DataPull is a powerful lead generation software designed to help businesses discover and connect with their ideal clients. Its help for generating tailored lead lists, also dataPull enables businesses to find local and global prospects that match specific criteria, from industry type to location. Whether you’re targeting e-commerce stores or local businesses, DataPull simplifies lead generation, helping you focus on what matters most—growing your business.
In today’s episode, we’re talk to Audric Serador, the founder of IllinEats and co-founder of DataPull.
Arun: Can you tell us a bit about your educational background and how you developed an interest in product development?
Audric: Sure! First off, let me introduce myself. I’m Audric, a sophomore at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, majoring in Computer Science.
When I talk about my background, I don’t mean just formal education, but more about how I’ve grown as a creator. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved making things. I was always curious about the world around me. I remember making crazy origami projects or recording short films with my stuffed animals on my DSI—just fun, silly stuff like that.
Things really took off when my parents gave me a laptop in middle school. That’s when I discovered the internet and everything you could create with it. I started learning how to code on Scratch, dragging blocks around to make simple games and fun software. I also got into digital art and scripting games on Roblox—back in 2015 and 2016, that was a big deal!
Eventually, software became my favorite way to bring my ideas to life. Now, here I am at the University of Illinois, working on various projects and always coming up with new ideas. The creative process has shaped my approach to design, and it’s been a lot of fun along the way!
Arun: Can you tell us a little bit about IllinEats and the backstory of how you started it and why? I know you’re not actively working on it now since you’ve moved on to DataPull, but for the benefit of the audience, could you share the story?
Audric: Absolutely! So for those who don’t know, IllinEats was a project I launched at the University of Illinois. It essentially helped students in the dining halls find food that matched their dietary preferences, restrictions, and goals. The idea started during my freshman year of college.
Coming from my creative background, when I entered college, I wanted to work on a project partly to build something that would look good on my resume. As a CS major, with the market being so competitive, I knew I needed something to stand out.
While in the dining hall, I realized that although there were plenty of options, not all of them met specific dietary needs. I was bulking as a bodybuilder at the time, and I noticed that my vegetarian friends were struggling to find suitable meals. The university had four or five dining halls, each offering around 50 food items, but it was hard to find what we needed.
Even though there was an Illinois app and a nutrition website that displayed what was being served, the user experience was poor, and the information wasn’t personalized. As a result, many students, including my friends, would stay hungry because they couldn’t find the right food. That’s when I realized there was a problem to solve.
I thought, what if I could take the information from these sources, put it in a database, and create an app that allowed students to easily filter and find the food they wanted in a way that was actually useful and convenient? So, I came up with the idea for IllinEats.
At the time, I had a bit of Python experience but didn’t know much about web development or web scraping. Over winter break, I was excited about the project and used that time to learn Python libraries like Selenium for web scraping, as well as TypeScript, Next.js, React, and databases. Tools like ChatGPT also became popular around this time, which made learning these technologies much easier.
I built a basic prototype where users could scroll through the available food options and filter them by dietary preferences. They could also view nutritional information, allergens, and ingredients for each dish. I launched the app at the start of the school year, after accelerating the idea through the buildspace program.
To promote it, I made a simple poster in paint, printed it out, and put it up at the entrance to the dining hall. Surprisingly, within two weeks, the app had over 1,000 users! It was crazy; I had never experienced anything blowing up like that before.
However, as more people started using it, the app became expensive to maintain, and some bugs emerged. The university also reached out with concerns about me redirecting users away from their official app. Unfortunately, I had to shut it down, but it was an amazing growth experiment, and I learned a lot through the process!
Arun: Thanks for the explanation! Now, can you tell us about your other project, DataPull, where you’re currently spending most of your time?
Audric: Absolutely! I’m building DataPull with my co-founders. Essentially, it’s a sales software designed for businesses that sell to other businesses—so it’s a B2B platform. It helps them find and qualify potential clients who are most likely to buy their product or service.
For example, if I were a parts manufacturer selling tools to different auto repair shops, I would need leads—businesses to reach out to that can afford my products. Let’s say I can only ship to certain locations; I’d need to qualify those clients to fit my specific criteria.
With DataPull, businesses can enter a description of their ideal clients. It’s very customizable—they can describe the type of business they’re looking for and any specific details. Based on that simple description, DataPull can generate a list of hundreds or even thousands of businesses across the U.S. or in any location they need.
