The Exchanges

Q Totally love that. And I'm totally with you in terms of being an outdoors lover. I do want to ask, I'm just interested, you know, starting a company is always a risky thing. When you think about your own risk profile and risk assessment, How do you feel that you think about and analyze risk?

A Well, when we talk about risk, we have to talk about privilege, right? So for me, I'm very fortunate in that I was raised here in the Bay Area. My parents still live in Marin. And so starting a company for me meant, you know, worst case scenario, company doesn't work. I can't pay rent anymore, which I came within one month of getting to just total personal, not being able to pay any more money. That meant moving home and living with my parents. 30 minutes away. So for me, just to be totally upfront, the risk of starting hip camp was not anywhere near as great as it is for probably most people who do want to start a business and hopefully should. So on one hand, I could say that I like risks. I like excitement. I'm an easily bored type of person, and so I think it's always fun to try something new and take a risk. At the same time, I think it's important to acknowledge that I have a lot of privilege that made this particular risk have less of a downside than for most people.

AI assessment note: “I have a lot of privilege that made this particular risk have less of a downside”

Q Totally love that. And I'm totally with you in terms of being an outdoors lover. I do want to ask, I'm just interested, you know, starting a company is always a risky thing. When you think about your own risk profile and risk assessment, How do you feel that you think about and analyze risk?

A Well, when we talk about risk, we have to talk about privilege, right? So for me, I'm very fortunate in that I was raised here in the Bay Area. My parents still live in Marin. And so starting a company for me meant, you know, worst case scenario, company doesn't work. I can't pay rent anymore, which I came within one month of getting to just total personal, not being able to pay any more money. That meant moving home and living with my parents. 30 minutes away. So for me, just to be totally upfront, the risk of starting hip camp was not anywhere near as great as it is for probably most people who do want to start a business and hopefully should. So on one hand, I could say that I like risks. I like excitement. I'm an easily bored type of person, and so I think it's always fun to try something new and take a risk. At the same time, I think it's important to acknowledge that I have a lot of privilege that made this particular risk have less of a downside than for most people.

AI assessment note: “I could say that I like risks. I like excitement. I'm an easily bored”

Q I do want to touch on the VC value app, but I do want to touch before that a little bit of context, because you raised the Series A five years after founding the company, which is super interesting. So why did you feel then was the right time for the bigger raise? And I guess what changed?

A Yeah, a lot changed. So, you know, I started HipCamp in As somebody with about 10 weeks of coding experience as a solo founder. So for me, starting the company meant for at least the first year, a lot of it was learning how to get this website up and running, figuring out what we were really even doing. My guiding principle always has been, I just want it to be easier to get outside, and I believe if we do that, more people will go, and I believe if more people will go, we'll have not only a healthier and happier population, but we'll have a population that cares about the rest of nature, and so I just kind of knew that was important. I didn't quite know how to build a business that was going to create that impact, and so the first two, three years of the company, we were really focused exclusively on public land. So the original version of Hip Camp was an aggregator of public campgrounds. You can kind of think of it as a Yelp for campgrounds, and I spent a long time trying to build a business that really was focused specifically on the public land part of the outdoor industry, and I learned a couple important things. I would say the Most important lesson is that owning your supply is really important, because when you're building on top of someone else's supply, you can't influence it, you can't control it, you can't make sure your customer's gonna have the type of experience …

AI assessment note: “Series A was timed with our discovery and hitting some important proof points”

Q Can I ask, I'm too intrigued, and I spoke to Sarah Tavel before, and she asked the same. She asked, how did you solve the chicken and egg problem that all marketplaces face?

