The Exchanges

Q Tell me, the most recent publicly announced investment, and why did you say yes, Rebecca?

A Most recently announced investment is modern fertility, even though it was actually the first investment that I led at USV. I said yes because I love this category and I love this team. Fertility is a category marked by fear and confusion and lack of direction and extremely high emotion. And then on the other side, huge intent, willingness to pay, and deep desire by a customer for an outcome. But there's no dominant brand when a woman decides she's interested in starting to plan for a family. They wind up going down a deep Google hole that's It's filled with a lot of fear and a lot of bad information, and they have nowhere to turn. And I think that provides a real opportunity for a brand to emerge. And then combining that with starting with at-home testing, which is a real top of funnel product, and it provides women with information that was previously extremely expensive and often inaccessible in a value-driven way at a significantly cheaper price point, I think has a mix of a lot of elements that make for really, really great consumer brands. But the most important thing is that Afton and Carly, who are the founders, are Both advantaged in the category, extremely passionate, and the most fun to work with.

AI assessment note: “Most recently announced investment is modern fertility”

Q I couldn't agree more in terms of that all-encompassing element of pride around the brand. So if one is not concerned by the above, the other core concern that a lot of investors posit to consumer founders is, well, What if Amazon moves into this space? As a consumer investor today, how do you evaluate the role and dominance of Amazon when kind of entering into a new opportunity?

A I think we should all look at Amazon with basically like a healthy dose of fear and awe and respect. I think it's naive to think that new startups can take them on. They've been, what fascinates me about Amazon actually is how much they've won, not because of structural product advantage, which is something that like a Google has, if you think about their ad platform, But by an executional advantage, they just do more things better than anyone else, and watching that happen is an insane thing to do. We speak a lot at USV about a kill zone, about where startups are advantaged or where they're not, and we think about a Facebook, Google, Amazon kill zone, and the belief that if you're an early company going up against these giants, you're so structurally disadvantaged right now because of scale, because of capital, because of data, that it's going to be extremely difficult. So the short answer is I don't want to invest In companies that think they're going to take down Amazon right now, because I believe it's extremely difficult, particularly at the stage we're going at. That's not to say that I don't think there are areas to play in, and even in commerce. My view is that Amazon is dominating, but it's a specific tactical and emotional piece of the commerce puzzle, and it's largely functional. They're the best at logistics. They're the best at assortment. They're the best at speed…

AI assessment note: “I don't want to invest In companies that think they're going to take down Amazon”

Q but I do want to move slightly more broadly than Amazon's. The incumbents as a whole It's fair to say that they might not crush you, but they maybe might acquire you. As seen through Bonobos, Dollar Shave, there's been a lot of acquisitions recently. With this early acquisition strategy at play, can I ask, can considerable venture dollars at scale be made today investing in consumer, do you think?

A Can considerable venture dollars today be made investing in consumer? Yes, right, because we have the examples of that being true. The examples you gave of Dollar Shave and Bonobos have wildly different outcomes. One of them was a huge win, um, for their investors and their team and kind of showed that you can get the return on it that they wanted going in, which is Dollar Shave, and the other one didn't. I think there's reasons why. I think some of it has to do with some of the acquisition strategies we were talking about earlier, but I think the answer is it's doable. It's just really hard. There are companies that are scaling, um, even in direct-to-consumer brands, and they're scaling with capital efficiency, you know, invested in Allbirds at Maveron. It's going really well, and they're extremely capital efficient, and customers love it, and they come back And it's getting real penetration. It's just that it's really hard because the landscape's getting increasingly fragmented and acquisitions getting increasingly expensive. And if you don't crack that kind of community growth and those alternative channels to scale, and if you don't crack them early, it's very difficult to get there. And so I think it's just a space that's challenging, but we have plenty of examples of it being doable. I think the acquirer piece is interesting in that I do think there's a continued appetite…

AI assessment note: “Can considerable venture dollars today be made investing in consumer? Yes, right”

Q Well, I'm thrilled that it's not just me on that one, but okay, Rebecca, you've seen many consumer startups break out now from your portfolios. I'm intrigued in those that break out. Are there commonalities that you think are core to their success?

A Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think one is what we were just talking about with strategies to scale. I think the companies that find organic growth channels through impassioned consumers are hugely advantaged, and that's not only because of capital efficiency and how far the dollars go, but because oftentimes in early startups, you're looking for indications of customer love, right? Is this something that customers are buying, or is it something that matters to them that they care about? And often the earliest indication of that is referral and retention, because when we love something, what we do is we come back and we tell our friends and there's a lot of noise in early companies. And sometimes marketing can make that noisier because you're paying to cover up inefficiencies or problems. And this early identification of, is there a really rabid fan base who are coming back and telling their friends who are forming a community and often forming a community themselves who are taking it on themselves. It shows a level of emotional engagement in the product and the brand. That really provides an advantage, and I think when you look at some of the best consumer companies today, whether that's Stash, you know, the Stash customers aren't only investing and saving and opening for one case, which is something that they had trouble doing before. They're forming Facebook groups. They're as…

AI assessment note: “companies that find organic growth channels through impassioned consumers are hugely advantaged”

Q I couldn't agree more in terms of that all-encompassing element of pride around the brand. So if one is not concerned by the above, the other core concern that a lot of investors posit to consumer founders is, well, What if Amazon moves into this space? As a consumer investor today, how do you evaluate the role and dominance of Amazon when kind of entering into a new opportunity?

A I think we should all look at Amazon with basically like a healthy dose of fear and awe and respect. I think it's naive to think that new startups can take them on. They've been, what fascinates me about Amazon actually is how much they've won, not because of structural product advantage, which is something that like a Google has, if you think about their ad platform, But by an executional advantage, they just do more things better than anyone else, and watching that happen is an insane thing to do. We speak a lot at USV about a kill zone, about where startups are advantaged or where they're not, and we think about a Facebook, Google, Amazon kill zone, and the belief that if you're an early company going up against these giants, you're so structurally disadvantaged right now because of scale, because of capital, because of data, that it's going to be extremely difficult. So the short answer is I don't want to invest In companies that think they're going to take down Amazon right now, because I believe it's extremely difficult, particularly at the stage we're going at. That's not to say that I don't think there are areas to play in, and even in commerce. My view is that Amazon is dominating, but it's a specific tactical and emotional piece of the commerce puzzle, and it's largely functional. They're the best at logistics. They're the best at assortment. They're the best at speed…

AI assessment note: “I don't want to invest In companies that think they're going to take down Amazon”

Q And then the most recent investment for you at Maveron and why you said yes, one that's public?

A We led a series A in a company called Booster Fuel at the end of the year, and what Booster Fuel does is it eliminates the pain of going to gas stations by Um, delivering your gas while you're at work, so it partners with big office buildings, and you press a button on your phone, and when you're, um, done with work, your gas tank will be filled up, and your windows will be clean, and you can go on your way, and it does that at the same price as the nearest station, so it's not a premium product, it's just a really, really convenient product, um, so it's, it's a pretty cool experience, but the reason we said yes, and the reason that I like it so much is, um, the entrepreneur is super special, Frank Mycroft, Literally, before this was figuring out how to refuel satellites in space off of comets. Like, that's crazy, crazy stuff. And I remember the first time we met, I said, you know, the gas market is hard. There's, you know, regulation, and all this, all these kind of issues, and thin margins, and all the stuff. He's like, Yeah, you know, it's, it's hard to refuel satellites in space too, but I kind of figured it out. And I was like, that's fair. That's true.

AI assessment note: “the reason we said yes, and the reason that I like it so much is”

Q Are there any kind of key examples that you can pick up on then that you have, uh, seen develop?

A Totally. Absolutely. So we try to do this a lot. I think one of the things Maveron tries to do is put data behind our assumptions and, um, the people side is a big part of that. So we've actually tried to Map out what we think goes into a great entrepreneur and put it into 10 bullet points. And all of these bullet points are created through data of what we've seen work in our entrepreneurs and in other entrepreneurs in the past, in the past. So a few of those are, um, speed. I think the best entrepreneurs have an ability to work at super speed, to go extra fast. Um, Zulily is a great example of that. The, the founders Um, the company used to call it Zulily time. They were able to do things faster than anyone predicted. I think another one that matters a lot is the ability to balance big picture orientation and detail orientation. That's really hard for one person to do. Be able to tell a very big tale, but focus on the minute details that go into company building. And when I think of that, I think of Louis Sparrow at Ernest. He is fantastic of that, and that is something Because of what I learned from my partners and because of what I had seen before, it was one of the first things I noticed about him. He told this very big story about reinventing consumer banking, but when he talked about Ernest, he talked about it in the detail, and I love that kind of balance. I think the th…

AI assessment note: “speed. I think the best entrepreneurs have an ability to work at super speed, to go extra fast. Um, Zulily is a great example of that.”

