi to download the app, and read the full article below👇️ 

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