A I solved the chicken and egg problem somewhat accidentally by staying doggedly focused on the problem of it's just too hard to get outside. So again, we started with a public land only platform. And this was a really important thing to me, because back then I was just very frustrated that the state and national and county parks were all on different websites, and I knew that people would enjoy, like I enjoyed, having a single website, an app, where they could kind of see their options across different government agencies, because I don't think most people really care too much about which government agency they are getting outside with. They just want the river or the trees, right? They're not as focused on the specific Specific agency that's taking care of the land, although we're very grateful for their hard work. And so by building that first product, what was interesting was we started getting a lot of traffic, and we couldn't make any money, but we had traffic, and we had people who loved our product, and were coming to it again and again, and all organic. To this point in time, Hipcamp does not buy ads on the demand side. All of our growth is organic and through word of mouth and SEO, and so we kind of built a platform that was harvesting all this organic Existing intent from the beginning and then two or three years in being able to start layering in this unique different…

AI assessment note: “bootstrapped the demand side through publicly available data and then started layering in supply”

Q heard so many great things, both from Sarah at Benchmark, and then also from Sam at Hotel Tonight. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show. So I'd love to kick off then today with a little bit on you. So talk to me, how did you make your way into the world of startups, and come to change the way we think about camping with Hip Camp?

A I was really lucky. I got to grow up spending lots of time outside, and so a love for the outdoors, and I think a deep understanding of how much it can bring us in terms of happiness, and health, and just Kind of connection to our families and to ourselves has always been a big, big part of my life. In university at UCLA, I had the opportunity to actually create a major about the internet. I'm just obsessed with the internet. I think it's the coolest tool that humans have invented, arguably since language itself, and just became obsessed with studying its impact and how it was going to reshape our world and developed a strong conviction that the impact of the internet will largely be determined by who learns to use it. And what they use it for. And so for me, hip camp and startups in general were a chance to really help harness the impact of the internet to create the world that I wanted to live in. And hip camp was a way to really combine this lifelong love for the outdoors with the internet and really harness the internet to get more people outside.

AI assessment note: “combine this lifelong love for the outdoors with the internet”

Q Well, you've spoken a lot about the changes within the business, specifically really moving from kind of aggregation to unique inventory. In terms of the changes for you as the founder and the CEO, I'd love to talk a little bit about the psychology of CEO-ship and a bit of a personal question, so I hope it's okay. But how do you manage the psychology of being CEO?

A I mean, I think one of the biggest unlocks for me in the past couple of years was realizing that in the first couple of years of the company, especially when I was for a while, the only person doing anything, it really was just about how many hours. And it was just this incredible sprinting a marathon kind of feeling where it was just every day, how hard and for how long and how much can I move? And I think once you start to be the leader of others, As a CEO and have people who actually are looking to you for direction, something really important shifts there that I think I missed for a little bit, which is that suddenly, while of course it's very important to be working hard and setting the right tone, the quality of my mind is the most important thing I can bring to the company. The clarity of my thinking, the stability of my emotions, my ability to hold space for people who are having hard challenges and kind of be this bastion of calmness, that's really what I can do that has the most high leverage at this And so that has been an interesting journey for me, and I would say starting internally, starting with kind of personal practices, sleeping is awesome. I don't use an alarm clock. I'm an early riser, but just not having that stress of knowing that a machine's going to tell me when to wake up, and instead trusting my body to tell me when to wake up, was like a big sign of …

AI assessment note: “the quality of my mind is the most important thing I can bring”

Q Totally. I've never actually had that one before, so I love that. And then tell me, probably the most important, what do the next five years hold for you and for Hipcamp? And paint that vision for us.

A Hipcamp's next five years are going to be incredibly exciting. We'll be expanding into more countries around the world on a five-year timeline, maybe all of them. And it's really about building a global community of people who care about the land, who want to get outside, building connection across the urban-rural divide where we so rarely have community, and really building a brand and a platform that starts to really open people's minds to a fundamentally different relationship with the rest of nature. One where we are part of the natural system, one where we're connected to it, one where you know where your food and your clothes come from. And in doing so, build a giant global brand that stands for all these things.

AI assessment note: “Hipcamp's next five years are going to be incredibly exciting. We'll be expanding”

Q accept the element of privilege, but I do want to start today on the topic of fundraising, obviously kind of aligned to the show itself, but you've raised from some of the best in the business. We mentioned Sarah Tavel at Benchmark earlier, but then also the team at Andrees, and it always looks kind of easier in hindsight and from the outside. How was the fundraising experience for you?

