This Week in Startups - E37: “Angel” Podcast: Nicole Quinn, Partner at Lightspeed shares benefits of celebrity founders like Lady Gaga & Gwyneth Paltrow, insights on investing in consumer & power of “Force of Nature” product people

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

0:53 Jason intros Nicole Quinn 1:59 Nicole & Jason describe their separate Calm investments, will it be the first mental health IPO? 8:00 Calm's I.C.E. celebrity engagement method & how it got them LeBron James 8:54 Investing in Sophia Amoruso & Girlboss: what is it about "Force of Nature" product people that attracts Nicole to invest? 16:03 Investing in Gwyneth Paltrow & Goop: what is Goop's business? What are the most profitable parts of their business? 19:42 Investing in Rothy's, and the inverse correlation between the success of e-commerce companies and how much they've raised 24:34 The magic moment of having shares transfer from private to public when a company IPOs 26:53 Changing her risk-averse mindset going from Wall Street to Venture Capital 33:28 Nicole's current investment interests, why voice assistants are crucial for retention 38:16 Investing in Lady Gaga & HAUS Labs: driving business via new product "drops", understanding how engaged a celebrity is in their business, celebrities as an acquisition channel 45:03 Dealing with Goop product blowback, the Netflix series & understanding the science behind it 50:12 Investing in Cameo & CEO Steven Galanis: celebrity selfie videos as a platform 54:44 What types of Founders does Nicole invest in? 56:54 How is Nicole's portfolio split up by stage?

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but if it's appealing to you, go ahead and apply. Our guest today, Nicole Quinn, is a partner at light speed since 2015. That's correct. And you do late stage. I do all stage, everything from seed through to series D but you're right, the last investment, Calm was growth. Ah, now this is one that is very warming to my heart because I did the seed.

Wish we did the seed. Terrific company. It's a fantastic company. You did the last round, which was over a billion dollars. You put tens of millions of dollars into the round. It's public. I think. They announced that you invested.

Yep, that's exactly right. Yeah. What is it that you saw in Com as a late stage company that makes it a great investment? Because a late stage investor has an expectation that they're going to 5, 10x their money, something in that range? That's exactly right. Yeah, 5 to 10x. That's exactly what we target. Which means whatever the value of my shares are right now, the fact that you're coming in and making that bet means I can feel pretty good about the investment.

because you expect some acceleration. You're not expecting 50 or 500 X like I do, but 5 to 10 X because you're putting in a bigger dollar amount. What is it about that company that gives you conviction they can go from what has been publicly reported as nine figures in revenue to 5 to 10 times that much would be, which means you think it could get to potentially 500 million a billion in revenue? Yeah.

You're exactly right, Jason. It is the first mental health unicorn as of last year. We believe it will be the first mental health IPO, public company, and so we're super excited about taking this one all the way. We have known the incredible founders Michael Acton Smith and Alex 2 for many years, and we've looked at prior rounds. The reason why we got so excited about this particular round was because this company has really doubled down on innovation, R&D, and they're constantly reinventing themselves

coming up with the next new thing. So when you first invested, it was a meditation app. Right. Meditation, in my view, is more akin to a vitamin, a supplement. It's a nice to have. You know, you should be meditating. Right. You know that that's really good for you, but you'd end up not doing it.

You end up churning. Engagement's not that great. Then the company did an amazing hackathon. They came up with sleep stories. Now, sleep is more akin to a painkiller. Right. It's like, God, I can't sleep. I need this right now.

You reach over, you switch on the sleep story. So what happened after the company introduced sleep stories was engagement went up 3X. Retention really improved. And the company's now in this terrific spot where they've got a huge amount of content on the app. Customers are loving it. Best in class retention. The annual numbers are better than anything else we've seen in consumer subscription world. Wow.

And it's just such a good business. It's just very stable. CAC has been consistent for many years. The customer acquisition costs, many years. Exactly. And so we love it. And the founders are real visionaries. I agree. Had Alex on the podcast, gosh, you got to remember what episode that was. Maybe I have it in my notes here. Yeah. Well, the last time Alex 2 was on was episode 868, but he's been on four times. And when I first met him, I tried to invest when he was on the pod. He had done the million dollar homepage, if you remember. You know about that. I know about that and you were very smart to invest after seeing that because you're right, that was special.

And most people thought the million dollar homepage would be like a fraud or a scam or a hack or not actually something that makes the person more investable. Because they thought, well, this is just a quick way to make a bunch of money, which was the intent of the million dollar homepage where people don't know. It was 10,000 pixels by 10,000 pixels. I think if you times those two numbers, you get. Whereas 1,000 by 1,000,000 by 1,000 pixels. He was a millionaire, basically, the age of about 18. Yeah, and he sold each pixel for a dollar. But what people don't realize is then Expedia or Kayak or whatever started putting their logo on the million dollar homepage.

They spent $5,000 in pixels or $10,000 in pixels. But they got a million clicks. So they got these clicks for like a fraction of a penny. So it actually turned out that it became a huge traffic driver. And when I saw that, I was like, Alex's brain is different. For me, he's the most creative, active, product. creator in the industry today. Yeah, well said. I agree.

I don't know if there's somebody I've ever met, and I've met everybody who today is making more creative, innovative products. And you see it even they're advertising. Yeah. Have you seen their ads on social specifically? Oh, my gosh. You're scrolling through Instagram and it's like, hey, you might be feeling a little anxiety right now. Why don't you breathe for 30 seconds? And then they stop you. So the ad is to stop you from using the social media because they know that's the root of anxiety and stress for

some people in some situations. You just breathe for 30 seconds. You breathe for 30 seconds. You're like, wow, that was actually pretty great. They demonstrate the value of mindfulness in an ad. So true. And have you seen their new LeBron James ads? Now, those are incredible. Now, this is when you know one of your investments has gone supernova is when people start coming to you talking about it or they're talking about not knowing you invested. or they know you invested and they say, LeBron James. So I have gotten pictures of the LeBron James ads in Times Square in L.A. sent to me from people who know I invested six years ago.

And they're like, LeBron James. For anyone who hasn't seen these ads, they're so powerful because the whole point is it's not just about training your body to be a great sportsperson. You also need to train your mind. And so LeBron James is saying, use calm to train your mind every day as you weren't train your body. Right. And he is using the product. I don't know if they talked about how they got him or engaged him, but he's deeply involved in the company, I think.

