Ventureminded

My VC Code 2.0

Nearly a year ago, I wrote my original VC Code post, in which I outlined how I approach my role as an investor. Given that I recently started a new role at a slightly later stage fund (Series A — C, primarily) and that I have another ~year of investing under my belt, I figured it was time for an update to my original post. What follows is a slightly amended version of my original piece that takes into account investing at a later stage and what I will do in this new role.

Being a VC and getting to work with entrepreneurs on a daily basis is the ultimate privilege. So, the purpose of this piece is to 1) enable founders with whom I meet to know what to expect from me prior to meeting, thereby allowing them to ask more specific (e.g. helpful) questions when we chat and start to build a sense of trust and 2) enable founders and other investors to hold me to this list and call me out if I’m slipping — I’m always seeking to improve.

Before investing…

• Bring the same hustle and scrappy resourcefulness to sourcing companies and meeting with founders that I did at the seed stage to these later stages of investing
• Meet with founders as early as possible in their companies’ life cycles; get to know a founder and her business and build a relationship and add value well in advance of the stage when our fund would invest
• Reply to / acknowledge / engage with every single inbound email — have a first meeting or call when appropriate. In my previous role, we invested in one company that came to me via a personalized cold email
• Be as transparent and communicative as possible during the pre-investment process
• Immerse myself in a company’s app / product / service as much as possible; always meet at their office when doable, particularly early in the fundraising process
• Reply to every email relating to a process with a founder — never leave any loose ends
• Do my absolute best to facilitate a seamless evaluation and diligence process (i.e. a quick pass if that ends up being the result)
• When passing on an investment, provide a clear reason why, suggest the founder continues to provide updates if she’d like, and offer to help in other ways, if possible. Given that we’re investing across multiple stages, there’s a chance it may be a better fit later on
• Offer to make intros to other investors when appropriate, particularly if the company is too early for us
• Always make intros to potential partners, customers, and other “strategics” when I have relevant relationships that could be helpful for a company
• I’m most appreciative of intros to startups that come from founders I previously passed on

After investing…

• Be “on call” for founders — no problem is too big or too small to justify pinging me via text, email, DM, phone call, snap, etc.
• Be proactive about continuing to make the relevant intros outlined above
• Continue to be transparent and communicative; my best relationships with founders have these traits going both ways
• Send an email during the first week of every month asking founders of companies I’ve sourced for us (i.e. ones I work most closely with) what I can do to be immediately helpful; I encourage founders to give me “homework”
• Outside of one-offs, allocate an entire day every week to nothing but portfolio-related work: standing calls / meetings with portfolio founders, ad hoc calls / meetings with portfolio founders, calls / meetings with relevant partners for portfolio companies, calls / meetings with other VCs who may be a good fit to invest in our portfolio companies

I would love to hear any feedback on this code, and for anyone who’s ever worked with me, please let me know if this rings true and if there’s anything I’m missing.

In 2016, Everyday Is Picture Day

Gen Z and younger Millennials have been referred to as digital natives who grew up in front of screens, and the implications of that have been discussed ad nauseam. However, and more interesting, in my opinion, is the fact that this population has grown up in front of (and behind) the camera. This generation is like a group of child stars, surrounded by paparazzi in the form of their parents and peers. This unusual comfort being on camera has informed which products and apps get traction and which features resonate with users. Moreover, I believe it’s important to consider the implications of an entire generation that has such ease in front of and behind cameras.

For me, on the other hand, growing up in the ’90s and early ’00s, pictures were reserved almost exclusively for special occasions and distinct moments that were worthy of being captured. Quite simply, I could probably count on two hands the number of moments each year that were deemed picture-worthy—and that included school picture day.

With the rise of digital cameras, the cost of taking a photo and the marginal cost of each successive one decreased. A couple years ago, Benedict Evans wrote a great piece about this phenomenon and the subsequent virtual ubiquity of digital cameras that are part of the supercomputers that we carry around with us at all times. More recently, he wrote about this topic in the context of Snapchat and the camera as a sensor. Both of these posts serve as a worthy framework for beginning to understand the environment in which college-aged and younger people have grown up.

The list of products and apps that has either intentionally taken advantage of this group’s comfort with being on camera or inadvertently benefited from it is lengthy: Snapchat, Dubsmash, Musically, Lively, Periscope, Facebook Live, YouNow, Houseparty, Triller, FaceTime, Tribe, Marco Polo, Masquerade, Spectacles, and a whole host of others that haven’t reached as significant scale or raised as much venture funding. Moreover, this infatuation with being on camera has led to a host of other features, trends, and products.

