Found: Empathy-driven investing with Erin and Sara Foster

Today, we’re bringing you a conversation TechCrunch senior reporter Dominic Madori-Davis had with Sara and Erin Foster along with their advisor at Oversubscribed Ventures, Phil Schwarz. Across their careers, the Foster sisters have co-founded the clothing line Favorite Daughter, co-led creative for Bumble Bizz and Bumble BFF, and currently co-host their own podcast Listen to the full episode to hear: How the Foster sisters made their pivot to VC. Which investments excites Oversubscribed Ventures the most. How they balance all of the different facets of their careers. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Anthony Ha?

  This episode of Equity is brought to you by Schneider Electric. Schneider Electric, advancing energy tech.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome to another episode of Found, the podcast where we bring you the stories behind the startups. This week, we're changing it up and bringing you along with us to Tech Crunch Disrupt. I'm Dominic Adory Davis and you're about to hear a conversation I had with Erin and Sarah Foster, along with their business partner, Bill Schwartz, an advisor at Oversubscribed Ventures.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Across their careers, the Foster sisters have co-founded the clothing line Favorite Daughter, co-led creative for Bumble and Bumble BFF, and currently co-host a podcast together. Erin Foster even created the top Netflix show Nobody Wants to Star in Kirsten Bell. But in this conversation, we get into how they made their pivot into VC, the type of investments that excite them the most, and how they balance all the different facets of their careers. Let's dive in.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Welcome to the official Tech Crunch Disrupt After Pod. I am here with Erin, Sarah, and Phil. We just got offstage with our panel about consumer culture, and then I think I threw another C-word in there. Thank you for joining us.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Thanks for having us again.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  I just realized that onstage, Phil, you did not give us a story about a mishap in your career.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, give it to us.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  What I would say is that at Tinder, as much of a success story as Tinder is, we did so many things wrong. It's funny, one of those things literally happened in the middle of us working together. We were filming a bunch of content. We wanted to make Tinder more female-friendly. And literally in the middle of us creating the content, the day that we showed up to film the content, there was this very negative article about Tinder. And just because somebody-

• 1:45Speaker 02

  And specifically about women.

• 1:46Speaker 03

  Specifically about women.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  What was it?

• 1:48Speaker 03

  I don't remember the specifics.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  It was like some things that Sean Rad had said. Oh, in an interview.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  But it did not play well.

• 1:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  It was counter to what we were trying to accomplish at the company and with our content that we were creating. And so we had to figure out a different path. And eventually, the content that we shot, we never released because we couldn't find the right path to do it after that article came out. So, boy, it teaches you a lot about being humble and, and just being more intentional and thoughtful about the messaging you put out there.

• 2:14Speaker 04

  You went from being an operator to a venture investor.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  Also true. That's true. And it, I think, for better or worse, when you go through this stuff, you build empathy for founders that are going through these things on a daily basis. These things happen constantly to founders.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, you never know what's gonna like sneak up and be the wrong thing to say, or it's gonna come out the wrong way, or, you know, clickbait.

• 2:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know. Empathy is a really, really big thing that a lot of founders, a lot of investors, I don't know, do you feel like working in investment as long as you feel like a lot of investors understand or have a lot of empathy for founders? Sometimes I talk to founders and they talk about how different investors are who have never been founders. It's like they don't really understand the journey that they go through.

• 2:53Speaker 04

  I would say, Phil, that you are. I mean, I think that like, a lot of investors are kind of catastrophous, right? Like, when things are going bad, you're just like, okay, well, like, well, let's already just write this one off. And you really hunker down and get so in the weeds on so many levels with these founders that...

• 3:10Speaker 03

  Well, that's nice of you to say. No, look, there's no wrong way to sort of get into venture. The only way I know how to have gotten into it is through the path that I took, which is to come from the operating side and into the venture side. And I think because of that, I just naturally have this empathy for founders. But a lot of investors never experienced the operating side. And as a result, all they want to do is get updates every quarter on when things are up and to the right. And that is not helpful for founders, ultimately.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  But Phil's very good at like talent management, you know, he's very good at working with founders and helping them feel seen and heard and saying things with the right tone, you know, sometimes, Sarah, I don't have the right tone, and Phil really does.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  It's nice of you to say. And I would, listen, I would say I learned that not just from going through sort of experiences on the operating side myself, but my partner, Sam Jagan, at Core Zone, has been a founder, has been in the trenches. And I've seen the way that he interacts with founders. And it comes from a very empathetic place because he just wants them all to win. And he has, you know, a specific approach to helping guide them through that. And that, I think, could only happen when you've been on the other side. But yeah, I've, I've seen a lot of investors not provide that empathy, and it's painful for founders to deal with it.

