20VC: What Is Wrong With The VC Industry, Why VC Is A Customer Service Game and Why Car Ownership Will Be A Thing Of The Past with Brett DeMarrais, Partner @ Ludlow Ventures

Brett DeMarrais is a Partner @ Ludlow Ventures, who have investments in the likes of ProductHunt, Sprig, AngelList and uBeam. Prior to joining Ludlow, Brett founded Wedit, a crowd sourced wedding video platform that reduced the cost of wedding videos and made them social. Within the first year of launching the company Wedit had won the top industry awards for customer satisfaction (Brides Choice 2012 and Best of The Knot 2012). Previously, Brett worked at Out of the Blue Entertainment. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Brett made his move into VC and came to be a partner @ Ludlow? 2.) What do most VCs mean they say 'founder friendly'? How does Brett and Ludlow approach the popularised saying? 3.) How does Brett balance between being an investor and advisor to a founder and then being their friend and confidante? 4.) How does Brett look to balance the fiduciary responsibilities to his LPs when appreciating that the needs of the founder come before the needs of the company? 5.) Brett has previously said, 'car ownership will be a thing of the past'. Why does Brett think this and what does this mean for the car industry as a whole? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Brett’s Fave Blog and Newsletter: Both Sides Of The Table, Dan Primack: Term Sheet Brett’s Fave Book: Ready Player One Brett’s Most Recent Investment: Gather As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brett on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eve make 1 perfect mattress – made with 3 layer technology and next generation memory foam. It comes packaged in a beautiful box and arrives the day after you order. You get 100 nights to try it with free return pick-up – it really is the perfect mattress for everyone. Just go online to evemattress.co.ukand enter the code 20VC for £50 off. Everybody deserves the perfect start with Eve.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  You are listening to the 20 Minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings at H Stebbings on Snapchat. Now, you might remember a long time ago, we had Jonathan Triest at Ludlow Ventures on the show. And joining me today, I'm thrilled to welcome Jonathan's partner at Ludlow, Brett DeMarrais. Now Ludlow themselves have investments in the likes of Product Hunt, Sprig, Angel List and Ubeam, just to name a few of their fantastic portfolio. And prior to joining Ludlow, Brett founded Wedit, a crowdsourced wedding video platform that reduced the cost of wedding videos and made them social. Within the first year of launching, the company had won the top industry awards for customer satisfaction by Bride's Choice and Best of the Not. However, before we meet the man himself, we always talk about VCs, about what they

• 0:43Harry Stebbings?

  do and how they operate, but what about the people behind them? What about how they actually run the operational side? Well, that's where Cooley come in. Cooley are the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley's formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world. With more than 50 years working with VCs, they help VCs form and manage funds, make investments and handle the myriad of issues that arise through a fund's lifetime. So to learn more about the number one most active law firm representing VC patent companies going public, head over to Cooley.com and also check them out on Cooleygo.com. Also, I have to say, the life of a podcaster can be a tiring one, but with an Eve mattress, I'm always fresh.

• 1:27Harry Stebbings?

  Eve is the UK's number one direct-to-consumer mattress company because they don't sell through high street stores. Eve cuts out 70% of traditional costs and pass those on to you, the consumer. Developed over four years with thousands of prototypes, Eve is so confident of their product, they give customers 100 nights to try it at home before committing. For those of you who don't love it, they even offer a free return pickup with a full refund. So go to evemattress.co.uk, enter 20VC for £50 off and it'll be with you the next day. However, it's now time for me to hand over to Brett DeMarrais, partner at Ludlow Ventures.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 2:11Harry Stebbings?

  Brett, fantastic to have you on the show. Huge thanks to Jonathan, your partner, for making the intro. But thank you so much for joining me today, Brett.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. It's a, it's a real pleasure to be on.

• 2:20Harry Stebbings?

  Now, I'd love to start, say, by hearing how you came to be a VC and a partner at Ludlow. So what was your route into venture?

