YouSaid · the spoken record

Jason Stoffer

lines on the record: 30
first: 2018-07-23
most recent: 2018-07-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Being part of Earth's sustainability. So I love when a company can hit on a customer's heartstrings, both in terms of they feel good by using the brand and they're able to save money versus their alternatives. That's what Nirvana looks like for me, and that's why I'm excited about that one.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The challenge is in large part due to the Amazon question you just brought up and due to the fact that we don't announce a lot of investments these days. You know, my last three core investments still haven't been announced, largely out of fear of competition, both from Amazon. I mean, frankly, if something's really working, you don't want to tell a lot of smart EIRs that venture firms around the world that it's really working. I can speak briefly to a seed investment we did in a company called Imperfect Foods. They source imperfectly shaped fruits and vegetables from the farm and sell them at a discount to what you'd pay at a safe way or a Costco delivered to your door in a customized box. I love online grocery as a category. It's growing incredibly fast. And what this company is playing on is the customer's desire to save both on value and customers' values around wanting to eliminate food waste and feel like they're”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lever, wholesale's a lever, international's a lever, product category expansion is a lever. And the question really is the best CEOs really know what levers they want to pull when and why.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The reason that open physical question they ask is why? Do you have a brand which has incredible customer passion around it, which is growing quickly, and you think that the store is going to be accretive? You think that by opening the store, you're raising unaided brand awareness. I mean, essentially by opening a store, you're also, it's also serving as an acquisition channel. So what's your acquisition cost look like by opening physical stores versus online? I think ultimately if you really want to build a seminal brand, you want to be where the customer is. So the customer is going to tell you, do they want a physical store? Do they actually want delivery within an hour or without a physical store? How do they best want the brand to meet them? Because you have to meet them where they are. And I think physical retail is a lever that could work. Wholesale is a lever that can work. I think the most as we kind of look at these brands, we look at what are the levers you can pull to continue to create equity value.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Amazon scares me. Every single series B that our portfolio companies raise, the question raised is what's Amazon going to do? The fact that they significantly reduce the price of ring post the acquisition, you look at that and say it's very hard to make a connected home investment now. Amazon is unafraid to step on the neck of a competitor. I do think that you can beat Amazon. So what we're looking for is how. I think there's the best way to beat Amazon is with heart. I think Amazon doesn't create the emotional connection with a brand that they had Chewies did or the Zappos did. The other way to beat Amazon is by focusing on an area where their best people aren't focused. So I think there's certainly retail categories, but I wouldn't want to go up against Amazon Invoice, for example, just too hard given the amount of focus they have there.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The hardest thing about that business was the fact that the brand they created was actually better in the enterprise market than their initial consumer market. The only way that pivot happened was by the CEO spending 80% of his time focused on making it happen. And you can't hire professional managers to really change the focus of a business. My biggest lesson was when you have an incredibly important strategic initiative, the CEO needs to clear everything off their plate and make it happen.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I would pick a hundred years of solitude by Marquez. So I think the best books allow you to be kind of lost in this magical world unlike our own. And I think Marquez created that with the town of Mak”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, the anomalies is where fortunes are made. So, you know, we're looking for those anomalies. Yeah, absolutely. I'm intrigued. We said about kind of looking to those. I don't want to put Maveron in a box. I mean, physical product companies might be a quarter of what we do. So I think when we're investing in real estate, for example, we think through what is the potential set of acquirers. I mean, you have big traditional CPG brands. You would have your next gen technology brands like a WeWorker and Airbnb. And when we start to think through, is the asset we're investing in something people are going to acquire and why? What might the multiples look like? And multiples is tricky, right? Because a lot of incumbent brands trade at 10 or 12 times EBITDA and then you have kind of paper unicorns. So it's hard to understand kind of what evaluation multiple might look like. So ultimately we look at kind of what would an EBITDA multiple be at a mature EBITDA or a business and kind of what could happen if there's some froth in the market or alternatively if there's a macro downturn. So I think you're always looking at if they build this, what's the economic value that's being created? And are there going to be acquisition opportunities?”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Category leader, the best solution really is to sell it to an offline previous category leader that's looking to maintain their relevance. So I think you need to really look through, are you building something that's of deep need to the Fortune 500 brands who are pounded on every analyst call asked about what's your digital strategy? Or are you building something that can become one of those Fortune 500 brands? And I think that differs based upon the company. Do you think that kind of in 99% of the time produces venture scale returns, 99% of the exits themselves, when one looks at, say, a bonabosse of the world, maybe with a say a 10% ownership from light speed returning $30 million on a $1 billion fund? Are these venturescale returns from these kind of slightly early exits to the large incumbents? I look at Chewy's as what Wright looks like, not Bonabos, right? I mean, there's always an anomaly. But this is a business anomalies.