Funded, Now What?!

Is rent collection still stuck in the past? In Episode 51 of Funded, Now What?!, Andrew Lee Miller sits down with Taylor Peake, founder and CEO of Occupi, to discuss how her company is modernizing rent payments for property managers and residents nationwide. After raising $3.2 million in funding, Taylor shares lessons on fundraising, product-market fit, scaling lean teams, and building technology for an underserved market.

What You'll Learn:

● Product-Market Fit: How Occupi discovered a major gap in the rental housing market and built a solution customers love.

● Fundraising Lessons: Taylor's experience raising $3.2M as a female founder and finding the right investors.

● Rent Payments Reimagined: Why giving residents more payment options improves both customer experience and operational efficiency.

● Marketing for Startups: Andrew's playbook for balancing conferences, outbound outreach, SEO, GEO, and AI-powered marketing.

● Scaling Lean: How Occupi achieved strong growth with a small team and a relentless focus on solving customer problems.

Featured Guest: Taylor Peake

Taylor is the founder and CEO of Occupi, a rent payment platform helping property managers simplify collections while giving residents more flexibility in how they pay. Occupi serves operators across multifamily housing, manufactured housing communities, single-family rentals, and housing authorities nationwide.

🔗 Connect with Taylor: linkedin.com/in/taylorpeake

🌐 Website: paywithoccupi.com

About the Show

Funded, Now What?! is the world's leading podcast for startup founders and growth leaders. Hosted by fractional CMO Andrew Lee Miller, the show explores how venture-backed startups scale growth after raising capital.

📅 Book a Growth Audit: www.growthexpertz.com

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@growthexpertz

Connect With Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewstartups/

Want to work with us? Email: [email protected]

Read "The Startup Growth Book": https://cutt.ly/Ftb3156K

00:00 Introduction to Occupi and Its Mission

04:00 Understanding the Technology Behind Occupi

07:05 The Fundraising Journey of a Female Founder

10:11 Navigating Growth Post-Funding

12:53 Marketing Strategies for Occupi

15:51 Optimizing Conference Attendance for Marketing

24:27 Conclusion and Future Directions

25:11 Maximizing Event ROI for Startups

26:35 The Power of SEO and GEO in Marketing

28:24 Shifting Focus: From Blogs to Newsletters

31:04 Understanding Listicles and Their Impact

33:53 Building a Comprehensive Marketing Playbook

38:40 Customer Lifetime Value and Marketing Strategies

43:49 Navigating Compliance in FinTech Marketing

46:52 POD OUTRO.mp4

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Is your call center a "cost center" or a "value center"? In this milestone 50th episode of Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller sits down with Ardie Sameti, CEO of Scala.ai. Fresh off an 8.5 million dollar seed round, Ardie explains how Scala.ai is moving past "bolt-on" AI to create a unified intelligence engine that understands business DNA.

What You'll Learn:

Data as the Moat: Why the secret to AI success isn't the model-it's how you package your data.

Agent Intelligence: How to deploy templatized, industry-specific AI agents that actually solve problems instead of creating loops.

The ROI of CX: Turning high-burnout environments into revenue-driving growth engines.

Tactical Marketing: Andrew breaks down the "Seed Stage Stack"-how to use niche PR, SEO/GEO, and high-scale outreach to dominate a tiny space before the incumbents catch up.

Featured Guest:

Ardie is the founder and CEO of Scala.ai, a customer intelligence platform reinventing the modern contact center. A father of three and a seasoned operator with deep domain expertise in regulated industries like healthcare, Ardie brings a "love letter to CX operators" through technology that drives real outcomes, not just hype.

🔗 Connect with Ardie: linkedin.com/in/ardiesameti

🌐 Website: scala.ai

About The Show:

Funded, Now What?! is the world's leading podcast for startup founders and growth leaders. Hosted by fractional CMO Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz), the show analyzes how the world's fastest-growing startups raise millions and provides the tactical marketing playbook to help them spend it wisely.

📅 Book a Growth Audit: www.growthexpertz.com

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@growthexpertz

Connect With Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewstartups/ 

Want to work with us? Email: [email protected]

Read "The Startup Growth Book": https://cutt.ly/Ftb3156K

Buy Andrew’s Newest Book About AI Marketing :https://a.co/d/0ehCZAIj 

#CX #CustomerExperience #AI #ScalaAI #CallCenter #Startups #Funding #B2BSaaS #EnterpriseSales #AndrewLeeMiller #GrowthExpertz #MarTech

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What if your website could read the room  every single time?