Q ask, when we think about, kind of, the immune nature of seed, if we go to Series A, you know, Rebecca, you mentioned, kind of, you're recently doing a Series A deal. What are we seeing in terms of Series A markets? Are they as frothy as ever? Often people are actually saying, that's why we're seeing a crunch. What are our thoughts on frothiness or crunch at Series A?

A I think the Series A market right now is actually really interesting because you're seeing, um, tale of many different worlds depending on what you're looking at. Things that are, I think, getting outsized multiples, still probably less than they were 18 or 24 months ago, but dramatically different than other pockets. Anything with momentum. Momentum, I think, has a giant premium on it now because it's gotten much Rare kind of a cross category momentum driven businesses. We are seeing this obviously things in high flying categories, things that touch AI and have momentum, right? Massive multiples right now. And I think there's a big premium for, um, seasoned teams, people who have seen it before and particularly if they've seen it before with good outcomes, because it feels like this market is quite complicated and there's a desire for teams that have been able to navigate things before. On the other hand, I think anything with a complicated story, things that are figuring it out and are seeing, um, some growth curve, but it took a while for that to figure it out, so maybe they had to spend some of that seed money, so their, you know, ultimate revenue is less than what you ultimately would like, and their curve is newer. Very hard to raise money for, big opportunity in, right? Anything in complicated markets, like things that have complexity, I think are very hard.

AI assessment note: “tale of many different worlds depending on what you're looking at.”

Q ask, when we think about, kind of, the immune nature of seed, if we go to Series A, you know, Rebecca, you mentioned, kind of, you're recently doing a Series A deal. What are we seeing in terms of Series A markets? Are they as frothy as ever? Often people are actually saying, that's why we're seeing a crunch. What are our thoughts on frothiness or crunch at Series A?

A I think the Series A market right now is actually really interesting because you're seeing, um, tale of many different worlds depending on what you're looking at. Things that are, I think, getting outsized multiples, still probably less than they were 18 or 24 months ago, but dramatically different than other pockets. Anything with momentum. Momentum, I think, has a giant premium on it now because it's gotten much Rare kind of a cross category momentum driven businesses. We are seeing this obviously things in high flying categories, things that touch AI and have momentum, right? Massive multiples right now. And I think there's a big premium for, um, seasoned teams, people who have seen it before and particularly if they've seen it before with good outcomes, because it feels like this market is quite complicated and there's a desire for teams that have been able to navigate things before. On the other hand, I think anything with a complicated story, things that are figuring it out and are seeing, um, some growth curve, but it took a while for that to figure it out, so maybe they had to spend some of that seed money, so their, you know, ultimate revenue is less than what you ultimately would like, and their curve is newer. Very hard to raise money for, big opportunity in, right? Anything in complicated markets, like things that have complexity, I think are very hard.

AI assessment note: “tale of many different worlds depending on what you're looking at”

Q Will we see a wave of M&A, small scale M&A of your high growth companies picking them up for nothing and for dollars on this, like literally dollars, cents on the dollar, sorry, or will there just be a generation of companies that die?

A I think we might see a little bit of M&A, but I actually think that M&A is really hard right now. I think you're just going to see a lot of them unfortunately die because M&A works if some other piece has a lot of cash, right? Or has a lot of asset and, and you're seeing later stage companies being told to really focus, right? To really focus in, to really focus on burn, to really focus on, you know, the essentials of the business, which often goes against the opportunistic M&A. I think you'll see acquihires. I think you'll see it in, In kind of small ways, but the, we're also not really in an era where you can just sell a lot of stuff to Facebook and Google.

AI assessment note: “I think you're just going to see a lot of them unfortunately die”

Q the excitement. They do still have to acquire the customers, though, and in some cases via the traditional means and platform. I do get concerned by unfeasible unit economics with kind of competing against huge incumbents who are willing to pay up. How do you think about this and assess that distribution problem when purely the cost of acquisition on these platforms can be so high against the big incumbents?

