Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Brit Morin on Personal Branding, Entrepreneurship, and Unconventional Creativity | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic

Starting point is 00:00:01 What is up my young and profiting family? Today we've got another Yap classic for you guys, and we're pulling Britt Marin's episode on self-made entrepreneurship from the archives. Britt Marin is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and technologist. She's the co-founder and managing partner of offline ventures, which is an early stage venture fund, and she's also the founder and CEO of the popular lifestyle brand Brit Inc. Britt recently launched self-made an education platform for female entrepreneurs, as well as BFF, an open-access community for women and non-binary people in Web 3.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Tune into this episode to learn how Britt broke into the tech industry and how she formed a relationship with Steve Jobs. We discuss creativity and how to become more creative. We get the 411 on how she raised capital to start Britain Co. And we learn how Britt makes investment decisions as a venture capitalist. So let's get right into it. Here's my conversation with Britt Marin. Hi, thanks for having me. I'm very excited to talk to you.

Starting point is 00:01:17 I feel like there's so many different things that we can discuss. You are the founder and CEO of Britain Co. You also had a very awesome tech career. You worked at Google and Apple, so definitely want to dive into that. From my understanding, you were very creative from a young age, you know, from fingerprinting to drawing. this was something that you always had inside of you. So let's start from the beginning. What were you like as a child? And how did you kind of hone this creativity at such a young age?

Starting point is 00:01:46 Oh, like the very beginning. Okay. So for better or for worse, I was a child of the kind of late 80s and early 90s, aka the time period in life where there was not the internet, there was not social media. and I was part of a generation where both the parents worked. So often I was at home alone or my mom was working from home and I was just left to fend for myself. And as a creative little girl, to your point, I knew I was going to be an inventor one day. I like had a list of inventions. I still own that list, by the way. And I just like tinkered around the house finding materials to try to make them a real thing. I didn't know what I was doing. I was was actually entrepreneurship. I called it creativity because I was making stuff. I was making products. I was

Starting point is 00:02:38 burning things, lighting things on fire on accident, cutting the wrong things. And so it was kind of a mess and a disaster, but that was the only way I could learn again without Google or YouTube or something around me. Yeah, that's really cool. And I know I've heard you say in the past that making and the act of actually making something can help us rediscover our creativity. Because when we're younger, we are like kind of fearless when it comes to trying something new and getting creative. But then as we get older, we kind of shy away from being creative. So can you talk to us about that? Yeah, it's really interesting because, you know, we did an experiment a few years ago where we surveyed a bunch of like five to seven year olds. And we asked them, do you think you're creative? And as you can imagine, like almost all of

Starting point is 00:03:27 them said, yeah, for sure. Like, of course, I'm like the most creative person in the world. Super ego about their creativity. Then we interviewed a bunch of 25 to 35 year olds and asked them if they felt they were creative. And as you can imagine, the majority said, no, I am not creative. Oh, that's not me. I'm not an artist. Like for some reason, everyone kept referring to it as being an artist instead of just a trait of humanity. And so we, we realize that something happens between five and 25 or 35. And I think it's middle school. Middle school is to blame for everything in life.

Starting point is 00:04:08 But no, I think it's actually like when we start feeling judged about our creative skills. And that can come with grades, you know, when you get graded in art class, which is sort of counterintuitive. Or when we start to become really afraid and insecure of what our peers think about us, when we're showing things to them that feel really vulnerable as teenagers. But the fascinating thing is that oftentimes, specifically for women, when we studied creativity as adults, the only time it did come back in a really statistically meaningful way was around the time of getting married.

Starting point is 00:04:49 And we explored this for a little bit. And we realized that with the rage of do-it-yourself weddings, and Pinterest and all of these things, women in particular felt like there was a creative moment that was happening that they wanted to put their twist on to make it more themselves. And that like reinvigorated their little child inside of them. And it many times encouraged them to be more creative as adults on an ongoing basis. So I thought that was a really fascinating study that we've done. And then the other thing to note is that Halloween, of course, is the one,

Starting point is 00:05:27 day a year where every single person, well, not everyone, but like 98% feel creative and feel like it's okay to break the rules and play and experiment with without the judgment that comes and being silly. So I do think so much of it is just about adult insecurity at the end of the day. Yeah. Wow, that's so interesting. And, you know, I've always considered myself to be like a very, very creative person. Like I always had like these natural design abilities. And even when I was and jobs in corporate where I wasn't a designer. I was like very strategic in kind of a higher level role. I found my creativity to be like a huge asset because when I was doing presentations, I can make them very visual and even my spreadsheets were really easy to understand and things like

