No Imposter Syndrome at Yale, Just Vision: Raising $3.1M in just 14days

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Annie WM Yu: Who do you think that our conversation today will most benefit?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Young builders who are very passionate about changing the game.

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Annie WM Yu: Welcome to Low to Grow, the podcast transforming life's toughest moments into opportunity for growth.

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Annie WM Yu: I'm Annie, a Forbes NN30 technology founder, whose entrepreneurship journey ran parallel to a mental health awakening.

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Annie WM Yu: In every episode, I sit down with inspiring individuals and delve into how they managed to turn their personal or professional challenges into opportunities for growth.

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Annie WM Yu: If you're facing uncertainty in your life, feeling down, or simply need a kick of inspiration to keep moving forward, this is your space for the honest and uplifting conversations that you will want to hear.

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Annie WM Yu: Hit follow so you never miss an episode, and let's dive in.

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Annie WM Yu: I'm delighted to welcome Nathaneo Johnson, co-founder of the Sirius app, a new platform using AI to generate authentic and high-value connections.

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Annie WM Yu: He is challenging the vanity-driven norms of social media, replacing likes and followers with substance, purpose, and also real-world impact.

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Annie WM Yu: Describing themselves, so Nathaneo and his co-founder, is 6'5, black and technical.

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Annie WM Yu: He and his co-founder, Sean, have already secured $3.1 million in just 14 days from some of the top San Francisco investors.

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Annie WM Yu: This is commendable because according to Crunchbase, black founder startups received just 0.48% of the total US venture capital in 2024.

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Annie WM Yu: Nathaneo, welcome to the Low to Grow podcast.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Yeah, Annie, thank you for having me.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I'm excited to be here.

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Annie WM Yu: Perfect.

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Annie WM Yu: So Nathaneo, who do you think that our conversation today will most benefit?

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Nathaneo Johnson: It's a good question.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think young builders who are very passionate about changing the game.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think that's something that I didn't have too much to put a look up to.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And I also think it's something that's very inspirational and powerful.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So that would be the hope of where this audience goes.

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Annie WM Yu: Let's start from the beginning then, Nathaneo.

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Annie WM Yu: Let's start with your childhood.

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Annie WM Yu: What was your environment like growing up?

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Annie WM Yu: And how do you feel that it shaped your early sense of self and also ambition?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Yeah, I think my early childhood mainly stemmed from being at home with a single mother.

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Nathaneo Johnson: That was mainly focused on education, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So prioritizing, you know, doing things like SAT and doing robot accomplishments in high school.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I actually was zoned to go to a different high school for my current community, which is in Irvine, California.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But last minute, I was actually able to apply to get into a better high school in my area.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that small chance I took to go to somewhere that maybe had a bit better teachers or a better rating, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Didn't seem to matter much as a fashion, but ended up to make me valedictorian at the high school at the end of it.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So very much influenced me to say, this is somewhere that I wanted to essentially become the best in, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: And you only can do that by being around the best, even at a small scale.

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Annie WM Yu: Were there any moments as a kid or as a team when you felt out of place or underestimated?

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Nathaneo Johnson: One of the main things where that occurred, I'd say, is mainly, honestly, way back to middle school, I think, like this is when I was doing robotic competitions for like cyber security, and also for something called LinkBots.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And I remember that there was this kind of like selecting a team, so I was like team captain for one of them.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But there's very much a stigma where you have to be kind of the best at what you do.

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Nathaneo Johnson: With a pre-proven track record, instead of giving merits opportunity.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that wasn't my experience there until I had to prove myself by almost like taking, let's say the mic or taking the wheel, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: To take that initiative, and then you can gain that respect.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So in a very similar way, I want to make sure that that's exemplified, not to disallow people to bring out the right opportunities, but more instead and more importantly, give them the opportunity to showcase what they do best.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And showcase that first.

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Annie WM Yu: That's a great mindset to have.

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Annie WM Yu: Nathaneo, when you did feel out of place as a child, how did that affect your drive or your inner confidence at that time?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Ultimately, that was something that I actually built confidence from because that was very much something that initially seemed to be daunting, and to actually trouble you to not take the right steps and corrections to dream bigger, so to speak.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But ultimately, in being able to experience that early, it builds a resilience.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Resilience can lead to confidence when you're able to build up enough esteem in yourself to say, regardless of the situation, I know that I'm able to do something.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that's something that's been very prevalent over the last few years, and I hope that continues, of course, in me, but also in others.