A A hundred percent. So I don't disagree with that at all. I think a core belief I have developed and my team shares, and if you look at the kind of history of USV and consumer, it's reflected is, We don't believe that businesses that are going to pay to acquire customer after customer are great venture businesses. They require way too much capital, and you don't get enough leverage on those dollars. You don't hit the inflection points if you have to pay customer after customer. Now, I think paid acquisition can be a weapon. I think it can fuel the beginning of a funnel. I think it can speed up efficient funnels later on. I think you can find arbitrage opportunities in new platforms as they develop or in new products. As they come to market, and definitely we have companies that do that, but I'm a big believer that you need to find consumer businesses that have alternative strategies, that have passionate communities that are acquiring through word of mouth and through organic systems, that if you don't have strong non-digital paid channels, it's going to be a very hard long slog.

AI assessment note: “We don't believe that businesses that are going to pay to acquire customer after customer”

Q No, I couldn't agree with you more on that people centricity. Final one, which is obviously a core tenet of the USV thesis being around crypto, merging that with the discussion on consumer. Should consumers be investing in blockchain companies today? Let's start with that.

A Well, it's a tricky question because there's multiple pieces of it. Should they start be building crypto portfolios, and should they be investing in blockchain companies? I mean, those two things we believe are actually relatively different, you know, but the overall Opinion I think we have is that blockchain is an extremely early ecosystem. There's a very exciting and core belief that it's starting to play out and that there's a huge opportunity in it and that there's a deep need for a decentralized web, but the details of how that will happen and who will win are nascent. They're just extremely early, so you can't approach the internet investing landscape and the blockchain investing landscape in the same way because they're two extremely different profiles of markets and timelines, and we think that has a lot of risk involved. We also think there's a lot of open-ended questions right now on the regulatory side, and that could impact a lot of people. And so people who are interested and with non-significant pools of capital, whatever that means to them, built, starting to build crypto portfolios, I think is super interesting and, and may give early access to a new asset class, but blockchain companies outside of institutional investors, I think you have to be pretty careful and eyes wide open and just really know how early this ecosystem is.

AI assessment note: “outside of institutional investors, I think you have to be pretty careful”

Q the excitement. They do still have to acquire the customers, though, and in some cases via the traditional means and platform. I do get concerned by unfeasible unit economics with kind of competing against huge incumbents who are willing to pay up. How do you think about this and assess that distribution problem when purely the cost of acquisition on these platforms can be so high against the big incumbents?

A A hundred percent. So I don't disagree with that at all. I think a core belief I have developed and my team shares, and if you look at the kind of history of USV and consumer, it's reflected is, We don't believe that businesses that are going to pay to acquire customer after customer are great venture businesses. They require way too much capital, and you don't get enough leverage on those dollars. You don't hit the inflection points if you have to pay customer after customer. Now, I think paid acquisition can be a weapon. I think it can fuel the beginning of a funnel. I think it can speed up efficient funnels later on. I think you can find arbitrage opportunities in new platforms as they develop or in new products. As they come to market, and definitely we have companies that do that, but I'm a big believer that you need to find consumer businesses that have alternative strategies, that have passionate communities that are acquiring through word of mouth and through organic systems, that if you don't have strong non-digital paid channels, it's going to be a very hard long slog.

AI assessment note: “We don't believe that businesses that are going to pay to acquire customer after customer”

Q No, absolutely. I do hope you know I'm literally using you now just to validate my own thesis on consumer, so this is wonderful, but I always assert that if you're not a top three priority, you do have a few years on them. Would you agree with this kind of summarization?

A I don't know because of the speed of cycles these days, right? So I think there was a time maybe that was true, but if you think about three years right now, three years is infinity in Amazon's world, or in Google's world, or in Facebook's world. I think the speed of innovation has really accelerated to the Point where it's going very fast. And I also think if you look at what Amazon is winning in, it's a lot more than three things. They've repeatedly shown that they can just spin stuff up really quickly, and that doesn't mean that they're always going to win, or they're always going to succeed, but it means they have a pretty good shot, so if it falls in that tactical zone, I don't know that it's where I want to be playing.

AI assessment note: “I don't know because of the speed of cycles these days, right?”

Q But moving from Maveron to USV and comparing the partnerships, investment processes, portfolio management, I'm really interested. How do the two firms compare?

