When Brynn Putnam offered her final firm, Mirror, to Lululemon for $500 million initially of the pandemic, it seemed to this editor like she’d offered the good health firm too quickly.
As a substitute, the timing proved sensible. The house health craze crashed practically as abruptly because it peaked throughout that first yr of lockdowns. In the meantime, after a yr as a common supervisor at Lululemon, Putnam had new working insights, a giant win below her belt, and a contemporary concept that she has since changed into a brand new firm that can 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 evenly for size. You too can watch the total interview beneath.
Ben Lerer on writing that first examine:
Once we invested [in Mirror], Brynn had a really convincing however completely janky demo, which was principally a kind of like a two-way mirror with a pc display screen behind it to point out you what a mirror would appear to be if she was in a position to increase tens of hundreds of 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 a superb health club model for herself however was additionally an inventor . . .Brynn gained us over very, in a short time, and possibly we seemed loopy for a number of years, however ultimately much less so.
Brynn Putnam on realizing it was time to promote Mirror:
We weren’t on the market. We weren’t on the lookout for 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 numerous time with them, making content material and doing attention-grabbing 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 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, he mentioned:
I did have an opinion on it. Look, enterprise is a humorous enterprise due to the facility regulation and the concept you’re purported 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 suppose generally enterprise loses sight of simply actually fundamental, good, sound enterprise decision-making. And there are some common 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 mentioned, ‘Hey, I received this supply, I’m actually occupied with taking it,’ I mentioned, ‘Yeah, it’s best to do that for you; that is superb for us. And if you happen to’re getting pushback from other people [like later-stage investors with a different cost basis], I’m blissful to attempt to be useful, however you’re frankly, far more forceful and highly effective than I’m and also you’ll handle this.’ Nevertheless it was the suitable choice. For a yr or two after, I feel Brynn in all probability received some individuals who second-guessed it, and now I feel folks see the arc of your complete class and notice it was only a completely sensible transfer.
Putnam on working after the sale for Lululemon, which later threw within the towel on Mirror:
An investor who I like . . .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 larger items, however you’re at all times promoting your organization, and one of the best factor you are able to do, after you have made the choice to promote, is to essentially study as a lot as you’ll be able to from this enterprise that you just’ve chosen to promote to and attempt to deal with one thing with function on this new function. 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 attention-grabbing. However I feel in the end, whenever 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:
Once I left Lululemon, I used to be actually simply at a distinct stage of my life. I went from being pregnant to then having two kids, and actually, I simply took inventory of what was vital to me at that time. Mirror was very a lot about me. It was my reflection, my efficiency, it was about making your personal self higher. At that subsequent part, my life was actually simply far more about my household and my associates and my relationships and people issues that I used to be discovering vital. I used to be actually struggling to seek out high quality time with my family members the best way that I had rising up — , we might 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 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 relatively than health, actually geared in the direction of how we spend time collectively head to head, the place know-how is just not the expertise however actually an enabler to constructing higher relationships.
Requested if it’s for youngsters (or if matches in a single’s pocket, or one wears it on their face), Putnam mentioned:
It’s for everybody. It’s for associates and households spending time collectively. It’s not a children firm, though we do hope you’ll take part along with your children. It’s not an schooling firm, though we do hope that folks discover it attention-grabbing and strategic and inventive, nevertheless 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 traders abruptly:
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 spend money on {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. A number of the core elements of those applied sciences have gotten much more mature and subsequently reasonably priced, 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 a way we work together with our gadgets. So naturally, there might be new gadgets in the marketplace. You recognize, we’re betting on this concept of not one other private pc however relatively a brand new shared gadget within the residence, which is what we did with Mirror, and what we’re doing once more right here. This concept that there might be a chunk of tech that helps convey 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 mentioned:
I realized lately about Nintendo’s design philosophy. They’ve this idea that they use ‘withered’ know-how with lateral considering. So the thought is utilizing mature, reasonably priced, extra available applied sciences however creating a extremely attention-grabbing expertise round them, and that’s what we did with Mirror. It was relatively 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 concentrated on bringing folks collectively offline), Lerer mentioned:
I’m an investor [in Pie]! Look, I’ve younger children and I’ve the identical challenges that every one my associates have and everybody has: we’re all hopelessly addicted to those gadgets, and at a excessive degree, we’re focused on options to that dependancy and new codecs of leisure or alternatives to get folks off of screens or out on this planet. We very lately did a [related] deal that’s not but introduced in an software 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 software layer firm within the aftermarket automotive area, which is definitely the most important hobbyist space by spend within the U.S.
Discovering methods to faucet into folks’s passions is at all times a superb guess within the client area.
On the sensation that client 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 numerous client, numerous media, numerous direct to client commerce. And there have been a number of tendencies that actually 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 client companies with a large open creativeness.
During the last 4, 5, six years, there’s been little or no by way of large 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 are attainable at present that weren’t attainable six months in the past or a yr in the past, and the slope is steep proper now by way of utilizing your creativeness. So I’m extra enthusiastic about client than I’ve been in a very long time, which is absolutely 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.
