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Jenny Lefcourt

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2021-10-05
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2021-10-05
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  1. “He was right. Other people because it's easy to cheer, and we all have cheerleaders, and it's like the path of least resistance. But the way I try to show up as investors, the way he showed up for me, which is if I can open up your world and let you see things a little bit different that's better, that's the kindest thing.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I don't know if this will be seen as kind, but it was really, really kind. One of my mentors, a man Jerry Held, sham me as a working mom with three kids, come out of a really tough, my second startup that I did. We had a rough couple years. And when I got out of it, we got together and he said, what are you going to do next? And I said, you know, Jerry, I'm really enjoying just being with my kids for a few months. I'm thinking maybe I'm not going back. And he really stuck his neck out and said, you're really good at what you do. You light up in the room. You love what you do. He's older than I am. He's like, I see how this movie plays out. You'll be more interesting to yourself, your husband, your kids. You're going to be happier. And I was fighting him. So it would have been easy for him to just say, okay, okay, okay. I was like, no, no, no. My kids need me. Blah, blah, blah. And he really put his neck out and said, I would argue in the moment the unpopular thing.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And the longer you stay a white male team, the more you're going to be stuck in this kind of small pond of who you can recruit, who you can attract. And also culturally matters. And so you're more likely to end up in a more toxic culture. And most founders think they're playing the long game. So that reframing, I think, is really helpful for everyone who's grappling with that decision. And it's true. If you think you're in it for the long game, then you should play accordingly. And then usually that means I have to have a diverse team or I'm hoes. I won't be competitive with that one.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Hope so. There's a woman, by the way, this was really interesting for me early because I'm still learning too. This woman firm Mandelbaum who really knows her stuff on diversity and inclusion early on when I was involved in RAS, I said, Fern, I get asked a lot, what do I do at the end of the day when I needed that exact hire yesterday? We are dying and we have someone who is not diverse. Do I kind of pick the best person for the job or do I not? And I said, Vern, I have a hard time giving advice on that because of course for all my companies, if you want to get that higher, move on. And she said, well, you have to think, are you playing the short game or the long game, right? And if you're playing the short game, yeah, go hire the person that's here and now, put them in the box and carry on. But in time, if you're not diverse, then you're going to limit your recruiting pool. And recruiting is really, really hard, right? When you're scaling and you need employees.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Meg around. If you just look at overall capital, of course, it's going to be going to the men because they're the ones who were successful raising seed capital five years ago. A really important metric to know so there's lagging indicators, which is that one, or there's leading indicators, which is what percentage of seed capital are going to women founded teams right now. Yeah, so those types of percentage understand, is the starting gate looking closer because then we have a greater chance, I think, of mapping this out five years ago and those women who raised successfully today will be raising the monster around in five years. So that's the reason that I have hope.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “That's why numbers don't change as much. So I think the more we see women getting funded, women getting the promotion, women being CEOs, women ringing the bell, I think the more the people making those choices, the unconscious biases will lessen. That's not enough. That won't happen fast enough. But I actually think that's one of the biggest blocks between us and tremendous success, us being the greater us. The reason I remain and I am an optimist, but the reason I'm somewhat optimistic that we're heading in the right direction, even though data may tell us otherwise, at least in my world, when you really get too focused on how much capital was raised and what percent went to women founded teams versus male founded teams, you can be missing, I think, a really important part, which is you have to raise seed funding to get Series A to get Series B, to raise the”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Would say the greatest thing I think is in the way is the unconscious biases. They're hard to identify because by definition they're unconscious. And so, what happens is there are a lot of people who recognize that things should be different and they think they're open to it. And then they get to this place where they have to make a decision with someone they think is better for the company versus what they think is sort of the right thing to do diversity-wise. Most of them will do what they think, well, I don't want to compromise. I don't want to lower the bar. And what is implied in there, I don't want to say always, but what is often implied in there or sitting in there is unconscious biases. That man looked more the part if you couldn't see the gender or you couldn't see the color, you wouldn't actually think they're a better fit for the job. But you don't know that the person making the decision. So the question of which should I optimize for diversity or the person who's best for the job is almost like a trick question that I think a lot of people get caught up in.