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When Brynn Putnam sold her last company , Mirror , to Lululemon for $ 500 million at the start of the pandemic , it looked to this editor like she ’d sold the smart seaworthiness companytoo presently .
rather , the timing proved superb . The home fittingness crazecrashednearly as short as it peaked during that first year of lockdowns . Meanwhile , after a year as a universal coach at Lululemon , Putnam had new operating brainstorm , a big winnings under her belt ammunition , and a fresh estimate that she has since turned into a Modern fellowship that will launch publicly in 2025 .
The venture firmLerer Hippeauhas already participated in a highly competitive round for that stealthy inauguration — the firm led Mirror ’s $ 3 million seed rotund years ago , too — and onWednesday nightin New York , I sat down with both Lerer Hippeau managing partner Ben Lerer and Putnam to talk about what she is build . We also talked about a all-embracing rebound that ’s take place at long last for consumer tech — some of it being led by founders who led the last wafture of successful consumer startups .
Ben Lerer on writing that first stay :
When we endow [ in Mirror ] , Brynn had a very convincing but totally janky demonstration , which was basically a sort of like a two - way mirror with a calculator screen behind it to show you what a mirror would look like if she was able-bodied to levy X of millions of dollars to actually produce such a thing . Really interestingly , she had designed a contraption that was proprietary to her [ own line of boutique gyms at the clock time ] … and when we saw it , it was just clear that Brynn was not just a clever business builder who had built a good gymnasium firebrand for herself but was also an inventor . Brynn succeed us over very , very quickly , and maybe we looked crazy for a few years , but eventually less so .
Brynn Putnam on sell Mirror just four years after founding it :
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We were n’t for sale . We were n’t looking for an merchant bank . We had just really launched . But we had a longtime partnership with Lululemon . I had worked with them at my gym for about a decade , and we had been pass a lot of time with them , take a crap content and doing interesting events with them , and it just feel like the right fit for us to be able to really take Mirror into menage across the populace with velocity and certainty . We really just mat like it was this opportunity we could n’t pass on .
As for whether Lerer weighed in with advice on that sale , he said :
I did have an opinion on it . Look , venture is a rum business because of the power law and the idea that you ’re suppose to take these moonshots and you ’re going to have a bunch of losses but your cock-a-hoop win are going to change the whole populace . I think in the mogul constabulary , but I also think sometimes speculation loses sight of just really canonical , expert , sound business decision - making . And there are some cosmopolitan truth in business , like : deal when others are greedy , and buy when others are frightened . You do n’t always have to continue to go back to the cassino again and again and again . In this case , when Brynn came and suppose , ‘ Hey , I get this offer , I ’m really thinking about taking it , ’ I said , ‘ Yeah , you should do this for you ; this is amazing for us . And if you ’re beat pushback from other folks [ like later - phase investors with a dissimilar cost base ] , I ’m felicitous to essay to be helpful , but you ’re honestly much more forceful and powerful than I am and you ’ll take forethought of this . ’ For a year or two after , I think Brynn in all probability got some multitude who secondly - pretend it , and now I reckon people see the electric arc of the entire category and clear it was just a totally brilliant move .
Putnam on work afterward as an exec at Lululemon , which laterthrew in the towelon Mirror :
An investor who I admire … tell me at the time that I should be nice and learn , that throughout the life of your society , you ’re selling your troupe . You ’re selling it in modest pieces , or you ’re selling it in full-grown piece , but you ’re always selling your company . And the dependable thing you could do once you have made the decision to sell , is to really learn as much as you could from this business that you ’ve chosen to trade to and examine to tackle something with aim in this new role . And that is what I did . And I get word an incredible amount in the year that I was there , and it was incredibly interesting . But I think ultimately , when you go from being a laminitis and CEO to efficaciously the cosmopolitan director of a air division , it ’s a very large change , and for some people , it ’s a tantrum . And for me , it just was not . I ’m really a builder .
Putnam on what contribute her to develop her Modern startup :
When I left Lululemon , I was really just at a different leg of my life . I kick the bucket from being pregnant to then having two child , and really , I just took strain of what was significant to me at that full point . Mirror was very much about me . It was my reflection , my performance , it was about making your own ego better . At that next phase , my animation was really just much more about my fellowship and my champion and my relationships and those things that I was chance important . I was really skin to observe lineament meter with my love ones the elbow room that I had growing up — you know , we would sit around around the table and have a meal , dally a card game , search each other in the face . For my kid who have grown up glue to iPads or smartphones , the experience of timbre fourth dimension was more ambitious .
