The Exchanges

Q As you said, it's a slightly uneven playing field. VCs have done it many, many times, the pitch. And founders haven't, obviously first time founders, haven't been rejected before by VCs. Uh, so how do you coach them? Although you're used to it, is there a, is there a kind of supporting role?

A Oh gosh, it's funny. I, I think I have a process not a lot of people understand or like it so far has worked for me. I, I'm pretty hard. I'm on the CEOs. Uh, I have a, I have this, I break it down and build them up and see what the resilience is. Because remember, Maybe they're saying no to me, but fundamentally, they're the founder. It's their company, right? We're helping them. We like to say we're helping them build the company. We're alongside with them. We're co-building it. But it's their company. They're the founders, and they sleep, think, and drink this thing 24 hours a day, seven days a week for however long, a year, two years, however long this project's been nagging on their head. And for them to get 20 no's, 30 no's on their dream And from really smart people that they've probably looked up to, right? They read about, they know that investor invested in so, so company. And they imagine that person that they're sitting across is, you know, they're impressed and they're smarter than me. Um, and wow, they're telling me it's a shitty business. Sorry. I don't know if I can cuss. Uh, they're telling me it's a shitty business. Yeah, preparing them for the nose actually is pretty hard, and I do that by being really hard on them early. I mean, in every case, the simple nuances of those first couple pitches, and I have to see them interacting kind of real-time live with the …

AI assessment note: “preparing them for the nose actually is pretty hard, and I do that by being really hard”

Q That's not true, Peter. I've spoken to so many people and everyone says Peter is the people person. So, so I'm not sure that's true. I think you're too modest on that one, but I want to talk about, let's actually, I want to, let's do, um, effective Dollar Shave Club on kind of your status and reputation in the industry. How's the inbound changed?

A Uh, I, It's been three weeks, uh, which is funny because, you know, new cycles change so fast, but I think the combination of Dollar Shave Club for us and Jet.com for the e-commerce industry definitely has a bigger effect. Everyone thinks we're smarter now. I think we're obviously the same people. Um, but we just had the vision four and a half years ago that retailers don't know who their customers are and kind of building on that thesis that the social web and the social mobile now in the last two years is where you should be making impact on Growing audiences of brands. Uh, the pipeline is increased. The investors are calling me back a little bit faster, trying to figure out the next one. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's great, but we're just doing what we're doing, building the same stuff, and hopefully we get right again.

AI assessment note: “The pipeline is increased. The investors are calling me back a little bit faster”

Q That's not true, Peter. I've spoken to so many people and everyone says Peter is the people person. So, so I'm not sure that's true. I think you're too modest on that one, but I want to talk about, let's actually, I want to, let's do, um, effective Dollar Shave Club on kind of your status and reputation in the industry. How's the inbound changed?

A Uh, I, It's been three weeks, uh, which is funny because, you know, new cycles change so fast, but I think the combination of Dollar Shave Club for us and Jet.com for the e-commerce industry definitely has a bigger effect. Everyone thinks we're smarter now. I think we're obviously the same people. Um, but we just had the vision four and a half years ago that retailers don't know who their customers are and kind of building on that thesis that the social web and the social mobile now in the last two years is where you should be making impact on Growing audiences of brands. Uh, the pipeline is increased. The investors are calling me back a little bit faster, trying to figure out the next one. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's great, but we're just doing what we're doing, building the same stuff, and hopefully we get right again.

AI assessment note: “The pipeline is increased. The investors are calling me back a little bit faster”

Q Favorite blog or newsletter? What are your must reads?

A Actually, the newsletter now, again, because I do, I raise money most of my days, uh, Dan Premack's fortune newsletter is awesome just because it It's a quick summary of every deal that gets done. Every company that gets funded, every VC, because in the back of my head, I'm thinking, what firm did what deal, uh, competitively, or what firm did a deal that went to zero? Because the other part about venture investing, interesting enough, in terms of figuring out which partner is the personality and the, and the psychology of that partner in the moment. Did they just win on something big in the category? Did they just lose big on that category? Are they in favor inside the partnership, or are they out of favor inside the partnership? How much juice they have at any given time, right? There's a dynamic. Again, that's probably way too much inside baseball.

AI assessment note: “Dan Premack's fortune newsletter is awesome just because it It's a quick summary”

Q How do you, how do you take, you said you, 3000, I read in an article, 1300 no's in a year once. How does that affect your psyche? Does it affect your psyche?

A You know, I used to do, in enterprise sales, I used to do like a hundred cold calls a day, right, to CTOs and director of IT. You know, it gets to you a little bit, particularly I think in venture, I've, yeah, I genuinely am friends with a lot of these people. Over the years, I've probably pitched the same person a dozen, 20, 30 times. And also, just being in the industry, you generally become friends with them, inside and outside, and after a lot of no's on something, when you have so much conviction, right, and when we say we have conviction, it's a bit different. When we say we have a conviction, this company is in our building. This company we've been working on every single day for the last X months, three months, six months, a year. Like, we have one right now. She's been working with us for a year, right? I have so much conviction. Obviously, we have conviction. Otherwise, we would have shut it down already. We wouldn't waste our time. Right, and so when you get enough no's, part of me gets a little upset, but part of me wants to be right, and I love proving people wrong, and it motivates me to do more, and motivates the entire team, and motivates Mike, the CEO, to say, what do they know, right? We're, we're building things. We have perfect data, right? They're judging us on a, the hardest part of everything. They're judging us on 30 minutes. If you look at venture, in a…

AI assessment note: “part of me gets a little upset, but part of me wants to be right”

Q As you said, it's a slightly uneven playing field. VCs have done it many, many times, the pitch. And founders haven't, obviously first time founders, haven't been rejected before by VCs. Uh, so how do you coach them? Although you're used to it, is there a, is there a kind of supporting role?

