When Brynn Putnam bought her final firm, Mirror, to Lululemon for $500 million firstly of the pandemic, it regarded 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 underneath her belt, and a contemporary concept that she has since become a brand new firm that may launch publicly in 2025.
The enterprise agency Lerer Hippeau has already participated in a extremely aggressive 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 associate Ben Lerer and Putnam to speak about what she is constructing. We additionally talked a few broader rebound that’s taking place in the end for shopper tech – a few of it being led by founders who led the final wave of profitable shopper startups.
Following are excerpts from that chat, edited calmly for size. You may as well watch the complete interview beneath.
Ben Lerer on writing that first test:
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 seem like if she was in a position to increase tens of tens of millions of {dollars} to truly produce such a factor. Actually apparently, she had designed a contraption that was proprietary to her [own line of boutique gyms at the time] . . . and after we noticed it, it was simply clear that Brynn was not only a intelligent enterprise builder who had constructed an excellent gymnasium model for herself however was additionally an inventor. Brynn gained us over very, in a short time, and possibly we regarded loopy for a couple of years, however ultimately 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 lots of time with them, making content material and doing attention-grabbing occasions with them, and it simply felt like the appropriate match for us to have the ability to actually take Mirror into properties internationally with velocity and certainty. We actually simply felt prefer it was this chance we couldn’t move on.
As for whether or not Lerer weighed in with recommendation on that sale, he stated:
I did have an opinion on it. Look, enterprise is a humorous enterprise due to the facility regulation and the concept that you’re alleged to take these moonshots and also you’re going to have a bunch of losses however your large wins are going to vary the entire world. I imagine within the energy regulation, however I additionally assume generally enterprise loses sight of simply actually primary, 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 at all times must proceed to return to the on line casino many times and once more. On this case, when Brynn got here and stated, ‘Hey, I obtained this provide, I’m actually fascinated by taking it,’ I stated, ‘Yeah, it’s best to do that for you; that is wonderful for us. And for those who’re getting pushback from folks [like later-stage investors with a different cost basis], I’m comfortable to attempt to be useful, however you’re frankly rather more forceful and highly effective than I’m and also you’ll handle this.’ For a yr or two after, I believe Brynn in all probability obtained some individuals who second-guessed it, and now I believe folks see the arc of your complete class and notice 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 . . .informed me on the time that I needs 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 larger items, however you’re at all times promoting your organization. And the most effective factor you are able to do after getting made the choice to promote, is to essentially study as a lot as you possibly can from this enterprise that you simply’ve chosen to promote to and attempt to sort out one thing with goal on this new function. And that’s what I did. And I discovered an unimaginable quantity within the yr that I used to be there, and it was extremely attention-grabbing. However I believe finally, whenever you go from being a founder and CEO to successfully the final 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:
Once I left Lululemon, I used to be actually simply at a unique stage of my life. I went from being pregnant to then having two kids, 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 rather more about my household and my mates 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 best way that I had rising up — you realize, we’d sit across the desk and have a meal, play a board sport, look one another within the face. For my children who’ve grown up glued to iPads or smartphones, the expertise of high quality time was tougher.
So I actually began to consider, how may I take what I discovered at Mirror and apply these classes to the class of play? How may I take advantage of tech to construct higher social relationships and connections? And that’s what I’m engaged on now. It’s a brand new shopper {hardware} firm, however within the gaming area somewhat than health, actually geared in direction of how we spend time collectively head to head, the place expertise just isn’t the expertise however actually an enabler to constructing higher relationships.
Requested if her new product is for youngsters (or if it suits in a single’s pocket, or one wears it on their face), Putnam answered:
It’s for everybody. It’s for mates and households spending time collectively. It’s not a children’ firm, though we do hope you’ll take part together with your children. It’s not an training firm, though we do hope that individuals discover it attention-grabbing 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 out of the blue:
I believe 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 taking place. The iPhone got here out 17 years in the past, and we haven’t actually had a mainstream shopper {hardware} success story since Oculus. I believe there’s a possibility in the marketplace for one thing new. A variety of the core elements of those applied sciences have gotten much more mature and due to this fact reasonably priced, so having the ability to construct, in our case, show applied sciences, is feasible in a manner 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 gadgets. So naturally, there will likely be new gadgets in the marketplace. We’re betting on this concept of not one other private laptop however somewhat a brand new shared machine 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 chunk of tech that helps carry your home and household collectively is the place we predict the longer term 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 stated:
I discovered just lately about Nintendo’s design philosophy. They’ve this idea that they use ‘withered’ expertise with lateral considering. So the thought is utilizing mature, reasonably priced, extra available applied sciences however creating a very attention-grabbing expertise round them, and that’s what we did with Mirror. It was somewhat commodity {hardware}. It wasn’t frontier tech. And [that’s] what we’re doing once more now.
On bringing household and mates collectively as an investing theme (right here, this editor introduced up the brand new startup of Bonobos co-founder Andy Dunn, Pie, which focuses on bringing folks collectively offline), Lerer stated:
I’m an investor [in Pie]! Look, I’ve younger children and I’ve the identical challenges that each one my mates have and everybody has: we’re all hopelessly addicted to those gadgets, and at a excessive stage, we’re considering alternate options to that dependancy and new codecs of leisure or alternatives to get folks off of screens or out on the earth. 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 at all times an excellent wager within the shopper area.
On the sensation that ‘shopper’ as a class is swinging again – together with due to a brand new $500 million fund introduced this previous week by the well-known consumer-focused agency Forerunner Ventures, Lerer stated:
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 lots of shopper, lots of media, lots of direct to shopper commerce. And there have been a couple 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 prospects sooner than ever. Perhaps the rise of Shopify as nicely created a good time to go construct shopper companies with a large open creativeness.
Over the past 4, 5, six years, there’s been little or no when it comes to large tech adjustments that encourage folks to do something that doesn’t really feel incremental. And I do assume 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 might be potential at the moment that weren’t potential 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 shopper than I’ve been in a very long time, which is basically thrilling for me as a result of that’s my ardour. I constructed a shopper enterprise. I like investing in shopper founders, and it’s been fairly crappy the previous couple of years, fairly frankly.
