This is our CavnessHR update for December 2023. This will cover what we have done since September 2023. 

CavnessHR provides HR to companies with 49 or fewer people by automating HR products/services with our platform. While providing access to a dedicated HR Business Partner. 

We do this based on the location and industry of our clients and we do this at around 20% the cost of traditional HR.

Investment: We have secured a lead Angel investor who has invested $25K in CavnessHR. The original plan was to raise $100k on a SAFE. But after talking to several investors and being advised that it might actually be harder to raise such a low amount. We might increase the amount of our fund raise. But I still need to make a decision on that.

This investment and fund raise is separate from our equity crowdfund on Wefunder that I will talk about below. 

Team:  

We have lost a couple of people. 

One of our developers decided they no longer wanted to pursue software development as a career. 

Our Business Development person left to focus on her “real” job.

Below is the current team.

CEO/Founder - Full Time  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncavnesshr/

Designer - Full Time https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinaholbrook/

Developer - Full Time https://www.linkedin.com/in/mengting-yao/

Sales - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-d-flores/

We have a Board of Advisors

Traction:  

Customers: 1

Beta Testers: 25

Letters of Intent: 8

We continue to do demos for potential clients and potential investors.

We are working on a partnership with https://www.360socialventures.com/home to provide them free employee handbooks and HR policies. This will help validate our platform. With the intent being to have these startups upgrade to the paid plan later.

We have made a couple decisions regarding our business model. We will be providing our HR products/services for free to companies with 1 to 10 people. With some stipulations. 

We will be providing free employee handbooks and HR policies to companies with 11 to 49 people.

We are going to experiment with this freemium model to see how it works out for us.

One caveat, since we are focused on the Seattle market to validate product/market fit and our tech platform. The above is only for Seattle for now. 

Beta Test Results:

This is the link to phase one of our beta test results.

https://www.figma.com/proto/3wymm5pTihgR8u0uLDfG2e/Beta-Test-Research-Presentation?type=design&node-id=1-2&t=ZfCGouyQl4sVAn9p-1&scaling=contain&page-id=0%3A1&starting-point-node-id=1%3A2

We plan on doing a second set once we complete our next software deployment

Equity Crowdfund on Wefunder: 

We are currently doing an equity crowdfund on WeFunder. We are raising $50,000 on a $3M safe. 

This is not going as well as I thought it would. We are doing one last push. But if we don’t see a significant increase soon. I will be shutting it down

Here is the info for the crowdfund.

https://wefunder.com/cavnesshr 

It would be great if you shared this with your networks. It would of course be great if you invested in the crowdfund. 

Networking and Pitching:

While in Vietnam for a trip I set up several meetings with investors in Ho Chi Minh City. Nothing came from this as far as getting investment. But they did refer me to other investors who are more closely aligned with what we are doing.

I was a guest on the Hot Seat podcast. Where I talked about building CavnessHR and being a startup founder in general.

Attended the Port of Seattle Business Accelerator Program Graduation.

Took part in a LinkedIn Live discussion on the importance of vision for the success of your business and yourself.

Hosted two panels for Tacoma Startup Week. One called “Startup Founders: it is not all Unicorns and Rainbows”. Then one called “ Startup Founders: How to find the Right Investor”.

Also during Tacoma Startup Week I gave a presentation on HR Laws for companies with 49 or fewer employees at the Digital Sales Access Program.

I was a judge at the https://www.blackmuse.net/ pitch competition. This was a pitch competition for 11 to 15 year olds who are doing things like coding games for the metaverse.

I pitched CavnessHR at the “Throw us Your Business Pitch” event in Seattle at the Columbia Tower.

I pitched CavnessHR at https://www.newtechnorthwest.com/new-tech-events/new-tech-eastside-december-2023-meetup/

I am currently in the Dallas area meeting with investors and other people. I am also working in person with our developer as she lives in the DFW area.

Then of course, I continue to host www.thejasoncavnessexperience.com

Misc:

This is not something we usually do. But I helped a friend find potential candidates for 10 job openings his company has at this time. Hiring/Recruiting is something we plan on doing in the future. So this was a good case study for us so to speak.

Future:

Depending on how much traction we gain and other factors. I am planning to make a trip to the bay area to do a fund raise in February. 

If you are in the bay area and would like to meet or can recommend other people I should meet with let me know.

I do have a targeted list of investors in the bay area I plan on reaching out to and setting up a meeting.

Your questions/feedback is appreciated

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Jason