Today’s Menu ☕️

• A Compliant Closing Party (This Sunday in NYC)

• Remgu: Sourcing Top European (and Latin American) Devs

• Dini talks about Sitch 

👋 Hi, Breakfast Club Members!

Thank you to Luka @ Remgu for sponsoring today’s newsletter - you know Luka as the go to partner for top European dev talent but now he’s also offering Latin American dev talent

Are you free Sunday evening?

Hope you’re surviving New York Tech Week! We’ve been light on events this month (I have so many weddings to go to) but will be back with a vengeance in July. I am, however, hosting something in New York this Sunday evening.

Originally it was supposed to be the third iteration of Return the Fun(d), our giant NY Tech Week closing party… but compliance for a VC sponsoring the event was worried that Return the Fun(d) counts as promising returns. They asked us to rename it. lol. Now we’re calling the event A Compliant Closing Party.

It’s brought to you in partnership with Drinks First and Sitch. We’re taking over Jac’s on Bond in NoHo. Open bar. Sitch is a matchmaking service (check out my interview below with the founder of Sitch, Dini). Normally I’m trying to find founders capital. For one event only, I’m trying to find you a wife or a husband.

We have ~30 tickets left and in desperate need of eligible bachelors (this is decidedly a New York problem). If you’re a guy who is single and ambitious and can talk in full sentences - then this is the party for you.

Resources:
-Clerky offers a $100 discount for TBC Members on their formation packet. Reply to the newsletter and I’ll send you an invite
-Fixing the YC SAFE: Reply to the newsletter and I’ll send you a redline for the YC Postmoney SAFE that can save founders millions in dilution
-Ramp is offering a $500 bonus to TBC members when they start using Ramp.
- Free Zendesk for 6 months. Time to scale your customer service? Talk to Zendesk

Tech Breakfast Club 🤝 Luka @ Remgu

Meet Luka, founder of Remgu, who sources top European (and Latin American) talent for fast growing companies

You studied CS at Waterloo – incredible CS program – then you worked at companies in Toronto, Chicago, and NYC for almost two decades... why did you move to Croatia?
I moved to Canada as a kid from Croatia but then I went back on vacation in 2017 and met my wife. So, I moved back to be with her. I started finding all of this incredible technical talent that spoke English very well – that’s what prompted me to start Remgu

Who is Remgu a good option for?
We’re ideal for startups and SMB’s seeking top-quality European talent for long term engagements. Our talent is elite – we’re very selective and do intensive vetting. So when a client comes to us, the process is very streamlined, we match them with one or two handpicked candidates. So for $50 to $80/hour you can get a vetted experienced senior engineer instead of settling for the most junior and inexperienced US based engineers.

Why is Remgu a better option than competitors?
We have near perfect retention of clients, and I think that comes from our long term perspective. We’re not here to maximize profit from every engagement. We want to grow with our clients. We have a lean and flexible model with low overhead, so clients keep coming back to us for more and more talent.

If you’re ready to build out your team, the easiest way to get in touch with Luka is emailing him at [email protected] connecting with him on LinkedIn

Definitive New York Croissant Rankings
Eating Croissants with Dini (founder of Sitch)

So in addition to talking to Dini about her new dating app, sitch, we’re trying three croissants today. Three of the best in the city. Nandini, what makes a good croissant?
This is my favorite kind of breakfast because it’s exploring, it’s chatting, and it’s comparing things. As far as what makes a good croissant – I’m a big believer that when you pull it apart, the way that it falls apart tells you how good it’s going to be. It should be flaky but the inside needs to have some give. It shouldn’t just fall apart. 

I think a plain croissant is the best test. There’s nowhere to hide. With fillings you can conceal imperfections. 

Are you nervous about reviewing croissants? People look to you as a tastemaker. How confident that your ranking will be the ranking?
Listen, most people are sheep. They want to be told what the best is. And even if it’s not, they’re going to go there and try it. If nothing else, at least we’ll get people to try some new places and expand their pallet. I want people to try new things. Whether it’s restaurants, croissants, people, experiences, etc. Mainly people just need to stop getting croissants or baked goods from Joe and the Juice or other sad chains where it’s clear there’s no on-site bakery.

First up we have Balthazar
A New York Classic. Timeless. Second favorite French fries in the city. Le Dive is first.  

Alright, honestly, it’s a bit darker than I like. It’s more brown than golden. Breaking it apart, okay, flaky. It has some pull, we like this.  