• 2:27Speaker 02

  The one word that would summarize it is luck. I graduated college in 2009 from the University of Michigan and I started, well, it was like the worst job market ever to graduate into and my degree was probably the most worthless degree ever. It's called a Bachelor of General Studies, which means I was kind of a generalist in school. And so no one wanted to hire me with that. So I decided to start my own company, which was called Wedit, which is kind of the first crowdsourced wedding videography company. So back in the day when flip cameras were popular, we'd send them to couples who were getting married. They used those cameras to crowdsource the video, send it back to us in a prepaid box. We'd host all that stuff, make it easy to share to social networks. And then we hired a network of remote editors who were professionals by day who would edit their wedding videos,

• 3:08Speaker 02

  you know, nights and weekends. I did that for three years or so and, and it was an interesting experience. I didn't raise a lot of venture. It was based in Detroit. And what happened was I basically got burnt out. I had never been to a wedding before. I had no interest in the wedding industry. I saw a problem when I started a company and after three years of every Sunday going to a wedding show, when my friends were sitting down to drink beer and eat chicken wings and watch football, I said enough. And I was going to move to San Francisco and that's when my friend Jonathan Trias, who I got to know working alongside of him, our, our desks were pretty much next to each other in a co-working space in downtown. And so for three years, we got to know each other as I was starting my company, he was starting Ludlow. He, he asked if I wanted to join Ludlow. I, I would like to think, cause he saw a spark of something in me that was,

• 3:52Speaker 02

  you know, potentially good at investing, but I think more so he just didn't want to lose basically his only friend in, in Michigan.

• 3:59Harry Stebbings?

  I'm sure, I'm sure it was a spark, Brett. Don't underplay it.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  No, no, I think if you, I think if you ask him, he'll for sure say, no, I just didn't want to lose a friend. And I think he'll now say that he got lucky that I was actually somewhat competent. So the, that's how I ended up in venture. We were literally sitting in his house one night. He's like, let's, I'm about to raise a new fund. Let's go kind of do it and, and see how it goes. And I said, okay.

• 4:19Harry Stebbings?

  I'm really intrigued then, when Jonathan said that to you at the kitchen table, were you apprehensive about it? What were your expectations of venture going into venture? And has it lived up to what you thought it would be?

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good question. I wasn't apprehensive at all. I said yes. I think he was shocked at how quickly I said yes, because there was no fund for me to really go work at, at the time. There was no vehicle to invest out of. And so I said yes on the spot. And then it was, you know, six to nine months of toning away raising money before we actually took paychecks. And so I didn't have an expectation. I saw how Jonathan operated every day and the mentality at Ludlow and what he really started from the beginning was, we're going to be really, really founder friendly, really great guys to work with. We're always going to have the founder's best interests at heart. And as an entrepreneur who was really struggling at his own startup at the time, I really was drawn to it. And I said, if I can go do what he's doing with other entrepreneurs, I'll figure the rest out. But that looks

• 5:14Speaker 02

  like something that would be, you know, really fulfilling and something I'd want to try.

• 5:18Harry Stebbings?

  Now, this sounds very morbid of me. I'm really intrigued by struggles at the moment. And not just struggles, but how people deal with those struggles. I had my first with my business recently, and I think I dealt with it utterly appallingly. And so I'm looking to learn from experienced founders and operations, people like you. What were your struggles with the startup? And how did you deal with them as a founder and as the man who had the responsibility on his shoulders?

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Uh, I cried a lot in secret.

• 5:44Harry Stebbings?

  So did I.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Yes. So, you know, I think, you know, one of the big struggles was, I think I was, I was really kind of underfunded for what I wanted to do. And I didn't really have a good understanding of how to run a business. I was right out of college. I didn't even have a bachelor of, you know, whatever it is, a business degree. And so I really had a very fundamental, is putting it nicely, understanding of profit and margin and, you know, how businesses work. And so I made a lot of mistakes. For example, one of my first mistakes was, and this is a hard lesson learned, is I took $30,000 of about the $75,000 I raised, and I hired someone to design a website for my company. And between me and him, we decided what our target

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Audience, women getting married would want and we designed probably the most hideous website ever and it was not functional and every woman who looked at it after I had already paid for it and launched it said this is hideous and so I had to go back. I had to go back to the drawing board because it literally would not convert one single thing. So, you know, that was one of those where I just like looked myself in the mirror, kind of sighed and said like, all right, lesson learned, you dummy. It's like, why don't you talk to the people who are actually going to be buying from you and figure out what they want to see and how they want it to look and feel and, you know, what, what is important to them. And so, you know, you take, you take the good with the bad. Sometimes I got lucky and I made a good decision. Sometimes I completely screwed up and really hobbled myself. But that's kind of, that's part of the journey. There's, you're never going to handle everything, right? Even if you're an experienced entrepreneur, there's always something new that comes up that you're going to botch.