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or do you think we will see this crop of next gen incredible companies that doll kills could scale into? I think the big question to ask is, can you build a sustainable brand over decades? I think there's a number of elements to that. We have a portfolio company called Trupanion, which is a health insurance business for pets. It's integrated into the point of sale at veterinary offices and has had an incredible tailwind in terms of the markets growing and they're a market leader. And you have incredible revenue predictability in January of any given year. So I think if you have that set of characteristics, that sets up well as a public company. I look at a chewies as an example. And the challenge with many of these businesses, which are driven by CAC, is they kind of work until they don't. CAC doesn't gradually go from 20 to 25 to 30. It goes from 21 day to 80 the next. And I think in many cases where you've created a online”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Generally, as poor in the top funds generally perform quite well. So I think you need to look yourself in the eye honestly and say, are you learning and are you getting better? I think you really learn the business over your first couple of years writing checks. And I think you have to look yourself in the eye and say, do you think you have the insight to really generate ventrolet? There's still a lot on the come. I mean, General Assembly is my first outcome in terms of providing a good size check back to limited partners, and there's still a lot on the come. Absolutely. I'm sure there's many more to come. I do want to discuss, though, the macro environment, but you mentioned that General Assembly's exit. We've seen many large acquisitions in the kind of maybe more traditional software consumer space from dollar shape club to Bonabos. So I have to ask, do you believe there's a consolidatory environment ahead of us?”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As a board member and fiduciary, that often makes you nervous. I think you have to balance agita what you might be feeling with the fact that the CEO is someone who you're on their bus and you trust that they're making the right decisions going forward. There's an argument around how aggressive an entrepreneurship should be. If you think they're running the train off the track, I think you have the obligation to tell them that. But if you're just generally nervous around a number of things, I think you have to constructively talk through those without making the entrepreneur more stressed than they inevitably already are. So I think there's a fine balance there. Ken, you mentioned the elements of kind of the incredible ride with Zuli to losing 15 million dollars. How do you personally deal with this shit hit the fan moment, so to speak, Jason? I think a lot of this is around, are you getting better? I think you look at the cohort of companies you're investing in year over year over year. The vast majority of VCs are mediocre. That's why the asset class.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Conveying that urgency. I think I'm very, very careful in displaying emotion or stress with an entrepreneur and only do so when it's really important. You don't want to be the boy who cries the wolf around a board table. Do you think that's right, though, in this kind of, you know, we have opposing worlds in some cases where you have the much harder, more confident, bold VCs, and then you have the Brad Felds of the world who are very much more open to authenticity and transparency. How do you think about that and being your authentic self when you are stressed and you are concerned? And is it not right that you show it? My partner Dan Levitan usually says the best and worst entrepreneurs make you very nervous. I think the best entrepreneurs we work with are ones who are able to manage putting a company through hyper growth inherently are aggressive in their orientation and many times are willing to push hard even in times where there's not a clear amount of information out there.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What's in your head or your mood? Impact them. So let me give you a couple examples. One is just the other day I was meeting with an entrepreneur in their office. Their office is packed. It's not a great space. And I said out loud. It looks like a 99 office with Ethernet wires hanging from the ceiling. And as we walked outside, said, you know, as you said that, there were a dozen employees looking at us. And you know the biggest complaint employees have is office space. It does not help for you to say that out loud in front of people who are working here. Who's listening to what I say? Another example was I think back two years ago when there was a company running a thousand miles per hour and it was clear they were running into a brick wall. I pushed hard with the CEO to get clarity on where things stood. And it was very clear we just didn't have financials in shape. And after we got through that, the founder said, you realize that when your stress were stressed. And the reality is what I told him is I know that and I was deliberate and”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With business models that are more people centric and just operationally harder than the ones we would have invested in five to seven years ago. Absolutely. I mean, you mentioned quite a few of your portfolio companies there, which brings up the role of VC. And you've said to me before that VC is a struggle. So I'd love to start top down with this one. What elements of the role do you personally find the hardest, Jason? I think there's a couple things. I think first and foremost, as a young VC, it takes a long time to know if you're any good. So I was lucky enough to be on the board of Zulily. It went zero to a billion in revenue in five years. It was a great outcome. And after that proceeded to lose $15 million. And you go through in your head, you are, it's an emotional roller coaster. It takes a long time to know if you're any good. And I think the hardest part as you're going through that journey is everything you say to an entrepreneur you work with has to have intent. You can't let your stress”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's