The Exchanges

Q schedule because everything you've said there has just made me change the schedule to a much better one. So talking about gut and emotion, a pivotal, uh, part that a lot of VCs suffer from is FOMO, um, fear of missing out. How much of a role does that play for you when investing? Do you suffer from it? If so, how do you try and kind of negate it?

A Yeah, so FOMO is a part of life as an investor, and I think more so a part of life in early stage than in later stage. In early stage, in some way, you're always investing in a dream. There's a lot of nice dreams, and there's a lot of good salespeople, and there's a lot of companies raising that you're not investing in, and so for us, FOMO is definitely something that we have to be aware of. Being aware of it is how you don't fall victim to it, Always making sure that you are making investments, not because of a herd mentality, not out of fear, but out of sort of offensive desire and interest in a company, not out of, oh, but if we miss this, we're going to look like schmucks because we see it first and because our peers are doing it. Uh, and so a few different ways to avoid that. One of the ways to avoid it is, is frankly not asking really not. I don't want to say not caring because it's always nice to be Co-invested with people who you think can add value, but generally speaking, not ever making a decision based on who your co-investors are always making it based on the company. Uh, I think it's an easy trap to fall into, which is you see a bunch of good brand name VCs. And so you give a company more credit than it deserves. And so I think making sure that we in some cases have less information about who's investing makes me more capable of making cleaner decisions. I would a…

AI assessment note: “Being aware of it is how you don't fall victim to it”

Q on cash for, for VCs with LPs in mind, but in terms of the actual portfolio companies themselves, when you, when you, when you look at them, you know, your Radins could be a ten billion standalone business in 10 years time and one of the biggest suitcase manufacturers in the world. What's your thoughts then on M&A versus staying private and going it alone? How do you advise startups?

A I mean, it's, I think it's very driven by the founding team and what they want. You know, you try to not make your investors Like as an investor, you don't want to be the ones making those decisions. I think obviously at certain times, there may be moments where someone shows up and makes an offer that a company can't refuse or that they shouldn't refuse. And we have opinions in those places, but generally speaking, we'd love our companies to sort of take the approach that you've seen a war be take, for instance, which is we're going to build something for 20 years. We're going to put our heads down. And then in those situations, you would hope that the companies would create opportunities for investors to get Pieces of liquidity as time goes on for investors as they think about creating liquidity for themselves. Uh, and that doesn't mean a one-to-one, but it just means that if a company is going to go it alone, you want to know that those founders have a respect for their investors, that they, they understand that they've invested money because they do ultimately want to return. And so if they are going to build something and never sell it, you'd like to know that there's opportunities to sort of Take little pieces off the table to, you know, show that you're, you're serious about being a good partner.

AI assessment note: “we'd love our companies to sort of take the approach that you've seen”

Q had Josh on the show, but I want to discuss more the business model and the rise of directing. Direct to consumer business models over the last few years, uh, as you said, will be Parker as well. So talk to me, why have we seen this rise over the last few years of direct consumer and why is now the time that we should really be building these companies?

A Yeah. So look, direct to consumer from a commerce perspective, I think is, it's very appealing for obvious reasons in that you own your own customer, you own your own data, you sort of control your own destiny. You're able to avoid, you know, margin dilution from middlemen, and obviously in a world where everyone is connected through social and through search and, and really just the internet has made the world smaller. We are more able to build brands more quickly and, and build direct to consumer businesses more sort of in more cost effective and agile ways than ever before. So it's inevitable that we're going to continue to see direct to consumer businesses being built. I don't think Just being direct to consumer is disruptive anymore, though. Just selling products without a middleman is no longer enough to sort of consider yourself to be, you know, sort of breaking the old model. But I do think that taking advantage of a world where, where everybody is connected, where you're able to effectively sort of benefit from, so information travels differently today than it did 30 or 40 years ago. So old brands were built on Basically from a, from a marketing perspective, one set of pipes, which was your, your linear TV pipes really dominated by cable. And I think you're seeing this disruption happen in media today, but it actually affects every industry that use TV as an advertisin…

AI assessment note: “you own your own customer, you own your own data, you sort of control your own destiny”

Q And then final question before we dive into the quickfire, and one I'm not sure about the answer to, so I'd love to hear your thoughts is, is it easier now to build a brand with so many different channels, but then there's far more competition on those channels. What's your perspective on brand building today versus maybe 20 years ago when it was much less competitive?

A Well, I think brand building 20 years ago was easier in that you, like, you sort of Could buy your brand growth, which was, there was really one channel that, that was so much more powerful than all the others from a marketing perspective, which was television advertising. And so if you had the money to go and buy the linear TV spots in the finite amount of time that existed, in some ways you could win by yelling loudest. I think that that's much more difficult today because of how fragmented consumer attention is. And so it is not easier to build a brand today because That being said, if you are built for these modern pipes and you're smart about how you use them and you're a step or two ahead of the rest of the market, you can make a lot of progress more efficiently and sort of less expensively, I think, than ever before. So it's a double-edged sword and it's more democratic today. Sort of anyone can win, but there are more people competing for time and, and, and a more diverse range of places where people spend their time. And so it's very confusing to, And I think whether you're the best at this or the worst at this, it's just a sort of scary, frantic business world right now because of how quickly things are changing.