• 7:13Harry Stebbings?

  And you said about being founder friendly and the really nice guys to work with when the times that shit come. So, so what do you think most VCs interpret when they say founder first? And then I'd love to hear how you interpret it at Ludlow.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think, you know, I think founder first is, becomes synonymous with nice and friendly. And I think it should run deeper than that. So there's a, a common emotional experience that I think, you know, most entrepreneurs go through, whether you're, you know, Travis at Uber or you're Joe in Iowa, you know, running a plumbing company, whatever. There are certain things and, and self doubt and mistakes and all these things that you go through that I think a lot of VCs can lose touch with and, and take out the emotional part. And so when we say founder first, we really try to make it about an investment in people. And so caring beyond just like, you know, how well you did this quarter, if you hit your numbers, this and that, and then being friendly about it.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  It's, it's a whole ball of, you know, being honest at all times, having their best interests at heart, when sometimes it's maybe not aligned for the company. You can tell when entrepreneurs are getting burnt out or they're struggling. And sometimes, you know, I don't have a problem saying like, hey, I don't think this is, this is, you know, right for you. I don't know if this is going anywhere. Let's have a conversation about it. Let's talk about, you know, your struggles, if we can improve them, how you're feeling about the whole thing. Cause I know when I was doing my company, I was burnt out, probably a year and a half in. And I still banged my head against the wall for another year and a half for basically the same outcome, which, you know, I wish somebody would have sat me down and told me to save a year and a half of my life and, and really kind of center myself and think about what I want out of life. And so I think it's really focusing on, on the people much more than the business. And as a benefit, I think that always helps the business.

• 8:51Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, with such founder alignment and such kind of integration into their lives and their struggles, how do you balance between being their investor and advisor and being their friend who they invite along to the ballgame? And is that a problem having that?

• 9:05Speaker 02

  I don't think that's a problem at all, because I think the closer you can come to developing an actual friendship, the better the business relationship will be. And so I think if you're the person who they want to go to the ballgame with, or have a beer with, or watch football with, or talk about their failing marriage or whatever with, then they'll feel comfortable coming to you and saying, hey, listen, we have, you know, two months of cash in the bank. I don't think we're going to be able to raise another round. What are we to do? Because they're going to go to somebody about that anyway, and most likely it's going to be their closest friends and family and their confidants. And so if you can become one of those inner circle of people, you'll hear about it before anybody else, and you'll be the person they're coming to telling you about their problems. And then it also makes it a lot more fun to fucking celebrate when things are good, because then you're with people you like, and it's a real, you know, honest to goodness celebration.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Not because you both just made a little bit of money, it's because you went through this journey together and you're triumphant, and that's like the better, better feeling than anything.

• 9:54Harry Stebbings?

  So what would you like to see then change in the VC ecosystem with regards to the treatment of founders?

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think, you know, like I said, I think a lot of the founder-friendly stuff is very surface level. It's like, we're nice, we're friendly, you know, we'll be pleasant to talk to. I think there could be a bigger emphasis on like diving deeper with people, developing real relationships. I think in general, you know, every once in a while I see a Twitter thread, you know, pop up of, of, you know, VCs mocking people who are, you know, trying to get in front of them and tell them about their idea. And that just makes me cringe. Um, one, I think it's short-sighted on the VCs part, because, you know, if a kid from Missouri who has a business idea and has not been exposed, working at Google or Facebook or the tech community at large sends you an email asking for advice, or 30 minutes of your time for coffee, even if you respond politely, but then he sees on Twitter that, you know, you started something like, ha ha, dear sir and madam, another one of these.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  When that person finally figures it out and reads a couple of blog posts about how to, you know, get entered to a VC, they're not going to come to you anymore. And so I think it's just a general sense of that people starting businesses are, are people, and they're not an asset class to be invested in. And so I think when more and more VCs understand that and treat venture capital as a customer service business, as a human relationship business, then we'll all be better off.