For example, Wanelo launched a feature called “models” to allow users to share pictures of themselves wearing certain products. The selfie, in and of itself, is a manifestation of this behavior. My friend, Ellen DaSilva, was on to this back in 2013 when she created a blog called the “Year of the Selfie,” taking (at least) one every single day for a year. And it’s no coincidence that the selfie has persisted well beyond being a fad. It’s one of the most expressive, informative, and frictionless forms of communication—Apple even built a native selfie feature! The front facing camera and proliferation of imaging certainly augmented this trend, but it also takes feeling comfortable and generally predisposed to being on camera for this trend to take off with a particular segment of the population. Then, products like Facetune, AirBrush, Perfect365, and Facie emerged to let people smooth / touch up / “photoshop” their selfies on the fly. Even many Snapchat lenses have a “beautifying” effect. And during a trip to Tokyo earlier this year, I saw this taken to the next level in the form of Purikura, essentially a photo-booth version of these apps.

So, besides understanding the willingness to be on camera and how it informs first order products and features that get built, what are the other implications of this behavior? Ultimately, I think understanding these implications is what allows for creating second order products (e.g. apps for touching up selfies) and other social products that are underpinned by this behavior. For instance, I believe that constantly being on camera as well as taking pictures of yourself and others results in being comfortable with a lack of privacy (aside from an inflated level of vanity). When you’re always recording or expecting to be recorded, you grow accustomed to extreme transparency, as if you’re permanently on the Truman Show. And when users have that mindset from the get-go, there is more flexibility when it comes to the types of products you can build. Additionally, I believe that this “photo-centric” behavior leads to a lack of spontaneity or overall willingness to be spontaneous. Not only is there generally an over reliance on texting and the ability to perfect what you’re going to say before you send it, but also when you feel like you could be on camera at any time, you’re prone to behaving like you’re on stage. You don’t want to do anything that could portray you in a less than favorable light since you never know when cameras are rolling. However, one of the most interesting upshots of all this is that when cameras are away and moments are being captured, they are typically some of the most important ones. You are present and immersed in the moment. As the marginal cost of taking a picture has decreased to zero and the volume of photos has increased “exponentially,” the value or importance of a single photo or video to have for later has dropped precipitously, as well.

So, if you’re thinking about this topic, building something related to it, or generally enjoy discussing the future of social products, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Follow along @besvinick // ventureminded.me

What I’m Interested In Right Now

Throughout my two-plus years in venture, one of the most common questions I’ve been asked (in some form or fashion) is, “what sectors / spaces / types of companies are you interested in right now?” And whenever I’ve been asked this question, I typically give a non-committal answer or mention how I think consumer internet continues to be an area that investors struggle to develop conviction at the pre-seed / seed stages, so I think there’s an arbitrage opportunity of sorts there (and I still think that).

However, generally, I have found that it’s difficult to be too thesis- or thematically driven at the pre-seed to seed stage of investing. First, oftentimes, themes haven’t emerged yet, and, second, I believe this approach can lead to deductive investing. By that, I mean you meet with lots of companies in a space and settle on investing in the best option because you feel like you need to after spending all of that time with entrepreneurs even if that’s not a company you would invest in within a vacuum. And now you’ve just wasted hours of your founders’ and your own time. I tend to find that I have a number of hypotheses about different areas, and if a company crosses my “field of vision” that aligns with one of these, then I’ll dig in and look around to see what else is being built that’s similar. If you’re too driven by trends and themes, you run the risk of not discovering any arbitrage opportunities, to the extent that they exist in early stage investing. (And FWIW, these above paragraphs could / should be unpacked further for a longer post).

Over the course of the last several weeks, though, I’ve flipped this process a bit and begun to spend an increasing amount of time exploring a nascent space that has enough definition to be investable but is early enough seemingly not to be well-funded. While we are investors in WeVR, and I (like many others) believe that VR will be transformative for various forms of entertainment, I’ve grown increasingly interested in the more “utilitarian” applications of VR (e.g. travel, training / education), real estate, and construction). In particular, the area I’m most interested in learning about / discussing / debating / following is virtual reality therapy (VRT). VRT has the ability to be life-improving for millions of people who are suffering from addictions, phobias, depression, PTSD, and diseases associated with memory loss. I’m curious about this area both as an investor and as a generally inquisitive person who loves learning about how new types of technology impact society (i.e. one of the reasons I love consumer tech and my job, in general).