dependent upon creating long term relationships with developers. It's dependent upon creating mindshare with end consumers and it's dependent upon changing how people think about urban living. I think we've invested in another company called Booster Fuels, which is delivering gas on demand to corporate parking lots and really enabling people to never go to a gas station again. So I think a lot of the businesses where we think a lot of the economic value is created today are hard. They require hiring a lot of employees. They require touching people offline. They are looking at big industries like real estate, transportation, healthcare where they're hard to transform. You don't transform them just digitally. But if you're able to transform them, there's not a brand today that the millennial relates to in an emotionally positive way. And I think the fact that Facebook and Google have so much power from a distribution standpoint point us in the direction of disrupting old”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's not a brand like Starwood that represents multifamily housing. And that's what Common is really creating. It's creating a community that millennials can call their own when they live in urban cities. So I think that's a brand that's not in any way dependent upon.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the era of being able to toss up to start a new brand online and scale it and take it public, I think it's very hard to do. I was struck by there was an article in Inc. from Wharton how there were like 400 new vertical brands that were started in the past few years. And they all start to look the same. I think where we've been spending a lot of our time is in areas where it's hard and where the solutions include touching the end consumer. So to bring that to life, I think a couple areas where that plays out is in real estate and healthcare. In real estate, we've invested in a couple of companies, one called Common, and then there's a hospital hotelity brand we haven't announced yet, which are thinking about what are ways where millennials want to use space, which are able for developers and property owners to yield higher dollars per square foot than current uses of that space. Now, that's a brand that requires having people on the ground. It requires contracting house cleaners, but you kind of look at it and say, you know,”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think the companies that do it best are the ones that focus on very much on who their customers are, what they want, and to use paid marketing as a part of a toolkit, but not as the toolkit.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Spend money on paid channels that are working than it does to do unscalable things that don't have a direct tie to an economic output. So your growth investor wants to put in a dollar and get three out the back end. It's hard to do that by saying I'm going to hire someone else who's going to reach out to more influencers who are then going to post about my brand. There's less of a direct tie. So I think the best entrepreneurs fight the impulse to raise a ton of capital to just pour into channels. Instead focus on who is my core customer? How do I win my way into their hearts? How do I think through how to get them to talk to their friends? And the best way to build a brand is to own Mindshare in someone's heart. It's very easy these days to scale a brand from zero to 50 million by using hyper-targeting on Facebook. It's very hard to take a brand from 50 million to 500 million enduring way and to create billions in equity value.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the example of birch box yesterday versus Ipsy is a good example of a case where you have one business in Ipsy which grew in a very capital efficient way out of the gate and used social influencers creatively to build a brand which has sustained and grown. And I think with BirchBox you had a similar level of virality out of the gate and then they raised a lot of money. So what happens when you raise a lot of capital? You feel a lot of pressure to grow because your series B and Series C backers are underwriting to aggressive plans you put in a fundraising deck. So then the most natural thing to do when you raise that amount of capital is you'd say, you know, it costs 20 bucks to acquire a customer on Facebook. So I'm going to just start spending money on these paid channels. And what ends up happening is that the organic growth that got you there starts to fade away. So you lose the muscle memory you built because it always makes more sense to”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Three continents, and they were coming to us and asking us how can we help? And it became very clear that the global footprint they created and the positioning as marketing leader was hard to create economic value by using that to build a big consumer-facing business. But the way to use that was to go to corporations who viewed you as the market leader and signed long-term contracts to train them in new economy skills. So I think you need a CEO in the chair is able to look at the set of assets that the brand has and think through where can I have a unique advantage to create economic value.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of boutique, kids focus companies? And the answer to that was once they use you, they're not going to use anyone else because you'll take 100% of their supply. And any one of them has no power over you. So that was a really kind of strategic way to think through creating a moat. And I think supplier power is one way to go. And I think the other way to go is sometimes you build a brand and then you have to think about how can I use the brand that I built to build sustainable competitive advantage. And I think General Assembly is a great example of that. This was kind of the go-to coding boot camp. The problem with coding boot camps is it's a one-time purchase. It's not repeat. Customers often search for it in Google. And even if you have the best product, it's hard to make that readily apparent in the consumer's minds. Several years ago, the CEO of General Assembly realized that there were a lot of global companies that valued training employees in new technology skills. And we had campuses across”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. I mean, let me give a couple of examples. My formative experience in venture with Zulily. When I first joined Mavron, I had the chance to sit in the room as the founders of Zulily were creating the framework for building the brand. And one thing we thought about deeply was supplier power. They were intrigued by private sale and were looking side by side at where are areas where there's high purchase frequency by women, where there's an opportunity to sell product which is on closeout. And they were looking side by side at beauty and at kids. And what became clear in beauty is there was a dozen companies that controlled essentially the vast majority of the supply of product in the world. And on the kids side, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of boutique brands which had no supplier power whatsoever. So you kind of look at that and say, can you create a moat by becoming the closeout go-to brand for these thousands?”