So you're right. Calm have a really interesting way of thinking about which celebrities to get involved. They have something called ICE. And so for every single person that comes on board as a celeb, they have to, I invest in the company, C, create content, and then E engage authentically with the product. So you're right. He is an actual user of the product. He loves it. And so that's exactly why he came to come. And that means content is coming. Mm-hmm. Watch out. Can you imagine LeBron doing positive visualizations and sleep stories and in your ears? That's incredible. It's so good. This entire year, you're going to consistently see some terrific content coming from these guys. And also, the fact is, people say, oh, you know that meditation app, the Matthew McConaughey app? Yeah. People associate the celebrity. with calm, even if they can't remember the name. They remember the celebrity that reads them to sleep.

The other ones you've been involved with, and it seems to be a bit of a trend for you, is, I wouldn't say celebrity, but really charismatic personalities who understand product. Girl boss, Sophia Amarosa. She gets product. She's a personality herself. Take me through that investment while you made it. You were the first board member, I believe. That's right, yeah. I almost invested. And I was like, great. I want you to start a board. And she was like, yeah, I'm not starting a board. And then like a year later, I see the announcement that you invested and she started a board. And I was like, what happens, Sophia? She's like, yeah, I thought it thrilled.

You were right. I was like, no phone call back so I can invest. And I don't know they got sold recently. Exactly. Yep. To Steve, no, Joe Marchese, whose company bought it. I'm not sure if that was a great exit or not. So, okay, I guess.

That one was a merger. A merger. And so it's particularly interesting because we've realized that, you know, Sophia herself is a force of nature, pairing her with Nick from Snapchat and then Joe Marquesi, as you mentioned. We just feel like those executives together will be able to go out and create like the next IAC, you know, like a really strong, powerful media company. And by the way, I particularly love the fact that we're talking about Sophia as I literally have her book behind me on your shelf. Yeah. She's been on the pod. What is it about her as a founder that you look at and say, yeah, that's fundable. She's fundable. What is it? What does she have? And then in relation to what maybe Alex has or Michael. Yeah, we invested really early in Girl Boss. So this was probably about three years ago now. When it was like a 10, 15 million dollar company. Yeah. Yeah, even earlier than that, actually. And so with Girl Boss, we just felt like Sophia was truly authentic. She is somebody who is this real role model that so many young women, Gen Z, millennials, look up to and quite frankly do what she says.

You know, it's very similar with Gwyneth Poutro and Goop. People idolize her and if they say, hey, you should be buying X or going on this trip or doing this for your career, then those people do it because they really look up to Sophia. So we love her authenticity. I love the fact that she is one of those founders who will run through walls. doesn't take no for an answer and she will just go out and do it and find a way to accomplish what she wants to. And so, yeah, she is a power horse and somebody who were excited to invest in. She did two products, I think, maybe three. She had the podcast. She had the rallies. And the rallies to me were incredible. I talked to her about the rallies.

And they were very profitable. And I was like, this is the business. She's like, no, social networks to the business. And I was like, and then she also podcasting. And I was like, I don't think that you're the, you're the natural podcaster. I think she's the natural podcast guest because she's so fascinating. Her opinions are so strong that it's hard for her to, I think it's hard for the audience to have her asking questions and being 5% of the podcast. They want her to be 90% of the podcast. Yeah. That's like a real challenge when you're that strong of a person. So the strength you were talking about that she is so self-possessed, that she is such an influencer. People want to hear hard talk, not the guest. So I told her, stop having guests,

have a roundtable where you talk, that would work for you. I don't know if she took that advice or not. We did not do a roundtable. She definitely speaks more in the podcast, so it's not so much just her asking a question. She definitely engages in a greater conversation, more akin to you and your style, which I think works well. So she did do that, but you're right,

there were so many different areas. I would say the rally was awesome because it was profitable, and maybe this is the Brit in me and the New Yorker and you that we like businesses that have that. aspect of being profitable. Yeah. Well, you know what's brilliant about them? They're profitable, but they're also marketing and branding.

So I call this, as my personal theory, called monetized marketing. You're making money while marketing yourself. This podcast did, I think, $1.6 million last year is profitable. And we pour all the money back into the podcast. But this is my branding. But it's also my passion. So it just becomes a flywheel that is unstoppable. So true.

And also when you talk about the rallies, like the actual in-person rallies being great for branding and marketing, that's true. And this is a trend that we're excited to invest in because I think light speed have always kind of been at the forefront of investing in new trends that may seem silly, may seem like fads, but actually turn out to be long-term interesting businesses, interesting spaces. So the next one for me is like these in-person experiences. So maybe that's the rally, maybe that's the museum of ice cream. Maybe that's VR experiences. But it's a huge space. And people... Have you found any other investments in that space yet? I mean, Goop has their things. Anything else in that space? We have invested in a company in the space, and it'll be announced very soon. You'll be the first time.

Early stage or later stage? Still chance for me to wheeze my way in is the underlying question. Always. Series A, is that okay? Yes. Yum, yum. Done. You know, see, this is the great part about having the podcast.

I can help promote. I got 300,000 followers on Twitter. So when I try to weasel my way into a cap table, even if I can't get a big slice, I'm okay with a small slice. Yeah. You ever have a half a slice of pizza? It tastes great, even one butt. Let me tell you something. Half a slice of pizza, better than no slices.

Of course I want three slices. I want to try to pound those three slices. But I'll take a half a slice. I'll eat the crust if I got it. I want to get in there. But I agree with you. What are companies like Ring, Hint, and Tukovus have in common? while they're all using NetSuite to accelerate their growth, successful companies.

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Go to netseweet.com slash angel. That's right, net suite.com slash angel. NetSuite.com slash angel. Thanks for support on the pod. And let's get back to this amazing episode. Goop also does events. Yeah. Very successfully.

Very successfully. And there you have a very self-possessed founder, Gwana Poutro, confident. And also she makes great product. Really good product. I completely agree. What is the, what is Coop's business? Because it's very clear to me

what the three business of Girl Boss were. And if you ranked them, rallies, profitable, amazing, do more. Podcasts, likely profitable. But, you know, I would probably say good and could potentially be great.