• 11:07Harry Stebbings?

  You you mentioned there with regards to kind of putting the founders first, even if it doesn't come in the best interest of the company. I'm really intrigued as to how you balance that slight element of contention of the kind of fiduciary responsibility to your LPs of a good return. And also the best for the the company itself with regards to the founder, whether they should or shouldn't be there. So how do you balance that?

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a it's an interesting question and something I think I I struggle with from time to time. But whenever I get to that place, I really try to think long term. And so if we're talking about what's in the best interest of our LPs and our fiduciary responsibility. I would argue that making sure that the caveat included saying like if the founder is, you know, doing anything malicious and, you know, stealing money from the company, embezzling, whatever. Then it becomes a whole different story. But assuming the founder is acting with good intentions, doing the best of their ability, they're getting burnt out, whatever. I would argue that handling that person and putting their needs above the the company, because in most of my most of my experience, the founders that are struggling the hardest are oftentimes at the early stages or things aren't going right and there's not a lot to grasp on to.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Is that saying, you know, a company that is probably not going to have a good outcome anyway, but is driving this founder insane, they're a good person, they're going to have more companies than them. Treating that person well, handling it with respect, making sure that they're comfortable is long term a better outcome for both our LPs. Us and the founder than trying to sell the company and and claw back our money. Because at the end of the day, when you make an investment, the worst thing that happens is you lose your investment. Which is a set cap number, that's it. And the founder can always come back and if you make their experience good and you treat them with respect and dignity and all these like kind of things that I think are are go towards founder first, they'll come back to you and it'll pay off tenfold, you know, a year from now they'll start another company or their friend will start a company.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Or they'll tell another person that they know who's starting a company that these guys did everything right by me. And every single company for the rest of my life I run into, I'm going to send to them. And one of those companies will be the ones that pay off. So I would trade I would trade kind of the short term effects selling a company for ten, fifteen million and maybe getting one X, two X, three X, you know, my three hundred thousand dollar seed investment. For somebody sending me amazing deal flow, speaking good about me and the community and really kind of increasing my brand so that everybody wants to work with us. Because we're known as the people who do things right and treat you right and have your best interests at heart and are not just worried about turning a profit. So I think in long term, that aligns more with our fiduciary responsibility than kind of short term territory gains.

• 13:33Harry Stebbings?

  And in terms of when it's not going to plan and things, you know, they're raising multiple bridge rounds and it it's obvious that it's not working. How do you have that honest feedback and honest conversation with the founder to let them know that it's not working and there won't be any more follow on funding? What does that look like for you and how do you relay it in the most kind of helpful and productive manner?

• 13:53Speaker 02

  I mean, it's painful. It's not a fun conversation to have. And and so hopefully, you know, what I spoke about is like building that friendship is that is that? What makes it a little bit easier because the founder knows you're coming from a place of their best interest, the company's best interest. It doesn't seem like you're trying to like back channel them and get them out and hey, we need to replace you because this isn't working. And so honesty is something that we always try to do. And so whether it's, you know, passing on a company and and giving, you know, a couple of reasons why we're passing. I think everyone at Lego tries to do their best to be honest with that assessment. And sometimes, you know, we'll just straight up say like, we don't believe in this, like, we don't think this is a good idea and I don't think this is going to work. And as respectful a manner as possible, those conversations are painful.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  And so building that kind of basis of friendship and trust and transparency is what allows you to have those conversations without. The other person on the other side of the table thinking there's some malicious intent behind it.

• 14:43Harry Stebbings?

  And talking of the founders there and then the companies that they start, one area that you're particularly interested in is autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars. And and you've said before that car ownership is a thing of the past. So I'd love to hear why you think this and what this means for the car industry then as a whole.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is like the kind of the inner kid, future of sci-fi novel loving kid.

• 15:06Harry Stebbings?

