Investor Update
December 2025
Dear Noodle Investors,
We started this journey late in 2024 with a general sense that the AI paradigm shift would create new opportunities. I had no team, no funds, no customers, some general ideas and an irrational optimism. Very early on, I found an incredible co-founder in Asad and we've assembled a team of believers willing to bet their careers on this vision.
As of today, we have not found Product-Market Fit yet.
We have pivoted twice and made mistakes. We started building an AI coding platform but we were slightly late and focused on a single large potential customer instead of going after the wider developer community. Then we started building and selling custom SaaS but underestimated the time, cost and effort involved in selling the software (though building was not a major challenge). We closed only 1 real customer and hired ahead of revenue—a mistake we have undone and shall not repeat.
After these unsuccessful experiments, we have raised our ambition even further and are now placing a very high-risk bet on a future that has not yet arrived, but one we believe is inevitable.
Financial Health & Fundraising Strategy
Despite our pivots, we have managed our capital carefully.
Runway: We have more than 12 months of cash runway at current burn levels. This sustains us for a while, but if we prove our thesis with traction, we will need to raise funds to scale.
Founder Commitment: I (Fahd) will continue not to draw a salary until we successfully close a serious funding round with a proven business model and the company has ample cash to afford such cash outlays.
Fundraising Plan: We plan to target a proper VC-backed Seed Round in Q1 2026. Beyond capital, we need VCs who are incentivized to help us navigate the next stage—whether that is a Series A or a strategic exit. Their relationships within later-stage funds and acquiring companies will be critical for our future. VCs today demand proof of execution, not just vision. Our current pilot phase is laser-focused on generating the traction and customer evidence required to unlock this round.
The Current Bet: A Cross-Platform AI Apps Future
In Q4, we pivoted to building the infrastructure for businesses to be present, engage with their customers and be discovered on AI Agent platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Meta AI, Grok and others. OpenAI has announced their ChatGPT Apps SDK built on top of the Model Context Protocol and said they will be opening up the ChatGPT App Store "later this year."
Our Thesis: We believe the market will fragment. OpenAI, Google (Gemini), Meta (Llama/WhatsApp), Grok, and Perplexity will all build their own walled gardens with their own proprietary app stores and SDKs. We already see this happening: OpenAI has announced the ChatGPT Apps SDK and Agentic Commerce Protocol, while Anthropic has the Model Context Protocol, and Google has announced their own Agentic Commerce protocol.
Businesses will not want to build separate apps for five different AI platforms. They will need a single layer where they can define their products, services, governance, security, and content once, deploy it everywhere, and manage and monitor it from a single pane of glass.
Why We Believe This Future is Inevitable
Beyond Just Purchases: People already do their product, service, legal, health, relationship and other research on AI first before they go to Google. It is not just about e-commerce. Service businesses also need to take bookings, support teams need to answer queries, and brands need to engage leads—all right within the AI chat.
Discovery (The New SEO): Just as businesses needed a website, SEO, "Google My Business," iOS/Android apps and social media presence to be found in search, they will need to be discoverable inside AI platforms. We are building the engine that ensures a business shows up when a user asks an AI agent a relevant question.
The "Existential Threat": Google cannot allow ChatGPT to become the only place where these interactions happen. It is a threat to their core search utility. They must release similar tooling for Gemini to compete.
The "Windows Phone" Lesson: No major tech player wants to be late to the app store game and become irrelevant. This fear will drive Google, Meta, and others to launch their own app ecosystems aggressively.
The Risks We Are Taking
I want to be clear about why this remains a very high-risk investment:
Timing Risk: We are building for a market (the ChatGPT App Store, Google/Gemini app store and others) that hasn't fully opened. OpenAI has said "later this year," though this could slip. We don't know the exact timing, nor when businesses will adopt this new platform en masse. The delay does give us more time to refine our product, but it remains an uncertainty. History tells us adoption cycles are getting shorter every time, but history is no guarantee of repetition.
Platform Risk: OpenAI or Google will most likely release their own simple "business profile" tools that compete with us. Though these tools will not let users build for rival platforms, some users will still choose to adopt native platforms and build on 5 platforms for 5 different target app stores, or choose to be on fewer platforms altogether. There are examples of cross-platform tools succeeding despite native alternatives—React Native, for instance, powers apps for companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Shopify who chose cross-platform efficiency over building separately for iOS and Android.