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Annie WM Yu: I'm quite curious to hear a bit more about your pathway to getting into Yale.

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Annie WM Yu: What kind of emotions did that bring up?

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Nathaneo Johnson: For me, I actually wanted to go to MIT for the longest time, funnily enough.

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Nathaneo Johnson: The decision for Yale came to New York, and there's a variety of factors.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think, ultimately, making Yale an early action choice was mainly because I wanted to go somewhere that could very much give me the opportunity to be a master of all things, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Not a jack-of-all-trades, so to speak, but a school that was more well-balanced.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I didn't want to become super ungrossed in the technical world and not have the ability and experience to learn about business or economics or law, for example, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: I like physics, so going to a more well-balanced school, to me, made sense at that moment, but I didn't know that would come until much later.

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Annie WM Yu: Okay.

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Annie WM Yu: And how was the whole kind of process of getting into Yale?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Yeah, I think ultimately, like regardless of experience, it's very important that you actually base a lot of what you do based on doing, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that can come from opportunities to give in to yourself, but more importantly than that, that can also come from knowledge, and that can be sort of a simulated experience, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So to speak.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So I don't think that plays too much of a factor, but as long as I experience to retain in some version or form, I think that I'll be prevalent.

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Annie WM Yu: When I was at Oxford, especially during undergrad and the first year, I think a lot of students, no matter what background they had, actually all felt a sense of imposter syndrome after arriving at a really competitive university.

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Annie WM Yu: And I was curious to hear, did you have a struggle with imposter syndrome after you arrived at Yale?

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Nathaneo Johnson: I actually didn't, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that sounds something that's, I think, can be egotistical, but more to say, I don't think I was overwhelmed, but more underwhelmed coming to a university like that.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Nathaneo, maybe because I grew up across the coast, had a very different expectation of what that was.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But it seemed like a lot of students had made getting into Yale the prime accomplishment of what college is supposed to be, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: When in reality, I think it's just the beginning.

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Nathaneo Johnson: That was a very telling sort of feeling and sense that a lot of people will look to the next level and not know what the level actually holds.

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Nathaneo Johnson: It's more of the outside precedent and feeling.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So it's very important to actually experience that yourself, or at least kind of showcase that and learn that.

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Nathaneo Johnson: That will ultimately lead to a much better understanding.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And beyond that, right?

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<v SPEAKER_4>Like a much better transition outside of like, let's say high school or college, for example.

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Annie WM Yu: After arriving at Yale, how did that then lead you to building your own company and also raising venture capital funding for it?

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<v SPEAKER_4>Yeah.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I mean, I started at the Yale Entrepreneurial Society.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I started a podcast there and shouldn't join that with Sean.

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Nathaneo Johnson: We interviewed like, you know, founders and CEOs.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Ultimately, it was just being in those communities and spaces that gave some sort of help initially to understand what exactly needed to be done at that level.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And then beyond that, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Continue to grow that sort of experience and grow that sort of knowledge.

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Nathaneo Johnson: As I had more experiences with the Oshmo community, not only in Yale, but mainly that have graduated from Yale.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And taking that, I started a fund with another friend at Yale who we helped invest in student founders, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So definitely just invest myself in space in different ways.

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Annie WM Yu: That's great.

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Annie WM Yu: Tell us a bit more about your motivation behind building Ceres.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Ultimately, that's going to be something that very much will be a direct correlation to the democratization of access, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: That's something that a warm network can only provide.

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Nathaneo Johnson: The warm networks are very much gated.

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Nathaneo Johnson: They're very much even say hereditary, but most importantly, they're limited in access by building Ceres, where our goal is for any reason of social connections, business, flying up the brick, fitness, even have access to other people at the right time, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: And it's exactly what AI friends do, is they filter essentially who you are and where you are in accordance to other users in the platform and their friends outside of Ceres as well, to help you meet that right person in a given moment.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Maybe it's before you go out on a Friday night, maybe it's for a homework assignment or even for a co-founder for your next company, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Being able to connect with the right person, there isn't currently a social platform to do that because they much more prioritize communities and influence versus relationships on one-on-one.

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Annie WM Yu: Okay.

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Annie WM Yu: You have a co-founder called Sean.

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Annie WM Yu: How did you know that he was the person that you wanted to build a company with?

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Nathaneo Johnson: That ultimately started because early on, we had a great relationship, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that stemmed mainly as friends, but beyond that, it was like a podcast.