AI assessment note: “it is not easier to build a brand today because”

Q schedule because everything you've said there has just made me change the schedule to a much better one. So talking about gut and emotion, a pivotal, uh, part that a lot of VCs suffer from is FOMO, um, fear of missing out. How much of a role does that play for you when investing? Do you suffer from it? If so, how do you try and kind of negate it?

A Yeah, so FOMO is a part of life as an investor, and I think more so a part of life in early stage than in later stage. In early stage, in some way, you're always investing in a dream. There's a lot of nice dreams, and there's a lot of good salespeople, and there's a lot of companies raising that you're not investing in, and so for us, FOMO is definitely something that we have to be aware of. Being aware of it is how you don't fall victim to it, Always making sure that you are making investments, not because of a herd mentality, not out of fear, but out of sort of offensive desire and interest in a company, not out of, oh, but if we miss this, we're going to look like schmucks because we see it first and because our peers are doing it. Uh, and so a few different ways to avoid that. One of the ways to avoid it is, is frankly not asking really not. I don't want to say not caring because it's always nice to be Co-invested with people who you think can add value, but generally speaking, not ever making a decision based on who your co-investors are always making it based on the company. Uh, I think it's an easy trap to fall into, which is you see a bunch of good brand name VCs. And so you give a company more credit than it deserves. And so I think making sure that we in some cases have less information about who's investing makes me more capable of making cleaner decisions. I would a…

AI assessment note: “FOMO is definitely something that we have to be aware of. Being aware of it”

Q had Josh on the show, but I want to discuss more the business model and the rise of directing. Direct to consumer business models over the last few years, uh, as you said, will be Parker as well. So talk to me, why have we seen this rise over the last few years of direct consumer and why is now the time that we should really be building these companies?

A Yeah. So look, direct to consumer from a commerce perspective, I think is, it's very appealing for obvious reasons in that you own your own customer, you own your own data, you sort of control your own destiny. You're able to avoid, you know, margin dilution from middlemen, and obviously in a world where everyone is connected through social and through search and, and really just the internet has made the world smaller. We are more able to build brands more quickly and, and build direct to consumer businesses more sort of in more cost effective and agile ways than ever before. So it's inevitable that we're going to continue to see direct to consumer businesses being built. I don't think Just being direct to consumer is disruptive anymore, though. Just selling products without a middleman is no longer enough to sort of consider yourself to be, you know, sort of breaking the old model. But I do think that taking advantage of a world where, where everybody is connected, where you're able to effectively sort of benefit from, so information travels differently today than it did 30 or 40 years ago. So old brands were built on Basically from a, from a marketing perspective, one set of pipes, which was your, your linear TV pipes really dominated by cable. And I think you're seeing this disruption happen in media today, but it actually affects every industry that use TV as an advertisin…

AI assessment note: “you own your own customer, you own your own data, you sort of control”

Q on cash for, for VCs with LPs in mind, but in terms of the actual portfolio companies themselves, when you, when you, when you look at them, you know, your Radins could be a ten billion standalone business in 10 years time and one of the biggest suitcase manufacturers in the world. What's your thoughts then on M&A versus staying private and going it alone? How do you advise startups?

A I mean, it's, I think it's very driven by the founding team and what they want. You know, you try to not make your investors Like as an investor, you don't want to be the ones making those decisions. I think obviously at certain times, there may be moments where someone shows up and makes an offer that a company can't refuse or that they shouldn't refuse. And we have opinions in those places, but generally speaking, we'd love our companies to sort of take the approach that you've seen a war be take, for instance, which is we're going to build something for 20 years. We're going to put our heads down. And then in those situations, you would hope that the companies would create opportunities for investors to get Pieces of liquidity as time goes on for investors as they think about creating liquidity for themselves. Uh, and that doesn't mean a one-to-one, but it just means that if a company is going to go it alone, you want to know that those founders have a respect for their investors, that they, they understand that they've invested money because they do ultimately want to return. And so if they are going to build something and never sell it, you'd like to know that there's opportunities to sort of Take little pieces off the table to, you know, show that you're, you're serious about being a good partner.

AI assessment note: “it's very driven by the founding team and what they want.”

Q And then final question before we dive into the quickfire, and one I'm not sure about the answer to, so I'd love to hear your thoughts is, is it easier now to build a brand with so many different channels, but then there's far more competition on those channels. What's your perspective on brand building today versus maybe 20 years ago when it was much less competitive?

A Well, I think brand building 20 years ago was easier in that you, like, you sort of Could buy your brand growth, which was, there was really one channel that, that was so much more powerful than all the others from a marketing perspective, which was television advertising. And so if you had the money to go and buy the linear TV spots in the finite amount of time that existed, in some ways you could win by yelling loudest. I think that that's much more difficult today because of how fragmented consumer attention is. And so it is not easier to build a brand today because That being said, if you are built for these modern pipes and you're smart about how you use them and you're a step or two ahead of the rest of the market, you can make a lot of progress more efficiently and sort of less expensively, I think, than ever before. So it's a double-edged sword and it's more democratic today. Sort of anyone can win, but there are more people competing for time and, and, and a more diverse range of places where people spend their time. And so it's very confusing to, And I think whether you're the best at this or the worst at this, it's just a sort of scary, frantic business world right now because of how quickly things are changing.

AI assessment note: “I think brand building 20 years ago was easier in that you, like, you sort of Could buy”