Starting point is 00:06:13 that. So talk to us about the scope of creativity and like your definition of creativity because I don't think it's just art, right? And can working on these DIY projects like help, you know, you and your corporate career or your professional job as well. You know, it's so funny. That's exactly right. Everyone thinks that when I say creativity, I mean like glue and ribbon, like crafts. And even the word craft is like so overplayed. It means like popsicle sticks and like kindergarten. But when I say the word like craftsmanship, that provokes something more sophisticated. Or to your point, DIY even has a crafty tone. But like when you're doing something yourself, it's like do it yourself, right? Like it's like, I can go make dinner for myself. I can put on makeup by myself. I think

Starting point is 00:07:03 creativity is this horizontal layer across everything we do in life, right? And literally, you're making probably 10 to 20 creative choices every day minimum just because you're picking out what you're wearing. You're deciding if it matches, you know, if you're a woman, maybe you're putting on makeup. You're doing gradients with your eye shadow. You know, you're, you're, you're blending, your contouring, you're literally doing artistic things to your face and your hair. You know, you're deciding what to make for dinner. You're maybe decorating or organizing your home. You're being creative and problem solving at work to your point. And so I definitely think creativity is an asset no matter what. But the problem is it's like a muscle. You have to work it out.

Starting point is 00:07:46 You have to explore that side of yourself even when you're not working and problem solving. And to me, even 30 minutes a week, literally like exercising, whatever, pick a creative thing, cooking, painting, photography, it doesn't matter, just do it and understand how it feels to get into that flow state. Because at the end of the day, there's also been a lot of studies about creativity as an antidote to anxiety, depression, you know, all of these mental health issues because it does put you into a meditative flow. And you don't have to Instagram it. You don't have to show it to anybody. They can just be for you. It can be messy. And isn't that such an amazing analogy for business and for life? Like, it can be messy. You can try. You can play. You don't even

Starting point is 00:08:32 have to put it out there at first. But like, explore it for yourself and see what comes from that. Yeah, I love that. And it doesn't need to like make money or do anything fancy. It can just be for you. And it's for men and women too. Like men can be creative as well. And I think even there's a lot of men out there who think that crafts and creativity is kind of for women. And I think that there's plenty of things that men can do that are creative, right? Oh my gosh. I mean, I'm married to a man who might not call himself a creative, actually, but like he's an amazing photographer. He is an incredible, like, architect designer thinker. Literally, he studies real estate. He's on the board of dwell. He also plays Legos with my boys every day, and they're building

Starting point is 00:09:18 from scratch. They're not following the guidebook. They're just like making houses, making battleships. Like, that is creativity too. And like, it's so fun. It's so fun to let that side of you go and just explore and see where it takes you. So, yeah, men can totally be creative. Yeah, I love that. So let's talk about all of your success. Like you are an extremely successful young woman. You're only 35 years old. You're the CEO of a company that a lot of people know about. You're an investor. You're an in multiple different companies. You've been on the 30 under 30 list twice. Like you are very, very successful. And when I looked at your childhood, it's not the typical childhood that I've seen with all the different successful people that I've been on my show. Usually I get the underdogs.

Starting point is 00:10:03 They were picked on at school. They were nerds with no friends or, you know, they never got any opportunities. But then I look at your profile and, you know, straight A's captain of the, you know, soccer team, class president, spelling be champ. You name it. You seem to have been crushing it your whole life. So I want to know, are we just seeing the highlight real of your life? Did you have any challenges growing up? And how do you stay motivated if you had a very easy childhood? How does that keep you motivated knowing that you had it so easy? Or is there something we're missing? Oh, well, thank you for insinuating that it was easy. I'm like, I've been in years of therapy. I can tell you all about my childhood. No, but for real, my, my, You know, we were very middle class. I remember when it was really difficult for my mom to write me a $20 check for a field trip. Like we didn't have that much money in the bank. My mom was and is a court reporter. My dad, when I was born, was a restaurant manager and then later turned car salesman. Like, no one had really gone to college and my whole family. My dad put himself through community. college later when I was like seven. So I didn't grow up with like the college educated,

Starting point is 00:11:25 super successful working class family. These were people that were just like trying to make it and get by. And my mom suffered from debilitating depression when I was in first grade all the way till like sixth or seventh grade. And ever since then, she's still had it on and off. And largely my childhood memories were of my dad at work and my mom sleeping in her bedroom. And I think that I became so fascinated with creativity and invention and DIY do it myself because that was my only option. I had to figure things out for myself to survive, literally. I had to learn to cook for myself. I did my laundry when I was eight. I had to go seek other people's approval like teachers and coaches because I didn't feel like I was getting that at home. And I've talked to my mom about this

Starting point is 00:12:23 at this point. But it also encouraged me to never want to be like that. My mom was a very negative person during those times. She definitely didn't think she was smart enough, pretty enough, good enough at anything in life. She was not ambitious at all. She did not want to change her life to do anything different or new. And I think I pushed against that so hard. like so hard that not only did I throw myself into being the most ambitious go geter a person in the world, but I truly believe every woman can be that as well. And it's become my mission in life to like pull women along with me and push them off the edge when they're scared and push them to do things that are really, really uncomfortable for them because I know they can.