I think maybe a co-host would be great so that she does more talking and the co-host cues up the ding. So I would have a Robin Quivers and the Howard Stern sort of analogy with that. So she doesn't have to you know, she can be answering questions rather than asking them, because I'm more interested

in her answers than her questions. And then you had the social network, which I think didn't break out yet. But I think that's got potential. I joined the social network of Girl Boss. I'm very glad that you're on it. She invited me. Not a ton of activity. Hard to start a social network, right? You were one of the very few men on it. I actually wanted how you got on. I got five or six invites. And so I just took one of them. and I started answering questions about Angel investing. I got some deal flow actually. And I was like, oh, this is interesting.

So if you were to look at that business, 10xing live events is the move. Yeah, completely agree. And to your question on Goop, Goop is really interesting because we've realized that Gen Z, millennials, they're so involved in their phones that they're actually looking for an escape. And so people are looking for these in-person events. people are still wanting to go to shops. So for Goop right now, the retail stores... They have retail stores? I didn't know that. They have got very successful retail stores.

How many? We now have about five. We actually have our first one in San Francisco. We've always got pop-ups in SF. Now we have a permanent one on Film Moor Street in San Francisco. Yeah. Also, L.A., Aspen, New York, London. What do I buy in a Goop store?

I'm not going to make any jokes yet, but... What do you not buy in a Goop store? Yeah. What's in a Goop store? What is the, is it for people who are into alternative medicine and yoga and meditation? It seems like it's part of that like new agey kind of area. So Google's both a marketplace as well as selling their own products. So you can go in there and you can buy some terrific products from other people, but other brands.

Like Etsy or would you say it's like Etsy or it's more like. I'd say they curate some terrific new designers of clothing and homework items. Very. boutique. Right. That's my point. Like Target made a... Slightly higher prices.

Yeah, exactly. But Target made a brand for, hey, let's make, let's be design led. Yeah. So it's a high design boutique. Yeah, exactly. Are those like profitable or are those like marketing tools? So this is the interesting thing with retail. Right.

Rothies is exactly the same. We have extremely successful stores. Again, Rothies have one in San Francisco. The sales per square foot are akin to Apple. Wow. So yes, they're profitable. these stores. Because they have small footprints.

Yeah. Yes, we want to double down on it. So there's something really special happening here. It's like if you do things in the right way where you can actually marry online and offline together so that opening up an offline store has a halo effect to the online store, that's very powerful. If you have it so that you're opening up a smaller footprint,

so your sales per square foot are high, then you've got the line going around the block. So that creates marketing, buzz around it. Everyone's sort of talking about it. it's really special. It helps promote the brand. And Rothies, you know, we're now opening up more stores. What is Rothies?

I don't know what it is. Oh, Rothies. Rothies is one of the first companies that I ever got involved in. It is. I'm sorry, I don't know it. Rothies. I've heard of it, I think. Oh, yes.

Google it right now. You need to buy one for your wife right away. So Rothies are flat shoes. They might entirely, a plastic recycle bottle, so they're good for an environment, sustainable. I'm sorry. You can throw them in the washing machine afterwards. They're like the loafer.

and whatnot. Point, sneakers, Chelsea boots. They've got everything now. Oh, they've got Chelsea boots there too. It's really a great company. And so this is actually a super interesting one because what we look for is leading indicators of a true brand being built. And when we saw Rothies in the really early days, like pre-Series A,

that was exactly what they were showing. They were showing high repeat rates, high referral rates, customers talking about it, loving the product. I would speak at a panel and people would say, excuse me, first question, are you wearing Rothies? And then they'd turn around and they'd tell the rest of the, the women in the audience, you need to buy a pair of Rothis. As a woman, what is the appeal of Rothi's shoes? Here they are. There's the Mary Jane. 49,000 plastic world. Oh, so this is

using the plastic to print these, right? 50 million plastic bottles have exactly, as you say, been recycled to make these Rothies. So they're doing great for the environment. There's a lot around the block for these, right? They're hard to get. Exactly. Are they like... No, you can still get them online. Oh, okay. But yes, they sell out, so buy them quickly. $145 for recycled plastic designer loafers. Those ones are 125 below. So, yeah, there's a range in prices.

But these shoes last forever. They last forever. So I've had mine for three, four years, the very early ones. Well, they're made of plastic. Plastic is made to, that's the promise and the disaster of plastics. You put them in the ocean, they last forever. You put them on your shoes. Last forever.

You don't have to. Much better than on your feet forever. than the ocean, exactly. I mean... And so for here, it's like, in Rothies, you know, you can throw these in the washing machine, like you do a pair of socks. What? Mm-hmm.

Do they have these for men? Not yet, sorry. But your wife will love you if you buy her a pair. Come on, Jason. Really? Yep. Good present. Really? Delayed Valentine's gift. Yeah. So,

these are incredibly high margin. Yes. I would think. and there are collections and they're doing online and offline. And the offline, the offline is designed for awareness. Do the stores have to be profitable in this model? When you look at Goop or any of these stores,

do you think they need to be profitable, break-even, or even lose money if they acquire customers? How do you look at those as a board member as an investor? So it's interesting, because someone said to me, someone sent me an email yesterday saying, oh, I only want to look at e-commerce companies that are raised more than $20 million. And I was like, so that makes no sense in e-commerce because e-commerce, there is actually an inverse correlation between amount raised and how well they're doing.

We look at e-commerce companies that are capital efficient, that are quite often profitable, companies like Rothies, companies like Lady Gaga's House Beauty, profitable in year one. We love these businesses because they have high margin, customers are coming, and I mean, they're willing to get these costs down so low that they can still charge good prices to the customers. It's just that they're going to run their business in a sustainable way so that they can be profitable and don't have to continue to raise money from investors. So I think we're a little bit different. You know, we didn't invest in the caspers of the world. I guess I spent before like 10 years working on Wall Street taking a lot of these companies public and I really

do think it's important to have profit at the end of the day. And so, that's how we invest at Lightspeed. We do actually look at these companies. What are you doing? Where'd you work? I went to Morgan Stanley. Oh, really? I love Morgan Stanley.

Yeah. I'm a customer now. Oh, you are. I'm a Morgan Stanley customer. It's an amazing training. I started getting a lot of stock distributions that I don't want to sell, that I want to hold. Good problem to have.