So I really started to think about , how could I take what I learn at Mirror and apply those lessons to the category of play ? How could I use tech to build better societal relationships and connections ? And that ’s what I ’m working on now . It ’s a new consumer hardware company , but in the play space rather than fitness , really geared towards how we expend prison term together face - to - cheek , where engineering is not the experience but really an enabler to build better relationship .
ask if her raw product is for children ( or if it fits in one ’s sack , or one wears it on their aspect ) , Putnam answered :
It ’s for everyone . It ’s for friends and families spend time together . It ’s not a kidskin ’ fellowship , although we do hope you ’ll take part with your kids . It ’s not an education company , although we do hope that people find it interesting and strategic and originative , but it ’s really about using tech to link up people to each other . ( Here Lerer declared he was depose to concealment by Putnam . )
Putnam on the confluence of AI and hardware and software that seems very much top of judgment for founders and investor all of a sudden :
I think we ’re about to enter a golden long time of hardware . All the VCs here are choke to be so excited to adorn in hardware laminitis shortly , hopefully [ because a ] few thing are happening . The iPhone came out 17 eld ago , and we have n’t really had a mainstream consumer hardware success story since Oculus . I think there ’s an chance on the market for something new . A lot of the core components of these engineering science are becoming a lot more mature and therefore affordable , so being able to build , in our case , display engineering science , is possible in a way now that it was n’t 10 years ago . And then manifestly AI is open up the door for how we interact with our devices . So naturally , there will be fresh devices on the market . We ’re betting on this idea of not another personal computer but rather a new share twist in the domicile , which is what we did with Mirror and what we ’re doing again here . This idea that there will be a slice of technical school that helps bestow your house and family together is where we conceive the future is headed .
On not focusing too much on the technical specifications of hardware but focusing more on the overall experience being created , Putnam say :
I determine lately about Nintendo ’s design philosophy . They have this concept that they use ‘ wizen ’ engineering science with lateral mentation . So the musical theme is using matured , affordable , more promptly uncommitted technologies but creating a really interesting experience around them , and that is what we did with Mirror . It was rather commodity hardware . It was n’t frontier tech . And [ that ’s ] what we ’re doing again now .
On bringing folk and friends together as an investing stem ( here , this editor brought up the new inauguration of Bonobos co - founder Andy Dunn , Pie , which focuses on bringing people together offline ) , Lerer said :
I ’m an investor [ in Pie ] ! Look , I have immature Kyd and I have the same challenge that all my friends have and everyone has : We ’re all dispiritedly addicted to these machine , and at a gamey level , we ’re interested in alternative to that addiction and newfangled formats of amusement or opportunities to get citizenry off of screens or out in the world . We very late did a [ interrelate ] deal that ’s not yet announced in an diligence level AI company in the change of location space that I ’m really activated about . And we justannounced a dealthis past calendar week in another software layer company in the aftermarket automotive space , which is actually the self-aggrandising hobbyist area by spend in the U.S. find way to tap into people ’s passions is always a good wager in the consumer space .
On the feeling that ‘ consumer ’ as a category is sweep back — let in thanks to a new$500 million fundannounced this past calendar week by the well - known consumer - focus business firm Forerunner Ventures , Lerer sound out :
As a monetary fund , we ’re founder first , but we ’re also New York first , and [ with ] the first [ founder ] generations of New York in the early 2010s , there was a lot of consumer , a hatful of medium , a lot of verbatim - to - consumer Commerce Department . And there were a few course that really drove that . You had the boost of the iPhone and the App Store . You had social media explode and the arbitrage ad ecosystem opportunity to go and grab client faster than ever . Maybe the wage hike of Shopify as well created a great sentence to go build consumer businesses with a astray - open imaging .
Over the last four , five , six years , there ’s been very niggling in terms of self-aggrandizing tech change that inspire hoi polloi to do anything that does n’t sense incremental . And I do think that AI is that accelerator mighty now . We ’re check a very high - quality group of founders saying , “ Now ’s the time to get back in the pool . ” There are thing that are possible today that were n’t potential six calendar month ago or a class ago , and the incline is steep right now in condition of using your vision . So I ’m more excited about consumer than I ’ve been in a long time , which is really exciting for me because that ’s my passion . I build a consumer business enterprise . I love investing in consumer founders , and it ’s been pretty crappy the last few years , quite frankly .
