Sarena Ally (00:01.868)
All right. Hello, Janice. I’m doing great. How about yourself?

Janice Liu (00:05.426)
Hi, how are you?

Janice Liu (00:09.352)
I’m doing great. Thanks for asking.

Sarena Ally (00:12.334)
So, we have a lot of juicy topics to talk about today. I know our listeners are growing businesses and they are raising money. They might also be thinking about their own investments. And so, to dig into that, we have our wonderful guest, Janice. I’m really excited that you’re here today because I’ve followed your career for a really long time - and we’ve also been friends, which helps too.

Janice Liu (00:37.704)
Of course.

Sarena Ally (00:39.150)
I’ve followed you through the agency world and all the wonderful things that you did there, and then on your entrepreneurial journey - and just creating communities on the side, no big deal. So I’m really excited to dig into this topic with you. But first, for our listeners, before we get into all the details, I’d love for them to hear a little bit about you and how Mantis came about - to hear that story.

Janice Liu (01:10.312)
Sure. Mantis is the company I run now. I’d like to say it’s my sixth attempt at entrepreneurship. I’ve had a lot of failures in the past-not necessarily failures, but experiences - and now I’m running Mantis. Mantis has been around for three years. We’re officially three years old as of this November.

Sarena Ally (01:36.994)
Congrats.

Janice Liu (01:38.072)
Yeah, thank you. It’s been a journey. Mantis is a completely bootstrapped, no-investment company, which is really interesting - never hazy from that perspective. We started this company three years ago because of the thesis that every company is actually a data company, whether or not you like it, because you have customers, you have data in the form of content, and you have a bunch of different things you’re essentially utilizing - or that are a byproduct of your business - that could be generating money for you. Not only money from a top-line perspective, but you can use it for everything internally, and then of course you can monetize it. So that’s the purpose and theme of our business.

I started Mantis because I had been working in advertising and marketing for over a decade. My last venture, where I was more of an entrepreneur, was a company called Magnet, where I worked on the advertising data use case for about four years. So I’ve been in the data world now for over ten, and specifically in the world of commercialization and brokering data for quite a bit of time as well.

When I left my last company and decided to start Mantis, we actually hadn’t seen the inflection point of Gen AI yet, so it was very exciting to see that grow in the past two years. But we always knew that the data any business collects is worth a lot more than you realize. So that’s kind of how we started it.

Sarena Ally (03:06.316)
I love that. I think it’s so interesting the serial entrepreneur side of your story. I’m sure you’ve learned so much along the way. And then to see this AI kicker come in - I’m sure that’s going to really change your business in some exciting new ways.

I can’t wait to keep following you along as you go through that. But I also wanted to stop along the way and talk a little bit about the journey that brought you to Mantis. You’ve sat on both sides of the investment table - both asking for money and also making some bold investments yourself. I’d love to hear a little bit about the other part of your life, which is investing, and how you got started there.

Janice Liu (03:55.880)
Yeah. I’ve been saving and investing my whole life, but I think consciously getting into the startup world and investing at a seed round or a pre-seed round started around 2019. I was at the time still working at Magnet, and previous to that, the agency group that I was a part of had seen this crazy rise of cannabis - folks from CPG started taking over cannabis and getting it legalized in the country.

Shortly after that, in 2019, after you see the rocket take off, you start to see the opportunity to meet a bunch of different entrepreneurs across different fields. One of these folks, particularly from the cannabis space, had moved over to hospitality. They came to me and said, “Hey, would you like to help invest, or would you like to help us find ways to diversify the cap table?”

In most cases, especially at the angel or pre-seed round, you’re looking at businesses where it’s all about if you know the person or you’re an investor that others know. In my case, I was really lucky to meet my friend Felicia, who asked me, “Would you like to join the cap table, and would you like to help us diversify it?” In that business, we helped them go from a cap table of very generic investors to 30% women and 20% BIPOC investment. That was really cool and my first stepping stone - my first experience going into that.

Shortly after, I think it was also the period, economically, where everyone had a little bit more cash flow. I started investing in many different startups. My brother and I run a portfolio and have probably invested across 15 or 20 different startups globally. Not crazy VC amounts and not family-office amounts, but enough for us to dip our toe - and that’s kind of how we got into it.