Starting point is 00:13:09 And that has been what's created Britain Co and self-made, the new brand we've made and everything else. And I do feel like, you know, right now in my life, I feel like the most whole authentic version of myself that I can talk so openly about this. And I can be a resource for other men and women going through similar things, whether it's with mental health or this, like, the achievement push that, you know, Enneagram 3 over here can't ever, like, satiate my need to achieve. Very cool. So you ended up going to the University of Texas, right? And you wanted to go there because you knew you would graduate early and then head out to Silicon Valley when you were, I think, 20 years old, right? So talk to us about that. Talk to us about that move to Silicon Valley.

Starting point is 00:13:56 I think your first job was Apple. Tell us about that story. Yeah, you know, it's really funny because along the same time, I was fascinated with computers in Silicon Valley. I was equally fascinated by media and entertainment. I was binge watching television all the time, like most teenagers do. And LA felt so glamorous to me, a girl from Texas. And I remember when I was graduating, I was graduating early, I had two opportunities. One was to move to L.A. and work on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, which had just launched. No one knew who this guy was. Or to move to San Francisco and work for Apple. And I was very conflicted. I remember being like, ooh, this is really tough. And my brother talked some sense into me and was like, are you crazy?

Starting point is 00:14:44 Like, you have to go to Apple. But Apple wasn't sexy at the time. This is like Dell was still like number one and, you know, PCs was what everyone had. iPods were still hard to sell to people. It's like early 2000s. So I was like, okay, I guess I'll go to Apple. And I'm so glad I did because not only did I get to work in iTunes, which is the coolest group at Apple. and we had like John Mayer stopped by for fun. But I met my husband there, which was an awesome bonus. And

Starting point is 00:15:12 of course, getting to work and meet Steve Jobs, even though I was so low on the totem pole, was really, really cool. I remember I had to, at one point, one of my jobs was to send out the chunk of press that had happened the day before. I had to deliver it, hand deliver it to each one of the executives in the morning and go by their offices. And I, like, had heard horror stories about Steve Jobs firing you on the spot, like, if you said something wrong. And so I remember I would always, like, tiptoe to his office and, like, hand him the stack of press from the day before, like, so afraid, like, if it was a bad press day, I would be fired or something. I don't know. But, like, it was just, like, you know, little stories like that. And I got to ask him

Starting point is 00:15:59 questions at town halls. And it was a really, really cool time to be there. And it was a really cool time to be there. And I'm so glad I got to work at Apple briefly during the Steve Jobs era. Yeah. And I heard that he actually lied to you about releasing the iPhone. You had asked about a phone and he was like, oh, we would never, you know, put a camera and a iPod and one device. We would never do that. And then six months later it came out. Tell us about that story. And tell us about like just, it's crazy that you had, like, you actually met Steve Jobs. Not many people can say that. So tell us about how he was as a leader as well. Yeah, like I said, I was so scared of him because we all passed around these horror stories. But, you know, I was also the go-getter, maybe naive early 20-something-year-old that like if there was an

Starting point is 00:16:48 opportunity at a town hall to ask a question, I wasn't going to like let that chance slip. And so I raised my hand. There had been all these rumors about an iPhone. And I said, hey, like, there's rumors we're making a phone. Is this? It's true. And he said, yeah, exactly what he said. He was like, well, let me tell you something. When you put a camera, an iPod, and a telephone into one device, no way can you keep the quality as high as possible in each one of those three things. Like something has to give. So like, do you think we would really do that? And then six months later, it's like literally meet the iPhone. It's like the keynote presentation that changed the world. Like he would always answer things in a roundabout way. where he wasn't saying yes or no, but he was like painting a picture of like, why or why not we would do things. I learned a lot.

Starting point is 00:17:41 And now actually my partner and the venture firm, I'm working on literally reported to Steve Jobs for 28 years. So I'm getting way more intel on Steve in his life and what he was like as a boss through my new partner, James. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. at Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers.

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Starting point is 00:19:05 Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need. Really cool. And so you also worked at Google. So you worked at two massive tech giants.