In this episode of Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller sits down with Ankur Goyal, founder and CEO of Fibr AI (fibr.ai). After a decade in CPG and performance marketing, Ankur identified the last untouched frontier of digital marketing, the static website  and built an AI-powered personalization layer that's already delivering 15–32% conversion uplifts for some of the biggest names in banking and telecom. Oh, and they just closed a $7.5 million seed round.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

The Personalization Gap: Why every part of the marketing stack  Google Ads, Meta, email, even billboards  evolved except the website, and why that's a massive opportunity hiding in plain sight.

The "DOM Hijack" That Doesn't Break SEO: How Fibr AI sits as a visualization layer above your HTML, serving personalized experiences to humans while Google crawlers see the exact same page they always have.

The High-LTV ICP Discovery: Why Ankur pivoted away from Shopify and D2C brands toward banks, credit unions, telecom, and healthcare  and the unit economics that make it a no-brainer.

Cracking Enterprise Sales: The real timeline, the real bottlenecks (hint: it's not the budget, it's the fear of breaking something public-facing), and how a two-month pilot with a single JavaScript snippet lowers the barrier to entry.

The Future Is Agent-to-Agent: How Fibr AI is quietly building the infrastructure for a web where AI agents communicate directly, no typing, no clicking, just machine-to-machine personalization at scale.

Featured Guest: Ankur Goyal

Ankur is a serial entrepreneur, former CPG founder, and the CEO of Fibr AI. With a background rooted in performance marketing rather than engineering, he brings a rare operator's lens to a deeply technical product  making him one of the most compelling voices in the AI-native MarTech space.

Connect with Ankur: linkedin.com/in/ankurgoyal22

Website: fibr.ai

Instagram: @fibr_ai_

LinkedIn: Fibr AI

X/Twitter: @fibr_ai

YouTube: @fibr_ai

About the Show

Funded, Now What?! is the world's leading podcast for startup founders and growth leaders. Hosted by fractional CMO Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz), the show analyzes how the world's fastest-growing startups raise millions  and provides the tactical marketing playbook to help them spend it wisely.

Book a Growth Audit: www.growthexpertz.com

Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@growthexpertz

#MarTech #WebPersonalization #AI #Startups #AndrewLeeMiller #GrowthExpertz #Funding #ConversionRateOptimization #SeedRound #B2BMarketing #SaaS #Entrepreneurship #FibrAI #CRO #PerformanceMarketing

00:00 Introduction to Fiber AI and Its Unique Offering

04:06 The Evolution of Web Experiences

07:06 SEO Implications of Dynamic Web Pages

10:01 Target Customers and Market Positioning

12:51 Onboarding and Integration Process

15:47 Demonstrating ROI and Conversion Rates

18:34 Challenges in B2B Sales Cycles

19:06 Building an AI Startup vs. MarTech

21:49 The Importance of PR and Inbound Marketing

25:35 Sales Cycle Optimization and Case Studies

27:01 Outreach Strategies for AI Products

31:03 The Future of AI and Agent Communication

35:31 Targeting Digital Innovators in Traditional Industries

39:14 Balancing Marketing Spend and Growth Strategies

41:17 POD OUTRO.mp4

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What if a two-week manual process could be finished before you finished your coffee?

In this episode of Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller sits down with Ori Ohayon, the founder and CEO of Title.co. After five years of "hand-to-hand combat" in the archaic world of real estate titling, Ori and his team just closed a $2.5 million seed round to scale their revolutionary AI-driven platform.

The "Archaic" Crisis: Why buying a property in 2026 still involves digging through manual, paper-based county records and how that leads to expensive legal nightmares.

The 10-Minute Title Search: How Title.co uses a fleet of AI agents to scrape and analyze deep data, cutting the traditional 14-day title search down to just 4–10 minutes.

The AI Pivot: Why Ori shifted from a "blockchain-first" company to an "AI-first" company to solve data analysis problems that were impossible just 12 months ago.

Fundraising Resilience: The raw truth about raising capital Ori explains why it took over 100 investor calls to close their round and how to "speak the language" of a VC to get to a "Yes."

Scaling the Un-Scalable: How to automate outreach to 3,200+ U.S. counties using AI ground cover and "Meeting Minute" scrapers to find the warmest leads.

Ori is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of Titl.co. With a background in real estate investing and a track record of successful exits, he is currently disrupting the $60B title insurance industry by replacing manual labor with high-speed AI infrastructure.