• Who creates this content and what background is necessary to do so successfully?
• How do insurance companies think about this type of therapy?
• How do treatment centers and other similar types of facilities pay for this “content” and deploy it?
• How are patients diagnosed? (i.e. Do doctors need special training to make these diagnoses? How do you assess which content will resonate with certain patients?)
• What are the societal implications that come from this type of treatment? Is there a slippery slope argument that comes into play depending on the applications of this therapy and the (unintended) ramifications of it?

This is just a smattering of the questions I’m thinking about as it relates to VRT. If you’re a founder / a startup operator / an investor / a researcher spending time thinking about this area, please reach out to jump on a call or grab coffee. I’d love to compare notes and think through the future of this topic and related ones.

Keyboards: A Key to Owning Mobile

Now that Google and to a lesser extent, Microsoft, have both released iOS keyboards within the last month, can we please begin to take these things seriously? Since the release of iOS 8 and Apple’s concession to allow 3rd party keyboards, they have consistently been the ugly duckling of the App Store.

Thanks to the emoji keyboard, a significant proportion of iOS users are familiar with the concept of an extra keyboard — it’s like the gateway drug to installing more. However, keyboards are still 2nd class citizens in the App Store for a number of reasons. Partly, it’s because they’re hard to install and manage. Nearly every 3rd party keyboard has a “how to install this thing” as part of its on-boarding flow. When it comes to this issue, it’s on Apple to make it less painless. iOS has improved a bit when it comes to switching between keyboards, but the installation process is still a nightmare.

Additionally, keyboards don’t really feel like apps. Most 3rd party keyboards follow a similar model in that the app itself is just a vessel for the keyboard. Once it’s installed, the icon is this empty shell that typically sits idle on people’s phones until they get sick of it and delete it. Lastly, we are just too hung up on what the definition of a “keyboard” truly is, a notion I believe is holding back how people think about these apps.

Developers, brands, startups, and investors should be thinking of keyboards as a “shop-in-shop” for the app world. A keyboard is essentially a micro-app that gets to live at the bottom of your screen and ride the coattails of whichever app you’re currently in. With the rise of messaging for myriad use cases, the keyboard (how ever you choose to define it) is a nearly omnipresent part of users’ experiences on their phones, so being front and center is that much more important when it comes to battling for attention and usurping traditional search. Products like Slash and Gboard are trying to strike a balance between utility and diversion—a keyboard in its truest form that also provides clear value with a dash of fun thrown in.

Riffsy and Giphy Keys are paradigmatic examples of how a keyboard on iOS isn’t just a keyboard and how it’s really a way to fairly seamlessly distribute content. As a media company and steward of brands (along with being a brand itself), Disney has embraced this strategy. The company released a keyboard of its own to ensure that its content is permeating conversations everywhere. This value proposition for brands is why a company like Snaps is compelling. Give brands’ most loyal fans a way to download a keyboard and have the latest content at their fingertips.

Often has taken this one step further by being the platform for this content itself. Besides having built a beautiful product, one of the reasons I’m a fan of Often is that they take advantage of being an app. Once you install the keyboard, there’s a clear reason to return to the app on a regular basis—you can discover the latest content that their partners are pushing as well as manage your own profile to see how you share using the keyboard. Having a profile (and a community of users) attached to a keyboard can potentially allow Often to build network effects into an app category that rarely has them.

Bitmoji has taken a similar tact when it comes to utilizing its app. Having new outfits and stickers appear in the app is a great re-engagment mechanism. Besides Microsoft and Google’s “validation” of the keyboard space, look no further than Snapchat’s recent acquisition of Bitstrips (the maker of Bitmoji). In my opinion, Snapchat is the most compelling consumer internet company in the world right now, but its app is intentionally silo’d. However, it shrewdly recognizes that the keyboard can serve as a Trojan Horse of sorts; Bitmoji (and thus Snapchat) can appear in other apps. And now the company’s tentacles are stretching outside of its silo’d app experience. Recognizing how keyboards’ virtual ubiquity on mobile allows for easily distributable content across apps and properties is the key to understanding why this should be the next battleground on mobile, particularly for legacy companies that are looking for a wedge into and stronger foothold in mobile.

My VC Code

Over nearly two years in venture, I’ve had nearly a thousand first meetings or calls with entrepreneurs. In virtually every one, I share some background on Deep Fork, myself, and how I spend time with founders to help give them meaningful context for our conversation and potential relationship working together.

Below, I outline my personal code / principles / standards that I comunicate in these conversations and strive to follow before and after an investment I source / lead for us, and how I do my best to achieve this task. Some may seem basic and table stakes, and to be frank, much of it is. But I’ve heard far too many stories about VCs not doing these little things for me to take them for granted. By publicly putting this on “paper,” I hope to accomplish a couple objectives: 1) enable founders with whom I meet to know what to expect from me prior to meeting, thereby allowing them to ask more specific (e.g. helpful) questions when we chat and 2) enable founders and other investors to hold me to this list and call me out if I’m slipping — I’m always seeking to improve.

