Tristan Walker
Founder, Heirloom Management Co.. On 3 shows, 6 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestoroperator@tristanwalker ↗Wikipedia ↗
Tristan Walker is the founder of Walker & Company Brands, which was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2018. He also co-founded the tech-diversity nonprofit CODE2040 and previously served as Director of Business Development at Foursquare.
3shows
6appearances
39statements
8resolved
2supported
1contradicted
25%fully supported
31said about them ↓ Everything Tristan Walker said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Walker: Personal care for people of color is not a niche market
“Like, I think folks talk about it as if it's a niche kind of thing, but people of color are the majority of the world. So if we're the Procter & Gamble for people of color, what the hell is Procter & Gamble?”
Walker: I wish I hadn't raised any of our $39M in VC
“Raised thirty nine million dollars, and the story goes, and I tell a lot of entrepreneurs this, I wish I didn't raise a cent of it.”
Walker: Multi-blade razors have less efficacy and single blades dominate internationally
“Fast forward 20 years later, they lose the patent, and many would argue, ah, that the only reason we have two, three, four, five, six blade razors today is purely due to patent protection, but it actually has less efficacy, and if you travel internationally, s…”
Walker: Black American and Sino-Asian cultures drive global consumer culture
“You know, I think all global culture is led by American culture, which is led by black culture in the U S and more recently in the Sino Asian culture.”
Walker: Entrepreneur-in-Residence roles force founders to think inauthentically
“Being an entrepreneur in residence, it's interesting, because I've never met one who's enjoyed it. That's myself included. But it's spending a lot of time to think about things in an inauthentic way.”
Walker: Ideas that look bad create value because good ideas face overcrowding
“Usually what looks like good ideas are bad ideas. And usually it looks like bad ideas are good ideas. The problem with good ideas is that everybody tries to do them. Right. And as a result of it, there's so many people working on the same things. There's no va…”
Walker: Atlanta is the most important city in the US right now
“Atlanta I think, is the most important city in the country right now.”
Walker: 80% of Black men deal with shaving irritation permanently
“All you had to do was get on the phone with 10 black men, and eight of them would have said this is a permanent thing I have to deal with. All you had to do was get on the phone with 10 white men, and four of them would have said the same thing. Could have don…”
Walker: Walker & Company ran on 3-to-6-month cycles versus 2-year industry norms
“I think that was the thing that was differentiated in a CPG industry that operates on two year cycles. We operated on three to six month cycles.”
Walker: Wall Street compensation locks workers in through escalating opportunity cost
“Is, you know, Wall Street had a good way of locking you in. They pay you more money, and they pay you more money, and they pay you more money, and at some point your opportunity cost gets so high.”
Walker: Major brands avoided single-blade razors because patent protection had expired
“So this solution has existed for the past hundred years. Right? Just no one had the incentive to sell it because there was no more patent protection on it.”
Walker: Consumers of color outspend all demographics in health and beauty
“Folks of color spend more money in every single health and beauty category than anyone else.”
Walker: Adopting a subscription model was strictly to secure venture funding
“Subscription in the beginning. Yeah, that was the thing that actually got me to get the funding that I needed, because a lot of these VCs were subscription, subscription, subscription.”
Walker: Mainstream magazines like GQ ignore Black men's skincare needs
“I still to this day do not know where to go, with the exception of Bevel Code, as a black man, to know what moisturizer to use for my face. GQ, Esquire, all that stuff. It does not exist.”
Walker is the first Black CEO in Procter & Gamble's 180-year history
“Procter & Gamble's been around for a 180 years, and I'm the first black CEO in the company's history.”
Walker: Black barbershops will never go away due to community importance
“At least in our community, the black barbershop will never go away.”
Walker: Foursquare grew from 0 to over 1M merchants during his tenure
“When I started at the company, we had zero merchants, zero brands, all that on the platform. By the time I ended up leaving Foursquare, even a couple years later, we had over a million merchants on the platform. By the time I left, we were a 150 people. I star…”
Tristan Walker: Walker & Company received 99% rejections from investors
“For us, it was like check, check, check, check, and we heard 99% no's.”
Tristan Walker: Walker & Company's daily online sales grew 3x to 4x
“In fact, we're probably three, four X our daily sales online up since the start of this, right?”
Tristan Walker: Innovation requires physical activity and disconnecting from digital devices
“Innovation doesn't really happen sitting in a kitchen and hoping for the best. The way I think about it requires some physical activity, right? I walk around kind of the block around my house multiple times without any phones, without any music, and things may…”
Tristan Walker: Top 1% leverage technology for productivity unlike the 99%
“Folks at the top are leveraging technology in ways to make them a hell of a lot more productive, right? While folks in the 99% are not.”
Walker: 80% of Black people suffer from shaving irritation and razor bumps
“I know that 80% of people who look like me, men or women, have this issue. I know 30% of people who don't look like me have this issue.”
Walker: Ben Horowitz initially pushed for a hair extensions startup
“Well, in fact Ben really wanted me to do the hair extensions idea.”
The other half of the tape: Tristan Walker's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 31 times in 19 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Guy Raz 18Jeff Jordan 10
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
How I Built This 21
the a16z Podcast 10
2024 3 mentions in 1 episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2020 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2019 17 mentions in 9 episodes 2 per episode
- a16z Podcast | Andre Iguodala Knows Tech -- And Why the Warriors Won't Be Stopped
- a16z Podcast | Hall of Fame Football Meets Venture Capital
- Aden + Anais: Raegan Moya-Jones (2019)
- Stonyfield Yogurt: Gary Hirshberg (2017)
- Serial Entrepreneur: Marcia Kilgore (2018)
- Shopify: Tobias Lütke
- Live Episode! Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP: Angie & Dan Bastian
- Dyson: James Dyson (2018)
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2019 →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Tristan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder, Heirloom Management Co. | 3 | 31 | 40% 2/5 | full record on How I Built This → |
 MASTERS OF SCALELEDGER | Founder, Heirloom Management Co. | 2 | 6 | 0% 0/3 | full record on Masters of Scale → |
| a16zLEDGER | Founder, Heirloom Management Co. | 1 | 2 | — | full record on the a16z Podcast → |