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Nathaneo Johnson: It was a great entry way to further understand exactly what value we could get out of working with each other, and being able to explore the positives and negatives of what it looks like to communicate with someone on late nights and early mornings, especially in the entrepreneurial space, you very much learn this is the person that they are.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that was an indication then, which hasn't changed now, to how much in value we're able to go to each other and help connect with each other, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Whether it's a day level and week to week, month to month, seeing that progress over time.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Some of that tells you a lot about a character.

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Annie WM Yu: Did you do any incubators?

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Annie WM Yu: Did you do any particular programs?

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Annie WM Yu: Like how did you guys actually turn series from an idea into a company?

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Nathaneo Johnson: The main difference in that was how we iterated through what a connection looks like on the warm network level.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So initially, you're going to be kind of surrounded by people you know, and that's going to lead you to find your first customers, users, etc.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Now, if you're an expanding warm network, the chances in your surface area increases for how successful or, let's say, whatever niche that's supposed to be in.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So our goal was how could we build a platform that can encompass and increase the surface area?

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Nathaneo Johnson: We started with an AI sort of call agent that could give you rings and kind of converse with you to help you meet the right people and meet them via email.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But we soon pivoted to iMessage, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: And one, developing and discovering technology.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But two, more importantly, to figure out that this is something that could truly immerse in the current operating system we use.

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Nathaneo Johnson: A lot of us today are using iMessage to communicate that feels very natural, feels very human.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So if we're able to put artificial intelligence inside of the same system we use on a daily basis, that will very much blend the two worlds together.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Now it's truly our goal and why we call it AI Friends, to blend the worlds of AI and human interaction so we can very much continue to control the narrative of how AI plays into our lives in a positive direction, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that's helping us meet other real people.

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Annie WM Yu: Interesting.

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Annie WM Yu: What has been some of the main challenges that you'd say you've had to push through up to now in terms of building series, raising funding, and nicer building a team?

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Nathaneo Johnson: I'd say one of the biggest shot is just really determination and grit.

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Nathaneo Johnson: There's obviously times where it seems like things may or may not work out, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: And according especially to the odds of, you know, the stats we did pull off or whatever the student is doing your age, it's very much important to be able to have the right connections, the right network at the right time, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So that's something that we very much want to do, that we want to continue to, I wouldn't say verify, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: But continue to enforce, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: As a sort of way and degree of how we should communicate.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So in doing that, the hardest thing to do is really to have that determination and consistent remembrance of pushing through, given that we know there's an equal opportunity somewhere that we can have for ourselves and give out to other people.

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Nathaneo Johnson: In doing that, we were able to overcome obstacles of fundraising and overcome obstacles of building out teams and communication tactics.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think that determination or underlying determination led to success where we are today.

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Annie WM Yu: And what type of challenges did you have when you were fundraising?

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Nathaneo Johnson: We had the idea of fundraising for a while, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: We obviously talked to VCs before the 14 days.

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Nathaneo Johnson: The kind of short time spent of the raise mainly came from us understanding what fundraising actually looked like.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that's talking to someone who could actually lead around, which means more than just putting their capital, but also giving the right connections to people to further accentuate and grow exactly what they're doing.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So in a very similar way, that's what our lead investor is able to do by not just giving us capital, but was also able to make the right connections to help us grow this company.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And doing that very much eased up the process.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think before that, we were very much in the ideation MVP stage.

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Annie WM Yu: Did you have an MVP built already before you started fundraising?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Yeah.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Yeah.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So that was something that we presented.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Still, we just actually launched our version 2 of the product, but the same MVP was the one that also gained tons of usage, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So that's where soon after our college tour, we settled down, stayed on the computer until we could resolve those issues.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, you obviously need to have some sort of prototype to raise.

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Nathaneo Johnson: We didn't have a fully functional product, but at the bare bones, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So just for demonstration purposes and some small use cases, so definitely not something to handle the overwhelming precedent of, you know, virality that post came.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But in that moment, was something that was functional and usable.

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Annie WM Yu: How many users did you have on Series when you first started fundraising?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Yeah, so we actually had a cohort of students in this range from, I think, across 500 universities.

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Nathaneo Johnson: That better help us kind of organize who's using the product and very much a test case, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Just kind of show investors and ourselves this was viable.

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Annie WM Yu: Okay, great.

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Annie WM Yu: And what are you working on now at Series?

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Nathaneo Johnson: The next thing we're up to now and to the next steps mainly revolves around how we're going to scale this product, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So we're doing last minute tests on V2 before we fully push out marketing.

