The Jolly Roger Telephone Company
Claiming that telemarketers have "scammed" Americans out of $9.4 billion, The Jolly Roger Telephone Company aims to protect consumers by intercepting and re-directing their calls to a conversant AI program. The point of this program, apparently, it to fool telemarketers into thinking they've reached a real person, stall for time on a call for which there is never a possibility of making a sale, and reducing the effectiveness of the medium.
The company was started by a couple of entrepreneurs with experience in telephony, one an engineer and the other with 30 years in the business. The engineer was inspired to create the service after his son was yelled at by a telemarketer.
The Jolly Roger Telephone Company uses a third-party reputation scoring company to determine the likelihood that the call is from a telemarketer and intercepts the call, directing it to one of it's AI bots if it thinks it's a "scam". Through this service, 1,000 calls that are reported "fraudulent" become tagged as telemarketer calls and are re-directed to their service.
The business is currently "pre-revenue", or, it has yet to earn a profit. A subscription costs $12 per year while costing the company $4 per year. These costs are incurred by server hosting fees, telecommunications costs, and data.
The Jolly Roger Telephone Company is currently rolling out a website so customer can have full control of who can contact them and will also include recordings from telemarketers.
Mark exits early, claiming it's not in his wheelhouse. Lori says that she just doesn't understand the concept and follows.
Guest shark Jamie Siminoff wants to know where the money will go. The entrepreneurs respond that it will be spent on online marketing and working with the phone carriers to reduce acquisition cost to zero. Jamie says there's no way carriers will go along with it and also goes out.
Kevin makes an offer of $400,000 for 50%, claiming that his 40% over the original deal equity ask is to ensure the entrepreneurs have "adult supervision".
Daymond goes out, saying that he doesn't know the area.
Jamie comes back into the deal and offers to join Mr. Wonderful at 60% for $400,000. The entrepreneurs counter with 20% for the capital. Jamie responds to them with 25%. But when the entrepreneurs attempt to sell Kevin and Jamie on a story to justify their valuation, Jamie and Kevin both pull out and the entrepreneurs leave the tank without a deal.
This deal aired on Episode 10.15.