• 4:14Speaker 04

  We learned this when we were five years old. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. There's a way to deliver. Things aren't going so well. Like, you need to shake it up. You need to pivot. You need to retreat. You need to... We know this, right? But it's easier said than done. And I think it's something that you do very well, which is why founders love working with you. They feel a little too comfortable. They text him a lot. They text him a lot.

• 4:35Speaker 05

  And onstage, you gave a lot of credit to Whitney at Bumble. And so I wanted to know if there were any other investors or founders that you really look up to, especially as you started entering startup and VC a lot more?

• 4:46Speaker 02

  I mean, really, Whitney is our main standout because she brought us into a lane we never existed in. And she didn't just bring us in, but she continued to champion us and teach us along the way and then support us after in our investment ventures. I mean, she really is the standout for me, you know, because there's a personal connection. What's another founder we really look up to?

• 5:06Speaker 04

  She's the standout. You know, I think we talked about Kim a little bit onstage. And I think that she gets referenced so much just because for so many reasons. But I think people forget she has built a... What was the latest valuation for Skims? Five billion or... Five billion dollar business.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Crazy.

• 5:23Speaker 04

  And not because only she's Kim Kardashian, because the product is exceptional. The customer experience...

• 5:29Speaker 02

  But also, she's the customer. Like, she wears it. She shows it.

• 5:32Speaker 04

  Yes, and I think...

• 5:34Speaker 02

  She understands that category.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  Yes, and no one can compare to her. It's not... You know, not many people have 300 million followers and the kind of following that she has. But she's done it all right as a founder. And I don't think she gets enough... I mean, she gets, obviously, so much respect. But I think people forget what she has built. And I look at it, and I really admire it.

• 5:53Speaker 05

  No, yeah, it's definitely been interesting to see the narrative around Kim specifically change this past decade.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  Rightfully so.

• 5:59Speaker 05

  Because, yeah, I know, a lot of people would like just... I mean, obviously bully, mean, all these horrible things to say. But now, she is really well-regarded as a businesswoman.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  She's having the last laugh.

• 6:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, definitely.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  And it's not an accident. There are a lot of really famous people with a lot of followers, with a lot of clout, whose businesses go under.

• 6:16Speaker 05

  That's definitely true. Yeah, wow. But it's really, really interesting as well because like onstage, Bill, you spoke about stacking the deck when it comes to creating buzz and relevance. And I know we spoke about the oversaturation of the market. Not everybody has 300 million followers. You don't know how to make things go viral. I guess, yeah, we said onstage that it's kind of impossible to answer this question. Is there no recipe at all in terms of getting consumers to look at a product?

• 6:42Speaker 02

  They don't have us. You know, talk about Batch, like because you could talk about it.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Listen, I think there is a recipe. I think the flaw is in thinking that there is a sure thing. But I do think there's a recipe that increases your odds of success dramatically. Yeah, like our company Batch, one of the portfolio companies of Oversubscribed and Core Zone, is a marketplace for group experiences. So you can plan and book group experiences. Still an unsolved sort of large problem on the internet. And Batch is really stepping in to solve it. They've had over a million parties plan their party on Batch to date. And the word of mouth is insane. So how do they do that? They're very good at social, they're very good at TikTok, but they're also just building something that's inherently viral. They are creating a product that you bring in a user. That user then goes and recruits five, six, 10, 20 different users to join them.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  And then they have people around the table like Oversubscribed and Core Zone that really understand the consumer, understand marketplaces. And so they've done as good a job stacking the deck as you can do. And they're having success because of it. But it's not, I mean, it would be a lie to say that there's an automatic way to make something work. There are so many things that can go wrong in a company. You can make a bad product, you can disappoint enough customers, you can...