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Nathaneo Johnson: We'll be launching another product video kind of every week to kind of showcase the new features we add.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But main thing is product now, getting that fine tune and then just distributing that to our audience.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Right.

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Annie WM Yu: And how big is the team now at Series?

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<v SPEAKER_4>It's very small, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: So besides my co-founder, only two other people.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that's mainly just because we want to keep it very concise, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Very minimal.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And most importantly, beyond that, have a family, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Have a small team that can really build and get to know each other with deep relationships, so that when we do scale, we can have us be the leaders that continue to bring out and fully close that operation.

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Annie WM Yu: Are you still studying at Yale or have you dropped out?

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Nathaneo Johnson: I am still studying at Yale, yeah.

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Annie WM Yu: Okay, great.

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Annie WM Yu: And Yale is comfortable with you running this venture alongside your studies?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Yeah, I mean, so something that's to be determined, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: But as it currently stands, yes, I'm still enrolled.

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Annie WM Yu: Wow, that's actually really interesting.

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Annie WM Yu: I've heard of a lot of UK universities where students need to basically leave their degree if they start doing a venture.

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Annie WM Yu: So I think it's very forward thinking for Yale to allow you to still study and run your business alongside it.

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Annie WM Yu: So that's quite encouraging to see.

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Annie WM Yu: You've obviously achieved a lot.

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Annie WM Yu: And from speaking to you, I can tell that you are very efficient and you're very focused in doing what you want to do.

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Annie WM Yu: If there are people in their teens listening to this podcast, and they also have dreams of building a startup, what kind of advice would you give to them?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Yeah, I would say to just start early and not be scared to determine, or not be scared of being normal.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think people think that they can be like the normal, while simultaneously becoming more unique and different.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I mean, obviously those words don't mean the same thing.

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Nathaneo Johnson: They mean the opposite thing.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I would just say, you know, dare to be different, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Kind of a corny version of that.

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Nathaneo Johnson: But it's really important that you take strides to kind of use the skills and resources you have to very early on take initiative, right, to what you want to build.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Because that's something that only time will take away from you.

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Annie WM Yu: Have you ever felt insecure or had doubt in your own abilities?

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Nathaneo Johnson: I wouldn't say doubt.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think there's been hard times, right, to where you don't know when.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I wouldn't say I doubted the ability for it to happen.

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Annie WM Yu: That's great.

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Annie WM Yu: And how would you describe the support system that you have around you?

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Nathaneo Johnson: I would say the support system is really good.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think the coolest thing about that is having people in your corner, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: You're like your teammates, your family, your friends, loved ones, to be able to constantly remind you what you can do, what's possible.

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Nathaneo Johnson: That's something that you should hold very dear to yourself, and I think a lot of people do.

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Nathaneo Johnson: So, very much so, something that we want to continue to essentially utilize and be on that, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: To you to follow, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Follow the people that care about you.

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Nathaneo Johnson: You can see that, potentially, in the long term.

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Annie WM Yu: Before we end, one last question, which is the podcast staple.

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Annie WM Yu: What is one thing that you believe will allow more people to have better mental health?

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Nathaneo Johnson: Mental health, yeah, it's a good question.

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think for mental health, honestly, the biggest thing is just do what you love, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: I think there's very much a discontinuity between doing what you love and working hard.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And when you're working hard and not doing what you love, oftentimes, we find things stressful and annoyance.

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Nathaneo Johnson: You can't go the extra mile or put in the extra hours.

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Nathaneo Johnson: If you truly enjoy what you're doing, and you're able to do that, there won't necessarily be any discontinuity between what you're currently doing now and the sort of fatigue or tiredness you feel and doing that repeatedly.

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Nathaneo Johnson: And that's what often causes mental health, is like a discrepancy between adoping levels or how often you enjoy something.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Clearly separate those two as what you love and what is work or what's tiresome.

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Nathaneo Johnson: It's very easy to see how mental health aligns, right?

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Nathaneo Johnson: One in the positive, one of the negatives.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Synchronizing yourself towards what you love very much will solve that in my head.

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Annie WM Yu: Perfect.

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Annie WM Yu: Well, thank you very much for coming on.

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Annie WM Yu: It's been a pleasure to have you.

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Nathaneo Johnson: All right, thank you so much.

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Nathaneo Johnson: Appreciate you taking the time.

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Annie WM Yu: That's a wrap for today's episode of the Low to Grow podcast.

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Annie WM Yu: If it resonated with you, leave a review and hit follow to help more people to find important conversations.

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Annie WM Yu: Keep growing and see you next time.