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “The data and how not diverse tech is, even with all the efforts, I'm an optimist. I could get bummed out about that. Instead, I try to say, I think we're seeing some leading indicators that things will be different in the future. And I really believe that, but it's just hard to realize how long real change takes to happen. It's going to need all of us, not just the women. We've had amazing men join the movement and realize they also want the future to look very, very different.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I think the biggest lesson learned was you can get really, really close with people by working together to have a group of us with a shared mission, shared vision. And we were all kind of competitors, a bunch of women VCs at all different firms. And we start working together, the amazing professional benefits that have come from those friendships and working together has just been immense. So I started it and did the work as did the other women to do good in the world and be a part of what we wanted the future to be. But what I came out with is just this amazing network of women who have my back and I have theirs and everyone trying to pay it forward and help each other.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Keep this as my playbook and be successful in five years from now. So that was a long winded non answer, but I would just say, I don't know, but it's changing not just in terms of the efficiency we've all discovered in balancing efficiency versus serendipity and energy and collaboration. But that also you have just an intense amount of capital that has entered the market and entered seed. When free cells started, we were one of 15 seed funds. And now we stopped counting thousands. So the market has changed so dramatically.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I don't think I'll be doing this job really well if I just stayed in front of my computer all day long. And an example of that is I went to Miami to check out the tech scene. And in doing so, I went to this founder lunch hosted by Aminoa Capital. And I met the founder of Upside Home, who had been the founder of Papa across the table, an area I'd been interested, aging tech. I beelined it across the table and was able to invest in him. Would I have found him? Would he have found me? I don't think so. And so if I look back on the last 25 to 30 years of being out here, there's been so much serendipity, so much serendipity sounds like too much luck, but every step you take brings you somewhere else and somewhere new. And right now, I would say I'm really, really efficient. I'm doing my job really well on paper. I look just as great today as I did before, if not better. But I just have trouble believing that I could.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “It changed dramatically with the pandemic as it did for all of us in that everything suddenly got super efficient. So less serendipity, more relying on my networks and everything just made so much sense I could go back to back to back. I could hear 10 pitches in one day and still have time to help my portfolio companies. And that was not the case a few years ago. it ends up that I understand why people are struggling in future of work, these big organizations, because there is a lot to be said for the energy of working and creating with other people. So going into one of my companies who is located in San Francisco and working on a whiteboard with them for two hours, it's not only so much more productive, but it's also so energizing. The serendipity begets serendipity. You know what I mean? And so I do think that we all realize it's really efficient, but it's not sustainable.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “That same center. But given that that's over, you have to change your game. So I guess we're constantly saying the game has changed. So what do we need to change? I have very much changed where I meet companies, how I meet companies, and I would argue most of the companies I'm investing in now are not located in the Bay Area. And that was not true a decade ago at Freestyle.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Absolutely the gravity is not as strong. And we've been since I joined Freesaw, which is about seven to eight years ago, I've been investing outside of the Bay Area because I felt like it was already so expensive. And now it's really shifted. I give that firm credit, but I would never limit myself to just the Bay Area to invest in because there's too many amazing people and amazing companies being built outside of it. The same way I work with my companies and some of them who have been headquartered, they're not remote are saying, well, we weren't remote, but God, that best person to be our VP of marketing is in Texas or is in Florida or is wherever. What do we do? And my answer is always like, you got to hire them. You cannot limit yourself to just your circle. I just think it's going to be Slim Pickens. There was a day where maybe the right people all hung out together and gravitated towards.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “What skills are needed? How are people learning these new skills? How are they working together? Who needs them? How do you get educated? How do you then take advantage of the things that you know and get help when you don't? So I think you're going to see just this dramatic change in a lot of markets because of what's going on in low code, no code.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, I mean, I'm really excited about low code, no code, because not just what will happen in this space itself, but to your point, what it unlocks. A founder is going to be able to get off the ground so simply and easily or quickly because of all these tools. So just so everyone knows, it's basically this idea that the future of coding is no coding at all. In the old days, you used to have to have an engineer write it line by line. And now a bunch of companies have been created that let people, I love, what's the word? I think I wrote it down somewhere, citizen developers. But this idea that regular people are building things that it used to take a developer to build, and now they're just people. And by the way, I'm one of the founding members of All Rays and was a part of Founders for Change. And we were able to.