YouSaid · the spoken record

Ellie Wheeler

lines on the record
25
first
2016-01-27
most recent
2016-01-27
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

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  1. “So we just co led that investment with Eventures and very excited. I'm actually going to Berlin next week for our first board meeting. So that's an exciting one you should download it.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “My most recent investment is a company called Blinkist. It's a mobile content subscription, so you're essentially getting a summary of the key insights of nonfiction books. So the idea behind it being the vast majority of nonfiction books, first of all, we all want to read more. We just don't have as many hours in the day as we all wish. Here you can get a gist of what it is that you wanted to understand. You get the core insights out of that book. If you want to learn more, go buy it. That's great. And they have it in bite sizes so you can essentially in a mobile first format so you can crank out half of it in a Starbucks line. So it's kind of for how we live today. And it's a fascinating company. They're based in Berlin. I love the team. They've been able to do some really interesting stuff with a lean team to get to where they are today.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I have tried it. I just can't. I don't bring my phone into meetings with me so that I pay attention, which means that I can't it's a problem. So then I want to write something down and I have to do it twice.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Know I don't. I am an evangelist for this is going to sound funny, the outlook app on iOS. We still use ALO. It is so great. I actually go around telling people how wonderful it is. So I love it. Love it, love it. Otherwise, I've tried every to-do list app out there. If you can find one that actually works for me, that would be awesome. I use Evernote for notes. But what I end up doing is actually using an index card as my to-do list, which goes with me everywhere. I would love to find a digital alternative, but for me.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Favorite blog or newsletter, there are, but I really just use Twitter rather than a specific site. I'm really just on Twitter all the time.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Wealth. I mean, I think I almost have to go with, and this is also true. I have to go with Alan Patrickoff. He's fabulous. So obviously the founder of our fund, but he's been adventurer as long as anybody, basically as long as Venture's been around. But, you know, Alan started, it was Alan Patrick Off and Associates that turned into Apex, which of course is a global private equity firm. And then essentially as a retirement project, he started Grantcroft, which obviously turned into a lot more than that. So, I mean, he's seen everything as an incredible perspective and a great person to learn from.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “The power of one. It's just such a fascinating story and it's one of those books that gets you cheering out loud, has you crying, you know, you kind of go through the entire range of emotions and you're really rooting for the protagonist. It's a fabulous book.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Sure, so I think that a lot of that research that a lot of those thought pieces around that are about brands or heritage brands, brands that have been around a while that millennials don't necessarily identify with. I think what that really is, is an opportunity for the next generation of people who are building brands today, most of which are being built online first and then moving offline. But that's an opportunity to have a brand that people actually and this generation can identify with kind of shared values. So rather than it being threatening, I think it's actually an opportunity to be kind of the brands that this generation grows up with.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I think for these hardware businesses, it's a great way to fund and it's a great way to market. It's a win-win. I think it's become normal. So you do a seed round, you do a Kickstarter. Some people do a Kickstarter first, then a seed round, and then go and try and go to get to prototype, hopefully get to kind of fulfill those early orders. And then they come out and we'll raise a Series A. So I think that's become the path for a lot of these hardware businesses. It's great.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Sure. So Bobar is a little bit different, right? So they're, you know, a fashion jewelry brands and wanting to be kind of the go-to place for that category, which doesn't really exist. So they've done a nice job being able to kind of build that awareness and build a brand around it. You'll see them do some of these collaborations in adjacent spaces. And that's what this was with Javon. So kind of this collaboration, although Jawbone was still manufacturing that hardware. So I don't really classify that as hardware. We've looked at a number of hardware companies. There's a lot of really interesting stuff, Internet of Things, obviously. The challenge that we've had is”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “So, in the shirt that you're wearing, it'll eventually be within the fabric. Today there's still a small hardware device that you need alongside of it, which of course makes it more challenging to go mass. But it'll be just a part of there'll be a lot less friction because you're just doing what you would be doing anyway. So you're getting ready to go to the gym or you're getting ready to go exercise. And so you put on your athletic apparel, your athletic apparel will sync with your phone and play the part of monitoring your heart rate, counting your steps and being able to do a lot of that. So I think those are the early things that I see as being really interesting once they can, it'll take a few years for it to be able to be kind of sewn directly into the fabric, but we're not that far away from it. And that's where I think it's going to start to get really interesting.