Shopper tech is bouncing again, and shopper founders like Brynn Putnam are bouncing again with it

When Brynn Putnam bought her final firm, Mirror, to Lululemon for $500 million at the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed to this editor like she’d bought the good health firm too quickly. 

As an alternative, the timing proved good. 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 basic supervisor at Lululemon, Putnam had new working insights, an enormous win below her belt, and a recent 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 night time 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 couple of 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 frivolously for size. You can even watch the total interview under.

Ben Lerer on writing that first verify:

After we invested [in Mirror], Brynn had a really convincing however completely janky demo, which was mainly a type of like a two-way mirror with a pc display behind it to point out you what a mirror would appear like if she was in a position to elevate tens of tens of millions 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 once we noticed it, it was simply clear that Brynn was not only a intelligent enterprise builder who had constructed a very good health club model for herself however was additionally an inventor . . .Brynn gained us over very, in a short time, and perhaps we seemed 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 couple of decade, and we had been spending a number of time with them, making content material and doing attention-grabbing occasions with them, and it simply felt like the precise match for us to have the ability to actually take Mirror into properties the world over with velocity and certainty. We actually simply felt prefer it was this chance we couldn’t go 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 you’re alleged to take these moonshots and also you’re going to have a bunch of losses however your massive wins are going to alter the entire world. I consider 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 basic 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 repeatedly and once more. On this case, when Brynn got here and stated, ‘Hey, I acquired this supply, I’m actually interested by taking it,’ I stated, ‘Yeah, you need to do that for you; that is superb for us. And when you’re getting pushback from folks [like later-stage investors with a different cost basis], I’m completely satisfied to attempt to be useful, however you’re frankly, rather more forceful and highly effective than I’m and also you’ll deal with this.’ But it surely was the precise determination. For a yr or two after, I believe Brynn in all probability acquired some individuals who second-guessed it, and now I believe individuals see the arc of all the 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 greater items, however you’re all the time promoting your organization, and one of the best factor you are able to do, upon getting made the choice to promote, is to actually study as a lot as you may from this enterprise that you just’ve chosen to promote to and attempt to deal with one thing with objective on this new position. And that’s what I did. And I discovered an unbelievable quantity within the yr that I used to be there, and it was extremely attention-grabbing. However I believe finally, if you go from being a founder and CEO to successfully the overall supervisor of a division, it’s a really massive change, and for some individuals, 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 unique stage of my life. I went from being pregnant to then having two youngsters, 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 individual self higher. At that subsequent part, my life was actually simply rather 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 search out high quality time with my family members the way in which that I had rising up — you realize, 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 discovered at Mirror and apply these classes to the class of play? How might 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 house fairly than health, actually geared in the direction of how we spend time collectively head to head, the place expertise isn’t the expertise however actually an enabler to constructing higher relationships.

Requested if her new product is for youngsters (or if suits 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 along with your youngsters. It’s not an training firm, though we do hope that individuals discover it attention-grabbing and strategic and artistic, however it’s actually about utilizing tech to attach individuals 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 spend money on {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. Plenty of the core parts of those applied sciences have gotten much more mature and due to this fact reasonably priced, so with 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 a way we work together with our units. So naturally, there will likely be new units in the marketplace. You recognize, we’re betting on this concept of not one other private laptop however fairly 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 will likely be a chunk of tech that helps convey your own home and household collectively is the place we expect 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 lately about Nintendo’s design philosophy. They’ve this idea that they use ‘withered’ expertise with lateral considering. So the concept 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 fairly 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 individuals collectively offline), Lerer stated:

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 stage, we’re concerned about alternate options to that dependancy and new codecs of leisure or alternatives to get individuals 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 house 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 house, which is definitely the most important hobbyist space by spend within the U.S. 

Discovering methods to faucet into individuals’s passions is all the time a very good wager within the shopper house. 

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 a number of shopper, a number of media, a number of direct to shopper 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 prospects sooner than ever. Possibly the rise of Shopify as nicely created a good time to go construct shopper companies with a large open creativeness. 

During the last 4, 5, six years, there’s been little or no by way of massive tech modifications that encourage individuals 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 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 by way of utilizing your creativeness. So I’m extra enthusiastic about shopper than I’ve been in a very long time, which is de facto thrilling for me as a result of that’s my ardour. I constructed a shopper enterprise. I really like investing in shopper founders, and it’s been fairly crappy the previous few years, fairly frankly.