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of your consumers. So I think there are some rare brands that truly become a part of someone's identity. And in those cases, brand alone can be a moat. I mean, luxury brands are clearly the best example of this. And there's also emerging brands like our portfolio company Aberlane, which has a rabid customer base that loves the company's focus on value, on transparency, on sustainability. But in most cases, you have to think more strategically around what are you building that's hard to copy. In terms of what are you building that's hard to copy, my partner Fred, always very much deep dives on Unity Economics, even at the early stages and looks for the scalability over time. Do you think Unity Economics is a defensible most? And how do you think about the scalability of Unity economics? I actually disagree with Peretta. I think if CAC and LTV is a focus in a Series A deck, I essentially just want to throw the deck out. Right for me is an entrepreneur who targets an area that seems niche, but once you dig in, it actually has a path to significant revenue.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Capital is usually not the solution to problems. No, absolutely, I agree. Capital can't always be a moat, but I do want to start on that theme of moats. We've discussed before the importance of moats. And so I'm intrigued. In today's immensely brand-centric world, you said that moats matter as much, if not more than brand. What makes you say this, Jason? I think, you know, at Maveron, we invest across a wide variety of industries, everything from retail to real estate to healthcare. And I think across any of those, when you start a company, you start it because you have some sort of customer insight that inspires you to start the brand. And then you fight really hard just to get the business to work. And then once it starts to work and scale, you raise money. And it's incredibly exciting. But raising money isn't good enough. And I think you have to have this mindset flip where you start to think about five, ten years out once you're large. What makes you unique and what enables you to be a brand that's defensible in the mind?”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There, amongst other things, and they introduced me to Mavron, and that role was originally intended to be two years and you're out. And I was lucky enough 10 years later to still be investing here. Well, I think that means you made the cut, Jason, but I do have to ask you, you mentioned there, the crash and then the move back to Wharton. I'm intrigued, how did the crash inform your thinking and philosophy today, do you think? I think there's a couple ways to build a brand. I think there are certain companies like Uber and WeWork which were able to use capital as a blunt force object to build a business. And I think there's other brands which look to build a strong infrastructure, make sure they understand the channel, understand the unit economics, and only scale once they have that in place. My deep preference is the latter, although at times an industry is progressing so fast you have to pursue the former course. I think the dot-com crash in many ways informed my point of view that more”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No network. So I go on hot jobs and I apply for a venture capital role and somehow talk my way into a small firm called Spinnick Reventures. The reason they wanted me is it was a firm with partners who were focused on Latin America, investing in companies in the US and bringing them to Latin America. And given my journalism background, I was able to write investment memos, annual reports, et cetera. So once the first dot-com crash happened, I took that as an opportunity to go back to Wharton. And after that, really wanted to go to the other side and understand what it was like to operate. So I went to, I was fascinated with the rise of online education and thought that degrees would move online. That was pretty contrarian at the time. So I went to a company that was the biggest competitor to University of Phoenix called Career Education Corp. They were best known for those get your degree fast ads all over the web. Really fast-growing business, really interesting. And I took a role there as chief of staff to the CEO of their digital division. So while I was there, I met a vendor. I ran QA.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like many past adventure as a winding path. So I grew up in a suburb of Detroit. My dad was a phys ed teacher and my mom stayed home to give a sense of who they were. They still live a mile from where they met at a sweet 16 party. So I think that middle class upbringing really informs who I am today. I really do interviews like this one. I really prefer to stay in the background. And I also have a deep affinity for companies that target Middle America versus companies that are focused on the 1%. So from the time I was little, somehow I had a deep curiosity on how the world works. So my first job after I graduated from the University of Michigan was an internship at Cranes, a business newspaper. And when I was there, I quickly came to the conclusion that it was more fun to be a part of events than to report on them. So the most interesting thing happening in 99 was the first internet boom. So I got into U-Haul. My dad drove me out to San Francisco. In San Francisco, a kid with no technical chops, no business connection.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's such a pleasure to be here, Harry. I've been an admirer of yours for a long time and honored to be a guest on the show.”
2018-07-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source