Starting point is 00:19:25 Now you have your own company. What are some things that you kind of took from each company? Because now I'm a new entrepreneur. I worked at Hewlett-Packard. I worked at Disney streaming and other places. And I find myself like taking values and kind of culture bits from each company. What have you brought to Britain Coe from these two companies? Yeah, they both are so different, but I'm so glad I got to see both of them.

Starting point is 00:19:47 So at Apple, you know, designers are the gods. Everything hinges on quality and design, right? And it's also a super secretive culture. And marketing is everything. Like if you are an epic marketer, you know how to write copy, you know, the iPod ads that are so infamous, that is everything. At Google, that stuff is the bottom of the pack. Like engineering is everything at Google. Data-driven decisions are the way to go. Design and marketing are fluffy. They won't actually change a user's perception. And of course, I'm oversaw. And of course, I'm oversawful. stating some of this, but like totally different cultures. And also at Google, we literally had an internal wiki where you could search what any project is, who's working on it, when it's going to be launched, like see all the mocks, the screenshots. And no one really leaked it. It was

Starting point is 00:20:45 actually like pretty secure. We didn't really have leaks that much. So I think it's interesting how you can build totally different types of cultures, but still create incredible brands that could change the world. The thing about Google that I loved, though, was like really, really, really the data-driven decision-making. You know, Marissa Meyer was one of my bosses there. She went on to be an investor in my company, as you said. And I remember we would be in user design reviews, and she would make us test like 100 colors of the shade of blue

Starting point is 00:21:19 and a button to see which one converted better. Like we had like maybe 10, and she was like, we need more. Like pick every shade of blue in this part of the spectrum. and let's see if there's a difference, like 0.01% difference and click-through rate. Because when you're literally dealing with a billion people, a change of 0.01% is really meaningful. And so she really invested in teaching me how to think about numbers, how to think about data, how to pair data and design together because art and science can live congruantly and harmoniously together. And at the end of the day, BritainCo has really been driven by data as much as possible.

Starting point is 00:22:04 It's one of those things from Google. Like, for instance, when we launched Britain Co back in the day, 2011, I remember Pinterest was a new social network. They had just released like the Pinet button that you can embed on your website to save images. We tested like 20 or 30 versions of the P. or the save, the pinnit, the P, like all the variations of the pinet button. We found one that, like, blew the rest away. And to this day, Britt and Co, and specifically, like, my account, Britt, is one of the top Pinterest accounts in the whole world. We, I think, most recently reached 91 million Uniques on Pinterest.

Starting point is 00:22:48 And I totally credit that to the testing of the. this pin it button, which became really, really effective for us because so many of our users would save things. And that really blew up our account there. So, you know, if anyone is out there thinking about data, like getting the Google master's degree and how to make data-driven decisions can totally help you out. Yeah. And I would definitely echo that because I find that that's a skill that not many people have. Like people don't understand UX. People haven't had, you know, experience with A-B testing and things like that, unless you've been in product marketing or, you know, in a marketing department that does that kind of stuff, there's a lot of people who don't

Starting point is 00:23:30 have experience there. And then they start businesses on their own. They run ad campaigns. They don't know why it's not working and they don't understand that you need to continually iterate and iterate and iterate until you get something that's really good. And you've got to keep spending time to make it better and better. So I would definitely recommend, you know, increasing that skill, your product design skills and things like that. So you mentioned Marissa Mayer and she was an investor in your company and sounds like she was also one of your boss mentors. And I want to understand if you could look back at your time at Google and making your impression with Marissa, what do you think it was in terms of your qualities for her to kind of take you on under her wings for her to,

Starting point is 00:24:14 who have liked you so much to invest in your company, how did you get in her good graces? I think that's a fascinating question because I'm actually still not totally sure. What I do know is she didn't like me at first. So there was a crossover point. No, I had this manager when I was first at Google. And again, I'm like 23 at this point, right? Like I'm really young. This manager was a gay Spanish man.

Starting point is 00:24:40 So you can imagine, like, he was just very outgoing. loud. And I remember, you know, we would do our peer assessments and we would get sort of our quarterly performance reviews back. And all the managers would have to go to Marissa to sort of validate each person on their team and what their review score was, blah, blah, blah. And Marissa kept knocking me down. Like he would be like, I think Britt, like, was an overachiever this quarter. She should get a 4.0 and Marcia's like, I don't know. I think she's probably more like a 3.5. And I remember my manager being like, I don't know, Britt, like maybe she feels like you're competitive. Like I don't know why she's, she thinks you're like a div. I don't know like what's happening. And I was so sad