A Well, one thing that's interesting is they're actually quite similar, right? So both Maveron and USV have similarly sized Funds by Design. Both firms believe in relatively small funds, a very focused approach to kind of series seed and series A investing, and resisting this macro environment of raising massive amounts of capital as others kind of wind up doing that and growing their AUM. That is something I really believe in. I think the very focused approach and the ability to make return on small focused funds who can get outsized belief in entrepreneurs and businesses who Earlier rather than waiting to, you know, win on, on how much capital you can get in later. So it's just a strategy I really like and believe in. And it also allows for a very small partnership that has a real team orientation to it. And both Maveron and USB have that. And so I really, really love that about both of them. Obviously one thing that's different about USB is we have a real thesis driven approach. So we believe in a model of kind of collectively coming up with a sense of where we think the opportunity lies and where we think the shifts are happening and, and really placing some chips there and saying, Here are some things we believe, and to make the investment, they have to align with those beliefs, and we think that brings kind of perspective to the job, and also we'll make better investments b…

AI assessment note: “one thing that's different about USB is we have a real thesis driven approach.”

Q And then slightly tacking on to your love of writing there, is that something you've carried across to your investing career? I mean, we've seen the rise of VC's personal brands. Is, have you, have you adopted that as part of your personal brand?

A Not yet. Um, and probably not enough. I, I spend almost all of my time talking to people, which is almost feels like kind of an old art now, but, um, the strategy that I've taken the most and it could adopt over time is kind of feet on the street, really digging in with entrepreneurs, um, having conversations often face to face and really understanding how they think that's been the most valuable for me in developing pattern recognition and really learning what I'm looking for there. Um, I see writing as something I'd love to go back to and plan on doing in the future, but when I think of Some of the people I admire the most, um, I value some of the experience that they've had and their time and, and kind of hard lessons learned, so I'm, I'm gathering up a few more of those before I put the keyboard back to work on the writing side.

AI assessment note: “Not yet. Um, and probably not enough.”

Q And I'm intrigued there, you said pattern recognition, so how have you seen your investment decision-making process kind of alter as you've grown and developed as an investor?

A A ton. I think that investing is a very interesting Job because, especially in technology, because it marries by necessity, you need to be forward looking. It's all about trying to do something very hard, which is predict the future. What businesses are going to work, what technologies are going to thrive. Um, but you do that often by looking backwards and by trying to understand the characteristics that have worked in the past, particularly on the people side. So I think where my pattern recognition is most evolved is on the entrepreneur side. There's a lot you can learn about what models work and what markets work and all those kinds of things. But there are patterns to the best entrepreneurs, how they think, how they act, how they hire. Um, and I've really tried to pick up a lot of those as I've kind of dug in here.

AI assessment note: “where my pattern recognition is most evolved is on the entrepreneur side.”

Q And then slightly tacking on to your love of writing there, is that something you've carried across to your investing career? I mean, we've seen the rise of VC's personal brands. Is, have you, have you adopted that as part of your personal brand?

A Not yet. Um, and probably not enough. I, I spend almost all of my time talking to people, which is almost feels like kind of an old art now, but, um, the strategy that I've taken the most and it could adopt over time is kind of feet on the street, really digging in with entrepreneurs, um, having conversations often face to face and really understanding how they think that's been the most valuable for me in developing pattern recognition and really learning what I'm looking for there. Um, I see writing as something I'd love to go back to and plan on doing in the future, but when I think of Some of the people I admire the most, um, I value some of the experience that they've had and their time and, and kind of hard lessons learned, so I'm, I'm gathering up a few more of those before I put the keyboard back to work on the writing side.

AI assessment note: “Not yet. Um, and probably not enough.”

Q And I'm intrigued there, you said pattern recognition, so how have you seen your investment decision-making process kind of alter as you've grown and developed as an investor?

A A ton. I think that investing is a very interesting Job because, especially in technology, because it marries by necessity, you need to be forward looking. It's all about trying to do something very hard, which is predict the future. What businesses are going to work, what technologies are going to thrive. Um, but you do that often by looking backwards and by trying to understand the characteristics that have worked in the past, particularly on the people side. So I think where my pattern recognition is most evolved is on the entrepreneur side. There's a lot you can learn about what models work and what markets work and all those kinds of things. But there are patterns to the best entrepreneurs, how they think, how they act, how they hire. Um, and I've really tried to pick up a lot of those as I've kind of dug in here.

AI assessment note: “where my pattern recognition is most evolved is on the entrepreneur side”

Q And as an investor in, in purely the consumer space, how do you approach, you mentioned earlier, the importance of brand for startups, how do you approach that brand building aspect with such emphasis due, due to the importance of being consumer facing investors?