It was a lot of learning: What are the rounds? What do they mean? What are the levels of options? It was really eye-opening. The good news is we somehow have a pretty good track record. I would say half the companies we’ve invested in are already at Series A or Series B - and then there are also quite a few that have gone bankrupt. So it’s either one or the other - toss-up. That’s why you diversify.

Sarena Ally (06:22.350)
Right-this is why you diversify, right? It sounds like in that first investment you had a relationship, which is fantastic. What other elements of either that deal or future deals really made you say, “Okay, now’s the time to commit - this is a yes for me”?

Janice Liu (06:46.983)
They say this a lot: there’s intuition - do you trust the founder? The founder’s experience is super important-what they’ve done before. I have invested in founders who have not exited or not scaled before as well, mainly because the concept is really good. It’s very tough at the very beginning-there’s no revenue, it’s pre-revenue, perhaps it’s just an idea and concept-so you’re really just trusting: Do you understand the concept? Do you understand the vertical?

I didn’t have a team to do heavy research, and we didn’t have Gen AI at the time to do deep research. So it was honestly just understanding their projections, understanding whether I believed in the concept, and then understanding the team - like, do you really need everyone here, right? It’s definitely high risk - a gamble - and it’s really about the determination of that team, but you can’t predict that.

Sarena Ally (07:41.006)
So essentially, you have to really believe in the founder and the team, and hopefully they have enough of a fleshed - out idea that they’re going to bring to market - but it’s a little bit of a gamble.

Janice Liu (07:52.328)
It is a little bit of a gamble, because you don’t really know things like product-market fit yet. Perhaps they haven’t even tested the concept, or they’re in pilot but you don’t have results yet. It’s less about trusting that the concept is going to have true fit; it’s more about believing the team has the ability to adjust and pivot as the market shows signals back to the product.

Sarena Ally (08:14.390)
Are there particular questions you ask them to figure that out, or is it really just how they show up and your belief in that individual and group to make it work, whatever happens?

Janice Liu (08:31.013)
Yeah, that’s a great question. At the beginning it was a lot of, “Do I trust this person?” Now, knowing what I know, the questions are more about the team: Can you pivot as times change? Can you adjust strategy and quickly follow that strategy and execute against it depending on the circumstance and context? So now my filter is a lot more stringent.

Especially now - across the whole world - we’re looking for sustainability. We don’t look for businesses that are just, “Rocket-ship this” or “Hockey-stick that” so we can get a quick return. My priorities have changed, and I think a lot of investors’ priorities have changed.

Sarena Ally (09:18.818)
And I think that’s a really great message for our listeners-the people who are going to watch and view this. Change is inevitable, and that is okay. Pivoting is okay, as long as you know where to go and what you learned.

Janice Liu (09:35.334)
Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s the persistence. That first investment - Felicia’s company - it took them quite a bit of time. They didn’t hit the milestones they wanted, but they pivoted. It’s the perseverance. Two years after the initial milestone they missed, they now have the right funding, they’re seeing the trajectory, they’re getting the right support - and it’s still going. The founders had to make a lot of sacrifices to get it to that point. That’s the balance: You believe in the concept enough to persevere through it, in conjunction with having the right support from the market and the right fit to hit it.

Sarena Ally (10:14.486)
As you go, do you find that as you’re looking for other investors, founders are looking for things other than money? Are they looking for investors who bring a new perspective to the business or something else?

Janice Liu (10:30.407)
Yeah, definitely. I think they are - at the beginning especially. We at Mantis have advisors-not investors - who support us because we have gaps, of course. I’ve been not only on the end where I’m investing; I’ve also been investing and advising certain founding teams around gaps they have and want to understand. So, a little bit of both.

Sarena Ally (10:53.420)
Very cool. I also want to talk a little about you being on the other side of the table. There’s your investment side - and it’s really interesting to learn about that journey. I saw a stat that founders who are venture-backed typically only end up with about 15% - maybe 30% - of equity at the end of the day when they finally exit.

When you’ve been approaching - whether it’s Mantis bootstrapping or previous companies (I think you had were VC-backed, sorry) - how were you thinking about those first rounds and whether to go one way or another?

Janice Liu (11:41.128)
I’ll break this down. If you have certain concepts or founders you believe in, and you think, “We’re going to give you a shot,” and you can invest without losing sleep if the money goes away - that’s a big component as an investor. If the money goes away and it sinks, am I going to be okay? You should never invest if you don’t have that.