Competition Risk: Even if we are right about this future, incumbents like Microsoft, Salesforce, Shopify, Wix and others will eventually see this opportunity and try to jump in with enormous resources, brand name and existing customer relationships. At that point, if such large players are jumping into this space, we could have strategic exit opportunities.
Our Defensibility
While timing and first-mover advantage matter, we are building durable moats:
Network Effects: The more businesses power their AI presence through Noodle Seed, the more visible we become to other businesses evaluating how to enter this space. Early adopters become case studies and references for the next wave.
Data Advantages: As we see what features matter for different business types and how end users interact with AI-powered business apps, we can optimize our platform in ways new entrants cannot replicate without similar scale. We are using LLMs to dynamically generate portions of apps, and this system improves with usage data—optimizing for both business objectives and end-user intent.
Switching Costs: Once a business is set up on Noodle Seed, collecting leads and generating revenue through ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI platforms, migration becomes painful. They would need to rebuild on each platform's native tools separately, re-implement every protocol, and risk downtime on channels that are actively generating business.
Business Model
We have a tiered SaaS pricing structure: a basic tier for AI platform presence, a mid-tier for customer engagement (appointments, lead collection), and a premium white-glove tier with full service. Custom pricing is available for businesses with needs outside our standard offerings—these edge cases will inform future product development. For businesses transacting through AI platforms, we will also take a percentage of sales.
Team
Asad and I serve as co-founders, both building and selling. We have 5 engineers and 1 admin. We are evaluating adding a dedicated GTM hire but being deliberate about the cost, timing and fit.
I encourage all investors to build a direct relationship with Asad wherever possible. He has been instrumental in our journey so far. From finding the early team to essentially serving as my primary go-to person for all operational, engineering, GTM and people matters. While I can bring a vision and ideas, Asad brings the operational rigor to shape, prioritize, sequence and convert these ideas into concrete executable plans (and executes!). Asad is a "key person" at Noodle Seed.
Current Status
We have completed a minimum viable version of our platform. We have 2 signed pilot agreements and 5 more verbally committed (targeting 10-12 maximum pilot customers). These businesses will submit their apps the moment the ChatGPT store opens. We are using this time to refine our internal processes so we can execute on both product and go-to-market when the window opens.
The Vision
Instead of scaling back, we have increased the size of our ambition because the reward is asymmetrical. If we successfully become the standard infrastructure for how businesses connect to AI agents, this would be worth many orders of magnitude more than where we are today.
How You Can Help
Pilot Customer Intros: We need innovative business owners (Hospitality, Services, E-commerce) who are willing to be early adopters.
Platform Team Connections: We specifically need introductions to product managers or engineers at Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Anthropic, Perplexity, or Meta AI who are working on their "Apps" or "Platform" capabilities. While we can build on public APIs and SDKs as they are released, getting in front of these teams now can accelerate our cross-platform strategy.
Strategic Positioning: We are betting that when the big players wake up to this opportunity, they will need to move instantly. By building the technology now and securing the first wave of real business customers, we position Noodle Seed as a strategic target. Any introductions to strategy or corporate development teams at Microsoft, Salesforce, Shopify, or similar firms would be highly valuable.
Looking Ahead
We shall in all likelihood make more mistakes along the way, big and small. Though we believe in this future very strongly, the specific paths will need to change quite a lot, maybe even to an unrecognizable extent where we end up doing something very different. We might even need to make another pivot if needed—that is the life of most startups.
But we shall give it everything we have and hold nothing back. We shall remain open to feedback and listen, and at the same time, we will make big bold bets when most of the world is not even aware of what we are talking about ("What are ChatGPT Apps?"). We shall not lower our ambition; if anything, we shall raise it every time and see where fortune takes us.
Now that we have a few investors believing in us, I commit to at least a quarterly investor update, plus other important updates if a significant event takes place.
At this time, all of you are directly connected with me on my phone. Please feel free to just pick up the phone and call me anytime. If I am unable to pick up, I shall call back as soon as possible.
Thank you for your belief in us.
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