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Changing seats so much, how are you all really rowing together, staying in sync? And the reason that's so important is not just for company productivity, but that's what makes people happy. If you hear people leaving, it's also often like we can't plan our way out of a paper bag. Like, I'm better than this, or you don't feel the connection. So how are people going to connect and bring that team sinkness and engagement and happiness with the team over time is the area I would say I'm really interested in. And what I love is this is not tech. We don't need to wait for more tech. I mean, yes, VR may end up playing a role here, but I really think this is someone sort of being really thoughtful of. If you were to take a white sheet of paper and map out how this world should work, how would it work? I think that's where a lot of energy needs to go.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yes, very much. And not to plug my company, but Plus Plus does a lot with these companies and onboarding for the tech teams. There's one called donut.ai that I met with the founder Dan years ago, should have invested in. He's doing onboarding beautifully. So I think you're really seeing a lot more energy being put into hiring the right people. I don't know as much about what's going on. I'm in one and recruiting called RecruitBot, which is helping people find people. But in terms of really next gen ways of actually conducting interviews and collaborating on who's the right person to join the team, I haven't seen as much there, but I think there's a lot going on there. I think there's a lot going on with onboarding. But then I think about, and then what? Because right now you have so many people burning out. You have so many people changing jobs. So that's great that the new person gets onboarded really well, whether it's donut plus plus, many other companies. But now teams are working together.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Always had people meeting saying, Didn't we discuss this last time? Wait, I thought we decided this or that. I think you're going to have to kind of stop that. And I think it's going to be all about being really thoughtful and making really conscious choices of how you all work as an organization. So I'm excited to see what comes out of that. One of the things I often think about going back is I got to live, I got to be a founder during the dot-com boom. And everyone was like, everything.com, everything online. And so you had everything happening in real life. And then you had everything going online. But those two worlds and those two systems did not connect. And pulling in my retail experience, I think too, if I shop at Nordstrom's, I shop sometimes in the store, sometimes I shop online. Sometimes I shop online and want to return to the store. And so you're really going to need the fluidity. And I think you're going to need the fluidity for the workforce in the future of work tools.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Serendipity, and we're having a cup of coffee and talking virtually. I think that's cute right here, right now, but I've trouble imagining that's the solution for the future. I've spent more of my time either investing in or taking pictures on, and I welcome a lot more knowing this is the way and it probably won't settle for a while. How do you help teams be more fluid? So it doesn't matter if you're remote, you're in the office, wherever you are, that you have really good systems for connecting, for learning, for being in sync, for making decisions, for documenting those decisions, for making it that the new person who shows up tomorrow isn't on a tremendous loss because that meeting happened last week. And so how do you do that? And I would argue we're all going to be better off when those disciplines are in place because the old way we were able to get by, but it was always sloppy.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Because that way you're not pissing off a third here or a third there, and it will totally ink out and make sense. However, it creates a whole new world of problems because now you have to think about how are decisions made, who's in the room, how does that power structure not change, and you're going to need more discipline than ever and clarity of who does what, who needs to be and what decisions, what decisions were made, and how do you keep your teams in sync and high performing, but then also how do you keep people happy and feeling connected and feeling like they belong. So what we're seeing today attack this, I'm not down on these companies, but I would argue I can't fathom in five years. This is how it's going down. But this idea that I'm virtually looking at my screen and there's a cute little cafe and I pop into it and you pop into it and then we pretend it's.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Was hoping you were going to tell me what the future. So the truth is, I don't know what the future of work looks like, which is why I'm so excited about it, where some people feel like, oh, saturated, enough of the future of work. The truth is, I feel like we haven't even begun because none of us know what it looks like. The thing that I always say is all we know is it's a cluster. It is a cluster. It will continue to be a cluster. We don't know. And what I know is that any leader today who declared back to work is going to lose probably a third of their workforce and they're going to scream and holler no way, no way, no way, and they're miserable. If you say, okay, we're going remote forever, you're going to lose probably about a third of your workforce because everyone's going to say, I join this for the energy and the great people. I'm going to learn from and work with and I don't like working from home. You cannot please everyone. And so I think what's going to happen is a lot of people, because it will look great on paper, are going to come out with high.