Before investing…

• Reply to / acknowledge / engage with every single inbound email — have a first meeting or call when appropriate; we’ve invested in one company that came to me via a personalized cold email
  
• Be as transparent and communicative as possible during the pre-investment process
  
• Immerse myself in a company’s app / product / service as much as possible; always meet at their office when doable
  
• Reply to every email relating to a process with a founder—never leave any loose ends
  
• Do my absolute best to facilitate a seamless evaluation process (i.e. a quick pass if that ends up being the result)
  
• When passing on an investment, provide a clear reason why, suggest the founder continues to provide updates if she’d like, and offer to help in other ways, if possible
  
• Offer to make intros to other investors when appropriate
  
• Always make intros to potential partners, customers, and other “strategics” when I have relevant relationships that could be helpful for a company
  
• I’m most appreciative of intros to startups that come from founders I previously passed on
  

After investing…

• Be “on call” for founders—no problem is too big or too small to justify pinging me via text, email, DM, phone call, snap, etc.
  
• Be proactive about continuing to make the relevant intros outlined above
  
• Continue to be transparent and communicative; my best relationships with founders have these traits going both ways
  
• Send an email during the first week of every month (I missed by 2 days this month as I was out of the country but I was still 100% available and even took a call on the bullet train between Kyoto and Tokyo) asking founders of companies I’ve sourced for us (i.e. ones I work most closely with) what I can do to be immediately helpful; I encourage founders to give me “homework”
  
• Outside of one-offs, allocate an entire day every week to nothing but portfolio-related work: standing calls / meetings with portfolio founders, ad hoc calls / meetings with portfolio founders, calls / meetings with relevant partners for portfolio companies, calls / meetings with other VCs who may be a good fit to invest in our portfolio companies
  

I would love to hear any feedback on this code, and for anyone who’s ever worked with me, please let me know if this rings true and if there’s anything I’m missing.

The Art-Technology Paradox

As someone who grew up playing competitive tennis and now works in venture capital, I’ve become quite used to objective results: the ball is in or out; an investment was successful or it wasn’t. These are objective, binary outcomes. As someone who appreciates art, I’ve often grappled with trying to understand the subjectivity that comes with evaluating a piece and assessing the art market, in general. To sate this curiosity, I even took a class in business school entitled “Entrepreneurial Leadership in the Creative Industries” — essentially a course on entrepreneurs and creators that changed the worlds of music, fashion, food, film, and art.

Throughout my time in venture, I’ve continued to be fascinated by these creative industries and their overlap with technology, whether it’s looking at new types of brands, analyzing the evolution of creative networks to social networks, or, in this case, thinking about how technology influences the creative process in and of itself. In one of my favorite Tweetstorms in a long time (maybe ever) Zach Klein laid out how Facebook’s “victory” over MySpace was the beginning of the end of creative and unique identities on the web. And while there are sites like ShopJeen or creative networks like NewHive, which make one recall the days of Geocities and MySpace, I largely agree with Zach, particularly on this point.

Increasingly technology is all about the “what,” which I’ll define as the output of a considerable amount of work (i.e. the “how” and the “why”). What Zach is hitting on is that tech, in some instances, used to emphasize the process even more than the utility or objective analysis of the output. Conversely, in the art world, evaluating the quality of a work has become increasingly less objective. In fact, in many cases, art is almost entirely about the “how” and the “why” and not about the “what.” Take, for example, Richard Prince’s 2014 exhibit at the Gagosian, in which he took people’s Instagram photos and had them printed on canvases. Forgetting the questionable nature of appropriating other people’s photos for your own profit, many art outsiders would question whether this is even art. [Side note: To better understand this principle, I highly recommend this 5-minute video on why you shouldn’t say “I could do that” when looking at a piece of abstract or modern art.] But this trend of de-emphasizing the pure skill and craftsmanship required to create the final work in favor of the motivation for and implicit meaning behind the concept itself has a significant impact on the ability for technology, in general, and AI, in particular, to play a role in art and creative work going forward. This art-technology paradox of the former emphasizing the process and the latter emphasizing the output is something that I’ve been reconciling for a little while now, but I think we are on the verge of two complementing each other nicely.