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Death by a thousand cuts. It's all small, little mistakes that all add up.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  One of my favorite Taylor Swift songs, yes.

• 7:56Speaker 05

  Okay, all right.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  So flying.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Death by a thousand cuts is a great song.

• 7:59Speaker 05

  From the Lover era, okay.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  From the Lover era.

• 8:01Speaker 05

  Oh, my God, Phil.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  My daughter's gonna be so happy that I brought this up.

• 8:06Speaker 05

  I didn't realize you had such good taste in music. Are you a Swifty? Wait a minute now.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  Huge Swifty.

• 8:09Speaker 05

  Okay, what's your era? What era are you?

• 8:11Speaker 03

  You know, it's a great question. I think... I like the

• 8:14Speaker 05

  That was a brilliant album.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  Folklore. It's only folklore for me.

• 8:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  I like folklore also. I very much like her acoustic stuff. So like I, I tend to listen to live performances or acoustic performances because I think like, I assume that's how she wrote it and I love listening to it that way.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  What's the one that has like style and all that?

• 8:30Speaker 05

  Oh, 1989.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Okay, that's one.

• 8:32Speaker 05

  But you know, speaking of Swift, that's another incredible businesswoman who I think people are now looking at in terms of like before they were like saying all these crazy things and now it's like she has also built an ecosystem that feeds upon itself.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  There's kind of a common theme here, which is people who continue to stay being themselves no matter how many people hate on them and tell them that they're doing it wrong. And they continue, both those examples, they are exactly today who they were when people were hating on them and telling them to be someone different. And they stayed true to themselves.

• 9:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, definitely a big business lesson to be learned there.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Taylor Swift is a force.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  Also, people love love and love positivity. At the end of the day, people love love and they love feeling good and it's like not that complicated.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  What's that in relation to?

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Like the show. I think the show is successful because people just want to see healthy love. They want to feel good. Everything doesn't always have to be toxic and complicated and ugly and nasty. And I think Taylor Swift, young girls, I mean, if it wasn't for all the young girls, she wouldn't be Taylor Swift. It's the young girls gravitating to the positivity.

• 9:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. And people like to clown on young girls as a consumer base. I mean, I was in the One Direction fandom. They did not take us seriously at all.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  You want those young girls.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, now you're the consumer.

• 9:40Speaker 05

  And now we're the consumer. Exactly.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:44Speaker 06

  More from this conversation right after a quick break.

• 9:50Anthony Ha?

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• 10:18Speaker 05

  I know you guys probably get asked this question a lot, but what is it like working with family? Like, how do you divide responsibilities? How did you know who was gonna do what, do where? And just overall, what is it like working with each other?

• 10:30Speaker 04

  I mean, I think Erin and I have really clear distinctions. We have really clear similarities and really clear differences. But it took us a long time to figure out what those are. Yeah. Well, you're a writer. I've never been a writer. I've never wanted to be a writer. Well, there was a minute when I did try to write.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  She sent me some scripts, some scripts and dialogue ideas.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, they weren't bad. Yeah, no. Pretty good, actually.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  They were pretty good. No, but I mean, in "Favorite Daughter" and different businesses and investments and stuff, I think for a long time, we were bumping up against each other, trying to figure out what our own personal, like, contributions would be so they didn't step on each other. And now today, I think we're in a really comfortable place where we really feel good about, I mean, you know, I'm in the writer's room five days a week on the show for months and months, and then on set. Sarah has to pick up a lot of slack for me. She has to do a lot of these investor meetings, a lot of the updates with Phil. I'm not there for any of them. And we're still 50/50 partners. And so, we make a decision. We're not, like, splitting things up based on the amount of time put into something.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  There's no like, oh, well, you have been around, so I'm docking your pay. I mean, it's like, we're 50/50 in almost everything we do. When she wins, I win. When I win, she wins. It's all the same shit.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  It's tricky, but it's like any other relationship. If you work on it and you have a central goal in mind, which is to continue working together, you figure it out.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  And I think, too, like, when you work together as non-family members, it's very easy to be like, I quit. I'm out of here. I quit. I'm gonna go work at this company. I'm gonna go do this. When your family, especially sisters, you're not going anywhere. So you kind of are forced to, like, deal with it.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have to figure it out.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  And face it. You gotta figure it out. You're gonna see each other at Thanksgiving. Exactly. Unless you wanna be estranged.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  I would, obviously not being part of the family, I would just add, having observed this, two things. One, I think people from the outside that don't know them super well think they're very similar, and in fact, they're not very similar. But I love that about them. And I guess the second piece, which is related, is I assume, because your sister is never, there is no filter on conversation. And I think, like, when you get in a non-family business, or in a large company, or whatever, everything is filtered. And that's part of the reason that things go bad at companies. Because nobody really wants to say what they really think. And I, they have none of that.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  Heditiveness. In a company, let's be honest, you're kind of competing. You're kind of like, okay, everyone wants that promotion. And usually one person is going to get that promotion. Every, for us, we don't compete. I'm happy for her success. She's, it's all the same. You know what I mean? So I think when you remove that element, I think a little healthy competition is good. But like, unfortunately, I think women have been really pitted against each other in the workplace because there aren't that many positions. So when you remove that from our relationship, that also makes things a little bit more healthy.