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “You just sold the future and the vision people say interesting. Yeah, I'll think about that. And then that's the longest sales cycle you'll ever see. If you just solve the problem today and you have this awesome ROI, they're like, okay, yeah, I think I want to do that. But yet they're not doing it. And that's why I call it the one, two punch. You solve a problem exist today and you open up my world to this whole new way of doing things that is so superior. That's what's going to get you the sale.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Really, your employees, which is ultimately what you care about. Yes, you need them to be better leaders. So it's that combination. If he had just gone out there, if they didn't have a problem,”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “World because you care so much about your employees. And I don't know if you know this, but your employees care second to salary, the thing they care most about right now is professional development. Are they growing on the job? And everyone performs better with a coach. Everyone envies people who have a coach. And for the first time ever, you can now have a really scalable way to please the hell out of your employees. And it isn't something you force them to do. You offer it and then they can take you up on it or not take you up on it. And it's scalable, it's virtual, so you can provide it to people in the field. You can provide it to people at HQ. So that's Viagra. They weren't even looking for that. L&D was looking for how do I train my people? Where do I send them? What should I do? They come along. They solve that problem, but it's like, I'm going to solve that problem and I'm going to unlock or unleash a whole new way that is going to throw.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Absolutely. You can tell me to stop with the analogies or the examples, but one I think about is better app. So BetterUp provides coaching for everybody. It was democratizing employee coaching. It used to be something that was just for the C-suite, now comes along, and everyone can have a coach. So the problem is no one was looking for everyone to have a coach in the enterprise. They had their C-suite head coaches, and then they were sending the employees off to leadership summits at the Chicago Hyatt, which nobody wanted to go to, to be clear. And spending, I think, a lot, $68 billion a year in L&D, and every employee was miserable when they were sent to it. And by the way, it was hard for them to coordinate it. So better up is able to say, you have this pain, right? You have to provide professional development to your people. So that is a true pain. And I can solve that. However, what I can unlock for you is this grief.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “They are who they are, and they literally pitch to their customers we are blank. We are company ABC. We do this, we versus educating them about their world and what you can do for them.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “You let them believe something that you never thought was possible, and so not the most politically correct thing to say, but it's true. And so that's sort of what I think a lot of these founders have to do is really get in the heads of their customer and not just say what you're selling. Nobody cares what you're selling. What you need to care about is what they're buying. And so so many times back to what's the playbook or the 101, the masterclass. Get out of your own head about what you are selling, get into the head of what are people buying. I don't want to hear that you're AIML blah, blah, blah. I want to hear that you make hiring faster and easier than ever possible. So why do they buying? So stop telling them what you are and start telling them what you do for them. That difference seems so obvious to me, but it's amazing how many founders are just so in what.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Get things to tip. And only with you obsessing on your customer, meaning in this case, the retailer, obsessing on your customer, knowing what problem they have today, but also you know the market of their future better than they do. What are they going to need in the future that they don't even know yet they need? And how do you educate them about that? So they feel like you solved their problem of yesterday, but you also are going to kind of cover their ass into the future. And that is one of the most compelling go-to-market type pitches to an enterprise that I've seen.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Cares very much about their consumer and they have to please their consumer. And so you have to educate the enterprise, not like, wouldn't it be nice to do this? You have to educate them about you hate getting all these phone calls. Where's my package? Where's my package? I can make that go away. But what's really important is that by having this, you're now in this position to provide this experience that is table stakes. You don't know it. And then you educate them on where people are choosing to shop, how they're choosing to shop. You basically are selling in that time where people don't have a label for it. Then the dominoes start to fall. You know what I mean? And they're like, okay, they have excitement for it. And then everyone else says, and now I needed to. The moral of the story is you have to understand where is the market, who has needs, and how do I bundle that need with the future and educate them so I can.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “A best in class post purchase experience for consumers. Now, when I made this investment seven or eight years ago, there was no thing called post purchase experience. But it was happening and consumers were choosing where to shop based on how good it was. So Amazon was eating everyone's lunch and a lot of it was the convenience, but a lot of it was also because people knew exactly when the product was going to come and they knew they had easy returns. Narvar, who the founder Ahmit, had a great purview into this because he worked at Apple, seeing them turn it from like sending the consumer straight into a brick wall. Let's make it a revolving door. Let's tell them exactly when it's coming and bring them back in. And you saw what that did to their top line revenue. And he said, look at the world, look where it's going. This is going to be needed. This is going to be.