A Oh gosh, it's funny. I, I think I have a process not a lot of people understand or like it so far has worked for me. I, I'm pretty hard. I'm on the CEOs. Uh, I have a, I have this, I break it down and build them up and see what the resilience is. Because remember, Maybe they're saying no to me, but fundamentally, they're the founder. It's their company, right? We're helping them. We like to say we're helping them build the company. We're alongside with them. We're co-building it. But it's their company. They're the founders, and they sleep, think, and drink this thing 24 hours a day, seven days a week for however long, a year, two years, however long this project's been nagging on their head. And for them to get 20 no's, 30 no's on their dream And from really smart people that they've probably looked up to, right? They read about, they know that investor invested in so, so company. And they imagine that person that they're sitting across is, you know, they're impressed and they're smarter than me. Um, and wow, they're telling me it's a shitty business. Sorry. I don't know if I can cuss. Uh, they're telling me it's a shitty business. Yeah, preparing them for the nose actually is pretty hard, and I do that by being really hard on them early. I mean, in every case, the simple nuances of those first couple pitches, and I have to see them interacting kind of real-time live with the …

AI assessment note: “preparing them for the nose actually is pretty hard, and I do that by being really hard”

Q How's your extensive experience of, of getting the no's to 3000 no's? Has that influenced how you relay the no to people you say no to, you know, uh, science is, The startup studio. You must have thousands of applicants. How do you say no?

A I think we try to be helpful in the sense that I think we can always give people tactical advice, right? So no is, look, it doesn't fit our model. I don't see us 10 X-ing, a hundred X-ing the value that we provide, right? Uh, and remember our models are a bit different. We co-build companies for equity. We're not, I don't have a fund. Mike and I, we, we, Our team, we don't not have a fund. We are an operating company. We're an LLC, uh, similar to beta works, but we don't have a fund. So I don't, I can't say to CEO, I love the idea. Let's do this. Let me give you a million dollars. And by the way, move in and build it. We say, look, we're going to help you co-build this. Come on in. You know, we're going to earn our equity. We're going to, but it's, and it's sizable, right? We're not, again, we're not an accelerator. So we don't do six and seven percent equity. I have to know that I want to work on this every day.

AI assessment note: “So no is, look, it doesn't fit our model.”

Q How do you, how do you take, you said you, 3000, I read in an article, 1300 no's in a year once. How does that affect your psyche? Does it affect your psyche?

A You know, I used to do, in enterprise sales, I used to do like a hundred cold calls a day, right, to CTOs and director of IT. You know, it gets to you a little bit, particularly I think in venture, I've, yeah, I genuinely am friends with a lot of these people. Over the years, I've probably pitched the same person a dozen, 20, 30 times. And also, just being in the industry, you generally become friends with them, inside and outside, and after a lot of no's on something, when you have so much conviction, right, and when we say we have conviction, it's a bit different. When we say we have a conviction, this company is in our building. This company we've been working on every single day for the last X months, three months, six months, a year. Like, we have one right now. She's been working with us for a year, right? I have so much conviction. Obviously, we have conviction. Otherwise, we would have shut it down already. We wouldn't waste our time. Right, and so when you get enough no's, part of me gets a little upset, but part of me wants to be right, and I love proving people wrong, and it motivates me to do more, and motivates the entire team, and motivates Mike, the CEO, to say, what do they know, right? We're, we're building things. We have perfect data, right? They're judging us on a, the hardest part of everything. They're judging us on 30 minutes. If you look at venture, in a…

AI assessment note: “part of me gets a little upset, but part of me wants to be right”

Q What's the vision? What's the vision for science?

A We have theses, uh, every couple years, and our vision is to build amazing companies with amazing founders, right? And I, and my biggest joys, uh, So far is every time we've had two exits this year, um, hello society, which was New York times and dollar shape club. Hopefully we have more. The joy is this to know where the CEO started, right? When they first walked into our office and us working daily with them and seeing them kind of succeed and seeing the team. And I love that. I, and I think there's value and I think there's companies to be built that aren't built the right way in our opinion, right? And investors leveraging and understanding how to deploy capital, Um, in a different light. Look, the idea of the studio model has been tried multiple times. Everybody does it slightly different. Uh, I, I just want to keep proving that when you put a lot of smart people in a building and, and you really, you know, if you say the word value add, I kind of hate that word because that's not what we do. We help people build companies. Yes, that like that's value add, but that's different. That's, yeah, I, I can't imagine a world where I just am not, I'm not doing what I'm doing, which is just in the weeds every single day with the CEO.

AI assessment note: “our vision is to build amazing companies with amazing founders”

Q How's your extensive experience of, of getting the no's to 3000 no's? Has that influenced how you relay the no to people you say no to, you know, uh, science is, The startup studio. You must have thousands of applicants. How do you say no?

A I think we try to be helpful in the sense that I think we can always give people tactical advice, right? So no is, look, it doesn't fit our model. I don't see us 10 X-ing, a hundred X-ing the value that we provide, right? Uh, and remember our models are a bit different. We co-build companies for equity. We're not, I don't have a fund. Mike and I, we, we, Our team, we don't not have a fund. We are an operating company. We're an LLC, uh, similar to beta works, but we don't have a fund. So I don't, I can't say to CEO, I love the idea. Let's do this. Let me give you a million dollars. And by the way, move in and build it. We say, look, we're going to help you co-build this. Come on in. You know, we're going to earn our equity. We're going to, but it's, and it's sizable, right? We're not, again, we're not an accelerator. So we don't do six and seven percent equity. I have to know that I want to work on this every day.

AI assessment note: “So no is, look, it doesn't fit our model.”