A I would say for me, the way that I think about fundraising is that the really hard part should be not the fundraising part. And so really making sure that we're building a business that didn't really need the capital, but could benefit and accelerate from the capital has always been my ideal way to enter into a fundraise. I won't say that's every time I've ever raised money, I've been lucky enough to be in that position. But I think that that's really how I think about fundraising in general is that capital should be additive and accelerant, but not we need this and we need this badly right now. And I think when you go into a fundraise with that position, Position. It allows you to be thoughtful and selective, and I've been incredibly fortunate to really get to work with the people who I wanted to work with, you know, both for our Series A with Sarah and our Series B with Andrew. I went into both of those rounds saying, this is the person that I want to work with. Let's see if we can figure it out, and so, you know, I think that having the business with the fundamentals is the only way you can get in that position, but then also, I've said no to the temptation, as I'm sure you know, once you have a term sheet, a Especially from a firm like Andreessen Horwitz or Benchmark, it can be quite fashionable to then shop it around, right? And get more offers and better offers. And for o…

AI assessment note: “I've been incredibly fortunate to really get to work with the people who I wanted”

Q Kamala, so you mentioned there about kind of owning your supply. How important is it to have differentiated supply itself?

A Yeah, I mean, one of our three guiding strategic principles For the company is around differentiated supply. I think the importance cannot be overstated. The markets, especially in travel, uh, so crowded. It's a very lucrative industry. There's so many people who want to be in the industry and how can you build a consumer brand net new and really earn a place in this industry, I think is a big question that every entrepreneur has to face. And I think for me, it came always back to making sure we were solving a real problem. I'm a big believer in staying focused on the problem, but then somewhat Fluid on the solution to that problem, and differentiated supply allows you to solve that problem in a way that is really defensible over time, because most of the supply that's on Hip Camp today, you can't find it anywhere else. In fact, they didn't allow members of the public to come to their land before Hip Camp, and so what's really special about that type of supply is they're really our partners from day one. They're looking to us to be their platform. They're looking for us To educate them on best practices, and we're really able to help shape and develop an experience on their land that represents the brand we're building.

AI assessment note: “I think the importance cannot be overstated.”

Q Can I ask, I'm too intrigued, and I spoke to Sarah Tavel before, and she asked the same. She asked, how did you solve the chicken and egg problem that all marketplaces face?

A I solved the chicken and egg problem somewhat accidentally by staying doggedly focused on the problem of it's just too hard to get outside. So again, we started with a public land only platform. And this was a really important thing to me, because back then I was just very frustrated that the state and national and county parks were all on different websites, and I knew that people would enjoy, like I enjoyed, having a single website, an app, where they could kind of see their options across different government agencies, because I don't think most people really care too much about which government agency they are getting outside with. They just want the river or the trees, right? They're not as focused on the specific Specific agency that's taking care of the land, although we're very grateful for their hard work. And so by building that first product, what was interesting was we started getting a lot of traffic, and we couldn't make any money, but we had traffic, and we had people who loved our product, and were coming to it again and again, and all organic. To this point in time, Hipcamp does not buy ads on the demand side. All of our growth is organic and through word of mouth and SEO, and so we kind of built a platform that was harvesting all this organic Existing intent from the beginning and then two or three years in being able to start layering in this unique different…

AI assessment note: “bootstrapped the demand side through publicly available data and then started layering in supply”

Q I totally agree with you, especially in terms of kind of focusing on that experience. I do want to ask, because the big challenge that I see often within marketplaces is kind of leakage and then moat building. On leakage, how do you think about leakage prevention, and what have you found works?

A Yeah, so on the supply side, I mean, the best way to prevent leakage is to make sure that they're getting a lot of value from the platform, and so for us, that's meant being really strategic in terms of where we put an effort to acquire supply, making sure we can always live up to our brand promise, and Light up these new income streams for these rural landowners. Once we do that, they stick around. Our retention is excellent from landowners because this is a way to earn income that is aligned with their values, and that's not always easy to come by. So I think being really thoughtful about making sure you're living up to what you say you can do is probably the best way to prevent leakage, and I think defensibility, we talked about that already a little bit, but just making sure that what we're building is differentiated and unique, And that people are really using our platform as kind of the core business tool, that we're really the tool that they're relying on across a lot of different functions. That's becoming increasingly important to us moving forward as well.

AI assessment note: “the best way to prevent leakage is to make sure that they're getting a lot of value”

Q What can we do better? And it doesn't have to be a reflection of your investors, but more broadly of the investor class. What would you like to see more of? What could I do better to be better for my founders?