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Right, right. And that's consistent with what I've heard from a lot of people. But I always ask people who are still wearing it. What is it that I'm missing? Tell me why you love this. But on the wearables front, some of the most interesting stuff that I've seen is more integrated. So it's less wearing a rubber band around your wrist, which, you know, it's fun to see people like Bob Labar, you know, having collaborations with the wearable manufacturers. You've seen Tori Birch do something very successful also, there is opportunity there because the designs of these things are, you know, I'm not going to wear a plastic rubber band. I'm just not. So it's nice to see that there are options. But the things that have been most interesting are more integrated. So it's actually in the fabric that you're wearing. So I think that's where we're going to go with this. It's going to be in your athletic gear.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yeah, it is a big question and it's an interesting one. I think V1 of all of these products aren't particularly ready for mass, right? I think that's true of the Apple Watch. Even anecdotally talking to people who have it, a lot of them aren't using it anymore. Some of them love it. It's just hard to pinpoint what exactly the killer use case is.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “You need to be really smart about that, and it really needs to be relevant. It needs to be to the right set of users, and it needs to be something that you know is going to be relevant at that moment in time. So I think it can be very powerful. I think it also has to be used intelligently. And it can really alienate if it's done poorly. And we need to have all of these companies need to be able to use the data that is now available to be able to really get those insights. And everyone talks about that. Everyone knows that that's what they need to do. It's not necessarily simple with the off the shelf platforms that a lot of people are using. So you're seeing people kind of innovate around how to get some of that siloed information out and be able to make smart decisions.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “It's a fine line. They need to push notifications generally need to be smarter. The push overall in this ecosystem is, and it's been talked about for years, but the hope is that eventually we'll, you know, and hopefully in the near term, we'll see it, but it's personalization and customization. So you're seeing customization even on the product side, and what on the personalization front, it's about getting the right product or the right service to the right person at the right time and notifying them about that in the right way, right? Having a blast push notification to all of your app users, that's tough unless it's going to be something like guilt that only will have one sale a day or that's not even the model anymore, but you know what I mean. Like, you know, someone, a consumer is trained to expect if they're going to get a push notification, it's going to be at noon. But if you're more of a broad-based service,”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Well, if you bank it in just retail, then it's harder if it's more broadly kind of just transactionally based consumer businesses, then there's some obvious ones, like, you know, some of the mobile first companies, like, you know, the Hotel Tonights of the World. But in a pure kind of retail context, it's almost dependent upon when the company was founded, like almost dependent on what year they were founded as to how good their mobile experience is right now and was off the bat. You know, a lot of people have done a nice job backfilling it. But if you were founded in 2012, you know, you did not have a great mobile experience. It wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary really until probably the middle of 2014. Maybe that's a little bit late. Maybe it was more early 2014. So the companies that were founded then or right around then.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Of companies in that vein, whether it's broad or particularly vertical focused. So that I think will increasingly see and see that incorporated into other platforms, see it incorporated into other products. But that's one of the shifts that we're seeing, particularly on mobile, which makes a lot of sense in a mobile context to be able to have more of a freeform interaction”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Email to mobile was what was happening. People were email is always and still is kind of the biggest conversion driver in a lot of these direct-to-consumer businesses. People are opening their emails. They're opening them on their mobile device. They're going to a mobile site. That mobile site was typically failing. So, you know, that was the first problem to solve. We're getting people into the funnel and then we're dropping them into a terrible experience. Some people solve it. People solve it in different ways, whether it's a much better mobile web experience or more likely they're pushing people into an app. But that's kind of where we've been and now it's table stakes and people need to be thinking that way from day one. But what's interesting now is a lot of the conversational commerce that we're seeing, people using AI, people using kind of a messaging interface in order