Starting point is 00:25:31 because I was working my ass off. And I was like always trying to be so kind and like I just like do my work. And but then I remember. being asked to join a new team by Marissa, which was called Google TV. We were creating the first operating system for television that ever existed. It was part of the YouTube organization. It's now gone on to be Chromecast. But Marissa, like, called me to her office and was like, I think you need to go to this team. And I was like, really? Why? And she was like, because this is going to be like a startup within Google. And I just really believe that it's going to be exciting for you. you're going to learn a lot, you're going to get a bunch of responsibility. And I was like,

Starting point is 00:26:14 technically, like, I'm not actually, like, experienced enough to be on that team for the role that's open there. And she's like, I'll make it happen for you. And I was just like, when in this life cycle of knowing Marissa, did she suddenly decide you liked me? Because whatever, but I'll take it. And so I went to the team. I, like, launched Google TV. It was awesome. I managed a $50 million budget when I was 25, which is totally insane. And ever since then, she's been really supportive of me and everything I've tried to do. And so I don't know, but something, that's a good mystery to figure out. Well, you know, if I could, from an outside perspective, it sounded like you were always willing to raise your hand, whether you were at the town hall, willing to raise your hand and ask

Starting point is 00:26:58 a question because a lot of people are shy to do that. And that's really how you get intention of like the CEO and people you don't have access to, right? probably started to recognize you as the girl who always asked a question. And then with Marissa, you weren't afraid to say yes when she gave you that opportunity that you weren't quite ready for. So these are all definitely qualities of young employees that I think really stand out in my opinion. Yeah, for sure. And I think just like being willing to roll up your sleeves, do the work, say yes to your point, really puts your boss's mind at ease when they need that whole field right now. So so you're right. That's a really great tip for anyone.

Starting point is 00:27:35 out there. Yeah. So let's talk about Britt & Co. At what point did you want, like, decide you were going to go off as an entrepreneur. You started really young. How did you get like the motivation to do that, the courage, the confidence to just go out on your own? How did that come about? Yeah. So, you know, here I was 25. I just launched Google TV. I'd also worked on many other things at Google. I'd been there for four years. And I felt like I was repeating patterns. You know, I was literally nothing felt that challenging anymore. I mean, it's challenging, but like I was doing the same thing. I was launching a new thing. I knew how to launch something. And at Google also like, if you put a link on the Google homepage, you're destined to get like a successful launch. So I was

Starting point is 00:28:20 like, how does this work for like a, for like when you don't have a billion people following you, you know? And I noticed at Google and YouTube how to search queries, like how to blink were always the most popular every year. They actually tended to skew female more than male. And as a 20-something-year-old female, I was like not very impressed by the search results behind them. They were like pretty boring, you know, not exciting, not informative. So I was like, oh, I love creative stuff. I would really want to learn how to do things too, but I wouldn't turn to any of these search results to like teach me. And I was like, oh my God, should I be the teacher? And I remember, you know, I was getting ready to get married. I was in the same state I told you about earlier, which was like I was thinking of all

Starting point is 00:29:06 these creative ideas for my wedding and I wanted to make them all to add a personal twist. And I really wanted other women to learn how to do this too. Pinterest had just launched. I was putting everything on my blog and on Pinterest. I was developing a little following for my little creative side projects. And I was just like, oh, I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do. But I didn't feel like it was a real business. I was like, this is just a blog. It's not like, you know, this isn't a business. And so instead I was like, well, I actually really care about health and fitness. There's like a body analytics company. I really want to start too.

Starting point is 00:29:40 And I got a co-founder. It was a female engineer. We were building an alpha. I had left Google. I decided, you know, I had six months of savings in my bank account. And if I couldn't get something working in six months, I would just go back to Google or get a new job somewhere else. Like I felt confident enough in myself that I could get enough. nine to five if things fell apart. But I had six months to go prove myself to the world. And I did have

Starting point is 00:30:10 this crazy impasse where I was working on this health company. We were about to go raise money. We were building a pitch check. But I was obsessed with this creative part of my life in like teaching women how to do things. And my husband and one of my best friends sat me down one day and we're like, Brit, you are destined to do this. Like you champion women. This has always been part of you. You've literally been creative since you were a little girl. You light up when you talk about this. The health and fitness, like, analytics stuff, cool.

Starting point is 00:30:43 Maybe that's a billion dollar company. Maybe you can have a really great outcome. But are you really going to love doing that every day when you wake up for the next 10 years? And I was like, what? And so much of the decision was actually like me believing enough in myself to do something without a co-founder at first. Like, it's really scary to start alone. I had the co-founder at this, like, health startup I was working on.