You can feel the butter. Pretty buttery. Pretty flaky. This is our first stop. I don’t want to go too high or too low. I’ll say a 7.2
My take on this is not as fresh or maybe more baked than I would prefer. I’m not loving this as much as I normally would. I say 6.5

For those who don’t know about sitch, how would you explain the app?Sitch is giving everyone a personalized matchmaker. People are tired of dating apps, but we know that matchmaking has always worked. It’s much easier to privately tell a matchmaker what you’re really looking for, or what’s important to you, than it is on a public dating profile. We have a patented approach to using LLMS to replicate human matchmaking. And it really works, because our models are trained on successful, real life matchmakers. The model is trained on Dini, co-founder of Sitch — who comes from a long line of matchmakers. Her grandmother set up 26 successful marriages in her lifetime, and Dini set up 3 successful marriages before she even started Sitch. 

Here’s How Sitch Works

1. Chat or call Dini, your matchmaker, and talk about everything you do and don’t want in your future partner (you can be honest, we’re not putting this on your profile!)

2. Your matchmaker sends you curated introductions of people who you will actually vibe with based on your answers. If you have more questions, or have specific feedback - you can let your matchmaker know.

3. Once both of you say yes, the matchmaker introduces you via group chat and lets you have fun on your date!

4. Your matchmaker checks in along the way on how the dates are going and is constantly learning your preferences.

Something that stood out to me: you make everyone pay from the beginning.
On sitch, you pay per setup, not per month – which means we’re charging you based on success (real dates). 96% of our setups result in face to face dates. 

Who you date, who you end up with is the most important decision you’ll make. There’s a unlimited appetite to spend on dating. How much do you charge?
$30 per set up, less if you purchase multiple. And it’s worth it.

You long term partner is the most important decision, and the greatest investment you’ll make. When I visited Stanford Business School, I was fortunate enough to catch a closed-door conversation with Sheryl Sandberg. Her husband had just died. Reflecting on the marriage, Sheryl said that marrying him, Dave Goldberg, that was the best decision she made, of course personally, but also professionally. 

I came away from the conversation thinking 1) I should go to Stanford and 2) I need to breakup with my boyfriend.

This person is going to be the person who, when you have a bad day at work, is either going to tell you to quit or suck it up. When you’re in a difficult spot, he can coach you or gameplan with you if you're lucky or maybe if you’re unlucky, he’s just going to erupt. You will feel ready to take bigger risks, you will take feel like taking on bigger challenges if you have a stable and supportive homelife. 

My dreams have gotten infinitely bigger because I have a husband as awesome as I do. 

And that’s what we’re helping people find on Sitch.

Okay, croissant number two. La Cabra was unfortunately out of plain croissants, so we had to go with a chocolate croissant. 
Look at this. Look at the layers. Wow, look at it in the sunlight. Morgan. 

I think a chocolate croissant is pretty challenging. Getting the chocolate right – the two batons of chocolate - is no easy task. 

[pulls croissant apart]

I like it. It’s not overpowering. It’s delightful. I’m reluctant to rate this because it’s not a direct comparison to the Balthazar croissant. But I like it more, so I’ll give it a 7.8 or a 7.82
I like that it’s so precise. I’m a big fan of the chocolate they use. It feels high quality. The butter taste doesn’t overpower me. It feels savory. I love the texture or the layers. I give this a solid 8. 

Exceptional. 

How did you meet your husband?
Well, I was at McKinsey, but thought there was more I wanted to see and experience before going to business school. I wanted to go back to India. I got a job at India’s first impact fund. I landed at 8am on a Monday and then that night I went to a dinner organized for founders and investors. I’m sitting next to a guy who begins pitching me the company I wanted to build. 

He wants to do small group affordable tutoring for Indian students – basically an accessible version of the prep school experience I was fortunate enough to have. I was enthralled. I come away from the dinner asking myself if I’m missing the boat? Could I actually be building this? 

We continued chatting and we have not stopped chatting since. We started dating quickly after that initial meeting. He raised a round and then asked me to build the product with him – insane. One of the craziest things that I’ve ever heard of. 

This is a guy who just raised a couple million dollars and he wants someone who has never built a product before to build this. 

So we go from dating for a few weeks to working together 24/7 in an incredibly chaotic environment. It was magical. I was lucky to have an amazing CTO with tremendous experience to help leverage my passion and insights. We launched in 23 days to 10,000 students on day one. 

And we continued to grow it for the next year before I left the company to go to business school. 

That’s so convenient that the universe decided to seat you next to one another for your first dinner back in India. Building a relationship is challenging, doing it while building a company sounds nearly impossible. How did that work?
To launch a product, to survive a falling out with his original cofounder, to go through hiring and firing – then add in that we started dating long distance, Bombay to Palo Alto – our relationship was stress tested in every way possible. And you come away feeling extremely, extremely confident about not just the future, because I think the future has turned out so differently from what we imagined, even like when we decided to get married. But it leaves you confident that no matter what life throws at you, you know how this person can work with you. And you know that you guys can get through anything together, which I think is ultimately what everyone should really look for in a partner.

