When Brynn Putnam bought her final firm, Mirror, to Lululemon for $500 million at the beginning of the pandemic, it appeared to this editor like she’d bought the sensible health firm too quickly.
As an alternative, the timing proved good. The house health craze crashed almost as abruptly because it peaked throughout that first yr of lockdowns. In the meantime, after a yr as a normal supervisor at Lululemon, Putnam had new working insights, a giant win below her belt, and a recent concept that she has since was a brand new firm that may launch publicly in 2025.
The enterprise agency Lerer Hippeau has already participated in a extremely aggressive seed spherical for that stealthy startup – the agency led Mirror’s $3 million seed spherical years in the past, too – and on Wednesday evening in New York, I sat down with each Lerer Hippeau managing companion Ben Lerer and Putnam to speak about what she is constructing. We additionally talked a few broader rebound that’s occurring in the end for client tech – a few of it being led by founders who led the final wave of profitable client startups.
Following are excerpts from that chat, edited frivolously for size. It’s also possible to watch the total interview under.
Ben Lerer on writing that first examine:
After we invested [in Mirror], Brynn had a really convincing however completely janky demo, which was mainly a kind of like a two-way mirror with a pc display behind it to indicate you what a mirror would appear to be if she was in a position to increase tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to truly produce such a factor. Actually curiously, she had designed a contraption that was proprietary to her [own line of boutique gyms at the time], like her personal model of a pilates reformer, and after we noticed it, it was simply clear that Brynn was not only a intelligent enterprise builder who had constructed gymnasium model for herself however was additionally an inventor . . .Brynn gained us over very, in a short time, and perhaps we appeared loopy for a number of years, however finally much less so.
Brynn Putnam on promoting Mirror simply 4 years after founding it:
We weren’t on the market. We weren’t in search of an acquirer. We had simply actually launched. However we had a longtime partnership with Lululemon. I had labored with them at my gyms for a few decade, and we had been spending a whole lot of time with them, making content material and doing fascinating occasions with them, and it simply felt like the suitable match for us to have the ability to actually take Mirror into properties internationally with pace and certainty. We actually simply felt prefer it was this chance we couldn’t cross on.
As for whether or not Lerer weighed in with recommendation on that sale, he mentioned:
I did have an opinion on it. Look, enterprise is a humorous enterprise due to the ability regulation and the concept you’re speculated to take these moonshots and also you’re going to have a bunch of losses however your huge wins are going to vary the entire world. I imagine within the energy regulation, however I additionally suppose typically enterprise loses sight of simply actually fundamental, good, sound enterprise decision-making. And there are some normal truths in enterprise, like: promote when others are grasping, and purchase when others are scared. You don’t all the time must proceed to return to the on line casino many times and once more. On this case, when Brynn got here and mentioned, ‘Hey, I acquired this supply, I’m actually excited about taking it,’ I mentioned, ‘Yeah, you must do that for you; that is superb for us. And in the event you’re getting pushback from people [like later-stage investors with a different cost basis], I’m completely satisfied to attempt to be useful, however you’re frankly, way more forceful and highly effective than I’m and also you’ll handle this.’ Nevertheless it was the suitable resolution. For a yr or two after, I feel Brynn in all probability acquired some individuals who second-guessed it, and now I feel folks see the arc of your entire class and understand it was only a completely good transfer.
Putnam on working afterward as an exec at Lululemon, which later threw within the towel on Mirror:
An investor who I love . . .instructed me on the time that I ought to be gracious and study, that all through the lifetime of your organization, you’re promoting your organization. You’re promoting it in small items, otherwise you’re promoting it in greater items, however you’re all the time promoting your organization, and one of the best factor you are able to do, after getting made the choice to promote, is to actually study as a lot as you possibly can from this enterprise that you simply’ve chosen to promote to and attempt to deal with one thing with function on this new position. And that’s what I did. And I realized an unbelievable quantity within the yr that I used to be there, and it was extremely fascinating. However I feel finally, once you go from being a founder and CEO to successfully the overall supervisor of a division, it’s a really giant change, and for some folks, it’s a match. And for me, it simply was not. I’m actually a builder.
Putnam on what led her to develop her new startup:
After I left Lululemon, I used to be actually simply at a special stage of my life. I went from being pregnant to then having two youngsters, and actually, I simply took inventory of what was necessary to me at that time. Mirror was very a lot about me. It was my reflection, my efficiency, it was about making your individual self higher. At that subsequent section, my life was actually simply way more about my household and my associates and my relationships and people issues that I used to be discovering necessary. I used to be actually struggling to seek out high quality time with my family members the way in which that I had rising up — you recognize, we’d sit across the desk and have a meal, play a board recreation, look one another within the face. For my youngsters who’ve grown up glued to iPads or smartphones, the expertise of high quality time was more difficult.