Yeah. High class problem. You know, the things I invested in whatever, seven, eight, nine, ten years ago, a lot of those are growing public, and then I'm an LP. I'm an LP in like 10 funds. Yeah. and they start sending me shares and I needed a place to hold the shares. Wellfront doesn't really let you hold shares and Morgan Stanley does and it's really actually

I was pretty impressed with their interface. Are you a customer of theirs or? I'm a customer by default from 2005 starting working there. Seems like a lot of people do their stock distributions using Morgan Stanley when like a company that you invest in. Yeah, Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch. Exactly. They distribute the shares on them.

So it just makes it super easy for me to have. that account. Just like, oh yeah, here are your shares. Completely agree. It's a wild moment as an investor. Have you had many of these moments yet? Because you've been investing for five years now? Exactly.

Six years. Five years. Have you had that moment where a company you invested in as a firm then goes public or whatever or gets acquired and you get distributed shares and then you personally get shares in your account? Have you had it? We have had, fortunately, we've had many of these moments over the last, I guess, like three, four years.

Such a rush. Because we've had Nutanics, App Dynamics, Mule Soft. Snapchat. Over the last few years, Lightspeeds had so many terrific exits. Pindu-Duo, you forget,

like, you know, we're one of the top global VC firms, and so it really benefits having China, India, Israel, now Lightspeed Europe as well. So we have exits all across the world

and most of our Lightspeed LPs have actually invested in all of our funds. And as a partner, and people don't understand how this works, you guys decide, do you want to sell the shares

and give cash to your LPs or just give the shares to them and let, them decide if they want to hold them. Yeah. And most of the time, it seems, in the great, certainly in the great companies, there's more money to be made post the IPO, like Google, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook. Because at the end of the day, the last double is the most important double, right? So, yeah, the last doubles on a big number. You may want to hold on and try to double that last one. Hold. That's why you should hold onto your calm stock, because it's going to be

many more doubles. I feel that way. I, I'll be transparent, we did, I'll be transparent, we did pair 10% at a $250 million round, just 10%. And I think we locked in a 3.x for our syndicate investors. And it was hilarious because we let them know. And they were like, wait a second. I've done like 20 of these angelous things. None of them ever worked. And they're a little sour to it, right?

And they're like, wait, we just made this investment four years ago. You're telling me I'm, I made three times my money in four years that like never has happened in my life in the public stock market. I'm like, well, yeah, but you still have 90% of your, shares left and this one person didn't understand that they thought they had just made three x and they were thrilled i was like no no you still have 90 percent of the shares and they're like that doesn't make sense you're saying i have 10 times the three x return i'm like yes you do the numbers are so big that when it works it can seem unbelievable yes exactly power law right it very much is about

when it works i totally which is troubling in one way for people who are not in our business and you had to change your brain chemistry and you're abetting when you came from Wall Street to private markets, I would think. How did people when you were at Morgan Stanley look at the world? And then how did you personally have to change your risk-taking and thought process, becoming a VC as opposed to a public market investor? Good question. It's almost like you've done a thousand interviews. 1,080. Give me credit for those final 80, please. 81 now. So it's a really good question.

was from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., I'd work at Morgan Stanley, and I'd have this late stage mentality of like, okay, we're going to work with these companies two years before they IPO, get them ready to IPO. And like Facebook Group on Pandora, a really interesting IPO. So it was great to kind of think about the consumer story. But it was late stage mentality. But then from 5pm till 8 p.m., I'd go out and do angel investing. And that's what I was most passionate about. And so I loved that. Like that mentality of working with founders at a really early stage and helping them higher and helping them think about future fundraisings, thinking about marketing, which is sort of of my love. That was what I found particularly interesting. And so in the words of Sophia from

Girlboss, how do you make your side hustle into your real hustle? Right. So I wanted to make angel investing into what I did all the time. How many angel investments did you make in the 5 to 8 p.m. period? And did any of them actually hit? Yeah. I made probably about 5 in New York and about 8 or 9 in London and they have been companies that have been more like sort of three, four, five Xs. So singles and doubles? Exactly. So interesting. How do you look at a single or double?

Is that frustrating for you? Is it fun? So it's interesting because like we have separately our early stage fund at light speed and then our growth stage fund. And so if we get a 5X on our growth stage fund, that's perfect. That's exactly what we're targeting for LPs. Because you put 30, 40, 50 million dollars checks in. Exactly.

So it's more like. dollars at work, what do you actually get out of that? Yeah, five times 30 is 150, which is 120 million in cash profit. Your LP is a happy. It's huge. Exactly. Whereas for the early stage, we're definitely looking for more of the Snapchats. You know, my partner, Jeremy, put in 400,000 into Snapchat and got out about

$3 billion. Yeah. And so, holy cow. That's the kind of terrific benchmark that we now have at Lightspeed, where we're looking to that and all wanting to find the next one. careful because when you hit one of those, it can spoil you for life. Hey, everybody. Instead of me reading you copy in an ad about LinkedIn Talent Solutions, I thought, you know what

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Thanks for having me. Big fan. All right. Thanks for that. You know what I like about the screening questions? It creates a little bit of work, but not too much. It lets the person on the other side know, hey, I'm serious about understanding you. And it lets you as the employer know, oh, they took the time to write a paragraph or three sentences. Screening questions in particular are interesting tool.

And one of the things that we do to help you leverage them is we suggest them. So you talk about proprietary data, AI, this way that we understand you better. When you're filling your job description, one of the things we can do is read through that job description, understand what screening questions might be most applicable to your point to save you time so that it's not just about, about like, you know, having to like think about what are the right question to ask. Because, you know, many people don't know. They might not know. Well, what are the right questions for me that might be most effective for filtering down to just the right set of people?

Especially if you're a first time founder. Yeah. If you're not even have an HR department, you never done this, so you give them the library of questions. Find the right person for your business today with LinkedIn jobs. You can pay what you want. And you get the first 50-5-0 for free from my man Blake. Just visit LinkedIn.com slash angel, A-N-G-E-L. Again, LinkedIn.com slash angel.