Starting point is 00:31:07 But, you know, I was like, they're right. And I broke up with my co-founder. I was literally like, it's not you, it's me. The same excuse you would use in dating. And off I went to start Britain Co. And I put my name in it because at the time, social media was just blowing up. And everyone that was a brand was a human. And it felt way more authentic and personable to be a real person.

Starting point is 00:31:29 behind the brand, kind of like back in the day, to your point, Disney, Hershey's, Porsche, Rockefeller, Walmart, they were all real people. And that gave you an element of trust in the brand that they built. So you launched Britain Co. I can't believe you didn't start it really as a side hustle that you just went cold turkey because we have opposite stories. I did YAP Media as a side hustle, did it completely while working full time. And then once it was like totally risk-free, I, you know, left the mothership. So we did that totally opposite. It could also be there's such different, you know, markets now. I did it during COVID.

Starting point is 00:32:05 You did it a long time ago. Maybe it wasn't that crazy of a market at the time. So different scenarios. You're very successful. So it worked out for you. What was the tipping point with Britain Co? Like at what point did you feel like, wow, like this is really going to be a thing. This is going to be really successful.

Starting point is 00:32:21 At what point did you start realizing that you had created a movement and that you were going to get a lot of notoriety from this? At what point did you realize that? I think there were a lot of micro moments along the way. You know, even just raising our first round of funding, which was a million dollars, felt like a huge achievement. Like, oh, my God, we had enough traffic and enough revenue for huge venture capitalists to invest in us. Like, that was scary, but awesome. And then we did it again with the series A and we did it again with the series B.

Starting point is 00:32:51 And between the series B and series C, which was probably like 2015 to 2017, was like, Those years, I just remember, were like so wild and amazing. Those years were probably the time period to your, that answer your question. Like we were launching products and Target stores nationwide. We have 15,000 people coming out to our events. We had, we peaked at 15 million Uniques a month on our website. There's press all the time. I was on TV all the time.

Starting point is 00:33:26 And, you know, it was just like so much was going all. and it was awesome. But in many ways, you know, we were scaling so quickly at the time that I do feel like it was equally hard because I was losing touch with like so many of the employees. You had over 100 employees. And it was just like a lot that happened at once. And Disney became an investor. Verizon became an investor. It took me away from my team way more than I imagined. And after the election in 2016, and Facebook started changing all their algorithms and, like, the media world of digital media started getting crazy. If you look at like BuzzFeed and Vox and like everybody has had like an enormous amount

Starting point is 00:34:12 of struggle over the last few years because all these changing algorithms just like change traffic like so wildly. And so the last few years have been super difficult just because we live in a social media world now, whereas those years building up from 2011 to 2017, yes, like, Facebook was a thing, but like it wasn't so fragmented. It was like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, you know, our three social media sources of traffic. And so it's been more challenging, but also more rewarding because so many publishers have started moving into direct-to-consumer revenue rather than relying on advertising as our main revenue source. And that's been so liberating for me because

Starting point is 00:34:55 at the end of the day, like, I get to spend more of my time with our users instead of like flying all over the country talking to CMOs and, you know, that stuff's fun. But like, I want to know what's next for, you know, on the cusp of the edge for women. And, and that's what I care about. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Young and profitors. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things. why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know.

Starting point is 00:35:34 It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius. The working genius assessment or the six types of working genius framework was created by Patrick Lenzioni, and he's a business influencer and author. And the working genius framework helps you

Starting point is 00:36:02 identify what you're actually built for and the work that you're not. Now, let me tell you a story. Before I uncovered my working genius, which is galvanizing and invention, so I like to rally people and I like to invent new things, I used to be really shameful and had a lot of guilt around the fact that I didn't like enablement, which is one of my working frustrations. So I actually don't like to support people one-on-one. I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like handholding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill that enablement role, which I do have, Kate on my team. So working genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce

Starting point is 00:36:41 friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel, and it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing. I'm obsessed with this model. So if you guys want to take the Working Genius assessment and get 20% off. You can use code profiting. Go to workinggenius.com. Again, that's working genius.com. Stop guessing. Start working in your genius. Happy New Year, Yap, gang. I just love the unique energy of the new year. It's all about fresh starts. And fresh starts not only feel possible, but also feel encouraged. And if you've been thinking about starting a business, this is your sign. There's no better time than right now.

