Invest in Boz

We’re building tools to help people pursue their dreams, starting with people writing books.

Boz makes the book writing process social by helping people form supportive communities around their books while they write, starting with their friends and family.

Making the creative process social helps the writer have more fun, create accountability, collect feedback, and potentially make money while they write their book.

Our mission is to help as many people as possible pursue their dreams. So we're building a social network designed to help people write books, build products, create albums, find jobs, and any other project people want to rally friends around. We believe that working with people you love and making it fun drastically increases your chances of success.

Andrew helped transform paying your friends into a social network at Venmo and Seth has built and managed several engineering teams, most recently a team from 0 to 50 at Mudflap, a startup that is now valued at over $700 million.

Our Friends & Family Round

What's the money for?

Almost all of the money will be used to pay our salaries.

It will give us at least 6 months to:

• Turn our prototype into a platform.
• Launch our beta customer communities.
• Launch a self service version of the platform.
• Raise a larger round of funding based on our progress.

Why Friends & Family?

Raising from friends and family is one of the most common ways startups raise their first funds. The founders are giving away a portion of the company, in exchange for money. Who better than the people we know and love to have as our partners on this journey.

We believe anyone should be able to invest in early stage startups.

In the past, only accredited investors could invest in startups, so founders would need to target their friends who had lots of money. Regulations have changed and now anyone can invest, with a minimum investment of $100.

What are the terms / what % of the company will you own?

We are raising the round using a $9 million, pre-money SAFE. SAFE's have become the standard way for startups to raise their first funds. If we end up raising a priced round or getting acquired, your investment will be at the valuation of $9 million + the total we raise in this round. By investing, you are basically saying you think the company will eventually be worth over $9 million.

We are planning to raise between $150,000 and $500,000. Let's assume we raise $300,000. So if you invest $1,000, you could potentially own about 0.01% of the company ($1,000 / $9,300,000). Your ownership will be diluted by future rounds of fundraising.

How risky is the investment?

It's a very risky investment so only invest what you are willing to lose. Most startups fail.

But it's closer to poker than a lottery ticket. There's a lot of luck involved but the people playing and the game they are playing in have a big impact on the likelihood of success.

With the risk, comes high potential reward.

What is the potential upside?

Our goal is to build a really impactful company. We want to help as many people pursue their dreams as we can. We believe the potential market is huge and Boz has the potential to be worth billions of dollars one day. There are lots of other outcomes that could still make it a good investment.

There are a few scenarios where you can make money on the investment:

• Boz is acquired
• Boz goes public
• Boz becomes profitable and chooses to pay dividends, as opposed to reinvesting the profits.

What is the commitment?

There is no commitment outside of the monetary investment.

However, we are building a community around the company and we would love to have you as part of it. You are also invited if you do not invest. You can join us at buildingboz.com.

How did we choose the valuation?

We chose the valuation based on two main factors:

1. The market for early stage startup investments. We've read that confident, experienced, Bay Area founders should start raising at $8M post-money, and keep raising the valuation as they raise money. We've also heard the YC recommends raising from F&F on an uncapped safe, giving these early investors no better deal than the investors who invest later on. The median pre-money valuation for seed financings in Q4 was $13.3 million. We're not at the seed stage yet and want to offer our F&F a better deal.
2. The % of the company we think we should give up at this stage. Founders need to be careful how much of the company they give up. They need to reserve equity to: raise subsequent rounds of funding, incentive early employees, and keep the founders incentivized and in control over future rounds of funding. We have decided we want to give away around 5% of the company at this stage.

We are using the discounted offer for earlier investors on Wefunder to give us two stages of valuation in the Friends and Family round. Those who commit earlier and invest the first $200K will get a 10% discount - a $8.1M pre-money valuation. The remaining investments will be at $9M pre-money.

Product Overview

We're building tools to help authors with loneliness, accountability, feedback, and money while they write books.

The initial version is kind of like a writers group you form online with your friends and family and you are the only writer.

How it works (for the author)

1. Create your community page and upload a draft of your first chapter.
2. Decide how often you want to release and set a start date.
3. Decide whether to charge and if so, how much.
4. Invite your family, friends, and anyone else to join your community.
5. Host live readings on release dates with your community, followed by some casual conversation.
6. Share the live reading recording and written drafts with your community. Communicate through comments and emails.

How it works (for the community member)

1. Pay to pre-order the book and join the community (our first few books will be $25).
2. Eventually get a copy of the digital book.
3. Get access to the author and writing process along the way. Optionally attend live readings, read or listen to new releases. Communicate through comments and email.

The Prototype

You can check out our alpha community, Growing Venmo, to get a better understanding of the product.