And you get 50-5 right now, terms and can do. apply because they're giving you 50. Thanks again, Blake, for coming on the pot. And thanks for this big stack of 50s here for me to give out to all the Twist fans and the intro fans. Happy to be here and, of course, anytime. As I was just at, the Green Spring is one of our LPs, you know, the fund's too. Yeah, they're one of yours. I saw you. Did you go to the summit they had? I didn't. I didn't. It's quite charming. Is this the one up in the mountains? Yeah, it's in the mountains. But it's in Park City. I can talk about. I don't think they're, I mean, the Green Spring's been great. The first institutional people who put money into our fund outside

I mean, aside from, we have like some VC partners. They're great LPs. What's that? The great LPs. Great LPs. And really supporters of new funds. And it was like really sort of interesting to watch how they think about the world like LPs and, you know, what their expectation is of us, right? I had a point there.

But what were we just talking about? We're talking about the 5x being enough. Oh, yes, the 5x being enough. Green Spring would be very happy if they made 120 million there. This is my joke. they have us each get up and introduce yourselves. I was like, I was the third investor in Uber, because I just come in hot.

You know, I'm coming in hot. My first time in the room. I hadn't noticed. There's 200 LPs in the room. I got them. I was like, I'm the third investor in Uber. I invested in Robin Hood, Uber, thumbtack, data stacks, and this. Calm.

Calm for a $30 million valuation. Yeah. Combined. Drop the mic. Anyway, so I say that. And then I say, which is to say my IRA

in the early part of my career was triple digits so it's only going down from here but we invest in a it doesn't have to only go down from here you can't possibly well

who knows what the next platform is right like voice you're at the forefront of voice we're bullish on voice if voice is the next platform then you could make similar returns the ringer got 250 million I heard in cash

I don't know why he would take cash instead of Spotify stock I would have taken half at half you weren't investors in Bill Simmons the ringer nobody was HBO wasn't no we weren't investors did you try? You tried I tried to I tried to if you pause and I look at your eyes

and you're looking down at your shoes don't ever play poker with me because I know it's a yes I think my husband's played poker with you before yeah that was quite fun yes you were a poker player but voice is super interesting so you did try to do you guys tried to do the ring or two No, we didn't look at investing in that one.

But we have been looking at, you know, a lot of other spaces. Because right now, if you think about it, Alexa, they've gone into your home. It's kind of like the Trojan horse in your house. And they've rolled these things into your home. And they're all just playing music right now. Maybe you're adding lists onto there. But what else can we do? That's the big question.

And so, for us, voice is like, okay, should you be playing games on there? Should you be doing stories? 20 questions. Yeah, it should be an interactive medium, clearly. We should be due. Calm. Play me my next sleep story. Rothies,

order me a pair of red cameos size seven. Absolutely. It should be everything. It really should be. And I really think the interactive audio, I don't know if you had these in England when you were growing up, but we had these books, choose your own adventure. Did they make it across the pond?

They did make it across the pond, and now there's a lot of apps trying to go out of this exact space. You're right. And it was so much fun. And my daughter, my 10-year-old sits there, London, and she talks to Siri. And I've walked into the kitchen, and she's sitting there talking to her

and she's asking for the definition of words and I started doing a thing in the car whenever she didn't know a word and this is for the last four or five years I'd say Siri define the word resilient Siri define the word indefatigable we do this for four or five years

and we listen to audiobooks and I had the greatest dad you know I'm a girl dad like Kobe I've met your girls yeah three girls so I'm a yes you have met them So I'm a girl, dad. I'm like, I'm going to make these into like warriors, like Wonder Woman, Amazon princesses. Like, they're going to just be warriors.

And one of my things to do with them is to really get their verbal ability, like, really high. And I would say to her, you know, I have The Hobbit, which I used to listen to, but they wouldn't let us listen to it until I was 12 because it's scary. You're six years old. It's half as when I heard it. You might not understand it. It might be a little scary. You could give you a nightmare. She's like, I can handle it.

I'm like, all right, if you want to listen to The Hobbit, there's orcs and there's some crazy stuff. I listen to the Hobbit with her like five times. You want to have somebody have incredible verbal ability, audio books, and defining words while you're in the car. Yeah, it's so true, but you know the problem? What? The problem is there's no search and discoverability on voice. Oh, it's brutal. It's sort of like the apps, well, it's sort of like Apple and the iPhone before the App Store.

App Store came along, and then suddenly we were able to search. We were able to discover these new amazing apps. And App Store is not a great thing. search experience either. But at least it exists. It exists. It's something. It's gotten better.

So we need that on Alexa. Then I think Alexa explodes. You don't have to just say, hey, define this word. Hey, read me this story. It will say to you, hey, Jason, do you want me to read this story to your daughter? Hey, we know you like X. Do you also want to try Y? Which they have all that data.

They'll get there. They're going to get there. Hopefully quickly. And I think they're, I wonder how many active Alexa users there are a day. Because that's always when you're doing a new platform. You have to know the denominator and not how many devices were sold because I own six devices and only one of them gets used. So it's not devices sold, it's active devices. Have you figured out how many active devices there are?

So we've been looking at how many millions there are of the actual devices in the home. But the issue is, is that however high DAU is, it's the retention that's the issue because people are just not coming back time and time again. They find something once and then there's nothing to remind them to use it again. There's nothing that comes up on their phone saying, hey, time to use your car map today. Yeah. That's one of the problems. This is why I think the echo, I think it's called the Echo something. What is it called?

I have the one that has a screen. Oh, the show. The show. Yeah. Do you have one of the shows? We do have one of those, yeah. It's the best one because what it does is it's putting stuff in front of you while you're sitting there. So you see a thing that says your package is delivered.

And then you see news stories coming up. Yeah. And then it says, say, explain to me what happened at, Democratic debates or say Democratic debates to hear the story. So it's almost like you're getting this carousel kind of effect and you could dive back in, but it should be, you know, doing that. So if Google and Apple came out with that device, like an iPad light, like a standalone Siri would be incredible in that regard. Voice and the screen together, you're saying it's super powerful. Exactly. Because you're not interfacing, you're not pressing the screen. The screen is just showing you. Yeah. A flashing.

up with an avertisement. Try this one. Try this one. Yeah, it's just like a little menu of like what is possible. Yeah. Yeah. Voice could be the next platform because it's interesting, right? It's like we had web, we had mobile, we're in between platforms. Who knows what the next platform will be? I mean, people thought it would be Oculus and VR. That's dead on arrival. We've been investing in marketplaces and brands that kind of transcend across different platforms and could go into voice. I mean, Rothies and Calm, a terrific example of that. Lady Gaga's House Beauty. It's like, yeah, you can buy it on the web. Oh, you're in Lady Gaga's House Beauty? It's like, yeah, you're in Lady Gaga's House Beauty?

