Everything Joel Flory said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Joel Flory: Raising capital and getting press can be a burden
“Just the press around we raised or having that capital can actually be more of a burden than it is a help.”
Joel Flory: Subscription models represent the future for almost every business
“What I do love about ultimately subscription model and really believe Is the future for most every business is because it's not only building something of value, but it's continuing to deliver value and a service that people are willing to not just pay for, bu…”
Joel Flory: Ad-supported tech companies optimize for advertisers, not end users
“You see this a lot in kind of an ad-based model where there's the consumer product, but the majority of innovation and company and funding really is going towards building the best ad product. The real consumer are the advertisers.”
Joel Flory: VSCO is cash flow positive and doesn't need venture capital
“You know, at Fisco, we're cashflow positive. We don't need to raise”
Joel Flory: Capital is no longer a differentiator for venture investors
“Someone that has value to add beyond their capital, because quite honestly, everyone has capital. It's, it really is not a differentiator anymore at all.”
Joel Flory made prospective VCs travel to an Emeryville dive bar
“When we were first raising, our office was in Edmarieville, so East Bay, a little out of the way, especially for anyone on Sand Hill Road, and I would not go anywhere for a meeting. There was a bar around the corner called Prizefighter, and every VC that reach…”
Joel Flory: Raise based on deployment capacity, not large headline figures
“Knowing how much you can meaningfully deploy to build value in your business and not just raising something that sounds like a great big number is probably an area where we learn the hard way.”
VSCO charged for products from day one and rejected advertising models
“So VSCO, from day one, we've sold the product, and so I think this is one unique characteristic is that We were never just this free grow as big as possible with everyone saying, yeah, but you know, one day you're just going to put ads on there. We really have…”
Joel Flory: An executive's primary team is the leadership team
“Our team is not, I'm the head of engineering, my team's not all of engineering, my team is the leadership team.”
VSCO reached over two million paid members by February 2019
“Today, with a little over two million paid members, it's really moving from millions to tens of millions to hundreds of millions”
VSCO bootstrapped profitably to 43 employees before raising outside capital
“Two non-technical co-founders, first-time founders, and so we launched a workshop that people paid for, and then we built a desktop product that sold for a 119 dollars, and, you know, we were profitable out of the gate. And so we grew this business for two and…”
VSCO hired its Nike CMO through unstructured serendipitous networking meetings
“Where our new CMO from Nike comes from is through taking those meetings you probably shouldn't take that introduces you to someone who introduces you to someone. And the next thing you know, it's one of the key pieces of your business.”
20VC 1