Today we’d like to introduce you to Phoenix Prefontaine.
Phoenix, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started TYCHē after taking part in a two-quarter course at UCLA which revolved around creating a revenue-generating venture for an LA non-profit. After crafting the venture over two quarters (six months), I had the chance to pitch our concept to investors in a competition of over 300 attendees. Through this competition, we were able to help our non-profit secure $15,000 in funding in order to pursue this venture.
I have always had a desire to help people. I had a mentor once tell me “Success is not measured in the amount of money you make or how many things you have, but is measured in the number of lives you are able to positively affect.” Helping this non-profit gave me a sense of joy because I was able to affect the success and longevity of a non-profit, which was then able to help thousands of international students learn English and get into top US universities.
I learned that what I was doing over the last six months was management consulting and wanted to dive into a career in the field. I came to find that jobs for college graduates within management consulting were hard to come by, and they were almost exclusive to those that had been interning at consulting firms for the past four years and were a part of various consulting organizations at their universities. At the same time while learning about the profession, I learned how expensive the services cost businesses, and that the non-profit that I had helped not long ago could not afford to use these services even though they desperately needed them.
This is when a lightbulb went off in my head. TYCHē was born as a platform in order to give startups and small business owners accessibility to management consulting services while providing early-career consultants the opportunity to grow their experiences.
Since that course, my little idea has grown into a full-fledged business. Since March of 2019, we have started working with clients, the largest to-date is national insurance brand Farmer’s Insurance. We have over 30 consultants on our platform, and we are releasing our mobile app on September 20th. As of August, we have expanded our team to introduce blockchain technology and artificial technology into the TYCHē platform, in order to provide our clients with the highest quality management consulting services possible.
By the end of the year, we project to have consultants at most California Universities and plan to expand eastward. We are a family of 35+ driven teammates and are excited for what’s to come!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has absolutely NOT been a smooth road! As we started to grow faster, I quit my job as an Investment Analyst in San Diego to focus on growing TYCHē with my team in LA. It was a difficult choice for me. It was my first post-college job, I was excited to work in finance, I really enjoyed my coworkers, but TYCHē had been my calling. I would wake up early in the morning before work to send out emails and Slack the team, I would take my lunches answering calls and replying to messages, and I would spend all time after work building our app with my co-founder.
Ultimately, I decided that I had to leave and focus on TYCHē even though it meant working longer hours without pay. I don’t come from a well-off family so I didn’t have something to fall back on. I decided that since it was something I was passionate about, I needed to give this business an opportunity to thrive and give it all I’ve got.
Still today we run into our occasional hiccups. Clients will back out last moment, or we pitch to VC firms who don’t think we’re far along enough yet or don’t believe in our vision. All of these setbacks put us that much closer to the one “yes” that we need.
If I could give advice to those starting, remember that as long as you learn from your failures, you are coming closer to your goals. Don’t stop now, proceed with full force and vigor.
Please tell us about your work. What should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
TYCHē is the first-ever management consulting marketplace that connects business owners to management consultants in order to help business owners break past their barriers. Think of us as the Airbnb of management consulting. We automate market research, competitive analytics, cost minimization, business strategizing and more so that business owners can focus in on the aspect of their business that requires their personal touch!
I am most proud of the team that we have cultivated at TYCHē. We have over 35 teammates all working towards one common goal, day in and day out, to help business owners achieve their goals and help their customers by providing the best product or service that they can.
Our secret sauce comes from the team we’ve built and our drive to build a platform on the most bleeding-edge technology available. Our focus is to provide the highest quality consulting services possible, and we are able to do this by utilizing our proprietary blockchain smart contracts and deep learning natural language processor. Through these new capabilities, we are able to more accurately and securely serve more business owners.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Since I quit my first ever post-college job to pursue TYCHē, I would have to say that making the leap into starting this business and cultivating a passionate, driven team is my proudest moment. To be able to work with people that care and believe in what you are building is truly something I will never take for granted.
Pricing:
- Pre-revenue startups average project cost: $300
- Businesses with $1-$10,000 Annual Revenue: $800
- Businesses with $10,001-$100,000 Annual Revenue: $2000
- Businesses with $100,000+ : $5,000
Contact Info:
- Website: http://tycheapp.com/
- Phone: (760)707-8477
- Email: phoenix@tycheapp.com
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tycheapp
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