Recently, a team from Delft University in the Netherlands analyzed Rembrandt’s works to build a series of algorithms that created a work meant to imitate the artist’s previous paintings. They even used a 3D printer that “reproduced something of the texture and craquelure one would expect of a painting from that era.” In 2013, Phillips Auction House partnered with Tumblr for the first ever digital art auction. This rise of digital art has been a long time coming and is commanding prices well north of seven figures. Even companies like Electric Objects are being started for the purposes of displaying this work, and Mine will be helpful for validating the originality of such work. Pace Gallery has recently set up shop in Menlo Park to get more closely aligned with Silicon Valley, as it launches an exhibit on digital and interactive spaces, and there are even virtual reality art exhibits. Ultimately, though, digital art itself and AI’s influence on the creation process for both physical and digital works is the area I’m most compelled to evaluate because of it’s ability to democratize creativity.

The same way that technology has enabled a greater number of writers and musicians, of various types, I think we are at the cusp of seeing an influx of digital artists. Additionally, AI, especially if or when it’s open sourced, can be a tremendous catalyst for the creation of artistic works. I believe the growing emphasis on the “how” and “why” in the art world allows for creators to be even more free thinking with their processes and their goals for what they’re trying to produce. If technology can become the “how” in the creation of art, we should see a dramatic increase in the quantity of works created as it enables artists, new and established, to produce at a greater scale, which should have lasting and far-reaching influence on proliferating creativity.

Way More Parties in LA: Why I’m Bullish on LA Tech and What I’m Doing About It

I am far from the first outsider to say that the LA tech ecosystem is worth paying attention to, but I hesitated a little to write this post because part of me felt like I was letting people in on a bit of a secret. However, like a founder who is afraid to share her idea out of fear that someone may steal it, it all comes down to execution and putting in the work. And so, sharing why I’m #LongLA (h/t Greg Bettinelli) more publicly is well worth it for our fund and for the LA ecosystem as a whole—a rising tide lifts all boats.

My infatuation with the LA tech community began in the summer 2012 when I was working with Gumroad. We traveled a number of times to LA and worked with digital teams at ICM, UTA, CAA, WME, and several labels and management companies in an effort to get artists to sell direct-to-fans using our service. At the time, most of these groups were biz dev partners and only a couple were dabbling in making tech investments opportunistically. This, of course, has changed as agencies have ramped up their investment activity alongside groups like UMG, Chernin, SB Projects, Sound Ventures, and Troy Carter’s team. When I joined Wanelo a year later, a significant amount of brand and retail partners were based in LA. That fact, coupled with the number of influencers who could be valuable to the platform, allowed me to spend more time in LA, thereby building new and fostering existing relationships.

And so, when I joined Deep Fork just under two years ago, I was drawn to the fact that there were already a few LA investments from Fund I (RadPad, Bkstg fka Fahlo, and Amplify), and Tim was in the midst of investing in Wevr fka Wemo Lab out of Fund II. In my first year or so on the job, I made a few trips to LA, but it wasn’t exactly a proper routine. And as someone who wants to meet with founders building the latest in consumer tech, I felt like I was potentially leaving opportunities on the table. So, beginning in November 2015, I resolved to go to LA every month (in addition to my monthly SF trips). This month will mark 6-straight months with at least a full day Uber’ing around LA seeing portfolio companies, investors (both traditional VCs and strategics), and potential new investments.

Here’s why:

LA’s startup ecosystem feels like NYC’s in 2009. It is nascent and fresh and hopeful with the same sort of momentum I felt from NYC about a half decade ago. The companies that are being built are predominantly consumer-facing (my personal sweet spot). And while one might argue they seemingly aren’t taking on the big, hairy, audacious problems (though some are) that you find companies in Silicon Valley tackling, they have very favorable macro tech trend tailwinds, which allow them to have significantly higher upside than many of the comparable businesses built in NYC five-plus years ago. I also think a younger tech ecosystem results in having younger founders, and when you’re building consumer-facing businesses (as most in LA seem to be), particularly ones targeting a younger demo, it’s valuable that you yourself are a likely user or customer. It’s a core piece of my hypothesis around founder-product fit, and LA seems to have this in spades.

Given the relative nascency of the ecosystem, for a young investor, there is an ability to grow with it in a way that can’t be done in NYC, let alone the Valley. You can build a reputation over time by being active in the community and doing right by entrepreneurs. The network effects that come with investing (both money and time) in a geography are real. While Snapchat can serve as a magnet for talent and the nexus of LA’s tech ecosystem (it’s the Palantir of Venice) and Science Inc. is doing tremendous work, I believe the startup scene is largely underfunded, particularly when it comes to funds who can stake their claim as a true lead investor. Lowercase, with which we’ve co-invested in a LA startup, is the preeminent seed fund in the area, and Upfront is the dominant traditional VC, but there is plenty of room for others to come in, whether they’re on the ground (as Arena has shown) or they’re parachuting in with regularity. I believe that making monthly trips to LA allows us to be a de facto LA seed fund. I’m fairly confident that no east coast investor is going to LA that frequently and spending that much time there (short of Fred Wilson who literally lives there two-plus months of the year).