A It's a good question. Um, you know, I think it actually goes back to some of the stuff we were talking about earlier around the psychology of a CEO and how to manage that. I think being a VC is a pretty high pressure, high anxiety job. And as a CEO, I think having investors who can manage their own emotions is really important. And when things aren't going as well as the company, like, you know, as CEO, right, you're on it. You're paying attention to that very closely. And so I think having investors who show up with a, okay, this isn't good. How can I help? Versus a mindset of, hey, did you know that this was really bad? I'm worried. The less time I could spend managing the emotions of you as an investor, the better, because that's not particularly high leverage use of my time.

AI assessment note: “having investors who can manage their own emotions is really important.”

Q alarms just to get me up and my eyes open. But I wish I was more like you. Can I ask, in terms of like, you mentioned that the changes in the leadership, how do you deal with the shit hit the fan moments when things are tough? I always say the worst leader is the nervous leader. How do you deal with the tougher times and those shit moments?

A Yeah, I think the best mindset I've been able to adopt there, I'll credit my little sister Olivia with, which is nobody's on the operating table, right? And unless somebody actually is, in which case that's a different situation, but just kind of grounding yourself in the reality that while business is really fun, And there's a lot of value to be created and a lot of impact to be had. At the end of the day, for most people, we're not talking about you might actually die. This isn't actually life and death. And so having a good grounding in the reality of what we're doing, I think is super important. And I went through a personal hardship with a family member a couple years ago that I think really helped me be like, okay, that's what really shit hitting the fan feels like. Now that helps me right size, I think, my response to a lot of what any small company is going to go through, right? Because the smaller the company is, the bigger the ups and downs, and the more just volatility you're going to go through on a day-to-day basis. So I think, again, staying grounded and centered there is super important. And then, you know, when things are really bad, when you really do have that shit hit the fan moment, I think it's just about teamwork and not falling into a blame culture and not Putting tons of energy into figuring out, well, what went wrong, and who didn't do this? I mean, you…

AI assessment note: “nobody's on the operating table, right?”

Q How do you think about building a data network effect? Because you also have kind of reviews and, you know, the largest repository of data, I guess, on these private lands. How do you think about the data network effects?

A Yeah, I mean, I think the demand is always going to go to the platform that has the best experience for them. And so for getting outside, especially with hip camp, since we're really redefining what it means to get outside, hip camp isn't just campsites, it's places to park your van and incredible yurts with an outdoor bathtub. And so really kind of giving people this incredibly expanded view of what getting outside might look like is amazing, but without really great data and really great structure to that data, it can also be overwhelming. So when we think about data network effects, we're often leaning very heavily on our community. So, of course, that starts with our hosts, who are our partners in all of this, and having them really take the time to fill in the details about what is available on their property, what's not available on their property, and then giving the campers, the hip campers, a chance to follow up with reviews and clarify things and really closing that loop, I think will continue to really build on having the most accurate data set across private and public land.

AI assessment note: “when we think about data network effects, we're often leaning very heavily on our community”

Q alarms just to get me up and my eyes open. But I wish I was more like you. Can I ask, in terms of like, you mentioned that the changes in the leadership, how do you deal with the shit hit the fan moments when things are tough? I always say the worst leader is the nervous leader. How do you deal with the tougher times and those shit moments?

A Yeah, I think the best mindset I've been able to adopt there, I'll credit my little sister Olivia with, which is nobody's on the operating table, right? And unless somebody actually is, in which case that's a different situation, but just kind of grounding yourself in the reality that while business is really fun, And there's a lot of value to be created and a lot of impact to be had. At the end of the day, for most people, we're not talking about you might actually die. This isn't actually life and death. And so having a good grounding in the reality of what we're doing, I think is super important. And I went through a personal hardship with a family member a couple years ago that I think really helped me be like, okay, that's what really shit hitting the fan feels like. Now that helps me right size, I think, my response to a lot of what any small company is going to go through, right? Because the smaller the company is, the bigger the ups and downs, and the more just volatility you're going to go through on a day-to-day basis. So I think, again, staying grounded and centered there is super important. And then, you know, when things are really bad, when you really do have that shit hit the fan moment, I think it's just about teamwork and not falling into a blame culture and not Putting tons of energy into figuring out, well, what went wrong, and who didn't do this? I mean, you…

AI assessment note: “just kind of grounding yourself in the reality that... This isn't actually life and death”

Q heard so many great things, both from Sarah at Benchmark, and then also from Sam at Hotel Tonight. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show. So I'd love to kick off then today with a little bit on you. So talk to me, how did you make your way into the world of startups, and come to change the way we think about camping with Hip Camp?