Connect with Ori: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oriohayon/| T I T L . C O

Funded, Now What?! is the world’s leading podcast for startup founders and growth leaders. Hosted by fractional CMO Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz), the show analyzes how the world’s fastest-growing startups raise millions and provides the tactical marketing playbook to help them spend it wisely.

Book a Growth Audit: www.growthexpertz.com

Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@growthexpertz

#PropTech #RealEstate #AI #Startups #AndrewLeeMiller #GrowthExpertz #Funding #Blockchain #SeedRound #B2BMarketing #SaaS #Entrepreneurship

00:00 Introduction to Ori Ohayon and titl.co

01:41 The archaic titl process and Ori's inspiration

02:16 How AI streamlines titl verification

02:57 Industry regulation and blockchain security

03:45 Customer base and early adopters

04:16 Industry skepticism and live demo success

05:06 Nationwide expansion and local rules

08:48 Marketing and outreach strategies

10:28 Fundraising journey and investor insights

11:41 Advice for raising capital and resilience

13:42 Pitching tech without overemphasizing AI

16:15 Growth hacking ideas for scaling

19:45 Targeting small vs. enterprise clients

23:56 Automating outreach and ground cover AI

27:38 Using public records and county data

28:43 PR and thought leadership in niche markets

29:49 Branding, domain strategy, and SEO

31:58 The importance of results over tech hype

33:19 Domain name suggestions and branding tips

35:41 Scaling sales and client onboarding with AI

39:54 The future of AI in real estate and entrepreneurship

41:59 Closing remarks and next steps

42:02 POD OUTRO.mp4

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What if your company’s entire financial operation relied on the memory of a single employee?

In this episode of Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz) sits down with David Stifter, founder of PredictAP. David spent a year searching for a tech solution to handle the 500,000+ invoices he managed at a massive private equity fund. When he couldn't find one, he left his executive role to build it himself.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

The Complexity of Real Estate: Why paying a utility bill for a $100 million office building is 100x harder than buying a coffee.

Strategic Fundraising: How PredictAP moved from "Friends and Family" to institutional backing from groups like RET Ventures and Wise Ventures.

Relationship-Led Growth: The secret to getting a CFO to give you their "guinea pig" data for a beta test.

The "Feedback Loop": Why keeping a "person in the loop" is the only way to prevent AI from "hallucinating" on your financial records.

Featured Guest: David Stifter David is the founder and CEO of PredictAP. With over two decades of experience in real estate accounting and the "Yardi" ecosystem, he is a problem-solver who turned a back-office nightmare into a scaling tech powerhouse.

Connect with David: LinkedIn Profile | X (Twitter) | Instagram Learn more: https://www.predictap.com/

00:00 Introduction to Predict AP and the Funding Journey

03:15 Understanding Coded Invoices and Accounts Payable

06:25 The Complexity of Real Estate Invoicing

09:13 The Birth of Predict AP

12:06 Raising Initial Funds and Building Relationships

15:08 Navigating Customer Acquisition and Networking

21:39 Scaling the Invoice Solution

24:31 Value Proposition of PredictAP

27:32 AI and Job Security

29:40 Marketing Strategies for Customer Acquisition

38:48 Innovative Networking at Conferences

40:45 POD OUTRO.mp4

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What if you never had to hear "please hold" ever again when you call a hotel or resort?

In this episode of Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz) sits down with Jonathan Lei, the founder of withQ. Jonathan is on a mission to make hotel phone calls efficient, profitable, and most importantly instant.

By deploying the world's most sophisticated voice AI for hospitality, withQ is helping hotels capture missed bookings and provide a "white glove" guest experience that scales without increasing headcount.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

The Hospitality Gap: Why traditional hotels are losing millions in missed calls and how AI bridges that gap 24/7.

Selling ROI: Why B2B products that 5x revenue are the only products worth building in 2026.

The Accountability Layer: How withQ uses a dedicated QA team to ensure their AI never hallucinates on a guest call.

The "Famous" Strategy: Andrew’s plan to move withQ from a hidden gem to the industry standard for hospitality tech.

Featured Guest: Jonathan Lei

Jonathan is the founder and CEO of withQ. Based in the heart of the tech world, he has built a team dedicated to transforming how the hospitality industry interacts with its guests through seamless, revenue-generating Voice AI.