  The inner brat coming out.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is like the inner brat. And so I get I get really giddy. So I think car ownership is is is going to be a thing of the past because. When autonomous vehicles come around, you know, there'll be these fleets of vehicles you can just call in one button. I think it'll be cheaper, it'll be more convenient. You can take your garage now and turn it into a cool man cave, whatever you want to do with it. That's all going to be wasted space. I get really kind of interested in what this means for car manufacturers and kind of the design of cars itself. I think cars are are largely bought and purchased as status symbols to one extent or another. And so as far as the function is concerned, a Bentley or a Ferrari will get you from A to B just as well as a Ford Focus or. You know, Chevy Cruze or whatever it is. And so the reason you're buying it is because you get seen rolling up in it and at a party or your friends are oohing and aahing over it.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  And so when you don't own the asset that is giving you that status anymore, then I think it really frees up a lot of interesting design things. And so like in the future, I wouldn't be surprised if when you call an Uber instead of, you know, Uber XL or Uber Black or Uber Pool or whatever, it's Uber Sleep. If I am, you know, I'm going on a four hour road trip and that car shows up and it's basically just a giant bed on wheels or going on a road trip with my family and it's Uber fun. And it's got video game consoles in it, or maybe the windows are giant, you know, screens that are all touch, or maybe it's VR headsets. I don't know. So to that extent, I'd be a little, I think companies like Ford and, you know, Chevy and all these large auto manufacturers are going to have to take a look in the mirror and decide where they fit into this space because I think our main point of interaction moving forward is going to be companies that provide

• 16:37Speaker 02

  as a service, transportation and not purchasing cars. So I don't think consumers purchase cars. I think, you know, companies like Uber, Lyft, whoever else emerges will be purchasing cars.

• 16:46Harry Stebbings?

  So do you think this is an M and A then in terms of the traditional large manufacturers like your GM purchasing elements of Lyft? Like, what's their names? Who bought Cruise?

• 16:57Speaker 02

  It was also GM.

• 16:58Harry Stebbings?

  It was GM who bought Cruise.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  GM.

• 17:01Harry Stebbings?

  GM, GM, everybody.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Everything.

• 17:03Harry Stebbings?

  Um, but so do you think it's an M and A environment like that? Or do you think it's an internal environment? Like I know Toyota have got a self-driving internal division. So will it be an internal or do you think it will be an M and A acquisition environment?

• 17:16Speaker 02

  I think it's, I think it's going to be like everything, a little bit of both. I think GM has really shown with some of their acquisitions and investments that they're really thinking about this in the future. Ford, I think, I don't know what they're doing internally. They came out recently and said they're going to have, you know, a completely self-driving car with no steering wheel, no pedals, no anything. By like 2021, which is six years out, five years out, whatever it is, which is shockingly fast. I did not think that was going to be happening so soon. I'm also curious to see how consumers react because there's an element of loss of control. You know, if I get in a car and it's portaling me around at 80 miles an hour and there's no steering wheel or pedal, that could be, might be a bit of a freaky experience, especially with other drivers on the road who aren't in self-driving cars.

• 17:56Harry Stebbings?

  So what do you think, you mentioned that kind of consumer trust. Do you think that's the biggest challenge then to the rise of self-driving cars? Or are there others potentially more challenging to kind of mass market proliferation?

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think trust is going to be a huge thing, especially in this transitional period where some people are in self-driving cars and some people are driving their own cars. I think it gets easier and easier to trust a system where every car is autonomous and its computer is making decisions because it's much more predictable than human responses. I also think liability is a huge issue and it's something I think about a lot. And there's probably way smarter people than myself who are both philosophers and working on artificial intelligence is, you know, if I'm in a self-driving car and there's an accident about to happen and there's a family of three next to me driving down the road, is the computer going to decide to swerve out of the way to protect my life and then endanger the family of three?

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Or is there a greater good type philosophy programmed into it that says, all right, well, the family of three, the car next to me, I shouldn't put them in danger, so my driver is going to be at risk? And if that happens, you know, who has the liability? It's not the driver because they weren't driving, is it the auto manufacturer who kind of programmed the computer to make that decision? And so all these kind of like weird liability things and these hypothetical situations where a computer is making life or death decisions on behalf of a passenger really kind of fascinate me.

• 19:16Harry Stebbings?