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Starting point is 00:38:37 slash profiting. Go to Shopify.com slash profiting. That's Shopify.com slash profiting. Yeah, fam, hear your first. This new year with Shopify by your side. Yeah. And so when you were raising money for your business. Like, when did you decide I'm not going to bootstrap this? I'm going to raise money. What were you going to use that money for? And how did you know that you were in fact ready to take on an investor rather than going for a loan or something like that? Yes. So it was 2012. And I remember thinking, wow, our traffic is like really picking up. I mean, we went from like zero to half a million Uniques really quickly and then a million. And then a million. And

Starting point is 00:39:24 at the time, that was like a really big deal. And I remember thinking about how this was just the brink of what could it be, because if we can continue to grow traffic like this, we could monetize it through advertising. We could also create a commerce business, which at the time really hadn't been done before. Like content and commerce businesses were very new. And, you know, ultimately, we could build this multifaceted brand. But in order to do that, I needed, like, significant capital because I needed engineers. I needed, you know, people who knew manufacturing. I needed a bunch of people. And a loan was not going to get me there. And so I think it's also a fact of, like, I've been born and bred in Silicon Valley, and venture capital is just, like, right outside my door. And I know the people who are venture capitalists.

Starting point is 00:40:19 I literally did my seed deal in the back of a taxi in New York City. because I was like pitching to a VC who I know. And so I was fortunate to have a network that was literally right outside my door. And I know not everyone has that. But I do think it's part of the halo effect of having got to Silicon Valley at such a young age and starting to get to know people, even at Apple and Google. And like, you know, your network is your net worth, as my friend Porter Gale says. So it really helped me in that way. I will say I don't think. think venture capital is the right approach for most businesses. I, you know, in many ways have thought back like, could I have done this without all the VC money? And I think it's totally possible.

Starting point is 00:41:06 You might not grow as quickly, but you will grow organically. You can probably grow a solid 20 to 30 percent year every year instead of 100 percent year every year like we've done so many years. But it's totally possible and probably less stressful if you want to do it that way. Yeah. And I know that now you're an investor yourself. You actually mentioned to me on an offline conversation that you invested in Clubhouse, which I think was a really great one to choose. I agree. Thank you. So how do you decide which companies you're going to invest in? Like, what's that process like? What do you look for? Yeah. So I'm a seed stage investor, which is like sometimes investing in companies before they've even launched, other times investing in them right after they've launched.

Starting point is 00:41:50 it's really hard to paint a picture of success when you barely have metrics to work off of. So what me and my partners tend to do is, A, look at the team. And when I say team, I really mean the founder or co-founders. Like, have they done this before? What's their track record? Have they worked together before? We reference them with a lot of background diligence on who they are. If they're second-time founders or third-time founders, as is Paul Davison, the founder of

Starting point is 00:42:19 Clubhouse, you know, I've known Paul since like 2009. You know, we hung out at South by Southwest back in the day when he was like launching highlight, his second company. And I know that he has an itch in him to scratch when it comes to building a social network. Like he's tried to do it and failed and he's learned a lot and he just won't give up. And I think in many ways, we look for people that will just bulldoze through walls no matter what. They will figure it out. So that's number one. And number two is truly the idea.

Starting point is 00:42:54 Like, is this an idea that could become a multi-billion dollar business? Is this something that could defend themselves with if competition came out from nowhere? You know, is this something that can scale quickly rather than taking like 10 or 20 years, you know? And so we look at those things. We look at models. And ultimately, you know, we place our butts on companies where still. Still, 90% plus won't work out. And the beauty of venture capital is that hopefully a small percentage of them do.

Starting point is 00:43:27 And when they do work out, it's not just like a 2x return. It's like a thousand X return, which I'm hopeful Clubhouse will be one of for us. I'm sure it will. Let's talk about your new venture self-made. Tell us about what this is, how people can benefit from it, where they can find out more about it. Yeah, so during the peak of the early pandemic in 2020, kind of roughly in the May, June timeframe, I was noticing how women were disproportionately getting furloughed, let go, or forced out of their jobs to care for their kids. And the New York Times had coined

Starting point is 00:44:03 it a she session, like women were getting far more displaced for men than men. And also, the Black Lives Matter movement was happening talking about how disproportionately people of color have been treated during the pandemic. And I just became angry because, frankly, I have learned how to make money through starting a business. I've watched thousands of people do the same. I have seen all the patterns. I know all the people in the game. So could I help? Could I do something to enable these women to go off and start their own businesses and live on their own financial terms rather than applying to 100 jobs and crossing their fingers, they might get hired or hoping the pandemic end so they don't have to homeschool their kids anymore.

Starting point is 00:44:51 And so self-made was born. It was totally on a whim. I built a square space site in two weeks. It's sort of like my favorite example of just like putting something messy and sloppy out there to see if it sticks. And like 170 women signed up. And I didn't know what I was doing, but I was like, within 10 weeks, I'm going to teach these women everything they need to know about how to start a business. And I did that.