to provide services and to provide as well as products kind of in that conversational flow. We're seeing a lot of”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, sure. So, yeah, I broadly look at a lot of transactional, consumer transactional businesses. And obviously the shift to mobile can't be understated. It was one of those that was going to be big next year for the longest time. And then as soon as it tipped, that's all there was. And you see this in different markets and every single McKinsey or whomever will put out reports on what mobile commerce will be or what mobile usage will be. And all of them have been beaten and been off by orders of magnitude over the last few years, which is kind of the fundamental shift that we've all seen. So mobile commerce, obviously big shift. Conversion rates are still low when compared to desktop as companies are figuring out what the right method of engaging with the consumer is. It's like across our portfolio, the first things we were seeing is that, you know,”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “All of it contributes, right? I mean, so I saw three or four just completely different ways of viewing the world. And you take pieces from each, right? So it was, you know, of course, it was a great experience, a different, more less structured, more free-wheeling way of going about it, which is also representative of seed. Like that just makes sense for what he's doing. So that was, it was, it was really, I learned a ton and had a great experience.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Oh man. I mean, he was very much in the flow, right? In terms of deal flow, in terms of seeing the things that he wanted to see. I mean, he had access and that was because he had a pretty extensive network and was well known and was well liked by founders. And that's how that builds. He had hustled his way there. It's great to see where he's gone from there. Obviously very exciting. I mean, it was fun to, you know, kind of sit in meetings with him and, you know, hear how he went about it. He was always very founder-centric and wanted to, you know, hear the story from their point of view and would always kind of riff with them on where things were going was pretty collaborative because these companies were pretty early on when he was talking to them. So it was interesting, of course, to see that and see him get deep into the product.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Experience obviously he sees a ton of interesting stuff, met a bunch of interesting people and was able to stay in the flow even though I was at business school and sometimes it's pretty easy to be in the bubble if you will”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Dollars on the balance sheet meant you saw everything once people stopped having easy access to capital and M&A was stunted a bit. We did see a lot. That was my immersion into tech. And from there, I went back to business school. Essentially, everyone who was above me and either those jobs had been to business school. So to business school, I went. I also had been, of course, pre-med undergrad. getting the basics and even the frameworks and the words to use rather than what I had learned on the job was something that was intriguing to me. So I went back to business while I went to Harvard. And while I was there, I started working with Chris Saka, who's an angel investor out on the West Coast, of course, now has lowercase capital at the time. He was just kind of starting the lowercase effort. And I worked with him for a year remotely while I was in Boston, which was a great.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “And was suddenly at a private equity firm. So that was, to say the least, an interesting few years, learned a ton. And what I got there was exposure to a broad range of industries, broad range of business models, learned a little bit about a lot of things, and really it was a great learning experience. From there, I wanted to see the other side. I liked the work I was doing, but wanted to understand it more in context and lesson of financial, purely financial context. So I went to Cisco and moved to San Francisco. There I was doing corporate development. So that was M&A, venture, and strategy, and I was focused on the enterprise software side of the house there. So that was WebEx and video conferencing, and there were a whole host of other things, unified communications is what we were calling it at the time, as well as early mobility. So I was at Cisco during the financial crisis, which was a good place to be $30 billion.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Oh, sure. That's the question we all get all the time, which is a good one because there's no clear answer. There's no path. There's no formula. There's no, if you do this, you'll be able to get into venture. It's a healthy dose of luck and timing and hard work and all of those things. But for me, I took a bit of an unconventional path if you start at college and move on. I actually was pre-med undergrad and went to medical school immediately after college. I dropped out before the end of the first semester. I figured if I wasn't going to do the med school thing, I didn't need to take finals, so quit right before that. And it took a few months to figure out what on earth I was going to do from there. I ended up starting off at Summit Partners, which is the Growth Capital Private Equity Firm in Boston. So that was an immersive experience. I basically didn't know how to use Excel.”

    2016-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From Working with Chris Sacca, The Rise Of Mobile Commerce and Improving Push Notifications with Ellie Wheeler, Partner @ Greycroft Partners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source