LA’s similarities to NYC don’t end with how far along the former ecosystem is. In fact, LA’s diversity of industries (media and entertainment, fashion, finance, and tech), cultures, and general “personalities” within its massive population lends itself to being much more similar to NYC’s mix than SF’s homogeneity. I think being exposed to such diversity makes me a better, more adaptable and empathetic investor. I also believe that launching products, particularly in consumer mobile, in LA or NYC leads to lower odds of false positives than launching in the early adopter monoculture of SF. Furthermore, just as many companies should or need to be in NYC given the industries that the city harbors, there are numerous startups that need to be in LA for similar reasons. As I outlined in a previous post comparing my time in SF to my time in NYC, maintaining a solid “tech-life balance” and cultivating personal happiness fosters professional success. I believe this quality of life leads to more sustainable company-building and a lower likelihood of burnout, especially among so many young founders. The below Tweet came from a meeting during my last trip to LA:

https://twitter.com/Besvinick/status/713492553480294400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

This 21 year-old founder wisely recognized that being close to his college friends and having as normal of a life outside of running a hypergrowth startup would lead to a higher likelihood of success for his company, and maintaining an identity that wasn’t solely bound to his startup would be healthiest.

I’m not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last, investor to say that what’s percolating in the LA tech scene right now is compelling and attractive, but I do hope that bringing additional awareness to it, particularly as an outsider from across the country, helps elevate the conversation. If you’re a founder building a (consumer) startup in LA or a VC who is spending time there, please connect with me on Twitter. Quite simply, if you invest in consumer tech and you’re not paying close attention to what’s going on in LA, you’re missing out on one of the next important startup waves.

Startup Brands I Love (and the Founders Behind Them)

Given my time at Gumroad during business school and at Wanelo after graduating, I see and evaluate a disproportionate number of commerce-oriented investment opportunities — social commerce, marketplaces, direct-to-consumer brands, subscription commerce, new types of retail models, etc. About 25% of the investments I’ve sourced and led for Deep Fork fall into this category. Consequently, I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about branding. Branding, of course, is not limited to retail and brands themselves. For instance, I am a huge fan of the brand identities that Airbnb, Lyft, and theSkimm have cultivated. However, for the purposes of this post, I’ll focus on “traditional” commerce. What follows is an assortment of startups (Dia & Co, Pinrose, ShopJeen, Stowaway, and Walker & Co.) that I admire along with brief notes on why I believe they are building a brand in a thoughtful way by telling a compelling story and having a distinct point of view.

It goes without saying that the founder is vital to the success of any startup, but when it comes to building a brand, I believe the founder is that much more important. A founder who authentically embodies the personality of the company, and deeply and personally understands the customers she is serving is essential. She simultaneously needs to be the soul and face of the company. Without this influence from the top down and strong founder-product fit, it is unlikely that the brand will develop a distinct identity, perspective, and point of view. The following brands are all led by founders who more than fulfill the aforementioned requirements.

DIA & CO. is tackling one of the most underserved markets in retail: plus-sized women’s fashion. Nadia Boujarwah and Lydia Gilbert are building a phenomenal company by creating an aspirational brand that caters to their target market in a way that no other retailer or brand ever has. Personalized service makes customers feel special — it’s a luxury that few can afford with the added benefit of discovering new designers and receiving a box of items hand-chosen for them. The pride that Dia’s customers have shines through on social media channels, as the brand has helped nurture its community of members to share their favorite looks, thereby fostering positive word-of-mouth and growth. For instance, there are over 1,000 posts on Instagram with Dia’s hashtag, and tons of unboxing videos on YouTube, as women show off the curated items they receive each month. This abundance of organically shared, user generated content underpins one of the brand’s objectives, which is to empower women to feel and look their best, and it’s clearly succeeding.