So I actually began to consider, how might I take what I realized at Mirror and apply these classes to the class of play? How might I exploit tech to construct higher social relationships and connections? And that’s what I’m engaged on now. It’s a brand new client {hardware} firm, however within the gaming area slightly than health, actually geared in direction of how we spend time collectively head to head, the place expertise shouldn’t be the expertise however actually an enabler to constructing higher relationships.
Requested if her new product is for kids (or if matches in a single’s pocket, or one wears it on their face), Putnam answered:
It’s for everybody. It’s for associates and households spending time collectively. It’s not a youngsters firm, though we do hope you’ll take part together with your youngsters. It’s not an schooling firm, though we do hope that individuals discover it fascinating and strategic and inventive, however it’s actually about utilizing tech to attach folks to one another. (Right here Lerer declared he was sworn to secrecy by Putnam.)
Putnam on the confluence of AI and {hardware} and software program that appears very a lot high of thoughts for founders and buyers immediately:
I feel we’re about to enter a golden age of {hardware}. All of the VCs listed here are going to be so excited to put money into {hardware} founders quickly, hopefully [because a] few issues are occurring. The iPhone got here out 17 years in the past, and we haven’t actually had a mainstream client {hardware} success story since Oculus. I feel there’s a chance in the marketplace for one thing new. Plenty of the core parts of those applied sciences have gotten much more mature and subsequently inexpensive, so having the ability to construct, in our case, show applied sciences, is feasible in a approach now that it wasn’t 10 years in the past. After which clearly AI is opening the door for the way we work together with our units. So naturally, there will likely be new units in the marketplace. You realize, we’re betting on this concept of not one other private pc however slightly a brand new shared system within the house, which is what we did with Mirror, and what we’re doing once more right here. This concept that there will likely be a bit of tech that helps convey your home and household collectively is the place we expect the long run is headed.
On not focusing an excessive amount of on the technical specs of {hardware} however focusing extra on the general expertise being created, Putnam mentioned:
I realized just lately about Nintendo’s design philosophy. They’ve this idea that they use ‘withered’ expertise with lateral considering. So the concept is utilizing mature, inexpensive, extra available applied sciences however creating a extremely fascinating expertise round them, and that’s what we did with Mirror. It was slightly commodity {hardware}. It wasn’t frontier tech. And [that’s] what we’re doing once more now.
On bringing household and associates collectively as an investing theme (right here, this editor introduced up the brand new firm of Bonobos co-founder Andy Dunn, Pie, which is targeted on bringing folks collectively offline), Lerer mentioned:
I’m an investor [in Pie]! Look, I’ve younger youngsters and I’ve the identical challenges that each one my associates have and everybody has: we’re all hopelessly addicted to those units, and at a excessive degree, we’re enthusiastic about options to that dependancy and new codecs of leisure or alternatives to get folks off of screens or out on this planet. We very just lately did a [related] deal that’s not but introduced in an utility layer AI firm within the journey area that I’m actually enthusiastic about. And we simply introduced a deal this previous week in one other utility layer firm within the aftermarket automotive area, which is definitely the largest hobbyist space by spend within the U.S.
Discovering methods to faucet into folks’s passions is all the time guess within the client area.
On the sensation that ‘client’ as a class is swinging again – together with because of a brand new $500 million fund introduced this previous week by the well-known consumer-focused agency Forerunner Ventures, Lerer mentioned:
As a fund, we’re founder first, however we’re additionally New York first, and [with] the primary [founder] generations of New York within the early 2010s, there was a whole lot of client, a whole lot of media, a whole lot of direct to client commerce. And there have been a number of tendencies that basically drove that. You had the rise of the iPhone and the App Retailer. You had social media exploding and the arbitrage advert ecosystem alternative to go and seize clients quicker than ever. Possibly the rise of Shopify as nicely created a good time to go construct client companies with a large open creativeness.
During the last 4, 5, six years, there’s been little or no when it comes to huge tech modifications that encourage folks to do something that doesn’t really feel incremental. And I do suppose that AI is that catalyst proper now. We’re seeing a really top quality group of founders saying, ‘Now’s the time to get again within the pool.’ There are issues which can be attainable as we speak that weren’t attainable six months in the past or a yr in the past, and the slope is steep proper now when it comes to utilizing your creativeness. So I’m extra enthusiastic about client than I’ve been in a very long time, which is actually thrilling for me as a result of that’s my ardour. I constructed a client enterprise. I like investing in client founders, and it’s been fairly crappy the previous few years, fairly frankly.
