A blog where I share my experiences from over a decade as an entrepreneur.

Serge Amouzou


When I started Datatrixs four years ago, **three main problems** were at the core of it:

1️⃣ **Entrepreneurs and Spreadsheets:**  
   Entrepreneurs use spreadsheets all the time, but most are not good at it. The process of building a financial model—let alone having decision-ready data once the business is up and running—is tedious.  

2️⃣ **Product Managers & ROI Presentations:**  
   Product managers in medium enterprises must present financials to management to win approval for new products. Each manager formats their financials differently, leading to **chaotic collaboration** across sales, marketing, product, R&D, and finance teams.  

3️⃣ **Small Businesses & Capital Allocation:**  
   Small businesses (e.g., bakeries) struggle with capital allocation. After hours in a spreadsheet, confirming where investment is needed most hinges on questioning the same assumptions repeatedly.  

### **These Problems Shaped Our Perspective:**  

✅ **Becoming the Single Source of Truth**  
   If we can centralize **all company finances**, we can build a massive business.  

✅ **Automating Financial Intelligence**  
   Imagine a platform where a user inputs data and instantly gets **breakeven analysis, burn rate, and capital requirement charts**, alongside **industry benchmarking and scenario modeling**.  

✅ **AI-Driven Financial Insights**  
   What if a system could **connect to your bank accounts and customer data** and recommend **optimal marketing, sales, and product investments** to maximize engagement and revenue?  

### **Fast Forward to Today**  
We've made **huge strides** in this space. Users can now **forecast what they want with a simple prompt**. We've also developed **AI-powered recommendations** with explanations—akin to AI agents performing specialized financial functions.  

🚀 Curious to see how our vision has evolved? Watch the video below.  

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How Datatrixs started with three core problems in financial decision-making and evolved into an AI-powered analytics platform.

Building Datatrixs: Solving Financial Data Chaos


# Fundraising Insights for Black Founders

In nearly a decade of being in the entrepreneurial and venture space, here’s what I’ve observed about Black founders who successfully raised significant fundraising rounds. When I say significant, I mean **$1M+**.

If I had known the fundraising landscape when I started my first tech startup at the young age of **23**, I probably would have chosen path number **4**. Perhaps this can help young Black founders today think more strategically before embarking on that bold vision. It’s rough out there if you don’t step back and take a **panoramic view**. Unfortunately, your non-Black counterparts don’t have to do the same, but it’s better to be **wise than stubborn** in this venture space.

### 99% of Black founders who successfully raised a significant round of funding used one of these four methods:

- **Path 1: A Non-Black Founder Pulls You In as a Cofounder**  
  It doesn’t matter how many cofounders there are, as long as you’re **not at the front** of the fundraise. The non-Black founder raises millions for the company, and you’re along for the ride. When you’re ready to strike on your own, you’ll have plenty to brag about—“part of a founding team that raised $20 million, $40 million,” whatever the number is. If you’ve had an exit, even better. Even if you only had a tiny equity percentage, the bragging rights will be far more valuable than any windfall you might have had at this point.

- **Path 2: Join a Venture Studio**  
  You probably shouldn’t go in hot with an idea already in mind. Be open-minded about the idea they might assign you. Right now, there is high sympathy for Black founders starting in the **gig/creator economy** (anything wealth-gap closing) or **healthcare** (expanded in path 3 below). Anything else, and you might be considered outside the bounds, making it tough to raise money. Here, you offer help, collaborate, and develop an idea **together**. You become the CEO/cofounder to lead an idea, and the funding follows. Best to work with them to pick something together.

- **Path 3: Raising During or After #BLM, Focused on Gig/Creator Economy or Healthcare**  
  Anything outside of these two themes, and you become **too exoteric** for investors. Investors have had a heightened focus on these areas post-#BLM, so aligning with these themes increases your chances.

- **Path 4: Start with a Non-Black Cofounder/CEO from Day One**  
  If you weren’t lucky to follow paths 1, 2, or 3, you need to be **strategic** and seek out a non-Black cofounder right away. Even if you aren’t heavily visible in front of investors, you’ll still be building an amazing company and creating **generational wealth** for yourself and your family.

That’s what I’ve seen. The minuscule percentage that raised significant rounds **without** following one of these four paths are truly **edge cases**. They are the unicorns of the Black founders raising colossal amounts of funding—you rarely see them.


Lessons from nearly a decade in the entrepreneurial and venture space on how Black founders successfully raise significant funding.

Fundraising Insights for Black Founders


# Lessons from My First Startup

From the early days of building my first startup, I talked to **130+ restaurant owners, managers, and waiters** by walking door-to-door in DC.

Some would think this is crazy, and maybe it was—but I wanted to get it right. I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could by gathering data from my potential customers.

By the end, I gathered so much information, like how **mobile payments wouldn't be possible unless the restaurant had a system that improved their efficiency.**

All those insights combined turned into the product we built—a platform that enabled restaurants to improve efficiency and, in turn, allowed consumers to transact easily, helping service workers earn more income. Think about why you now see that default **20% tip** as the starting percentage when signing digital tabs. Service workers work incredibly hard and deserve good pay—the **original gig economy!**

Despite it all, we never could find backers to help us take it off the ground. As a foreigner, I later learned it was due to **systemic racism** (not something you want to hear, but it was true).

Nevertheless, I believe the **U.S. is still the best country in the world to build innovative products and solve big problems.**


How talking to 130+ restaurant owners shaped my first startup and the lessons I learned.

Lessons from My First Startup


# Unpopular Opinion:

When an investor denigrates your product as “just” something, they are not going to invest.

Recently I demoed our platform to an investor, and all she came away with was:  
“So it just allows them to get insight on their clients.”  
I was thinking, *all of this, and you’re thinking ‘Just?’*

It reminded me of when I did research at Georgetown University on breast cancer. In one of our weekly meetings, we read peer-reviewed papers and discussed what we thought they indicated. Someone began by saying, “the authors just…” Dr. Donoghue, a world-renowned neuroscientist, paused them and said something to the effect of:  
*Authors spent years and a large chunk of their professional careers making these discoveries, so it’s not ‘just’ that a cell receptor …*

That day, I learned the importance of that simple word, *just*—to not denigrate the work that someone has put tremendous resources into, making something once complex or unknown now readily apparent to us.

For the record, this investor's bias got the best of her. Instead of appreciating the elegance of our product, she turned its simplicity into a negative. Products are designed to bring simplicity and ease of use, and the best products do all the hard work in the background, so it becomes an afterthought for the end user.

**Keep building, founders.** Don't flinch because someone you met for 15 minutes tries to undermine your hard work.


How one investor's dismissive remark reinforced the importance of simplicity and hard work in product design.

A blog where I share my experiences from over a decade as an entrepreneur.

Building Datatrixs: Solving Financial Data Chaos

Fundraising Insights for Black Founders

Lessons from My First Startup

Unpopular Opinion: The Power of 'Just'