Connect with Jonathan: LinkedIn Profile | X (Twitter)

Learn more: https://withqconcierge.com/

00:00 Introduction and Guest Credibility

01:18 What is withQ and Its Vision

02:14 The Evolution from Pizza to Hospitality AI

02:59 Industry Challenges: Staffing and Guest Experience

03:49 Training AI on Real Customer Calls

05:27 Tech Differentiation and Industry Trends

06:51 Proprietary Data and Continuous Improvement

07:48 Rapid Prototyping and Customer Feedback

08:49 Enhancing Guest Experience and Revenue

09:12 Fundraising Insights and Lessons Learned

10:49 Team and Leadership in Fundraising

12:45 Marketing Strategy and Digital Channels

15:48 Pre-Launch Marketing and Market Education

17:35 Future Marketing Challenges and SEO

19:25 GEO and Content Strategy for Visibility

20:36 Innovative Marketing Experiments

23:14 Market Positioning and Competitive Edge

24:05 Live Demo of AI Call in Action

26:23 Upsell Opportunities and Revenue Boost

28:08 Cost Savings and Revenue Impact

29:01 Pricing Model and ROI Focus

29:48 Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

30:55 POD OUTRO.mp4

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What if you could bypass every local distributor and buy your construction materials directly from the factory with a single click?

In this episode of Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz) sits down with Hanyang Liu, CEO of Quotr.io. Hanyang has raised $3.5 million to solve one of the most painful, manual processes in real estate: cost estimation.

By using vertical AI to automate "takeoffs" and connecting builders directly to global supply chains, Quotr isn't just saving time, it's fundamentally changing the math of real estate development.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

The "Architect's Edge": Why deep industry knowledge is the ultimate "sexy story" for Silicon Valley investors.

GEO Strategy: Why Andrew suggests focusing on "Unbranded" search terms to capture leads asking AI for help.

The Trust Layer: Why "AI-powered service" is a better sales pitch than "AI Platform" for traditional industries.

The Wikipedia Hack: A 15-year-old "secret" for building domain authority that still works for high-growth startups today.

Featured Guest: Hanyang Liu Hanyang is the founder of Quotr.io and a Berkeley Skydeck alumnus. An architect by trade, he is now leading a technical team in San Francisco to disrupt the multi-trillion dollar construction estimation industry.

Connect with Hanyang: LinkedIn Profile | X (Twitter)

Learn more: quotr.io

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What if you could change the color of sunlight to make plants grow 40% faster? Now you can!

In this episode of The Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz) sits down with Hunter McDaniel, the CEO of UbiQD. Hunter is a scientist-turned-entrepreneur who has raised $35 million to commercialize quantum dots nanoparticles so small that the ratio of a dot to a golf ball is the same as a golf ball to the planet Earth.

From powering the next generation of First Solar panels to glowing greenhouses in Morocco, UbiQD is proving that deep-tech doesn't have to be a hard sell if you have the right marketing wedge.

 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

The "Ubiquitous" Vision: Why UbiQD pivoted away from the brutal display industry to dominate "frontier markets" like solar and ag-tech.

Marketing Gold: How a peer-reviewed study with UC Davis showing a 40% increase in lettuce yield became their most powerful sales tool.

The Payback Period: How UbiQD prices their light-shifting films to ensure a 6–12 month ROI for farmers.

The @growthexpertz Playbook: Why Andrew suggests treating a platform technology as a "ground cover" brand while running niche "organism" brands for specific industries.

Featured Guest: Hunter McDaniel Hunter is the founder of UbiQD and an expert in nanomaterials. His company has developed a safer, lower-cost version of quantum dots that is currently being deployed across millions of square feet of greenhouses and solar arrays worldwide.

Connect with Hunter: LinkedIn Profile

Learn more: ubiqd.com | ubigro.com

Master your growth at: www.growthexpertz.com

00:00 Introduction to Quantum Dots and UbiQD

03:36 The Science: From Atoms to Golf Balls

05:31 Why "Ubiquity"? The Mission for Universal Tech

07:58 Surgical Marketing: Acquiring Global Clients

10:56 The UbiGro Case Studies: 40% Yield Improvements

14:35 The "Got Milk" Awareness Campaign for Quantum Dots

16:10 Pricing & ROI: The Economics of Light

21:55 The Platform Challenge: Accessing Diverse Audiences

25:06 Andrew’s Advice: Treating Niche Businesses as Separate Organisms

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What if the secret to closing a massive B2B deal wasn't a complex digital funnel, but a simple text message and a "phantom" flight?

In this episode of The Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz) sits down with David Berg, the founder of Commander AI. David is a former waste hauler who traded the driver's seat for the CEO's chair to solve a massive problem: one of the world’s last "pen and paper" industries is desperately looking for technology it doesn't even know exists.

