Jeff Tezak, Tiiga

Jeff Tezak from Tiiga is 2x NMotion alumni having completed the pre-accelerator gBETA Lincoln with co-founder Harrounda Malgoubri and the NMotion Accelerator 2022 program with co-founder Katy Tezak.

Katy Tezak, Harrounda Malgoubri, and Jeff Tezak

After Tiiga completed the NMotion Accelerator, the team graduated from a food tech accelerator in Tasmania, Australia. That’s when they began to experiment with go-to-market strategies and product framing.

This past fall, Tiiga unveiled a refreshed collection of products to help supercharge your gut health using the baobab superfruit.

Originally, Tiiga was all about hydration, but they listened to consumer feedback and data to realize they were more than that. Tiiga is really a gut health powerhouse. 

With the new focus, they created a new formula that increases the fiber from the baobab fruit, took out the sugar, lowered the sodium, and added coconut water powder. It’s quite tasty and refreshing.

Knowing how much the team has kept driving forward despite setbacks especially in the challenging consumer product good sector, we caught up with Jeff to ask him to share his perspective and learnings. If you know Jeff, you know he has takes.

If you could teleport back to when you started Tiiga, what advice would you give yourself?

Find revenue first, then make a product. Or figure out a solution to a problem that can give you the revenue to break even quickly. Have the confidence to do things on your own for as long as possible. I don't think I'd take my advice on these things as I think a lot of the time it's just time and effort that eventually gives you perspectives on things that happen in your life. No advice will work.

What has been the toughest decision you have had to make?

Letting people go when times were tougher. 

Who do you lean on to help refuel and recharge your mind/body/spirit?

Family, Religion and Sports. Having kids while building a business has been pretty incredible. I find myself excited about each part of my day, spending time with my family and getting to build a business. Religion, understanding that we're always taken care of and that it's as much as we want something it's out of our hands which is reassuring. Both watching and playing sports allows me to think strategically and feel pressure along with the physicality of the experience helps me to feel more alert and ready to work.

What hacks and tricks have you developed to connect with customers?

I like people and am interested in what they do, how they live and what they go through daily and in life. Basically, I find something that connects us on an interest level or between them and me. Could be people, places, things. This is easier for me as I'm interested in just about everything. 

Learn more and stock up on Tiiga here.

Ramsey Shaffer, Uptrends.ai

Ramsey Shaffer (pictured on right) and Sam Cartford (left) are the co-founders of Uptrends.ai and alumni from the NMotion 2023 Accelerator cohort. Uptrends offers an AI-powered stock sentiment dashboard and smart alerts to help you keep tabs on trending stocks and major events, before the crowd.

In the two years since joining NMotion, Uptrends has shifted from B2C to a B2B product. They have compiled an impressive library of YouTube content sentiment analysis to help professional fund managers find shifting trends faster. 

Ramsey has also taken a strong swing at content creation to help drive awareness of the company, accelerate his learning curve, and hone his writing skills. If you haven’t already seen his series about Slawnearme.com, a cole slaw rating tool he built using only AI, here’s your chance to learn all about Ramsey’s passion for cole slaw - a surprisingly polarizing food item. 

We caught up with Ramsey to see how things were going and to ask him to share his insights on a few topics. Enjoy!

If you could teleport back to when you started Uptrends, what advice would you give yourself?

Never stop putting yourself out there, trust your gut, ask as many questions as you can. Fail until you succeed, don't let pride get in your  way. Above all, learn the right balance between opportunistically listening to the market and being laser focused on execution.

What has been the toughest decision you have had to make?

Pivoting and shutting down our first product. We launched Uptrends originally as a consumer-facing stock market news alerts platform. We quickly got to 25,000 users but struggled to monetize. We tried everything. After a while, we had to acknowledge it wasn't working. So we explored about a dozen other options, and ended up finding good early traction licensing long-form video market intelligence data to large institutional investors. We went all in on that new value prop, and ended up shutting down the original consumer app. That was a tough, bittersweet moment — on the one hand we'd reinvented our business and I'm very proud of that, but it's also never easy to kill your daisies and turn away those early customers.

Who do you lean on to help refuel and recharge your mind/body/spirit?

I'm grateful to have surrounded myself with good mentors and friends who can support, guide, and empathize. There's no such thing as a self-made man. Honestly I get a lot of energy and inspiration by talking with other founders in similar spots. Also my wife, she is awesome. Remember to call your grandma and your mom more often.

What hacks and tricks have you developed to connect with customers?  

Distribution > Product. I think the most impactful things have been simply building in public, making content, trying to cultivate community.  Growing organic distribution through content and authenticity is the biggest hack of all, especially in a world where AI makes it increasingly easy to build anything you want.  Spend less time "selling" and more time building relationships and connecting vulnerably, that's the best investment you can make. 

Learn more about Uptrends.ai here.

Carina Glover, HerHeadquarters

In 2017, Carina Glover sketched out an idea for what would launch as HerHeadquarters in 2019. Every step of the way, Carina has made the most of the opportunities she’s created through her tenacity and resilience to achieve a vision central to her life. 

As the company website states:

We're here to give women-owned businesses more, without the fight.

Behind every opportunity a woman-owned business receives, there's a woman who had to fight for it. Without the constant obstacles, gatekeeping, and lack of opportunities, they'd have higher revenue, faster growth, and greater impact. HerHeadquarters gets in the ring and exists to be their ally.

Our platform, corporate services, and certification all have one common goal: to give women-owned businesses access to the money & opportunities they deserve, without the barriers.

Along the way, the United States Congress, Forbes, American Express, Beyonce's BeyGood, and more have recognized Carina and her team for their work. 

Coming back from maternity leave after the birth of her second child this past month, we asked Carina to share what lessons she’s learned from her journey.

If you could teleport back to when you started HerHeadquarters, what advice would you give yourself?

There are two pieces of advice that I really needed to hear coming into this founder territory: 

• Give yourself grace during the tough times, expect them to come, but know that they will pass. Even when it doesn't look like it, remember that being disciplined about doing the work well and consistently will always reap a reward. Some rewards just take longer to produce. 

• Focus more on making money and less on the product & branding. Give something x amount of time to work and produce revenue/engagement and if it doesn't work, move to the next thing. Pivot faster, it means you're learning and adapting to what your audience needs. 

What has been the toughest decision you have had to make?

Any decision that would impact the livelihood of my team and their household has always been hard. That never gets easier. 

Who do you lean on to help refuel and recharge your mind/body/spirit?

I have a great village, sometimes my children and my husband refuel me, but on other days it might be a call with my advisor that makes me feel like I can get back in the ring or a conversation with one of my close friends who pour into me without even knowing I'm going through a hard time. Oftentimes, it's just the energy and aura of the right people that can recharge me. 

Thank you Carina for sharing your story and insights. You can continue to inspire us!

Learn more about HerHeadquarters and share what they are doing with the companies and organizations who can help support women-owned businesses.