Yeah. Oh, wow. Are you personally the investor? Yeah, on the board. I just met. I just met her. You need to have her on the podcast. I mean, I hung out with her for like four hours at my friend's birthday party recently.

And her and my wife became fast friends. She's friends with a couple of my other friends. Isn't she inspirational? She's fun. Yeah. She's fun. And she's an open book. I mean, we started talking.

She really likes to talk. She really does. She's really extroverted. I thought she was a super introvert. I don't know if she's faking it or not. I couldn't get a read. I was trying to get a read on a person if they're an introvert and extrovert. No, she has strong opinions.

Very strong opinions. She is somebody who, like, when we met her, we wanted to know how authentic is this, her doing a beauty business? What is her commitment? Oh my gosh. We were blown away. Yeah. Like she says there are three things I'm passionate about in this world. That is music, that's acting and that's beauty.

So when I start a beauty business, this is not something I'm doing for a year. I'm in this for the last. long run. We're doing this for 10 years and building a really meaningful business here. And what is her beauty brand? What are the products? So it's called House, H-A-U-S, Labs. And we've come up with a whole array of incredible different cosmetics. I will send you some for your wife. Absolutely. So we're starting with cosmetics and it's very authentic to her, right? So it's like big, bold, beautiful looks. And we do these drops because at the end of the day, newness really drives e-commerce businesses.

So we do drops every few weeks. We have a new product. We have a superstar team. Wow. We've basically brought in people from benefit, people from the honors company, people from like some of the best businesses in beauty. It's very interesting when you and I were getting started, you know,

investing in companies. Celebrities were kind of like hired guns. They just wanted to get a paycheck. Then they went into wanting to invest and now they want to start them. Very different now. How do you determine? when, you know, somebody's dabbling and just wants to get in on like a quick, you know, flip and make some money versus super committed.

Yeah. And because, you know, a lot of these folks would get these huge paydays and they didn't actually drive meaningful engagement in other people's brands are their own. So how do you make that determination as to do it or not? That is always our number one question with any entrepreneur, but especially with a celebrity because they have so many different commitments on their time and things that they could do it. Gwyneth for sure is making Iron Man in Marvel movies. Exactly.

So Lady Gaga will say, this ain't no licensing deal. This is something I have my fingerprints all over to the point where this is a crime scene. Right. And she's exactly right. Like no product or color or model or name of a product got picked without her having a view on this. Right. And at the end of the day, we're very bullish on celebrities being involved in these companies, whether they're founders or whether they're Matthew McConnell.

a hay reading you to sleep because we live in this world where it's so expensive to acquire on Google and Facebook right now. It's just becoming increasingly expensive. I never thought about it that way. So celebrities are an acquisition channel. Very good acquisition channel. Scalable, repeatable acquisition channel where it's far easier and far cheaper to acquire a new customer by getting them to be, turn them for a fan to a customer than it is to acquire a brand new customer. What now Instagram looks at this? Because Instagram's trying to disintermediate like this relationship between Lady Gaga or whatever celebrity and like commerce. Yeah.

And they don't share revenue. And they don't let you do sponsored posts, right? Like if you want to do a sponsored post and you're like high up, you have to cut them in. They don't want to just let you do that. And they'll have the algorithm actively fight against you from what I understand. I'm saying that, not you. I know you need to keep your relationship with Instagram. I don't care about my relationship with anybody.

I care about the truth, as you've learned. Anyway. The truth is most important. Well, and so they really are, I think, I don't want to say a bad actor in this, but Facebook has always said, we're going to control this. But they can't control it if you own it. If you own it, it's not an ad. I'm talking about my work. So this is a very profound difference than if one of those Kardashian or slash Jenner family members does a paid ad on Instagram, they got to cut Instagram in.

or Instagram penalizes them for doing covert advertising or whatever. But if they own the brand and they're like, this is my lipstick, it's not an ad. They worked on it. I was just thinking, it's almost like a way to route around that thing that they try to stop

on those platforms. That's exactly why we are big believers in a celebrity and also the influencer ecosystem because you already have this captivated audience that's coming there also just to see you. So you know they're already fans of you. And so you're like, okay, fine. How do you monetize fans?

How do you monetize them when you don't have to necessarily just go through paid ads that, to your point, they change the algorithm on you and they're becoming increasingly expensive. If you're an accredited investor, you need to understand what an SPV is. That stands for a special purpose vehicle. This allows 250 investors to put up to $10 million into a company with only one entity on the cap table. So if you're an angel investor with a bunch of rich friends, you can start your own syndicate powered through an SPV. Here at launch, we couldn't be more pleased with our partnership with the team at Assure. ASSU-R-E, by the way. They power my syndicate, which is called The Syndicate.com, which is the largest syndicate in the world. We have about 4,000 members now.

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Visit ashore.co slash angel. That's a s-s-U-R-E.co slash angel. In fact, the first time I ever did one of these in SPV, you know what it was for? com.com, the meditation app. And that worked out really well. Yum-Yumski's thanks to Assure for powering my syndicate and for offering this discount to Angel listeners.

Okay, let's get back to this amazing episode. Goop got some blowback about, I've got to say this delicately. Maybe pseudoscience or new agey kind of products. This has to come up like in board meetings. There was like an egg that was used for certain exercises and a candle that smelled like something unique in the world. You know what I'm talking about both these cases? Yes.

So you're an investor. I mean, wait, they sell it. I can say it, right? They have a candle that's, this candle smells like my vagina. Oh, you said it. I said it. Why can't I say? it. And it's the name of the candle, I can say. It's the name of the candle I can say. They're selling it, I can say it. And then there was an egg that is used for, I think, Kegel exercises, which is strengthening the walls of the vagina. I said it. I'm a lot to say it. I'm not going to get cancelled, right?