  If we get on to the technical levels of that, though, would that moral consciousness of whether to kill one or another not be considered artificial superintelligence? Which I think we'd both say is maybe even out of my lifetime, which is rather depressing for me, but would that not constitute ASI, having that moral consciousness?

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I don't know, it might. And so I don't know if that's out of our lifetime, but I think that's a question that's going to need to be answered. And I'm not sure that the computer will necessarily, at least in the first version, be judging and weighing whose life is worth more. But I think it could get to that point where I don't want to see kind of a dystopian future where if I have a bigger bank account, the computer knows that. And if there's a person driving in a car next to me who's got some kind of ID on them or something and has a lower bank account that, you know, the computers collectively go to save my life more because I can pay more to have collision protection from my artificial intelligence overlord or whatever it is.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  So, you know, I don't want to get there and I think there's a lot of interesting questions around AI about, I think it could go either extremely well or or be terrible and we could be, you know, in a Terminator Matrix type situation. And so I'm glad there's smarter people than me working on hopefully preventing that.

• 20:30Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely. And I'd love to dive into a quick fire round with you now.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:34Harry Stebbings?

  I say a short statement and then you give me your thoughts. Sixty seconds per answer. What do you think?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Uh, I think that sounds great.

• 20:40Harry Stebbings?

  So your favorite book and why? What should we be reading?

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Well, Ready Player One is my favorite book I've read in recent memory, just because it kind of delves into what the future is going to be like and it really delves into virtual reality in particular. And it also calls back to a lot of eighties stuff that makes me all tingly and and excited. But if you haven't read the original, you know, Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, that was like the first book I ever read that really got hooked into. And so if you're a fantasy fan and you haven't read that, I don't know how that's possible, but you should go read that.

• 21:08Harry Stebbings?

  Got a spoiler alert here. I've never watched or read any Lord of the Rings. That's probably a shocker to admit.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  You're dead to me.

• 21:16Harry Stebbings?

  And the interview ends there.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, you should go read it. It's amazing.

• 21:20Harry Stebbings?

  Fantastic. Okay, buying it now. And then next question. So in terms of you, like me, loved CrossFit, you got diagnosed with Crohn's disease, terribly sorry to say. And then in terms of lessons learnt, now you're back doing CrossFit. What were the three lessons that you learnt from that tumultuous journey of CrossFit to Crohn's to CrossFit?

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the first thing I ever learned at CrossFit was, uh, you can lift more than you think. And so I'm a I'm a fairly, I'm a decently sized human being. I'm like six foot two oh five. And the first day I went in there, I couldn't like, I squatted like ninety five pounds, something really like puny. And that was because like I'd never squatted before and I didn't think I could. And literally the next day I probably squatted forty more pounds. And so you can always lift more than you think you could. That's applicable in anything. Don't set kind of upper bounds for for your own life. The easiest gains are always at the beginning. So beginning in my CrossFit career and even coming back to it after being diagnosed with Crohn's. The amount I could lift would increase rapidly up until a certain point and then it was exponential effort to get, you know, a miniscule gain.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  And I think that's a lot like working at a startup. So, you know, you're obviously going to have a five hundred percent growth. Going from, you know, one to five, that will continue to a certain point and you're gonna hit a wall, I think eventually and and having the mental fortitude to push through that. And then the other thing, especially coming back from Crohn's, I was really weak. And I kinda did these false starts a lot where I'd tell myself I was gonna go to CrossFit, I'd go to one class. I'd be like, man, this is way harder than I remember and I would like quit and then a month later I'd go back. And so I always looked at those as kind of like little failures. And I would say like false starts are not failures. They they're just kind of opportunities for you to try again, try again. And if you keep trying again, keep trying again, eventually you'll you'll kind of start up again and and it won't be seen as a failure.

• 23:00Harry Stebbings?

  Love those lessons. And then VR, game changer or extension of entertainment? What do you think?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  I think it's a game changer for collaboration and workforces. I think it's an extension of entertainment for people. I don't I don't buy in that, you know, VR is gonna be a replacement for movies or television or books. It's it's way too much of an active experience. And I think storytellers like to control the narrative experience and and kind of walk users down the path that they want them to go down. And use that as a tool. And I think putting somebody in an environment and letting them look around, they can oftentimes miss the most important part of the plot.