PINROSE is competing in the crowded perfume and fragrance market among a number of entrenched incumbents, but it’s doing so in a unique and effective way thanks to creative insights from Christine Luby and Erika Shumate (who spent two years doing research within olfactory studies). Quite simply, Pinrose is building a brand that simultaneously straddles approachability and aspiration. The company is able to walk this tightrope with clever on-boarding and strategic distribution channels, among other things. Pinrose’s on-boarding is a fun and quirky quiz on the site, which is applicable to a wide variety of customers. Additionally, a very straightforward naming convention for the scents (rather than flowery, obscure, or foreign names associated with many competitors’ products) immediately grounds the brand and allows it to resonate with a broad spectrum of customers. The company’s distribution channels also contribute greatly to the brand perception and story. Selling through QVC, Nordstrom, Sephora, and on the company’s own site allow the brand to strike the difficult balance of appealing to a wide swath of customers while also feeling fairly upmarket. Selling direct and on QVC allows Pinrose to tell its own story. Bright, interactive displays at Nordstrom also give the company this ability — something that is fairly uncommon when going through retail channels.

SHOPJEEN unquestionably has one of the most uniquely authentic voices and distinct brand identity of any retailer. While most retailers struggle to tell a compelling story because they carry a portfolio of SKUs, ShopJeen has managed to buck this trend. ShopJeen has amassed a legion of fans by speaking to, selling to, and engaging with its audience on virtually every social media channel—Instagram, Wanelo, Twitter, Facebook, Depop, Tumblr, Soundcloud, and Snapchat. The Geocities-esque website, which was built for $1,500, is as quirky and eccentric as the products that ShopJeen sells, whether they’re items the company has expertly sourced or they’re from its private label brand, Netgear 90, named unironically after the company’s office router. The brand’s voice, personality, and point of view is inextricably linked to and borne out of the company’s CEO, Erin Yogasundram, and Creative Director, Amelia Muqbel. As the face of ShopJeen, Erin has built a brand that is virtually synonymous with the company. Whether it’s unfiltered sharing on Twitter, speaking earnestly and passionately on Snapchat, or organizing a meetup at a Chick Fil A, she has made herself nearly as accesible to fans of the company as ShopJeen’s products themselves. She has a borderline cult-like following within the ShopJeen community, and that helps carry the brand that much further.

STOWAWAY is building a direct-to-consumer cosmetics brand. Besides having one of the most cleverly appropriate names I’ve come across, the company’s decision to manufacture and sell smaller-sized products serves as an anchoring point for its brand story. Their products stand out in a crowded beauty market and feed into the brand identity and value proposition: they are highly portable for busy women on the go, perfectly sized for a subscription service, made from materials that comply with the highest possible standards (i.e. EU compliant), and are easy to use up before their expiration date. These thoughtful, minimalist, and functional product attributes also shine through in Stowaway’s strong content marketing strategy with an on-brand blog and quick-to-consume tutorials and tips. Lastly, the founding duo of Julie Fredrickson and Chelsa Crowley has an ideal mix of brand marketing, fashion, and beauty brand experience.

WALKER & CO., of which I’m an unabashed fan, is a veritable extension of Tristan Walker himself, as he is not only the namesake of the company but also the face of the brand in much the same way that Erin is at ShopJeen. His consistent engagement on Twitter, evangelism of the company’s products, ad hoc customer service, and guerrila-style customer acquisition is second to none and has been a hallmark of his success since his days of hustling into his role at Foursquare. As if it’s not enough that Tristan embodies his company’s brand just about as well as any founder does, the company is also putting out some of the highest quality content of any startup, regardless of whether that’s their core competency. Bevel Code (and the associated work with influencers in the form of interviews) is a content destination that can stand on its own. Lastly, the product itself significantly contributes to the brand identity. The Bevel razor and trimmer and polished packaging (and subsequent unboxing experience) greatly augment the brand and make it feel aspirational. And similarly to Dia, these underserved customers get to have a borderline magical and unique purchase experience that they likely haven’t had before.

Why the 90-9-1 Rule No Longer Exists

I recently met with a company that told me over half of their users are creating multiple pieces of content everyday. And while it’s a relatively small sample size (I am primarily meeting with seed stage companies), that engagement is staggering and led me to tell that team I believed the 90-9-1 Rule is virtually obsolete and why I thought so. And then to ensure I held myself accountable to blog about this topic, I Tweeted:

“Thinking that the “90-9-1 Rule” is dead (and has been for a while) for reasons that I’ll address in a forthcoming blog post…”

What follows are some of those thoughts I shared with this team — and a little extra now that I’m not on the spot in the middle of a meeting. (Note: for certain content with higher friction in the production process — YouTube and SoundCloud, for example — I think the rule still holds.)

First, the sheer ubiquity of smartphones is the foundation for the dismantling of the rule. When everyone has a device for creating content of all types in their pocket, the barrier to making something has been dramatically reduced. Previously, it took a concerted effort to create a piece of content; now it’s almost second nature.