A I was really lucky. I got to grow up spending lots of time outside, and so a love for the outdoors, and I think a deep understanding of how much it can bring us in terms of happiness, and health, and just Kind of connection to our families and to ourselves has always been a big, big part of my life. In university at UCLA, I had the opportunity to actually create a major about the internet. I'm just obsessed with the internet. I think it's the coolest tool that humans have invented, arguably since language itself, and just became obsessed with studying its impact and how it was going to reshape our world and developed a strong conviction that the impact of the internet will largely be determined by who learns to use it. And what they use it for. And so for me, hip camp and startups in general were a chance to really help harness the impact of the internet to create the world that I wanted to live in. And hip camp was a way to really combine this lifelong love for the outdoors with the internet and really harness the internet to get more people outside.

AI assessment note: “hip camp was a way to really combine this lifelong love for the outdoors”

Q I totally agree with you, especially in terms of kind of focusing on that experience. I do want to ask, because the big challenge that I see often within marketplaces is kind of leakage and then moat building. On leakage, how do you think about leakage prevention, and what have you found works?

A Yeah, so on the supply side, I mean, the best way to prevent leakage is to make sure that they're getting a lot of value from the platform, and so for us, that's meant being really strategic in terms of where we put an effort to acquire supply, making sure we can always live up to our brand promise, and Light up these new income streams for these rural landowners. Once we do that, they stick around. Our retention is excellent from landowners because this is a way to earn income that is aligned with their values, and that's not always easy to come by. So I think being really thoughtful about making sure you're living up to what you say you can do is probably the best way to prevent leakage, and I think defensibility, we talked about that already a little bit, but just making sure that what we're building is differentiated and unique, And that people are really using our platform as kind of the core business tool, that we're really the tool that they're relying on across a lot of different functions. That's becoming increasingly important to us moving forward as well.

AI assessment note: “the best way to prevent leakage is to make sure that they're getting a lot of value”

Q I mean, you teed me up so nicely there. Postmortems are like one of my nerdy passion points. How do you stretch postmortems? A very strange chat, really. How do you structure postmortems, and how do you think about when to do them, when's the right time to do them, and as I said, how you construct the optimal postmortem?

A I love that you love postmortem. Look, anytime something goes wrong that is above a certain threshold, that's the right time to do a postmortem, and I don't have a, we actually do have, like, a template that we train our managers on, but a postmortem can be as simple as five minutes at the end of a one-on-one about, hey, we missed this thing last week, like, what happened? It can also be as in depth as a group of 15 people sitting down for two or three hours really unwinding a series of decisions that were made and processes that were missed and kind of understanding deeper inner workings of the organization. So I would say it can really vary. I think they're incredibly important because, again, having a culture where you know that post-mortem is going to happen, I think creates a team that in the moments where the shit does hit the fan, it's not about what went wrong and who didn't do this and who didn't check with me before. It's like, yep, we'll get to that later. That's not going to help us now. Like, we have the people we have now. This is the team we've got, so let's do the best we can to solve this together. And I think having the postmortem as a pressure release valve and as a learning device that you know is coming later really encourages that kind of thinking in the moment.

AI assessment note: “anytime something goes wrong that is above a certain threshold, that's the right time”

Q I love that. It was good to be excited. Tell me, what would you most like to change about the world of tech and the Valley itself?

A So I would say the thing I hope most will change about Silicon Valley, a more holistic perspective. I think a larger recognition of the other seven billion people on the world and how the internet might serve them. I think if we take a longer term view, a lot of what this city gets So excited about might be super profitable in the next couple years, but not actually that impactful on a 10 to 20 year timeline, and I wish we would think bigger and longer term, because as a society, we have an incredible number of global challenges that are facing us. Climate change, the coronavirus, right? There's these big things now, and I think our industry is so well positioned. We are the world's expert problem solvers. And we are the experts at wielding these very powerful tools of software and the internet and design. So I would just love to see us solving bigger, harder problems.

