Syracuse Surge Accelerator - Meet the Teams: Talkadot

When Arel Moodie started college at Binghamton University, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to major in. As he was exploring other career options, he took a trip to Korea to visit his girlfriend who was working there at the time. They’d go out on weekends and in the evenings, but during the day while she was working, he needed something to do. He picked up a book titled “Rich Dad Poor Dad” that would eventually guide him toward entrepreneurship.

One piece of advice Moodie took from the book was to ask successful people how they became successful. He started interviewing business owners in Binghamton and eventually connected with entrepreneurship professor Angelo Mastrangelo.

“I met him, and I was like, ‘He’s like the Oracle.’” Moodie said. “I eventually took his entrepreneurship class, and in that class, there was a business competition. If you won, you got $5,000. My idea won.”

From that point on, Moodie knew he wanted to make a career of entrepreneurship. He started an off-campus housing service in Binghamton and began his career in professional speaking.

“Professional speaking is my biggest passion, my love. It's the thing I hope to never retire from and do for the rest of my life," Moodie said.

But there are a lot of frustrating aspects of the professional speaking industry. Moodie said the industry is largely based on connection building and there isn’t always a reliable way to find reviews on a speaker. These challenges became particularly apparent while Moodie was working with his now co-founder, Pokin Yeung, to help her refine her public speaking profile and book engagements.

“I started walking her through the steps and she just kept saying to me, ‘Why is it done that way?’’ She was curious. Because from the outside looking in, she was noticing it could be easier, it could be better.”

From these questions and ideas, Talkadot was created, a third-party system that allows for real time reviews and creates leads for speakers. Moodie and his co-founders were working on the idea and business for about two years before being selected for the Syracuse Surge Accelerator.

While participating in the Syracuse Surge Accelerator, Talkadot has experienced 42% quarter-over-quarter revenue growth and set a record of 350,000 responses in its system with 3,000+ subscribers. This is Moodie’s first accelerator, and he said it’s been great to work with the other entrepreneurs and solve problems together.

“You can talk to your cofounders about it, but it's different when you can talk to a third-party objective person who's going through the same thing. And that's been the big help.” Moodie said.

His focus right now is growing Talkadot’s user base and revenue. Moodie said they’ve got their first group of professional speakers using the tool, and he’s excited for it to grow even more.

To learn more about Talkadot, visit its website If you have a startup that you think would be right for the Syracuse Surge Accelerator, please click here to fill out our interest form and receive information about when applications open for the next cohort.

​Get to know the five Syracuse Surge Accelerator inaugural cohort teams in our weekly profiles. This is the third of the series.

Photo by Shanay Bradley-Light to the Darkness Photography