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Don't have a one size fits all strategy yet, but what I do know is the only way to do it is to absolutely obsess on the customer who is your customer, where are they today, where do they have a need, and where do you need to educate them because they don't know to need yet. And then really, really understanding that. And I often call it, I'll circle back. I call it when you are pitching, if it's like an enterprise company, I'll tell you, I call it the one, two punch, where you have to solve the need that they have yesterday and paint them a future that they're going to need you even more in the future. And that's what excites someone to not take six months to say yes to you, but says yes on the spot. So I'll give you an example of that just because I think that may be worthwhile. So Narvar was the first investment I made at freestyle. And Narvar is the post purchase experience so that retailers can provide.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Almost have to be a really, really deep listener. You may be presenting them with an opportunity to do things better and different. But these are people who are pretty, and I'm generalizing, but kind of stuck in the rays. So the hardest thing will be changing behavior for this demographic won't be simple unless you really, really nail it.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Thing to figure out because you want to have something that really solves the problem that they have. But if you're too niche, it's hard to kind of get their attention for the reason that I'm stating, right? They kind of want this all in one. That lies the friction. And that's when I turn to the founders who have been studying it longer and see the vision of the future and tell me how they're going to do it because I don't have that answer. But that's very real. This consumer isn't as voraciously hunting solutions. Now, their kids are, but their kids are also busy. You have to kind of understand. And then the other thing you have to understand about this market is the kids are hungry for solutions. I mean, when they need, they really need and they're willing to pay and they're looking for you. The elder community, the people 65 plus, it's interesting, they almost don't know as much about what they need. But then when something comes along and delights them, they want you to use it and buy it.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Totally. So I think first I'll state some obvious and I'm chuckling big buttons, big text, black text on white background, right? Like go easy on the eyes. Don't make changes because some UIUX person decided it was time. They like consistency and simple is better. So they don't want to open up Five Apps to figure out where does Cheesecake Factory, who delivers that. And so I think you can have fewer choices, but really, really simple. And the more you can sort of set it and then forget it, the better. So once again, when I spoke to the customers of Upside Home, one of their favorite things was one bill, right? Because just even multiple spots and multiple bills are a little bit overwhelming. So I would say there's that. The hardest thing for these companies coming in is really thinking about go to market. That is the hardest.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Using it, and they're not going to go to all these other fitness apps. So, anyway, I'm not looking to invest in a fitness app right now, just to be clear, but I guess the point is that I think each of these categories that we all know are big and you see hundreds of startups going after them thinking about how would you do it if you're going after that area, but for this group. And so it reminds me, going back to my early wedding root, of when we captured a bride and groom at the beginning of setting up their lives, there was so much you could sell to them. There was so much money there because they were setting up new credit cards. They needed new financial instruments. There was a new way of doing everything. They were going to make new purchases together. And so I sort of see this group in the same place. Like they're beginning a new era of their lives. They're very much alive and able and wanting and no one's serving him.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Would say one would be social and consumer experiences for this group. So a lot of people in this group, I mean, they are doing great. They're super able-minded and they're able physically. And so I think upskilling them or educating them, helping that happen. A lot of them still want to work, helping them find that work. I don't think it travels quite opened up yet, but in the future, I think it will. And their community and certain products that are built just for them. So I think if that's sort of social consumer experience, they're in a new phase of life. And so they are prime to make all kinds of decisions but need help making them. I think there's a lot that can happen there. One that I did not invest in that I think is really interesting and I hear is doing well is this company, I think it's called ASIC invested in it. It's keeping them active and fit during this time. And you could say, well, is that really big? That seems niche. But when you dig into it, no, it's really big and a lot of people are.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “In the example of Upside Home, what I love is he's not a real estate player because he can lease the apartments and he doesn't have to until he has someone leasing. And then he has the technology in the systems to sort of wrap it the way that his customer would want. So he builds relationships with these properties. And they're thrilled to have people in them and good people who really don't want to move much. And then he then adds in all this value for his customer. I mean, they it's small, by the way. I did it recently. The customers that he has love, love, love it, as do their children because that's where he's obsessing on making it right for them. And they are thrilled to pay a premium to have no headache.”