We consciously chose not to look for investors when we started Mantis, for a plethora of reasons. One was that we hadn’t honed in on exactly what we wanted to scale: Is it services? Is it product? That’s first. Second, I have had a lot of experience with product businesses and services businesses, but you may have product-market fit at one level and not at the next. That’s the challenge. You can see really high early indicators in a pilot or one market, but as you go to other markets and try to scale, you have totally different challenges and differences.

That has been a big awakening for me, which is why we haven’t gone out to raise yet. We’re getting close to that point, but we want certainty - especially in today’s market. I want to make sure we have something sustainable and profitable even from the get-go, which is really hard to say.

Again, part of that is because my belief is: when you try to solve really big problems, you add a lot more complexity to getting product-market fit. What we always think about with product is: Can you solve a tiny problem? Can the tiny problem be so easily solved that you embed yourself in that value chain or experience - where you couldn’t imagine your world without Zoom, let’s say? Then you solve a very tiny problem and expand your feature set.

Founders often come with, “I want to solve this big problem.” That’s great - it’ll just require a lot of capital. Why build such a high challenge when you’re just beginning the race?

Sarena Ally (13:57.967)
Right. That soul-searching is really important for figuring out which way is right. It sounds like you’ve invested in other companies before they even had a product. How do you see profitability playing into that equation?

Janice Liu (14:17.935)
They have to give you some sense of when they think they’ll get to breakeven or profitability. It’s all very arbitrary at that stage when you don’t know. With early angel investment asks, you do get a concept sense - what they’re trying to build and why. For me now, I’m looking at whether the problem they’re trying to solve is too large for one specific solution. If your solution can be easily replicated, isn’t very defensible, or can be solved in many different ways, I’d argue you need to rethink the size of the problem. Otherwise, you’re framing it too big.

It’s no different than a science research experience: if your thesis is too far off, it’s not defensible.

Sarena Ally (15:15.554)
I think you’re also drawing on your agency background: How do I tell this story? How do I understand the story for myself - where I truly fit into the market, the customers I serve, and why I exist - and then tell that story to potential investors when the time comes? As you’ve gone through this crazy entrepreneurship game, did you have big aha moments about how the story needs to come together to attract the right person?

Janice Liu (15:54.714)
There are things you can control and things you can’t. You can control the storytelling - but it’s not even storytelling; it’s the discipline and rigor of telling it regularly. The way I talk about Mantis - “we believe every company is a data company” - I didn’t used to tell it that way. It takes iteration and feedback again and again. I’ve probably told that story a few hundred times now, and if I start it at a different point, it doesn’t land, because we’re talking about intangible things.

Before starting Mantis, I had four years of essentially running a company where - it wasn’t public - but we acted like it: reporting every month, talking to our board every month. Now, even without investors, with advisors, I still send a monthly, every month. It’s the habit of: here’s the story of where we’re going, where we’re at, what we’ve accomplished, what burn looks like, what’s in the bank. It’s a muscle.

You can win business on a big idea, but you usually lose it when you don’t have the proper hygiene - governance and discipline. You can totally control for that. If you practice those skills, you show up better, and it gives others confidence in the rigor. Rigor is like going to the gym-you have to do it. It’s foundational.

Sarena Ally (17:53.037)
And bringing everybody in the organization along for the expectation of how we show up is really important too - not only in the financial regimen and how we look at the business (super important pre-profit and post-profit), but also in the storytelling. Can everyone explain what they do to their parents, to their grandparents? Can you explain what the company does? I think we’ve all fallen into that trap where my mom or dad thinks I work on the internet.

Being able to explain it to a stranger or an investor - getting the storytelling right with a real understanding of where the business is - helps you attract the right person.

Janice Liu (18:51.655)
On the storytelling point, I get a lot of outreach from entrepreneurs looking for seed or pre-seed. There’s often glorification and embellishment - that’s not storytelling. “I have the thing that’s going to solve this.” That’s a lot of confidence for pre-revenue. Based on market conditions and the world today, I don’t really believe in anything that embellished anymore, hopefully.