AI assessment note: “the thing I hope most will change about Silicon Valley, a more holistic perspective.”

Q I do want to touch on the VC value app, but I do want to touch before that a little bit of context, because you raised the Series A five years after founding the company, which is super interesting. So why did you feel then was the right time for the bigger raise? And I guess what changed?

A Yeah, a lot changed. So, you know, I started HipCamp in As somebody with about 10 weeks of coding experience as a solo founder. So for me, starting the company meant for at least the first year, a lot of it was learning how to get this website up and running, figuring out what we were really even doing. My guiding principle always has been, I just want it to be easier to get outside, and I believe if we do that, more people will go, and I believe if more people will go, we'll have not only a healthier and happier population, but we'll have a population that cares about the rest of nature, and so I just kind of knew that was important. I didn't quite know how to build a business that was going to create that impact, and so the first two, three years of the company, we were really focused exclusively on public land. So the original version of Hip Camp was an aggregator of public campgrounds. You can kind of think of it as a Yelp for campgrounds, and I spent a long time trying to build a business that really was focused specifically on the public land part of the outdoor industry, and I learned a couple important things. I would say the Most important lesson is that owning your supply is really important, because when you're building on top of someone else's supply, you can't influence it, you can't control it, you can't make sure your customer's gonna have the type of experience …

AI assessment note: “Series A was timed with our discovery and hitting some important proof points”

Q mean, shorten the time to value as much as possible for the host. I am interested, because once you get that, you get this kind of incredible early sign of network effect, and it's interesting. You said before, lean into the importance of network effects. Can I ask, what did you mean by this, leaning into the importance of network effects, and how did you really spark the virtuous circle?

A Yeah, I think for us, our network effects are very interesting, and I think network effects are something that a lot of companies think they have, but they might not act Actually, I think they're honestly quite poorly understood overall, and so I think as a founder with a marketplace, you do have network effects to some extent, and just understanding the shape of that is really important. So for us, we have a couple types of network effects that we think about a lot. One is that we have a really strong regional network effect. So this is kind of like an Uber or a Lyft, where, for example, here in the Bay Area, we have a lot of people who love and use the platform, and they tend to camp And stay with us really in called a two to three hour radius of this market. And so it really is kind of a regional network effect marketplace. However, we also do have people coming from all over the world and from all over the country who are going on their big long summer road trips or taking a couple months after school and just traveling the world, which is not something Americans do, but something a lot of other people around the world do. And then now they're using hip camp too. So we also have the global network effects Kind of more similar to an eBay or an Airbnb. And so I think just understanding the different types of network effects on the platform and really building into those exper…

AI assessment note: “understanding the different types of network effects on the platform and really building into those”

Q the team there and kind of the thinking in the moment and working together. In terms of kind of a layer up, your investors are kind of semi-part of the team. I'm really intrigued. What do you find, and help me out here, what do you find most helpful about your investors? One. And then for me to improve on, where do you think VCs could do better or improve?

A I view investors as a huge part of our team. I think the particular way that investors are helpful tends to be really unique and specific to the person, of course. Overall, I would say investors are really helpful in seeing the broader context of the market in which you're operating, right? So I spend seven days a week, 365 days a year thinking about hip camp, and so I'm so deep and I understand our community, and I just understand all these things that are going on within this hip camp world, and I found that investors can be really helpful in pointing out either broader trends, companies in different spaces that are trying things that might be relevant to try, so just kind of like having that inch-deep, mile-wide perspective is actually a really beautiful counterbalance to a CEO's perspective, which is often many miles deep, but an inch wide, if that makes sense. So that's a really helpful area. And then I think in terms of, you know, obviously introductions, connections, Andrew Chen, who joined our board six months ago in particular, has been really helpful, like getting into the data with us, which has been fun. He just has that operational experience from Uber, and it's fun to like get him in there and have him actually provide feedback on landing pages. That's not necessarily how I would recommend working with every investor. But again, everyone's so unique, right? Andrew…

AI assessment note: “investors are really helpful in seeing the broader context of the market”

Q the team there and kind of the thinking in the moment and working together. In terms of kind of a layer up, your investors are kind of semi-part of the team. I'm really intrigued. What do you find, and help me out here, what do you find most helpful about your investors? One. And then for me to improve on, where do you think VCs could do better or improve?