Fresh off a $5 million seed round, David reveals how he built a CRM that is winning head-to-head against Salesforce by keeping things "simple" for an old-school workforce.

The "Reverse-Flight" Sales Hack: How David gets a 100% meeting rate with top-tier prospects by leveraging "relentless fortitude."

Fundraising from Giants: The behind-the-scenes story of how David raised $5M after hundreds of "nos" and how a relationship with Adam Neumann shaped his mindset.

Engineering as Marketing: Why Commander AI launched Hauler Central (a Yelp-style marketplace) to dominate SEO and capture inbound demand.

The @growthexpertz "Anti-AI" Brand Hack: Why Andrew advises startups in old-school niches to avoid using ".ai" or ".io" domains to increase conversion.

Google Maps Lead Generation: Andrew’s strategy for scraping 30,000+ locations to fuel hyper-targeted direct mail and AI-agent outreach.

David is the CEO of Commander AI, a specialized intelligence layer for waste haulers. His platform helps haulers manage pipelines, invoicing, and quoting, generating over $34M in revenue for his customers to date.

Connect with David: LinkedIn Profile

Learn more: Commander.com | HaulerCentral.com

Funded, Now What?! is the world’s only startup marketing podcast that interviews recently funded founders to uncover how they raised millions—and gives them tactical advice from @growthexpertz on how to spend it.

Master your growth at: www.growthexpertz.com

🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: Featured Guest: David Berg💡 About the Show

00:00 Introduction to Commander AI and Its Mission

03:08 The Fundraising Journey: Overcoming Challenges

06:05 Building Relationships with Investors

09:02 Current Traction and Product Development

12:00 Customer Acquisition Strategies and Marketing Insights

14:56 Leveraging LinkedIn for Growth

18:00 Future Directions and Closing Thoughts

19:15 Leveraging Ads for Effective Outreach

22:02 Hacking Google Maps for Business Intelligence

25:20 Simplifying Onboarding for Customer Success

30:01 Maximizing Conference Opportunities

35:08 Crafting Compelling PR Strategies

38:28 POD OUTRO.mp4

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“We didn’t just raise a seed round; we built a coalition.” 

In this episode of Funded, Now What?!, host Andrew Lee Miller (@growthexpertz) sits down with Todd Roberts and Owen Kent, the founders of ATDev. From Berkeley roommates to industry pioneers, Todd and Owen are revolutionizing physical therapy with Reflex-a smart, powered knee brace that brings clinical-grade recovery into the home.

They recently secured $3 million in seed funding and a staggering $41 million federal contract to build a robotic mobility ecosystem. In this masterclass on hardware growth and government contracting, they break down exactly how they did it.

In this episode, we discuss:

The $41M Federal Win: The strategy behind winning a massive contract to build a robotic mobility ecosystem.

Reflex & Physical AI: How ATDev is gamifying knee rehab to increase patient compliance and clinical outcomes.

Raising for Hardware: The "shots on goal" approach to securing VC funding in a software-heavy market.

The "Anti-AI" Outreach Hack: Andrew shares his tactical secret for getting 20% response rates in a world full of AI spam.

Fractional Scaling: How founders can protect their time by layering fractional experts over junior talent.

Connect with the Guests:

🔗 Website: https://assistivetech.dev/

🤝 LinkedIn: Todd Roberts | Owen Kent

Stop paying bloated full-time salaries for roles that don't need 40 hours a week. After three VC-backed exits, Andrew Lee Miller founded GrowthExpertz, the world’s leading Fractional Expert consultancy for early-stage startups. We help you scale marketing, sales, and operations using battle-tested experts at a fraction of the cost.

Learn more at www.growthexpertz.com

Ready to scale?

📩 Email: [email protected]

📅 Book a Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/growthexpertz/letschat?back=1&month=2023-06

Funded, Now What?! is the world’s only podcast that interviews recently funded founders to uncover how they raised millions-and provides them with the tactical marketing and growth advice they need to spend it wisely.

About GrowthExpertzAbout the Show

(00:00) Introduction to ATDev

(02:46) The Reflex Product: Revolutionizing Rehab

(05:47) The $41M Funding Journey

(08:51) Distribution & Market Release Strategy

(11:54) Hardware Fundraising & Investor Relations

(14:55) The Future of Robotic Mobility

(17:48) Marketing & PR for MedTech

(23:50) Andrew's Cold Outreach Hack

(26:56) Scaling with Fractional Experts

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