It’s more about grounded reality. If you can’t explain it simply, people don’t always have the imagination or capacity to meet you at a very conceptual level. It’s so important to work on that and talk about it. I always tell people: having the idea doesn’t mean a thousand others don’t. It’s never about the idea - it’s about how you execute.

Sarena Ally (19:52.623)
And where you practice - where you build those habits like going to the gym, but for your business. Do you think it matters who you test your story on?

Janice Liu (19:58.888)
No. I think talk to everyone. Anytime someone asks, “What do you do? Why do you do it?”-the more ways you can test communicating that, the better. You could argue the way you talk about it is like go-to-market. If you can’t tell the story simply and you sound like everyone else, you won’t break through.

Testing the story matters even beyond the concept-even just how you talk about your work so anyone, of any generation, can understand.

Sarena Ally (20:49.238)
Exactly. I want to bring this home so people can understand which avenue to open as they think about their business. Do you have ideas on when companies should think about raising, bootstrapping, or possibly going to a bank?

Janice Liu (21:14.127)
Great question. I’ll go backwards. Going to the bank is probably your first easy bet.

I personally think if founders haven’t yet exhausted their debt or financing options, maybe you don’t believe in your product enough. If you’ve extended that capability - I personally guaranteed a lot of it - it demonstrates how much you yourself believe.

We do have a constrained banking environment-lots of guarantees required. There are private funders, and there are people in your network willing to loan money with interest. There are ways to work around traditional banking that aren’t yet “investment.” We have a generation of boomers sitting on a lot of capital; some are open to loaning if they know they’ll get a return. There are ways to structure that outside of banking and before investment that people don’t always explore.

In the U.S., there’s more excess capital and easier access across channels. Here, there are still ways before you get to an investment round.

If you’re focusing on getting investment or a seed round - whether services or product - it’s a matchmaking game. You need the right investor that matches your business risk level, your risk level, and your willingness to trade off control for capital. If they give you money at the very beginning without revenue or clients, they’re believing in you and you’re accountable to that.

If you have a product and want to “hockey-stick”-admirable, but a lot of work - think about what investor you need and at what level. If you already see product-market fit and revenue (even if not profitable), it may be worth talking to VCs. It’s also worth talking to banks and telling your story. Sometimes banks will reach out to VCs on your behalf. It’s a journey - a partnership - and it’s who you meet along the way that helps you get to the next step.

Sarena Ally (23:49.665)
I love that. There’s so much you can learn about your company by asking, “Would I put my own money on the line?” And then how you explain that to others - whether you’re looking at a bank or another avenue - is so important.

We talked about both sides. Do you have a standout investment-the cherry on top of your portfolio?

Janice Liu (24:23.943)
I have two. I met two founders just before or during the pandemic. One is the founder of Ash Wellness in New York. The other is a company called Yonder in Ireland.

They weren’t previous founders, but they were really articulate about the story, their focus, and the size of the problem. For example, in New York, during the pandemic, a group of queer founders from Cornell Tech wanted to solve at-home HIV and STI testing so you don’t have to go into a clinic.

They purposely didn’t focus on COVID because they didn’t want to chase a huge, hot demand. They focused on their niche problem and grew slowly in a scaled, measured way. Fast-forward to 2025: they’ve raised Series A, have institutional investors, and are tapped into corporations across the U.S. to close healthcare gaps with at-home testing - paid by employers.

That slow, steady approach was great. We even connected them with people doing COVID testing in Canada, and they said, “That’s great, you’re making a lot of money, but it’s not our strategy.” That kind of intention and conscientiousness-why you say no, why you say yes, and the size and focus of your problem - is exactly what I look for.

Sarena Ally (26:11.502)
Yes-and something you touched on earlier: how do you incrementally solve a problem? COVID created a lot of opportunities and challenges. What little slice is ownable that you can grow into, protect, and create an economic moat around?

Janice Liu (26:34.383)
Yeah. The other thing I talk about a lot is conditioning. In our work lives, everything is based on outcomes - OKRs, alpha-goals that are hard to unlearn when you become an entrepreneur. When you’re building zero to one, you’re sculpting clay. You may think it looks like a human sculpture, but it might look like an animal. You have to be okay with where the outcome lands - that’s how you pivot.