Gwen O'Fatro has always been at the forefront of all these things. And she mixes something that other people might believe to be something you cannot say. And you know what? Actually, she has some similarities to you. She's like, no, this is the truth. This is how good it smells. And so this is what I'm going to. to talk about. Right. And she also will say, you know what? I was talking about meditation and yoga when people thought I was crazy when they thought some hippie-dippy stuff. And now everybody's doing it. It has hit Mass America.

And it's science. By the way, UCLA is doing reports on it. So if you're going to be part of the avant-garde, I thought this was an unfair criticism of it. I think it's like a personal attack. I think it's more about personally attacking her for being rich and famous and beautiful, which you can't really hold against an entrepreneur, I don't think. I think it's actually a very sexist, classist.

attack on her. I thought it was unfair because if she's saying like this thing exists for Kegel exercises, this can't smells my vagina or whatever, vaginal stint him, all the stuff, if you're going to be on the forefront of the avant-garde of evaluating new beauty techniques or health or spiritual, well, all of that stuff is a thesis or a theory at some point that becomes then a science. As long as this is not dangerous. We actually have in-house scientists at Goop and talking about Goop and science, have you seen the new Goop Netflix show? I have not. But back to vagina.

I understand the first episodes had, like there's an episode about vaginas. There are six episodes and they're all about some very interesting, maybe controversial topics, but they show the science behind it. They show this is why this product actually could work. Could work. Yes, I think like you want to have somebody out there evaluating these things. That's why we have the scientists. And that's why you bring in the scientists.

Yeah. So maybe. there's like actually an end game here, not to use a Marvel pun, which is she herself personally is fascinated by these things that are on, let's say, the fringe or the avant-garde. And now the reaction has been negative

and what a great reaction to bring in scientists and say like, hey, okay, well let's make this into a series. And it's a Goophe's series or it's a Guelth Outre series? It's a Goophe's a Profit Center? Netflix with Gwainth Outre. Is it a profit center for the company? or is that just more like a marketing thing

when you think about it? A bit of both. A bit of both, yeah. You don't need to make a ton of money on it. How do they separate the celebrities' business from the individual? So if, because I run into this to myself, right? Like I get speaking gigs, I have my books.

So if I don't have investors in my company, but if I did or when I did, it's like, oh, I got a $50,000 speaking gig or I get a million dollar book deal, does that go to my investors or not? And I remember when I talked to Sophia, her books and her TV show were separate than Girl Boss, but the rallies were in it. And I was like, how are you going to navigate that?

It's really interesting from Gwyneth Paltrow's perspective, because I'll share with you a story. Yeah. She, if I sent her something on Goup, she gets back straight away within a few minutes. I sent her her, you know, she does a little bit of personal investing. I sent her something. And she sent me back an email last week. And she was like, I'm so sorry, it's taking me a week to get back to you. I am behind on everything that is in capital letters, not Goup related. Really? And she's like, everything Goop related, I am on top of, and I always will be.

And it's true. She prioritizes that. That's her number one. And to be honest, that's 99% of what she does. Everything she does is trying to be looped in with Goop right now. She was in the politician on Netflix, which was one separate thing that her fiazza asked her to do. But other than that, everything else is Goop related. That's interesting.

It just becomes her world. Yeah, it seems like this one of these, like, delicate things is, you know, what do you put under the Goop umbrella? what do you put under your personal brand? Obviously, she's doing Marvel movies. That's her acting. That's a carve-out. But, you know, so many things these celebrities get looped into, like, they would ask her to do a makeup line. Yeah.

Well, should it be a Goop makeup line or should you do it for this, right? And I guess she's got to think about goop is like first. She's so smart on her part because if you get paid by, like, some brand, you might get overpaid in the short term, but you have no equity. So, like, some makeup brand is like, we need Gwenith Paltrow on her ad. It's like, yeah, great, congratulations. You got $5 million. But the company goes public, it's a billion dollars, and you own half of it. Like, it's more than $5 million.

Completely agree. And we would be remiss if we were talking about celebs and not talking about cameo, who I feel like of the ultimate way to monetize fans. You had Stephen on your show. Galanus. Yeah, Stephen Galanus. Another great Greek. Yeah.

Another great Greek. He is a very strong CEO. We just had a career board yesterday. Very, very self-pornish. possessed, good sense of humor. Yeah. And he seems very focused on, he doesn't seem to care if, you know, there's C&D level celebrities or it's like it's corny or some people think it's corny or might ride a cameo. He under, he's very self-possessed in that way.

Like he's like, this deserves, this should exist in the world and look at the joy between the two parties. Yeah. You get Perez Hilton to give you a happy birth. day, I love watching Perez Heldon videos. I love it. I mean, I know Perez, but, O'Mario, he is so good on his cameo. Yeah, he is one of our most popular people. I think he's the number one. I think that's what I heard from George.

For last year, that's exactly right. Changes all the time. When you get someone like Snoop Dog come on, then the numbers go crazy. If you have somebody like Sarah Jessica Parker who came on for a few days to do it for a charity, the numbers go crazy to her. Oh, she did that? Oh, yeah. What does she charge per?

The most expensive, I think she was just under a thousand. She thinks she was a few hundred. The most expensive one is Caitlin Jenner for two and a half thousand. Caitlin Jenner for two and a half, 2,500. Yep. Yeah, baby. I have a pretty good Caitlin Jenner. I know what Jason's going to go by on cameo straight after this.

At the end of the day. My friend Phil Helmy with the poker player decided to put himself on cameo, and then all of the other poker players in our game decided to, yeah. break chops and like put in their cameos for him. But you know what you're talking about is exactly why cameo is spreading virally. The business grew of a 5X last year. And that's because you have one person come on. They promote it to their fans.

Yeah. They all get excited and buy. And also you have one person from a football team come on. Then all the other football players want to come on as well. Got built in virality. Yeah. Hey, you're monetizing this while sitting in the locker rooms? I want to monetize my time in the locker rooms and monetize my fans.

You know, the thing about it, like, I would never do that kind of stuff, like, originally. But the reason I'm coming around to it now is because... Fans love it? That's the thing. I get asked to do so many selfies in my little orbit, which is founders. Yeah. If I'm at a party that's about founders, I'll get asked, you know, to do a dozen or two dozen selfies. If I'm in any other party, nobody knows who I am, right?