Starting point is 00:45:15 And it went really well. And then I did it again in the fall. And it went even better. And now I'm doing it again for the third time. And the key of this whole thing is not only is it live interaction with me, but it's also live interaction with like 25 other people I'm bringing in that are experts in all kinds of topics from like pitch text to P&Ls to social media to sales. There's also women who have just like done it. There's, you know, women like the CEO and founder of Class Pass, Pyle Kadaccia, Rebecca Minkoff, the fashion designer, Gwyneth Paltrow, the CEO of Goop, Bozema St. John, the CMO of Netflix. You know, there's women that have taken companies public. There's women that have bootstrapped. And like,

Starting point is 00:45:59 everyone is here to tell their story and accelerate the path that these new entrepreneurs have in front of them so that they can just start making money sooner. And so it's been, really, really, really rewarding for me. And I'm really excited that we're about to start the next one on March 1st. And I'm hopeful that at the end of the day, we can create over 10,000 new female founded companies through self-made. That's amazing. So have any success stories come about since you launch it? I know it's so new. But anything come to mind? Oh, yeah. I mean, most women are launching their businesses during the class. And so they're literally starting to create real revenue. I mean, one woman freaked out because she launched her company one day. The next day,

Starting point is 00:46:50 she had like $4,000 in sales overnight. Like she just like put up a couple Facebook posts, sent it to some friends, went to bed, woke up and was like, holy shit. How did I get like $4,000 of orders. Like, I've never made that much money in a week in my life. Like, and that's the feeling, like, that feeling that I had when I saw that happen. And that's, that's not a singular incident. Like, this has happened many different times to so many of the women in the course. Like, how cool, how cool that they took a chance on themselves, put something out there, didn't really know what they were doing, and, like, saw massive success. And so the next step is, like, how do we sustain that success? And so we have an alumni program and coaching and all kinds of things that go into it.

Starting point is 00:47:31 But it's been incredible. It's been amazing. We've had women invent new products, medical devices, all kinds of like really crazy B2B services. And then we've had people like create jewelry and face masks. So like it really runs the gamut. That's really cool. And so it's a 10 week program and it takes you from zero to launching a business. If you already have a business or a new business, is it still relevant for you or is it really for someone who just has an idea?

Starting point is 00:48:01 No, it's definitely relevant for both. We have some separate tracks and breakout sessions for those who already have a business. We also have dedicated coaching where you can go one-on-one with coaches to get really specific personal advice on your business. I am there 24-7 to message with and talk to as well. Again, super custom and personalized to you. So it really can be for anyone. And the best part is at the end of it, we have like a pitch day where everyone, not everyone, but like a selection of the students get to pitch. And we are literally giving out grants. My dream is also to have a venture track for like a venture style company where we can literally invest on the spot, Shark Tank style. And I can rope in all my favorite female VCs to join. And so ultimately,

Starting point is 00:48:52 we want to be in the business of helping women create businesses. And that's what self-made is all about. It's also the irony of the name because even though we want you to take full credit for what you're doing, there's like a total girl gang here to help push you forward. Yeah, I love the mission. I see you beaming when you're talking about it. Like you seem so passionate about it. And honestly, for everybody out there listening, I think going through a reputable coaching program like this can replace the need to like go get an MBA, like literally. I really do feel like this is a future of that type of education. For sure. It's also like a quarter million dollars to get an MBA.

Starting point is 00:49:31 I know. Less than that to go through self-made. Yeah, exactly. It's a great other option. Okay. So you're very, very accomplished, as we said. You're just 35 years old. You have an incredible company.

Starting point is 00:49:45 Now you're launching a new venture called self-made. The last question I ask all my guests on the show is what is your secret to profiting in life? My secret to profiting in life is to become incredibly aware of what fills me with energy rather than takes it from me. And I think this is a pattern that a lot of people get into where they're habitually doing the same thing every day. And that could be in work or in your home life. And if you chronicle all of the things that you're doing, I bet you more than 50% of them are energy dream. not energy giving. And so the question becomes, how do you either delegate the energy draining stuff or, you know, make that sub 10% and fill your days and fill your life with the things that are

Starting point is 00:50:40 energy giving to you? Because life is short and we don't have time to spend wasting our energy. We should be filling our energy and therefore it becomes contagious to others. And if we're all doing that, how much better of a world could we create? I love that. That's beautiful. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? Oh my gosh. Well, I'm at Britt on basically every social network. At Britt and Co is the company. And my new venture is self-made. Tryselfmade. Awesome. And I'll definitely put the links for all of that in my show notes. Britt, it was so lovely to talk to you. It was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thanks, everyone.

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Brit Morin on Personal Branding, Entrepreneurship, and Unconventional Creativity | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic

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