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  39. “And wrap them up and maybe monitor mom and dad because the parent child's sweating it out. Are they okay? I haven't heard from them today. I don't know what's going on. But they also don't have the time to sit there and watch all the metrics come in through all these IoT devices. So there are tons of IoT devices, by the way, that are being sold so that you have the sensor data. And it's almost more modern. I've fallen and I can't get up button. But that means that you have to find that correct sensor. You have to install that. You have to make sure that it works. And then you have to be watching it. And then, okay, when something isn't right and you're across the country, then what do you do? So it's really opened up a whole world. I hope that founders continue to knock my door and tell me about this world and tell me how they're going to solve it. But I would say we're just at the tip. I can't name, I can't rattle a bunch of companies that are solving it flawlessly.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “The respect that they need to take care of their parents, but they don't know how to do it anymore. And so they have money. They're used to technology. They're used to solutions. And so they're the ones doing a lot of the hunting, figuring out how do I do right by mom and dad? How do I get them set up in a world that makes them comfortable? But being that I'm not having them live with me and there's no longer this turnkey community I get to kind of try to shove them into a little bit. Now what? And so that's where you're seeing a lot that's happening, I think, for all the parties in the mix trying to figure out whether it's a new place to live and it's wrapped perfectly for that demographic or whether it's technology that then supports the parent who's at home. There's a company I was involved in. It was more like a help to incubate or sort of test it out. But how do you take all these devices?”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “That issue is very real. And what was interesting was to kind of see how COVID changed it because there's the parent child, the people caring for their loved ones who are now over 65. If you went back 20 years, you kind of checked the box by getting mom and dad in one of those places where they'd have all their needs cared for. It was like meals were provided. And I'm not talking about nursing homes. I'm talking about these communities. And so when you saw that shift where people, the elders didn't want to move into those, it really put the burden on the parent child. And so a lot of times there was a lot of tension. The parent child wanted them to go in and the elder wanted to stay in their home. Well, then COVID came around and then nobody wanted them in anymore. So now you had this massive shift where the parent child is looking for solutions, feels the burden.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Built for them, but there it is that infrastructure is in place. So who's going to create the technology that enables the people, whether they're aging in place or they're aging elsewhere, but to have the same services that the rest of us have.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Want to just live with people with walkers and oxygen tanks hanging around them that makes them feel old. They want to live with different ages, but they don't want the headache of moving in, setting up cables, setting up phone, having a bunch of bills. This idea of someone skinning, or you'll hear me use that term, but that creating this apartment that's in the living and the tech that goes with it that is just for them. That's an area that I'm interested in. And then picture all the other people who are staying at home. How are they getting their food? How are they, their groceries, their meals, their rides, et cetera? And you may say, well, there's DoorDash and Uber Eats and whatnot. If you've ever worked with someone that age trying to get them to download multiple apps, keep up when the apps actually change their UI, you know, and update it. As someone who has actually spent a lot of time with my father and my mother coaching him through it, it's not.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Perfect. So, I'm going to start with housing because I think that's really interesting. You used to get to a certain age and you moved into sort of an elder community. I think a combination of trends of people not wanting to do that and COVID really accelerated that trend that then you saw people wanting to sort of age in place. And you probably have heard that term. But the truth is a lot of people don't want to age in place because the place they're in is too hard for them to manage. So they need housing. And the question is, what is that? So either they want to stay where they are, but they need to reverse mortgage it. They need help maintaining it. They need roommates or they need more sort of tech or systems that will help them stay there. Or one that I actually just invested in called Upside Home, where it's this turnkey new apartment in a building that is not, it's almost like corporate housing, but for the elder community, people who don't.