And I'm like, this feels like the new selfie, like the personalized message. and I have people all the time now ask me, can you create a video and say this? And I look at them and I'm like, I would never ask anybody to take a picture with me, let alone ask them to create a video. But young people are like, can you make a video for my friend and say,

happy birthday, Sarah Nicole, and congratulations on your... I'm like, no. Times are definitely changing. Gen Z is so much more comfortable with this. And at Lyspe, we always look for a technology overlay on an existing consumer behavior.

So you're right, the existing consumer behavior here is a selfie. And Cameo is that technology overlay that manages to make the selfie go viral. There are people in Howard Stern, the radio host, who's just a great interviewer. But he has something called the whack pack, which was his collection of like just weird, odd people in the world. Completely politically incorrect. He couldn't have collected the whack pack now. But he did it in the, I guess, the 90s and the 2000s.

And the members of that whack pack, just weird people. are all making like 5, 10, 15,000 a month and they never made any money before. And so it's incredible. It is incredible. And Howard Stern, I feel like, is so much at the forefront of, like, mass consumer. If you want to be a consumer investor in Silicon Valley, you need to constantly be thinking about what a consumer is doing outside Silicon Valley. Speaking and listening to Howard Stern is one of the best things you can do.

Yeah. I think I wrote this blog post about Howard Howard could make a billion dollars if he took his show and made it into a podcast. If you just think about how... He's doing pretty well for himself. I think he makes like $150 million a year or something like that. It's incredible and he doesn't have to work on anything. If people want to pitch you,

what kind of businesses, what kind of founders do you find yourself if you reflect on who you write checks to? Just looking at the existing ones, confirmation bias. What type of founders have you invested in? not what you would normally publicly say, this is what we're looking for in a press release or on your website, but looking back at who you invested in

and being reflective, what type of people did you invest in and have great outcomes with? Yeah. The confirmation bias. What was there, where are the common characteristics of these folks? Celebrities won, obviously,

but let's put that aside because it's too obvious. But it's somebody, I love the idea of I found a product fit. And so as an angel, invested a lot in companies in FinTech. You used to work at a FinTech startup, companies that were in marketplaces. And then now it's been a lot of like consumer subscription, e-commerce marketplaces. And it's founders that know that space better than anyone else.

Now maybe they have worked at similar companies, but they have these deep insights into the space and they allow you to think about the world in a different way. And so I love that. I think that that storytelling ability. A brings you on, but it also equally brings on a superstar team below them. Right. And so we do look for those insights that the founder has that allows us to change our thinking and then we'll change consumer thinking, change management thinking.

So they have some deep, not necessarily domain expertise into, but it could be. Yeah, that's that too. That too, but how the, technically how marketplaces work, technically how content works. But also. Executors on it, they're good at executing. It seems like that's a theme. Like if you think about calm, great product design, Sophia and Goop. That's definitely a thing, but I also would say that it's thinking about it from the consumer standpoint.

So like one area that we really hone in on is, okay, consumer behavior. How is that changing? How are you tapping into consumer behavior better than anybody else? And so when a founder deeply understands their consumer, that's when we think that there's something interesting happening. Of your investments, how many would be late stage versus early stage? Hmm. Two thirds early stage, one third growth. Got it. Why not focus on one? Aren't people supposed to focus on one? Aren't you supposed to be either growth or early stage? Why would you do both? I always hear that people pick one. There's such value in both because companies are staying later for longer. And so if you look at our growth portfolio at light speed, over 50% of it is invested in companies that we've already invested in. So maybe we do the A in Lady Gaga's beauty company. Then maybe we'll also do the B or the C. And so it's great.

to be able to carry on investing in our best companies. You know, right now we're at the top of a cycle. It's especially important to those founders to be able to say we back our companies through the good and bad times. So want to be able to continue to invest and lead those rounds in the growth stage companies. And then equally, businesses look very different. So if you look at, you know, calm at the seed stage versus growth, they look different. Very different. Zola was another one, the wedding registry company.

Oh, yeah. I had her on, yeah. We invest in this. I know I'm doing a good job when I have your portfolio on. It was good. You basically had all of them on. It's terrific. And so we invested at the Series B in Zola.

And that made a lot of sense because the company was just humming at that point. Yeah. She figured it out. She really did. That's when we invest when they figure it out. Yeah. It is a nice time to invest because there's too many experiments in companies going on. And trying to predict the future and figure it out is a lot more.

I think it's a fool's hour and to try to pick the predict. the future, I think. You can see what's the quality of the first rally boss? What's the quality of the first girl boss rally? What's the quality of the second one? That's enough information to make an investment. Completely agree. And that's why you actually can find founders who have figured it out at the CED or Series A stage because they've been around for even like two months, but they've got that data. They know their customers are loving it. They've got their engagement retention figures. And that's when we get excited. All right, Nicole Quinn. Partner out Lightspeed. Thanks for coming on the pod you can follow her on Twitter,

N-I-K-K-U-I-N-N. And best way to get in touch with you when you're pitching, best stage to be at. Go through a founder, go through a mutual connection or you take a cold email.

I reply to every single email I get. So drop me an email. As opposed to Jeremy. Jeremy also does. No, he doesn't. Jeremy's got a whole set of rules. You saw me fighting with Jeremy on Twitter. We are very excited about...

We don't get along. We don't get along, Jeremy and I. I don't know why. Well, we try and reply to every single email. So I don't think Jeremy likes me. Jeremy don't like me. Jeremy Lou. I love you.

You told him you're coming on the pot? I actually didn't. Oh, okay. But I'm going to tell him that I had a great time on the pot. I'll have him on the pot. I don't know why. You should. Jeremy is a terrific investor.

I know he's very good. But I just, I dunked on him a couple times on Twitter because I was like, you know what? He was doing this whole thing. Like, here's how to email me. And I was like, just email. Don't tell people how to email you. I took offense.

to it. And we got into it on Twitter. But you know what? This thing about Twitter, you get it in on Twitter and then you wind up loving the person. I think we could be good friends. I think you would end up loving him. I think he is brilliant. He's a good friend. Open invitation to Jeremy Lou to come on the pod. All right. Nicole, thanks for coming to the pot. Thank you, Jason. Save me some room on those cap tables. Remember, half a slice better is fine. I'll take you some reason.

I've got one for you right now. You do? All right. Yum, yum, we'll talk. Bye bye, everybody.