Once they have the list, they can connect it with their email automation or CRM platform and start reaching out to those potential clients. That’s essentially what DataPull does, and we’ve been working hard on it so far!
Arun: During a call the other day, you mentioned that you initially joined DataPull as an engineer and later got promoted to co-founder. That story was really inspiring and highlights the importance of taking ownership in your work. Can you share that story with our audience?
Audric: I joined DataPull as an intern, mainly because I was struggling to find an internship for the summer. As a computer science student, everyone around me had already secured their positions, and I was one of the last ones still applying. I was eager to find any opportunity, and that’s when I came across a job posting on LinkedIn for DataPull. Back then, it was called One Click Campaign, but the name changed later.
Honestly, I didn’t even realize I had applied for it, but by pure chance, they reached out to me for an interview. At that point, I thought it was a traditional company, so I approached the interview like it was a big deal, showcasing my experience and skills. Surprisingly, my experience matched perfectly with DataPull’s tech stack at the time, so they offered me the role for the summer. I was a bit skeptical at first, as I discovered it was a student-run startup with only four people on the team. It was me, my co-founder (who was then just another team member), an operations guy (who has since left), and another engineer named Thomas.
It was my first time working in such a small setup, and none of us had much experience in building a company. DataPull was part of the iVenture Accelerator program, which brought together student-run startups in a cohort setting. We had workshops and collaborated with other startups, which was both challenging and enriching.
The initial months were tough. Development work was intense—I was working around 60 hours a week, trying to build the product. In a small startup, things move fast, so we constantly had to adapt and pivot. This meant that a lot of my code was scrapped, which was frustrating. But I couldn’t really blame my co-founder, as I was new to the entrepreneurial world and learning along the way.
Over time, I began to understand more about entrepreneurship and took more ownership of my work. I realized that in a startup, especially one with such a small team, you can’t just be an engineer. You need to have a broader view of the product. That’s when I transitioned from just following instructions to thinking more like a technical entrepreneur. I started sharing my opinions and suggestions about the company’s direction, using what I had learned about startups to justify my ideas.
As I gained more confidence, I contributed more to the decision-making process. Eventually, we pivoted so much that I became a co-founder, moving beyond just engineering to actively shaping the company’s future.
Looking back, the biggest lesson I learned was to not be afraid to voice your opinion, especially in a small team. Learn from those around you and leverage online resources. Asking questions and seeking clarification from my co-founder helped me grow quickly. This experience taught me how to make decisions that drive a startup forward, and it’s been instrumental in getting me to where I am today. So, always be open to learning, work closely with your team, and embrace the opportunity to co-create.
Arun: How do you plan to market DataPull? What kind of marketing strategies are you planning to use to attract more users?
Audric: At DataPull, we have a few strategies up our sleeve to optimize important aspects like SEO. As a SaaS firm, it’s crucial for us to have a solid SEO foundation, especially since people looking for lead generation tools often turn to Google. By improving our SEO, we increase our chances of being discovered by potential customers.
Initially, we plan to run DataPull more as a sales agency rather than a standalone platform. The idea behind this is to gather customer testimonials early on. Once we have satisfied customers, we hope that word-of-mouth will naturally spread to other business owners they know. This will help us grow our user base organically while also generating revenue.
This approach serves a dual purpose: not only does it help us market the product through real user experiences, but it also helps build a paying customer base, which supports our growth and marketing efforts simultaneously. In addition to this, we’ll be relying on more traditional marketing strategies like posting on social media and writing articles to further boost our SEO.
These typical SaaS marketing strategies will complement our efforts and help us build a strong foundation for success.
Arun: Are you doing the marketing efforts while development progresses, or are you planning to take it slow and only start after releasing the product?
Audric: Actually, we’re working with different businesses right now, even though we don’t have a finished product yet. One of the big mistakes we made early on was spending months building the entire platform without getting feedback from potential users. We thought we had it all figured out, but once we talked to businesses, asking them, “Hey, would you use or pay for this?” we realized that they weren’t as interested as we had hoped.
So, we’re almost starting from scratch in a way. While I’m still coding and developing the product every day, my co-founder is talking to users, asking things like, “What kind of data or leads do you need?” Right now, we’re operating more like a small sales agency, helping businesses by providing them with basic Excel sheets for their sales needs. This allows us to build relationships with them, and hopefully, we can later use these connections to test our platform as it develops.
