Jump Success Story. 8 OOTB questions to co-founder Tim Chaves

Jump recently raised $4.6M in funding. Success story to Tim Chaves in 8 out-of-the-box questions

Author

Lina Makeeva
June 20, 2024

8Jump, a company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, that provides AI software for financial advisors, has secured $4.6 million in funding. The funding round was led by Sorenson Capital, with contributions from Pelion Venture Partners and various strategic angel investors. Jump plans to utilize the new capital to enhance its operations and further its development initiatives.

The AI technology automates repetitive administrative tasks, such as notetaking, analyzing data from previous client interactions, preparing for meetings, drafting follow-up emails, creating task lists, and syncing data to customer relationship management (CRM) systems. The software integrates seamlessly with Wealthbox, Redtail, and Salesforce.

I asked 8 out-of-the-box questions to startup co-founder Tim Chaves to better understand his experience and journey to success.

Tim Chaves, Co-Founder & COO at Jump

1. If you could go back in time and give your pre-launch self one piece of advice, what would it be and why?

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Sell first! Selling something takes a 30-minute meeting, and gets you priceless insight on if the problem you're solving is real and valuable. Building something, by contrast, can take months.

2. In what ways has failure or a major setback contributed to your current success?

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In Jump's case, we originally built a sales tool before redirecting the technology to the financial advisor use case. It was tough to make the call to change the market direction, but also it helped us really hone in on our customer profile and the value we were creating.

3. How did your relationship with failure change from the beginning of your journey to now?

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I've noticed that with many of my early entrepreneurial setbacks, they seemed really existential and all-consuming at the time. Within five or ten years, though, they became just memories and stories. It can help to realize that that will happen with today's failures as well.

4. What were some of the most unexpected skills or lessons you picked up from your first job that you still use today?

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My first business was in e-commerce, and it was before the days where Shopify and other seller platforms had really taken off. I learned to code to create our website, and I still use that knowledge every single day.

5. What did you spend your very first paycheck on, and why?

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Rent! I graduated from college the same week that my wife and I had our first child, and things got real very quickly. At the beginning, it was just figuring out the necessities.

6. Who was your first paying customer or client, and how did you land that opportunity?

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When we released our sales tool, we heard from a local wealth management firm that they would really like to use what we had built. So in a sense, we landed that first opportunity just by being public about what we were building—even though we had no intention of ending up in the market we did!

7. What’s a hidden talent or hobby that most people would be surprised to learn about you?

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I've been learning how to make pottery on a wheel with my oldest daughter. There is something about creating beautiful something from a block of clay that is both satisfying and therapeutic.

8. If you could have any superpower for a day, what would it be and how would you use it?

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I'd pause time (and since the clock wouldn't keep ticking on the day, I'd have as much time as I wanted)! Not only would it let me stay in this really fun time of life a bit longer, it would also give me a chance to catch up!

Thanks Tim for the interesting and truthful answers.

Contact me if you're a startup founder, if your startup has raised over $3M, if you want to talk about a new round, an achievement or a new milestone [email protected]

Let's tell your story for thousands of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts.

Lina M.,
CMO and Co-founder at Parsers VC
[email protected]
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