• 13:00Speaker 05

  You guys are doing so many things at one time. And I, I like asking founders this because you always get a different answer each time. How do you take care of your mental health balancing all of these different things? Like, how do you focus? How do you unwind?

• 13:13Speaker 04

  We have a lot of really good people around us.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Like, but also like we, I mean, for myself at least, I really prioritize a work-life balance. So I am very comfortable saying to someone, I'm going to get to that tomorrow. I'm about to watch Love is Blind with my husband.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Ooh, season seven?

• 13:27Speaker 02

  I mean, the season's like, not that good. But I really like spending time watching reality TV in bed with my husband. That's how we connect. And I'm not willing to compromise and not have that because I'll then lose my sanity. So I do think that people have to be comfortable. Like, we are too available. And I mean, 50 years ago, people were like clocking out at 5:00 PM, 6:00 PM. And then you're not expected to deal with work until the next morning when you go back to work. And we're available 24 hours a day.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  People only had your office line. There was no email. That's so true.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  No one's calling your house at night being like, hey, did you look at that thing I printed? Or faxed to you? And so we're too available. So I do think people need to be more comfortable prioritizing their personal life so that they can work smarter instead of harder.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I never leave my house. At night, I don't go anywhere. I literally don't go anywhere. That's how I, that's how I deal with my mental health. I put a face mask on and I don't leave my house.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  But you do have to have a boundary. I mean, like, I'm a new mom. I'm in a writer's room. I've been in writer's rooms before with other moms where someone else is like, okay, guys, let's order dinner and figure it out tonight. And I would say, sorry, you know she has a three-year-old at home. Like, let her go home and be with her kid for bath time. This is not life and death. Like, we can figure this out tomorrow morning. But you're going to have a happier person sitting in front of you tomorrow if you let her go home and give her her daughter a bath.

• 14:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  It's common sense. You got to be with your family and with your partner, with your kids, so that you can be available to your work without being resentful.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  That's a good point in a team environment. You got to think about the team. When you're one person in a team of 10, which is normal, right? At startups and stuff, you got to think about the team. That's a really good point.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  I also think people often confuse productivity with just time spent.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  And like, that's not the same thing. And people think it's the same thing all the time. They're like, oh, I'm here at my desk all the time.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Simon and I were just talking about this yesterday. Sorry, I'm gonna cut you off.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  No, it's okay.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Simon was just saying to me yesterday, we were talking about this, and he said, you know, when someone says to me who works for me, like, "I spent 12 hours doing that," I look at them and go, "Well, you shouldn't have. That should have taken you one hour. That's nothing to be proud of that it took you 12 hours. You shouldn't be proud of the amount of time you put in something, but be proud of the results."

• 15:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's actually a good point. Have you seen, I mean, you're working in a writer's room out in Hollywood, do you see a lot more people drawing those type of boundaries and having them be respected?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know what? It happens more for women. Like, women are better at setting the boundaries because we are good at prioritizing home life and work-life balance, you know?