And it has become second nature for an increasing number of people for a variety of reasons. The rise of messaging apps and a greater acceptance of short form material (thanks, Twitter) have helped with this dramatically by lowering the bar for creating content. These messaging products are essentially serving as training for creating content on other services. People are “writing” more than ever because of the rise of messaging products, which are increasingly replacing phone conversations. Furthermore, there are a preponderance of tools for self-expression, many of which start as creative networks, such as Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest, with many more on the way, as outlined in my previous post on creative vs. social networks. Users have never had so many outlets to create content in a variety of media.

Lastly, there’s never been such an opportunity for an unknown creator to go from the long tail to the mainstream in such a short period of time (for myriad reasons outlined here). The allure of going from an Instagram account with a small cult following to Fuck Jerry or from random Vine star to Shawn Mendes entices that many more people to start sharing content with the hope that it goes viral or may catapult their career.

A report from April of last year highlighted that 23% of Twitter users had sent a Tweet in the last 30 days. While many viewed this negatively (probably because they don’t understand how Twitter can be valuable without Tweeting), it was a clear sign that the 90–9–1 Rule had started to fall by the wayside for certain types of communities. And I suspect it’s a trend that will only continue to accelerate for other networks going forward.

A Theory on Twitter and Why “Moments” Matters

For a long time now, Twitter has marketed itself as the best way to get closer to whatever you’re passionate about, get real-time updates on these interests, go behind-the-scenes, and generally, be an insider. While this approach has helped Twitter swell to over 300 million monthly active users and driven a lot of product decisions, particularly on-boarding, and informed positioning (i.e. you don’t need to Tweet to get incredible value out of Twitter) it’s clear that growth is plateauing. Journalists / tech pundits / wannabe Twitter product managers blame a stagnant product roadmap and the fairly complicated nature of the service.

However, what if, quite simply, Twitter’s slowing growth has much less to do with the current state of the product (Moments excluded) and more to do with user behavior and psychology? By that, I mean Twitter caters to power users, power fans, addicts of various subjects, people who get a rush from being the first to know about or share something. News junkies and journalists, tech / startup community members, celebrity devotees, and sports diehards are born for Twitter. Each “pull to refresh” is like a mini-hit of dopamine for this crowd. I believe that there may be only a finite number of Type A users who need this rush and feed off of the immediacy of Twitter, and perhaps, this segment of the user base is approaching its ceiling. The pace of Twitter is overwhelming, even stressful, for many, and they don’t feel the compulsion to connect intimately with the intricacies of a topic — and that’s OK!

This is where Moments comes in. Many hardcore Twitter users have already proclaimed that Moments isn’t “for us” — it’s for lapsed users and yet-to-be indoctrinated Tweeters.

[As an aside, let me refute this immediately. As someone who lives on Twitter 24/7, Moments is a great way to augment my addiction to the product. Seamlessly having new accounts slide into my feed, and then just as seamlessly disappear after an event ends, was pretty magical during the Astros-Yankees game on Tuesday night. The human curatorial touch is exactly what the product has needed for a while, and it’s philosophically consistent with the non-algorithmic nature of the feed.]

Moments is the ideal hook to re-engage or acquire users who aren’t pulling to refresh like it’s an involuntary twitch. As Ben Thompson has pointed out, Twitter has “just reinvented the newspaper.” Moments should be positioned as the absolute best way to catch up on your day. It should be the first stop for anyone who wants a high level overview of what’s going on or recently took place — it’s the 30,000-foot view of a subject while relying on the feed is getting into the weeds. On-boarding for new users should be focused on high level interests, which can inform the personalization of Moments over time in addition to the ones with which users engage without being prompted. If this works, watch out.

But, in my opinion, the real genius of Moments is how it exposes users, both veterans and recent sign-ups, to new accounts. Hardcore users lament the staleness of their feeds and the desire to discover new people to follow. More importantly, though, following Moments and even browsing through them is a brilliantly clever way for Twitter to help new users build a feed from scratch — a problem that has plagued Twitter from the dawn of time. I’d make it ridiculously easy for people to quickly follow new accounts they discover from tuning into a Moment or surfing the Moments tab. The suggested follower list for all users should also be comprised of accounts that appear most frequently in Moments with which they interact. I believe this will significantly resolve the cold start issue that new users face when constructing their feeds.

Ultimately, Moments is a critical, even vital, product within Twitter. It is Twitter’s response to accepting that a substantial number of people, perhaps the majority, want a lighter weight product with higher level storytelling and will never be the Type A user who takes the time to build a feed, gets into the weeds of a subject, or feels the compulsion to refresh their feed constantly.