Spark Tank - Edition 12 brings together founders and investors for live pitch feedback, hosted by Sunny Ray alongside co-host Charles. After quick introductions from panelists including Mike Fineman, James Bates, and Sunny himself, the episode centers on two startup pitches. Kathleen, CEO and founder of Aloha Insight and Aloha HP, presents an AI native command center built for staffing agencies, designed to replace fragmented point tools with one integrated platform that automates job costing, contracts, and proposals. She is raising $1.2 to $1.7 million on a SAFE at an $8 million pre-money valuation and fields detailed questions from Charles, Mike, James, and Sunny about product maturity, go to market strategy, and unit economics. Mir Ali then pitches Circles, a relationship platform that helps businesses convert rented attention from platforms like DoorDash and Meta into owned, first party customer relationships, starting with restaurants. The panel debates whether Circles can differentiate itself from crowded advertising and community building markets. Throughout, investors probe for proof points, live usage, and ROI data, offering candid, constructive feedback on storytelling, pacing, and readiness for fundraising conversations.
Two founders pitch AI staffing software and a customer-ownership platform to a panel of investors.
You showed us about six features. Which ones are actually live and ready to be used?
They are all live and being used in my own staffing agency right now. My co-founder Anthony is a software engineer and AI expert who worked inside my staffing agency for over two years, saw the problems firsthand, and built the solutions. My agency has literally been the beta test for the whole platform.
With an $8 million valuation right out of the gate, do you have any ongoing clients or LOIs?
We are actively working on LOIs. Our software needs security clearances before we can fully sell it, so it's a bit of chicken before the horse. We're pursuing those clearances alongside the LOIs right now, working within our staffing industry networks to build that pipeline.
What does your go to market system look like for acquiring new clients onto the platform?
Because I come from inside the staffing world, I'm working through my existing networks, the American Staffing Association, TempWorks, and California Staffing Professionals, where I'm a member and board contributor. We're talking directly with people in those communities to build market share and generate our early customer base.
What was unclear was software maturity. Is anyone actually using it, and what's the ROI versus a human doing the work?
We've automated client acquisition and candidate acquisition, and essentially got rid of an entire staffing management department overnight, while keeping a human in the loop for that final, high touch mile. We are doing more than we did before, and I need to tell that ROI story better next time I pitch.
What did your time to fill drop to after switching from spreadsheets to Aloha?
Time to fill dropped from roughly two weeks down to about three days after we moved off spreadsheets and onto Aloha Insight internally.
How many candidates has the system actually placed inside your own agency, and what did it save per hire?
I don't have that exact side by side data in front of me right now, but I can pull it together, comparing what a human recruiter costs per placement against our software cost, along with total candidates placed and the savings generated per hire.
Building something daring? Sunny talks to founders like this every day. Fifteen minutes to see if your story belongs on the stage.
Claim your pre-interview