The key is to follow small iteration cycles. Build something, launch it, test it with users, gather feedback, and learn from the process. Then, repeat. It’s all about continuous improvement—build, test, learn, and keep going.
Arun: I see that you have raised funds of around $30,000 dollars for DataPull. Are you planning to raise more? Or are you planning to? At what point? Are you planning to raise the next round?
Audric: The interesting thing is that half of that funding came from the iVenture Accelerator Program, which is non-dilutive funding, and the other $10K came from a program back in India that supports startups. I can’t recall the exact name, but it was also startup funding.
However, we don’t actually plan to raise more money in the future. We’ve realized that building this platform doesn’t cost us much. Many platforms, like Google Maps, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure, offer programs that provide startups with free credits. By joining those programs, we can test our platform without spending anything from our own pockets.
For example, we could probably serve the first 100 users at no cost to us, and by the time we reach that point, we’ll have the leverage to start generating revenue. So, honestly, I don’t think we’ll ever need to fundraise. We intend to keep the business more as a “SaaS business” rather than a typical tech startup.
I think there’s a common misconception about the difference between an online business and a tech startup. If we were building a product that required significant venture capital—something with high upfront costs but also the potential for high profit margins—then raising money would make sense, like for a hardware tech startup, for example. But in the lead generation market, the profit margins are relatively small. I doubt investors would even be interested because it wouldn’t give them a great return, like a 10x return in two years, which is often what they look for.
So, I’ve come to learn a lot about fundraising, and in our case, it’s just not the right move.
Arun: Can you tell me about the iVenture Accelerator program and how it helps DataPull? What kind of support do they provide?
Audric: The iVenture Accelerator is a program run by the university for top student startups looking to scale. They provide $10,000 in non-dilutive funding, and they also give another $10,000 as a stipend spread across the summer program. You can use that stipend however you like—in our case, we just put it back into the company.
Over the summer, the program offers a lot of mentorship from seasoned entrepreneurs and access to an amazing network. For example, we spent two weeks in Chicago to network with people and tap into the university’s connections there. They have a building in downtown Chicago where they host various workshops, bringing in great speakers who share their advice on different aspects of running a startup—everything from building a brand and marketing to overcoming the daily challenges that entrepreneurs face.
I’ve learned so much from the program, and it’s been incredibly helpful. Plus, there’s free food, which is always a nice bonus!
It’s pretty cool that my university has a program like this. For any student founders out there, I’d definitely recommend checking out the resources available at your school. A lot of universities offer similar programs to support startups, and you can often get funding or mentorship for free if you apply. Even though starting a business in college might seem unusual, there are great opportunities if you look for them.
Arun: You mentioned Buildspace earlier. How did that program help you build entrepreneurial knowledge, and how does it shape someone’s entrepreneurial skills?
Audric: Buildspace definitely played a huge role in shaping my entrepreneurial mindset. Unfortunately, the company recently shut down, but I participated in their six-week program called “Nights & Weekends.” It was an online program where each week we had a lecture and a lab. You’d come up with an idea, push it to production, and share it with the world, ideally with your users.
The program offered workshops on things like marketing to your users, getting feedback, iterating on your ideas, and how to conduct interviews. I joined the program while I was working on eBuilding Alliance. At that time, it was just a support type of project, but I wanted to push it to a full launch before school started. The program, led by Forza and the Buildspace team, gave me amazing insights.
What I loved most was the friendly, casual vibe. It wasn’t just student founders in the program—there were also artists, creatives, and content creators. They provided a framework that could apply to any creative project, not just startups. By the end of the six weeks, I took a big leap and flew to San Francisco for a three-day event that marked the program’s finale.
That event was probably one of the best experiences of my life. I met so many amazing people and connected with dreamers from around the world, each building their own projects. Everyone had their own story about how they developed their ideas, and some of the concepts were really creative. One person was working on a brainwave machine that turned your brain activity into an NFT, which was pretty wild!
Buildspace taught me the importance of talking to users and iterating based on their feedback. It pushed me to launch projects quickly, which has been key to my success. It also helped me apply these lessons to DataPull and any future projects I work on. The biggest takeaway for me was learning how to engage with users and improve based on their input.
Arun: Great! Let’s move on to some general questions. What’s your favorite programming language, and why?