• 15:41Speaker 04

  That's new that women have been allowed to say that. Now it has to be respected, or, you know, there's gonna be like an op-ed written. That's new. It used to be women would say, "I have to go home," and they'd be like, "You're fired."

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's absolutely true. So, we're in a different time where we can speak out a little bit.

• 15:57Speaker 05

  Ooh, I kinda have a hot, like, a weird-

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Spicy question?

• 15:59Speaker 05

  Spicy question. I know, right? Okay. So, something that is always spoken about, especially with female founders, is the way that the media treats them. And so I really wanted to know your thoughts on how the way the media has treated female founders has changed over time, and if you think it's gotten any better.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Well, the first, Aaron and I, I don't wanna say started our career, because we did a lot of things before, but when we pitched our first TV show, the one network we wanted to be at said, "We'll never buy a show from those girls, but we would never turn down taking a meeting with two hot girls." That was sort of our first introduction.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  And I was like, "Oh, my God, you think we're hot?"

• 16:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, Aaron was excited. Aaron was excited.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  No, what I said was like, "Great, I love being underestimated," because I think that's a superpower. But it can also be hard to overcome. And I think that no matter what, women are always going to be viewed differently than we should be and that we wanna be. And I do think that we're doing a much better job of taking advantage of the opportunity that, you know, the internet will turn on people really quick these days. So, in some ways, it's really annoying, and in other ways, it protects certain classes of people. And I think, like, as women, keeping people a little scared is kind of a good thing, because they can move out of our way so that we can really, like, come into our power. But in general, I would say we were having a conversation again in the writer's room about a guy who hadn't done a great job at something. And everyone in the room was going, well, he was going through this, or well, this happened, or that happened.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  And it's like, imagine making that many excuses for a woman. Imagine not just saying, well, she was bad at her job. Like, we don't get as many excuses.

• 17:25Speaker 05

  And we are almost out of time. But then I just realized that, Phil, did you tell us how you decompress?

• 17:30Speaker 03

  It's a good question. I exercise a lot every morning religiously, and I try really hard to like get to every single thing my kids have. So like, you know, they have a football game, they have a volleyball game, they have a softball game, whatever. I try to go to every single one of them and not look at my phone while I'm there. And, you know, that, like you said, I mean, it's increasingly hard. Like, we are reachable 24/7. And so I think it takes discipline and it takes like a real effort to not do that. We have dinner at home together as family and I like, my phone is off during dinner. So it's the little things, but it-

• 18:01Speaker 02

  That feels big, honestly. That's hard to do, to commit to not being on your phone during dinner and volleyball games.

• 18:06Speaker 05

  It's actually huge.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Volleyball games are long and it can be really boring.

• 18:08Speaker 04

  You know that you're like being present as a parent, that helps your mental health because there's nothing like the guilt of feeling like you're not showing up as a good parent that can really deplete your mental health. So I think that that makes sense.

• 18:19Speaker 05

  Thank you guys so much for coming.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  Thank you, Dom.

• 18:22Speaker 05

  Well, I guess I have to ask, what's next for everybody?

• 18:25Speaker 04

  Oh, God, I keep saying the same thing. I sound super repetitive, but I, there's nothing next. We just need to keep building on what we've already started. Like, I talk a lot about hustle culture and everyone feeling like they have to do 1,000 things. Now we just need to really lean into what we already have, I think. Fun, too.

• 18:43Speaker 05

  Fun, too.

• 18:44Speaker 03

  That's well said. I think we, listen, we're open for business that oversubscribe and at Core Zone. I mean, we're looking for new investments always. And, you know, we're really excited about the future.

• 18:51Speaker 05

  Thank you so much for coming on.

• 18:53Speaker 04

  Thank you, Dom.

• 18:57Speaker 06

  Found is hosted by myself, TechCrunch senior reporter Becca Scutac, alongside senior reporter Dominic Midori Davis. Found is produced by Maggie Stamets with editing by Kel. Our illustrator is Bryce Durbin. Found's audience development and social media is managed by Morgan Little, Alyssa Stringer, and Natalie Kreisman. TechCrunch's audio products are managed by Henry Pickavet. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.