A Yeah, so we do only consumers. What we kind of think maniacally about is how do you take great product and great technology and great platforms and wrap it in the right experience and story and emotion to build a lasting consumer brand. Because when you think about the brands that have stood the test of time that really integrate into customers' hearts and minds and lives, they do that. Great product is fantastic and is the backbone, but it's not enough to last, and so largely what we think about there is a mindset of an entrepreneur. Do they prioritize that emotion, that storytelling, that customer experience, or are they building the best product and that's it? It's a, it's really a mindset that they go in with, and so a lot of our Kind of diligence process and getting to know a team is really understanding how they think about it.

AI assessment note: “a lot of our Kind of diligence process and getting to know a team is really understanding”

Q Yeah, absolutely. How have Maveron avoided the kind of traditional VC fear of hardware?

A Yeah, so to back up, the way we look at it is that our goal is to partner with the best emerging technology powered consumer brands. In every decade, there may be 10 new, greater brands that emerge. And we think about whether we can partner with at least a few of those. And while some of those are going to be a hundred percent software platforms or marketplaces, others aren't. And when you think about the greatest brands that use technology to create leverage and access and integrate into our lives, there's a mix of, of the models there. And we don't want to fill our portfolio with inventory heavy brands, but we also don't want to miss the forest for the trees and roll out a meaningful sector of growing consumer brands that are going to really be meaningful to customers because of the model that they're operating on. You know, so all of that being said, I think it takes a special kind of entrepreneur to build brands with inventory and with physical product, um, and to use technology to create the right leverage there to make it venture scale. That's not an easy thing to do. You know, logistics and shipping and supply chains Are, are hard. So when we look at our portfolio, the entrepreneurs that do that are a special breed. When you think about Michael Crescent at Everlane, or Jason Johnson at August, Bobby and Shadi at Dolls Kill, you know, they, they are able to balance the sp…

AI assessment note: “takes a special kind of entrepreneur to build brands with inventory and with physical product”

Q focus. So, so what do you think the benefits are of having such a narrow investing thesis? I know that's not, you know, very fair, because consumers are a mass market, and there's thousands of startups, but, you know, when you compare it to the many- Varieties that are on offer. What do you think about having a narrow thesis like yours? And what do you think the benefits are?

A I think if I've learned one thing in the last kind of five years of getting to know Maveron and being part of the team, it's the benefit of focus, which means focus on a kind of entrepreneurs you have high conviction in and your ability to build great companies and focus in terms of the strategy of your fund, meaning what kind of checks you write and what stage and the focus on what you're looking for. Um, but for us, being consumer only, I think, is the, is the very best thing we can do. Partly because it helps hone our pattern recognition, which I know leads us back to the beginning, but as investing requires this ability to pattern match with great things that have come before, while still keeping that eye on the future, if you can narrow that slope, you're gonna develop that pattern recognition faster, and probably better. And so, um, I think focusing in has kind of helped us be better at the small thing we do, Um, even though it's not the largest landscape, and it is a still pretty big landscape, but consumer, you know, we're a pretty small team, there's only, um, a handful of us, so it's a lot of ground.

AI assessment note: “Partly because it helps hone our pattern recognition”

Q Well, I'm thrilled to have you back, but I want to kick off today, and for those that maybe didn't hear our first episode, how did you make your entry into what is most definitely the wonderful world of venture?

A It is a wonderful, crazy world. So I was a journalist out of college, which was something I really loved and found incredibly interesting and thought it would be what I did, and I joined a startup publication out here in San Francisco called Narrative, and it became clear pretty quickly that where they really needed help was on the business side more than the editorial side, which had been kind of my background through school, and so got into that world of digital media and trying to figure out how to monetize content, which I found really fascinating, and eventually that led me to business school at Stanford. And I got to school and thought I would join a startup, or really probably a company like Google or Facebook, or something where I could really learn the ins and outs of being in tech, since I was so new to it, and really, really knew nothing. But I had a close mentor at school who was a guy named Bill Campbell, who passed away a couple years ago, but was a really phenomenal guy, and he was largely known for mentoring the big guys, you know, Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs and these kind of big legends, and on the side had this kind of side practice of mentoring people, Way, way, way on the other end of the spectrum, business school students like me at Stanford who were really trying to figure out what they wanted to do.

AI assessment note: “I was a journalist out of college... eventually that led me to business school”

Q And speaking of the growth and the scalability of these consumer companies, how, you know, a lot of consumer companies, uh, can find an earlier core market, but a lot struggled transitioning from the early adopter market to the mass market products. How do you try and bridge that gap and view that tipping point?

A Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. And particularly when people are building in the bubble that we all know Um, exists here in, in Silicon Valley. I think one of the most common discussions at our Monday meetings is, is this something we love or is this something everyone loves? And I think, um, a lot of the best investors and the ones that I admire and learn from and emulate have an ability to get outside of their own market, whether that's, you know, socioeconomic or gender or geography, they're able to really understand people that are different than them and understand entrepreneurs who can connect with those kinds of markets. So I think the first thing we do is we look for brands that are mainstream, that aren't going to be niche and that aren't going to be segmented to only the kind of technology first crowd. And when we look at some of the great successes in our portfolio, whether that's Zulily or eBay, they went after a very mainstream crowd. I think Zulily, um, a daily deal site for moms and kids, you know, IPO for about six billion dollars. We were the first investors in it. It actually started inside of our office in Seattle. The biggest joke we always said about it is no one in the tech community even knew about it. Um, but you know who did? The moms who shopped on it in the middle of America every day. And, um, we love that kind of brand. So that's…

AI assessment note: “we look for brands that are mainstream, that aren't going to be niche”

Q And as an investor in, in purely the consumer space, how do you approach, you mentioned earlier, the importance of brand for startups, how do you approach that brand building aspect with such emphasis due, due to the importance of being consumer facing investors?

A Yeah, so we do only consumers. What we kind of think maniacally about is how do you take great product and great technology and great platforms and wrap it in the right experience and story and emotion to build a lasting consumer brand. Because when you think about the brands that have stood the test of time that really integrate into customers' hearts and minds and lives, they do that. Great product is fantastic and is the backbone, but it's not enough to last, and so largely what we think about there is a mindset of an entrepreneur. Do they prioritize that emotion, that storytelling, that customer experience, or are they building the best product and that's it? It's a, it's really a mindset that they go in with, and so a lot of our Kind of diligence process and getting to know a team is really understanding how they think about it.

AI assessment note: “a lot of our Kind of diligence process and getting to know a team”

Q on the show recently, and he said that we're in a consumer downturn, naturally very upsetting for me. Peter Venton then agreed, citing the lack of free and open distribution. It's not looking good now. Uh, so taking these in turn, how have you, kind of, mastered the world of consumer over the last few years, and how would you respond to the statement that we're in this consumer downturn?

A I think it's complicated. Look, I think Peter Fenton and Jeremy Levine are probably two of the best consumer investors of all time, and I, you know, I take everything they say, I read up on and take to heart, and I don't think they're wrong. I just think it's complicated. I think when you look at consumer, you break it into two buckets. The first really comes through platform shifts, and this is talked about a lot, and it's talked about a lot because it's where we've seen so far in venture the bulk of massive VC returns, and what platform shifts involved Is the combination of new technology, and then the right moment in mass consumer adoption, and so that's what got us Facebook, and that's what got us Google, and later on, that's what's got us Uber, and if you think about that, it's not only was mobile good enough, was the bandwidth good enough, but was smartphone penetration ubiquitous enough to hit a tipping point that creates opportunity, and that has created the biggest consumer outcomes we have, and what I think they're saying is that's really hard right now. There are new platforms if you think about something like voice or VR, but we're pretty far from those consumer adoption tipping points, or so it seems. And as a result, I think a lot of consumer investors feel like we're sitting a little bit in between, and we're waiting for these moments of adoption where there migh…

AI assessment note: “I don't think they're wrong. I just think it's complicated.”

Q on the show recently, and he said that we're in a consumer downturn, naturally very upsetting for me. Peter Venton then agreed, citing the lack of free and open distribution. It's not looking good now. Uh, so taking these in turn, how have you, kind of, mastered the world of consumer over the last few years, and how would you respond to the statement that we're in this consumer downturn?

A I think it's complicated. Look, I think Peter Fenton and Jeremy Levine are probably two of the best consumer investors of all time, and I, you know, I take everything they say, I read up on and take to heart, and I don't think they're wrong. I just think it's complicated. I think when you look at consumer, you break it into two buckets. The first really comes through platform shifts, and this is talked about a lot, and it's talked about a lot because it's where we've seen so far in venture the bulk of massive VC returns, and what platform shifts involved Is the combination of new technology, and then the right moment in mass consumer adoption, and so that's what got us Facebook, and that's what got us Google, and later on, that's what's got us Uber, and if you think about that, it's not only was mobile good enough, was the bandwidth good enough, but was smartphone penetration ubiquitous enough to hit a tipping point that creates opportunity, and that has created the biggest consumer outcomes we have, and what I think they're saying is that's really hard right now. There are new platforms if you think about something like voice or VR, but we're pretty far from those consumer adoption tipping points, or so it seems. And as a result, I think a lot of consumer investors feel like we're sitting a little bit in between, and we're waiting for these moments of adoption where there migh…

AI assessment note: “I don't think they're wrong. I just think it's complicated.”