What happened to the company?
During the pandemic there was a huge boom, everything was going great, trends were accelerated by a decade. Everyone was online. But it wasn’t going to last, people were going back to in person, so my husband sold the company.  

What are the differences between starting a company in India and starting a company in America?
India got really good – there was a lot of interest from US funds, a lot of interest from Chinese funds. But in general, the round sizes are much smaller. What is really interesting in India now is the fact that China got banned in 2020. 

That was actually a huge loss to a lot of companies, especially to us, because our main investors were Chinese.  

And then, more recently, Sequoia actually decided to pull out of India.

The decline in available capital in India was a reason I wanted to build a company in America. 

Additionally, it’s more challenging to build consumer companies in India because the middle class is smaller and has less disposable income. 

Given the success of your high school relationship advice column at Philips Exeter, I feel like you were destined to create a dating app in America
[laughter]

When I was 15, I moved to the US to go to boarding school here. I absolutely loved it. 

I would say that I took the school a little by storm. My idea of what like American boarding school was based on what I had seen on television. Gossip Girl. Mean Girls. 

That’s all very different from Philips Exeter. There’s no social order to take over. No Mean Girls. They have a dress code. 

I don't remember this - but I fully believe it - my best friend told me that on the first day of school, when I met her, I told her I'm going to be Blair Waldorf and take over this school. There was nothing to take over. 

Everyone was studious. Lots of homework. There was no internet after 10pm. 

Like you had to be in your dorm at 9pm. 

However, I did try to stir up controversy to the best of my ability. 

I had an infamous column called Guru Nandini Says. The only way to describe it... is unhinged. I would respond to readers questions and give advice on people’s love lives. You can see how this could go wrong? 

Here I am, writing things like “if you remember the number of boys you’ve kissed, you haven’t kissed enough” in a column for America’s oldest high school newspaper that goes to alumni and parents. This was about how many boys you should kiss at a school dance, where there were chaperones.

My interest in relationships and my interest in giving people advice and matchmaking started at a very young age. Unfortunately, this column was short lived. The third week, the trustees call the Dean of Students and said, “What the hell is happening, this column needs to be shut down.” I had just reviewed each of the Fall sports captains on how good looking they were. This is still available online, unfortunately. 

Anyway, I have come full circle. 10 years later, I'm back to being in the relationship space.

Okay, now we are here at Librae. 
This is a third culture bakery. It’s a husband and wife team. I can relate. The owner is Bahrani and she uses middle easter flavors and fermentation techniques from Copenhagen. It’s awesome that it’s great technique with the most interesting flavors. 

What should we try? One plain and get the pistachio rose?
There’s also a halva chocolate one that I’ve never seen before.

[Speaking to cashier] Okay we’ll take all three
[Gasp] Oh wow. 

So for everyone who is not here, we are looking at a plain croissant. We have the pistachio rose croissant – what Librae is known for. It’s rose water and a pistachio filling. Decadent. Over the top. And then, we’re trying something new. A chocolate Halva croissant. Sesame Halva – it’s tahini and honey, I think. I have a feeling it’s going to change Morgan’s life. 

[Pulling apart the croissant]

With the plain croissant I can already tell a difference. This is materially different. A magnitude flakier than the others. 
It’s light, it’s buttery, it’s flaky. It’s the perfect color.

9.2 – the texture is incredible. It’s flaky...in a small way. Previous croissants had a bigger flake profile
You just made that up. Flake profile?

It’s flaky, it tastes amazing, it melts in your mouth. To me once you come here, why go anywhere else in lower Manhattan. Incredible. I’ll give it a 9.

Now for the pistachio rose –
Such a unique combination of flavors. And it’s delicate, the balance. Definitely something to share. 

It’s very good. I would recommend it but I’m going to skip ranking it. 
Are you ready for the chocolate halva? A different combination. I’ve never had anything remotely similar. 

I don’t like it. Not for me. It’s too sweet. 
This is not... This is a miss. Okay so for consolidated ranking what do you say?

I would say 
1. Librae Plain 
2. La Cabra Chocolate
3. Librae Pistachio Rose
4. Balthazar Plain
DQ’d Choclate Halva 
My rankings exactly. 100%

About Morgan Barrett:
Morgan is the creator of Tech Breakfast Club. He hosts breakfast meetups in NYC, LA, SF, (and occasionally Austin, Miami, Boston) that bring together the best founders and investors.

Morgan is also a Startup Lawyer at Optimal, an elite lean boutique startup law firm repping clients funded by a16z, Sequoia, Kleiner, Accel, and countless other VCs. He works with clients from formation to exit, in collaboration with Optimal’s partners.