If you get too attached to the outcome - which is the opposite of what’s expected in corporate - you get caught up in “this doesn’t look like what I wanted.” It’s not about changing the intention or the initial problem; it’s about understanding how deep your problem is, focusing on it, and letting the sculpture sculpt itself as you move along.

Sarena Ally (27:42.851)
Very interesting. That would take a lot of comfort and being firm in your ideals to go through that process. What does that look like for Mantis? Where are you in that sculpture?

Janice Liu (27:59.368)
It’s starting to look like form.

Sarena Ally (28:02.647)
Okay.

Janice Liu (28:05.031)
I’ve been working in the data world for over a decade now. Back in 2015–2016, when I’d tell people “data is a resource,” people would say, “I know it’s oil, but what do you mean? Do you mean reporting? Analytics?” The nature of it has changed a lot. Now when I say, “We believe every company is a data company - whether you’re a corner store or a cab company,” people get it.

Sometimes, when you have a concept you believe in, it just requires time for the market to catch up. You also need to ground your concept in the needs of your customer. I always ask founders: how close are you to your customer? I know founders who let sales engage customers while they don’t - and you lose grasp on reality. You don’t know what customers want or how they interact with your alpha or beta. You start to get obsessed with numbers and KPIs, and-back to the sculpture - you forget it hasn’t been sculpted yet.

I’m contrary that way. VCs ask, “What’s the exit?” I don’t know about you, but you can’t control much in life. I hate that question, but I love hearing founders say, “I want to build a sustainable, profitable business, trying new things and solving interesting problems.” That’s contrary to the typical VC answer, but it’s a different lens on what and who you’re looking for when you invest.

Sarena Ally (29:59.999)
As you grow your team with distinct roles - you might have a CFO, and you’re the CEO - do different people need to gravitate toward product-market fit versus staying laser-focused on profitability? Or is it everyone’s job to think about both?

Janice Liu (30:22.831)
When you’re building zero to one, it’s everyone’s job.

We were just having this conversation as a team yesterday: who talks to the customer? At this stage, even if you do one type of task, you need to know the downstream impact. You need a collective lens on how your decisions impact the business and other domains. We live in a world of “my stream, my work, my IP,” and we get fixated on outcomes.

But you need the collective lens: if I don’t decide quickly enough, the next person’s timeline is impacted. Getting to that level of group-think in a small, tight team early is critical. It’s not overnight. It’s taken us three years to get to a better level of synergy and collectivism-we’re still optimizing.

We scaled up to three times our current headcount once - it didn’t yield better outcomes. It created inefficiency, especially early on, and you lose group-think. You need to pass the baton, know the impact. It’s not your responsibility to own everyone else’s impact, but you’re accountable for understanding there is one. That level of collective thinking is really hard and not taught - unless maybe you play competitive sports.

Sarena Ally (32:12.366)
Yeah, I feel like the business side of that is RASCI or RACI frameworks - who’s responsible, who’s accountable, who needs to be consulted, who needs to be informed.

This has been a really exciting conversation. We’re wrapping up here, but do you have final thoughts for entrepreneurs, serial or first-time, on staying laser-focused on product-market fit and growing with raising?

Janice Liu (32:53.669)
I think, especially with current technology advancements, we’re going to see a wave of new entrepreneurs who don’t need the same skill sets as before. If you’re interested in exploring this world, do it now - don’t wait.

I don’t think of entrepreneurship as a job; it’s a lifestyle. My trade-off is high risk and sometimes sleepless nights - but I have a lot of freedom. Do you know yourself well enough to know what you want in this life experience? It’s short - you blink and a decade goes by. If entrepreneurship interests you, start now. Better now than ten years from now after you blink.

Sarena Ally (33:56.985)
Yeah, and with the AI wave, it’s more accessible than ever if you’ve got the drive - that entrepreneurial spirit and an idea that can fly. Exactly. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been very illuminating, and I always love chatting with you. Thank you so much.

Janice Liu (34:17.191)
Thanks for having me.

Janice Liu (34:21.723)
You too. Thanks.

Sarena Ally (34:23.574)
And everybody, please check out Mantis-Mantis Group. Do you want to plug your URL?

Janice Liu (34:27.951)
Yeah, sure - it’s mantisgroup.ai.

Sarena Ally (34:31.862)
Amazing. Thanks again, Janice.

Janice Liu (34:34.449)
Thank you.