Q Well, I'm thrilled to have you back, but I want to kick off today, and for those that maybe didn't hear our first episode, how did you make your entry into what is most definitely the wonderful world of venture?

A It is a wonderful, crazy world. So I was a journalist out of college, which was something I really loved and found incredibly interesting and thought it would be what I did, and I joined a startup publication out here in San Francisco called Narrative, and it became clear pretty quickly that where they really needed help was on the business side more than the editorial side, which had been kind of my background through school, and so got into that world of digital media and trying to figure out how to monetize content, which I found really fascinating, and eventually that led me to business school at Stanford. And I got to school and thought I would join a startup, or really probably a company like Google or Facebook, or something where I could really learn the ins and outs of being in tech, since I was so new to it, and really, really knew nothing. But I had a close mentor at school who was a guy named Bill Campbell, who passed away a couple years ago, but was a really phenomenal guy, and he was largely known for mentoring the big guys, you know, Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs and these kind of big legends, and on the side had this kind of side practice of mentoring people, Way, way, way on the other end of the spectrum, business school students like me at Stanford who were really trying to figure out what they wanted to do.

AI assessment note: “So I was a journalist out of college, which was something I really loved”

Q So I'd love to discuss some of those sectors that are in your portfolio now. So what are the likes of like August? Let's pick up on Maveron have shown their belief in the consumerization of IOT. Um, so what are your thoughts on the IOT space and how it's progressing and the potential barriers that are preventing mass adoption that may have been predicted two years ago or so?

A Yeah, absolutely. I think that the same expectations of convenience exist in the best consumer experiences, both in software and in hardware. And I think when you look at a lot of innovation, it's driven by convenience. How can we make things easier on the customer, on the consumer side, at least? And how do we make technology work for us to make our lives faster and smarter and better and more convenient? And in the online world, that's through software, right? But in the offline world, that has to be through a combination of hardware and software, because we still live in a physical world with physical things. And when I think of IoT, I really think about that. How do you make the offline world more convenient and better and faster and smarter, but use technology and software to do that and as the interface for customers? And that's hard, and it takes a long time, but we believe that some of the greatest opportunity lies where consumers can use technology, and particularly their mobile device, or maybe their voice, when you think about Echo, um, and maybe VR in the future, or AR, to make something happen in the physical world. So, I think to get back to your question, do we believe in the consumerization of IoT? Absolutely. Is it hard to build these kind of magical experiences? Yes. Is it expensive to build them? Yes. It definitely can be. All of the trends there are going in…

AI assessment note: “do we believe in the consumerization of IoT? Absolutely. Is it hard... Yes.”

Q So I'd love to discuss some of those sectors that are in your portfolio now. So what are the likes of like August? Let's pick up on Maveron have shown their belief in the consumerization of IOT. Um, so what are your thoughts on the IOT space and how it's progressing and the potential barriers that are preventing mass adoption that may have been predicted two years ago or so?

A Yeah, absolutely. I think that the same expectations of convenience exist in the best consumer experiences, both in software and in hardware. And I think when you look at a lot of innovation, it's driven by convenience. How can we make things easier on the customer, on the consumer side, at least? And how do we make technology work for us to make our lives faster and smarter and better and more convenient? And in the online world, that's through software, right? But in the offline world, that has to be through a combination of hardware and software, because we still live in a physical world with physical things. And when I think of IoT, I really think about that. How do you make the offline world more convenient and better and faster and smarter, but use technology and software to do that and as the interface for customers? And that's hard, and it takes a long time, but we believe that some of the greatest opportunity lies where consumers can use technology, and particularly their mobile device, or maybe their voice, when you think about Echo, um, and maybe VR in the future, or AR, to make something happen in the physical world. So, I think to get back to your question, do we believe in the consumerization of IoT? Absolutely. Is it hard to build these kind of magical experiences? Yes. Is it expensive to build them? Yes. It definitely can be. All of the trends there are going in…

AI assessment note: “Is it hard to build these kind of magical experiences? Yes. Is it expensive”