Audric: I’d have to say Python. It was the first programming language I learned, and it’s honestly one of the easiest to pick up. The best part is you can do so much with it. You can host web apps, scrape data from the web, build AI models, create mobile games, and even build Discord bots. There’s just so much flexibility with Python, and it’s super simple—it almost feels like writing in English. So, it’s easy to learn with high returns, which is why it’s definitely my favorite.
Arun: So, you’re a student working on a startup, sometimes putting in 60 hours a week, and you still need to complete your courses and get your degree. That takes a lot of effort. What motivates you on a daily basis to keep going through all of this?
Audric: That’s a great question. Honestly, I’ve been prioritizing product development over my classes if I’m being completely honest. But I think the key is that you don’t really need external motivation when the work itself is enjoyable. Yes, I’m working 60 hours a week building DataPull, but every hour, even with the challenges, is something I enjoy. I love creating things, bringing them to life, and sharing them with others.
Growing up, I always enjoyed making things and sharing them with people, and that passion has stuck with me. So, even though I’m still in school, I’ve found that for me, it’s all about doing what I love. If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, it becomes much easier to stay motivated.
In my case, I get to do something I love, and I can make a living from it, so it doesn’t feel like a chore. Passion, in my opinion, is much more powerful than discipline or external motivation. Those things are important too, especially during tough times, but if you truly love what you’re doing, you can get through anything and achieve anything. That’s what keeps me going every day.
Arun: What’s your favorite non-fiction book that you’d like to share with our audience?
Audric: I’m reading Brave Together by Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson. I actually got the book directly from the authors at a tech conference in Indianapolis. They were giving out free, signed copies, and it’s turned out to be a really good read.
The book dives into modern workplace culture, specifically looking at the traditional hierarchy of CEOs, bosses, managers, and employees. It explores how this structure can create a negative, fear-based environment. The authors focus on shifting that mindset from one of fear and control to one of co-creation and collaboration.
Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson actually worked in HR for Apple and Disney. The companies hired them to improve their workplace cultures, which weren’t ideal at the time. I found it fascinating how they helped change the culture at Apple, encouraging people to be more open with their ideas and work together in a way that fosters creativity rather than fear. They coined the phrase “working differently together,” which emphasizes collaboration and understanding that everyone has value to offer.
The book is a great read for anyone aspiring to be a leader or anyone working in any industry. It teaches how to cultivate a creative and collaborative environment and recognize your own worth in the workplace. I highly recommend it!
Arun: What’s your favorite productivity tool or hack?
Audric: There are a lot, but one that comes to mind is something I’ve been doing recently. Right now, I have an office, which is really just a room in my apartment with two desks. But my favorite productivity hack is working in different places throughout the day.
Every couple of hours, I switch up my environment. For example, I might work at a coffee shop for two hours, then head back to my apartment, and later, I’ll go to a building on campus. Changing environments like this helps me avoid feeling stuck. Working on a computer can sometimes feel draining, even when it’s enjoyable, so moving around keeps things fresh.
I also think it’s good for your overall well-being to be in different environments and get some light exercise by walking around. When you’re in a good, happy state of mind, it’s easier to get into a productive workflow. You’re more likely to get work done when you’re feeling positive and not weighed down by negativity.
Arun: What’s your favorite hobby or pastime activity?
Audric: I really enjoy activities like boxing and powerlifting, but something that has been incredibly beneficial for my mental health is exploring nature. As a computer scientist, spending so much time in front of a screen can be exhausting. Staring at a screen all day isn’t great for your body—it’s just not how we’re meant to live.
So, it’s nice to go outside and enjoy the world around you. When I was a kid, I used to hop on my bike after school, knock on my neighbor’s door, and we’d just go exploring—riding about five miles in a random direction, discovering new places, and appreciating the little things. I loved noticing details like a cool plant by a bridge or just taking in the fresh air.
Honestly, for anyone working a desk job, spending time in nature is one of the best things you can do for yourself. It helps clear your mind and gives you a break from the daily grind.
In conclusion, Audric Serador’s journey from launching IllinEats to co-founding DataPull highlights his passion for innovation and entrepreneurship. His experience balancing school and startup life offers valuable insights for aspiring founders. As he continues developing DataPull, Audric’s story is a testament to the power of creativity, perseverance, and taking ownership of one’s work. We wish him great success in his future endeavors!