• 23:33Harry Stebbings?

  Your favorite blog or newsletter? What are your must reads?

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Mark Suster's Both Sides of the Tables, my favorite blog, and then newsletters, Dana Primex Term Sheet, those are no brainers.

• 23:42Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, relatively similar for me, actually. And then biggest challenge and then learning for you in establishing Love Low as a venture fund?

• 23:49Speaker 02

  So I I take zero credit in establishing Love Low. It was all Jonathan. He was doing it years and years before me. Without him, I would not have a job, I would not have a career in venture. And so he did all the establishing, I'm not even gonna go down that path. I think the biggest challenge, I think the biggest challenge for me in venture is I am naturally an introvert. And so I think that I'm not a very good natural networker. And so it takes me a very long time to establish a relationship with somebody. But when I do, it's very deep and very meaningful. And so overcoming that and trying to balance that with just getting myself out there and making initial touch points and then figuring out how to get deep with somebody, especially based in Detroit, has been a really big challenge. But the good thing about the entrepreneurial.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Technology ecosystem is like everybody is so open. I've almost had no bad experiences where I reached out to somebody and put myself out there and they weren't willing to kind of help or at least get on the phone and say hello and introduce themselves. And then it becomes on me to kind of foster that relationship and figure out how to bring it into my comfort zone, which is like these deeper, more meaningful connections that last, you know, decades. I've had the same five best friends since I was like three years old, so.

• 25:00Harry Stebbings?

  And then finally, let's finish with your most recent investment, public investment that is, and why you said yes.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  The company is called Gather. The website is gatherhere.com. They're based in Atlanta, which is one of these things I love because I'm fond of companies that aren't necessarily in San Francisco or New York and kind of these tertiary markets. They're working in what I would call like a hidden market where you would never know it's a thing unless you like worked in the industry. And so they help restaurants and event spaces manage their events better. And so like if you want to throw a fortieth birthday party for your dad and you want to have it at like a restaurant that's got a private room, that process is really arduous on the end of the restaurant and they usually have a person managing those events and they have to communicate with the chef and get special menus and take deposits and do all this stuff. And so Gather is helping automate that and they're doing just phenomenally well. I invested, the founders are incredible.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  They got really, really far with, you know, almost no money. And then when they went to go raise a round, they raised a really healthy seed round and they've just been like stepping on the throats of everybody who comes in their path since then. And so, you know, it's one of those deals nobody probably knows about outside of the investors. I'm in love with the team. The market is like wide open. There's not a lot of competition and if it is, it's archaic. And their customers, I talked to people that were using the software and they couldn't stop raving about it. And what's nice is that the customers were so happy with it that it was like becoming a collaborative thing. They were like part of the team and they were helping improve the product and give feedback and I think that's always a phenomenal side.

• 26:28Harry Stebbings?

  Well, Brett, it's been such a pleasure having you on the show today. Thank you so much for giving up your time and joining.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Thank you. This was a lot of fun. Hopefully we can, you know, have one of these wonderful conversations in person one day.

• 26:41Harry Stebbings?

  Such a fantastic episode with Brett today and so grateful to him for giving up his time to be on the show and a big thanks to Jonathan for making the introduction. But if you want to stay in touch with us and see behind the scenes of the 20 Minute VC, then all you need to do is add me on Snapchat @HStubbings or you can follow me on Twitter @HarryStubbings. Hey, you can even sign up for the newsletter on the20minutesc com so you never have to miss an episode or an update from us. And do not forget what we said earlier, funds would be nothing without the operational support behind them. And in this case, there's no one better than Cooley, the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley's formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world. With

• 27:23Harry Stebbings?

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• 28:06Harry Stebbings?

  100 nights to try it at home before committing. So for those of you who don't love it, you get a free return pick-up with full refund. So go to evemattress.co.uk and to 20VC for £50 off and it'll be with you the next day. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I always love to hear your feedback. You can always email me, [email protected]. I really do so appreciate the support and cannot wait to bring you Friday's episode with Adam Leibson, founder and COO at Giffy.