Here are some screenshots from the Growing Venmo community.

The Landing Page

The Audio Player

Community members can listen to recordings of the live episodes.

The Reader

Community members can read the written version of the chapters and leave google docs style reactions and comments.

The Platform

This is what we are focused on right now. We're raising this money to turn the prototype into a platform and launch our first beta communities. When building the prototype, Andrew focused on the experience of the community members. We are now building the product for the authors. This includes tools to help authors:

• Manage their book and landing page
• Collect payment
• Manage and host their live readings
• Grow their community
• Communicate with their community

Here's a sneak peak at the tools we are building to help people manage their books and community:

Why it works

Boz helps people commit to share, converse, & record with a group of people, on a regular schedule.

The process makes the project social, with live online conversation, which helps people:

• Have more fun
• Create accountability
• Collect feedback
• Potentially charge for their work

How we will make money

We’re going to charge the project leaders:

• Monthly SAAS fees based on community size and features (likely starting at $10 / month)
• A % of revenue collected on the platform (we’re thinking 10%)

If we help a lot of people, we will make a lot of money.

Our Beta Customers

We have several beta customers who are are excited to experiment with us and build their communities. We will probably add a few more but want to work with a small group to build the initial platform.

What's next

In the next six months, we plan to:

• Turn our prototype into a platform and work with our beta customers to launch their communities.
• Release a self service product and acquire our first 100 customers.
• Build growth tools to grow our communities.
• Raise a larger round of funding based on our progress.

And then...The Grand Vision

While we are starting with books, we plan to eventually help people pursue any dream and we believe the way to help the most people is to create a social network designed for this purpose.

Here's a rough draft of a potential future feed:

What Boz will feel like (for future use cases)

Write a book: an online writers group with the spotlight on you

Start a startup: a casual board meeting with your supporters

Record an album: a listening party with your closest fans

Lose weight: a support group encouraging your journey

Start a podcast: a weekly live recording with your first listeners

Find a job: your people helping you land your next role

Any other dream: a team of your favorite people supporting you

Evolution of the vision

May 2023

Andrew started building the MVP to help himself make money and build a community while he writes his first book.

November 2023

After using the MVP for 3 weeks, Andrew realized it could help anyone write a book by making the process social, not just help the next big book make money.

January 2024

Andrew and Seth adapted the MVP to build a community around their startup, similar to how Andrew built a community around his book. The vision expanded to help anyone with a creative project, by making the process social.

March 2024

After using the product to help them start Boz for 3 months, the vision crystalized as a social platform to help people accomplish their dreams, starting with people writing books.

Our advisors

We have some amazing advisors:

• Andrew Kortina. Kortina co-founded Venmo and Fin. He is also a writer.
• Shreyans Bhansali. Shreyans was Venmo's 1st hire and later co-founded Socratic and Maven.
• Chris Stanchak. Chris founded TicketLeap and co-founded Loveseat.
• Shira Schindel. Shira is a publishing consultant, with experience at Blackstone and Audible.
• Iqram Magdon-Ismail. Iqram co-founded Venmo and Ense. He is currently building Jelly, Boz's partner platform.
• Matt Hartman. Matt is managing partner of Factorial Capital and was a partner at Betaworks.

FAQ

How does this work?

1. Join Wefunder by clicking ‘Sign Up’ in the top right corner.
2. Choose an amount you’re comfortable with. You can commit any amount you’d like up to your legal max, from $100 USD.
3. Confirm reservation

What is the minimum investment?

The minimum investment is $100 USD.

What's the maximum I am legally allowed to invest?

Everyone can invest up to $2,500, but some people can invest more. How much you're able to invest above that depends on your net income and net worth (due to SEC regulations).

You can see how much you're allowed to invest by adding those two numbers under "Investor Limits" here: https://wefunder.com/settings

While you may be legally able to invest more, your investment may be lowered depending on the interest we receive in this round.

Do I need to be an accredited investor?

No. Wefunder allows you to invest without being an accredited investor. All you have to do is sign up and invest.

Do I have to do anything for Boz as an investor?

No. But we would love to have you as part of our Building Boz community.

I'm outside the US - can I invest?

Yes - we can accept investments from international investors (with a few exceptions). See here for more details.

Will you send investor updates?

Maybe. We host weekly meetings, where we work in public, that you are welcome to attend. The content of those meetings will also be distributed in various formats to those who cannot attend.

Can I sell my investment? 

Maybe. The SEC allows Reg CF participants to sell their stake in the company after a one year lockup. Wefunder can potentially facilitate that transaction once you have an interested buyer.