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Isn't just the people who are 65 plus, it is the people who care for the people who are 65 plus, so the children, the parent children, whatever you want to call them, and also the fact that 65 plus is a very different world than it was many years ago. These people are thriving. Many of them still want to work. They have a lot of needs and you have to understand going back to what we talked about at the beginning, understand who are they? What do they need? What exists? What doesn't exist? A lot of things that they want or could help their lives and they would happily pay for exist, but it isn't kind of skinned for them. That's an area that I got really deep into and super interested. And it turns out there are now a lot of ECs. In fact, there's a VC fund that's”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “It's funny, this isn't how a lot of the areas I'm interested in come to be, but sometimes it is that unfortunately my mom got pretty ill a couple years ago. And as we dealt with getting her situated, it couldn't believe how things were functioning and how expensive it was and how hard it was. And after we got her safe and sound and in the right place is when I started to dig in and say, what is going on in this space and learned that it is in tremendous need. It's a really kind of been ignored or left in sort of a decade or two ago. And there are all these changes. You talk about the macro trend, huge macro trends affecting it in terms of how many people are entering this 65 plus world. You're talking about 25% of our future population is going to be in this space where it's still not served well. And what's intriguing to me too is it is.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Times we're investing in things where the space is nascent today, but the market trends will be huge. So sometimes I pass for that reason. Sometimes I pass, I'm not spooked by the incumbents, but sometimes it just makes sense for somebody else to serve the market the way the founder is talking about versus a new entrant. Once again, going back to thinking about the people in the market who don't like to change. So if there's an easy way that it just gets added on to whatever they're doing versus taking on a new tool, I think that is something you have to consider.”

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  48. “Same thing, and they're all highly backed and chasing it, which I think often makes it hard for anyone to really win. But then I look and say, okay, is this the team to do it? So I believe that there's sort of a Potagolda on the other side of the rainbow. Now do I believe that this is the team to do it? So I spend a lot of time, especially because we invest early, deciding, is this the right team? And a lot of that is the person or team themselves and their attitude. We have a whole scorecard for founders, but really growth mindset and has a vision of the world and can recruit people to give them money to join the company, to get their customers to make it happen. I know those are very high level, but those are sort of the main things that I look for. And sometimes I say, well, that makes total sense. And I could see that being a market leader, but that prize isn't big enough. I don't think that space is big enough or will be big enough. Once again, a lot of”

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  49. “Yeah, I would say the most simplic framework that I have is first I look at what the vision is that this founder or these founders are sharing with me. Do I believe in the future the way that they see it? And a lot of times I'm lucky enough to get educated by them about what's coming. If I believe in the vision and the future that they're painting and the solution that would then go with that, I think, okay, can that be a market leader as a standalone company or is there an incumbent where it makes sense for them just to kind of turn that switch on and do it? And if I believe a new entrant will be the market leader in this market, and by the way, sometimes the market isn't even there yet. It's a market that I believe will be there in the future. Is that a lucrative enough prize to win? And there could be a market leader that's a new entrant. Then I say, okay, well, what are the competitive dynamics? Can they win? And are there seven companies that see the exact”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “I would say one of the most common patterns is when you see a founder not dropping all the buzzwords and doing the thing that seems to be in vogue, but sticking to what they know to be true. Like I can understand that question. However, given what I know about my customer and what they're doing today and what's happening with these other trends, this is where I'm doing it the way I'm doing it. So a little more, I would say, a listener of the market and a studier of the market, but never losing sight of who their customer is, what they need their people to do. And so I know that may sound simple, but there's so many times where people just kind of like the man at the time in Clyde Perkins are saying, you don't need the retailers. It's like, well, you're not thinking about who's going to use this and what do they need. So I would say the more a founder talks about the market they're serving with that deep, authentic understanding and understand that the market.”

    2021-10-05 · Invest Like the Best · Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source