A I view investors as a huge part of our team. I think the particular way that investors are helpful tends to be really unique and specific to the person, of course. Overall, I would say investors are really helpful in seeing the broader context of the market in which you're operating, right? So I spend seven days a week, 365 days a year thinking about hip camp, and so I'm so deep and I understand our community, and I just understand all these things that are going on within this hip camp world, and I found that investors can be really helpful in pointing out either broader trends, companies in different spaces that are trying things that might be relevant to try, so just kind of like having that inch-deep, mile-wide perspective is actually a really beautiful counterbalance to a CEO's perspective, which is often many miles deep, but an inch wide, if that makes sense. So that's a really helpful area. And then I think in terms of, you know, obviously introductions, connections, Andrew Chen, who joined our board six months ago in particular, has been really helpful, like getting into the data with us, which has been fun. He just has that operational experience from Uber, and it's fun to like get him in there and have him actually provide feedback on landing pages. That's not necessarily how I would recommend working with every investor. But again, everyone's so unique, right? Andrew…

AI assessment note: “Overall, I would say investors are really helpful in seeing the broader context”

Q mean, shorten the time to value as much as possible for the host. I am interested, because once you get that, you get this kind of incredible early sign of network effect, and it's interesting. You said before, lean into the importance of network effects. Can I ask, what did you mean by this, leaning into the importance of network effects, and how did you really spark the virtuous circle?

A Yeah, I think for us, our network effects are very interesting, and I think network effects are something that a lot of companies think they have, but they might not act Actually, I think they're honestly quite poorly understood overall, and so I think as a founder with a marketplace, you do have network effects to some extent, and just understanding the shape of that is really important. So for us, we have a couple types of network effects that we think about a lot. One is that we have a really strong regional network effect. So this is kind of like an Uber or a Lyft, where, for example, here in the Bay Area, we have a lot of people who love and use the platform, and they tend to camp And stay with us really in called a two to three hour radius of this market. And so it really is kind of a regional network effect marketplace. However, we also do have people coming from all over the world and from all over the country who are going on their big long summer road trips or taking a couple months after school and just traveling the world, which is not something Americans do, but something a lot of other people around the world do. And then now they're using hip camp too. So we also have the global network effects Kind of more similar to an eBay or an Airbnb. And so I think just understanding the different types of network effects on the platform and really building into those exper…

AI assessment note: “understanding the different types of network effects on the platform and really building into those”

Q accept the element of privilege, but I do want to start today on the topic of fundraising, obviously kind of aligned to the show itself, but you've raised from some of the best in the business. We mentioned Sarah Tavel at Benchmark earlier, but then also the team at Andrees, and it always looks kind of easier in hindsight and from the outside. How was the fundraising experience for you?

A I would say for me, the way that I think about fundraising is that the really hard part should be not the fundraising part. And so really making sure that we're building a business that didn't really need the capital, but could benefit and accelerate from the capital has always been my ideal way to enter into a fundraise. I won't say that's every time I've ever raised money, I've been lucky enough to be in that position. But I think that that's really how I think about fundraising in general is that capital should be additive and accelerant, but not we need this and we need this badly right now. And I think when you go into a fundraise with that position, Position. It allows you to be thoughtful and selective, and I've been incredibly fortunate to really get to work with the people who I wanted to work with, you know, both for our Series A with Sarah and our Series B with Andrew. I went into both of those rounds saying, this is the person that I want to work with. Let's see if we can figure it out, and so, you know, I think that having the business with the fundamentals is the only way you can get in that position, but then also, I've said no to the temptation, as I'm sure you know, once you have a term sheet, a Especially from a firm like Andreessen Horwitz or Benchmark, it can be quite fashionable to then shop it around, right? And get more offers and better offers. And for o…

AI assessment note: “I've been incredibly fortunate to really get to work with the people who I wanted”