When Brynn Putnam bought her final firm, Mirror, to Lululemon for $500 million at first of the pandemic, it seemed to this editor like she’d bought the sensible health firm too quickly.
As an alternative, the timing proved sensible. The house health craze crashed practically as abruptly because it peaked throughout that first 12 months of lockdowns. In the meantime, after a 12 months as a normal supervisor at Lululemon, Putnam had new working insights, a giant win beneath her belt, and a recent concept that she has since became a brand new firm that can 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 night time 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 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 can even watch the total 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 principally a kind of like a two-way mirror with a pc display behind it to point out you what a mirror would appear to be if she was in a position to increase tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to really 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 once we noticed it, it was simply clear that Brynn was not only a intelligent enterprise builder who had constructed an excellent fitness center 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 finally much less so.
Brynn Putnam on promoting Mirror simply 4 years after founding it:
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 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 houses internationally with pace and certainty. We actually simply felt prefer it was this chance we couldn’t cross on.
As for whether or not Lerer weighed in with recommendation on that sale, he mentioned:
I did have an opinion on it. Look, enterprise is a humorous enterprise due to the facility legislation and the concept 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 alter the entire world. I consider within the energy legislation, 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 should 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 provide, I’m actually serious about taking it,’ I mentioned, ‘Yeah, it’s best to do that for you; that is wonderful for us. And for those who’re getting pushback from people [like later-stage investors with a different cost basis], I’m completely happy to attempt to be useful, however you’re frankly rather more forceful and highly effective than I’m and also you’ll maintain this.’ For a 12 months or two after, I feel Brynn most likely 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 afterward as an exec at Lululemon, which later threw within the towel on Mirror:
An investor who I like . . .instructed me on the time that I must 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 at all times promoting your organization. And the perfect factor you are able to do after you have made the choice to promote, is to essentially study as a lot as you may from this enterprise that you just’ve chosen to promote to and attempt to sort out one thing with objective on this new function. And that’s what I did. And I realized an unimaginable quantity within the 12 months that I used to be there, and it was extremely attention-grabbing. However I feel finally, while 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:
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 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 rather more about my household and my mates 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 — you already know, we might sit across the desk and have a meal, play a board sport, 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 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 house slightly than health, actually geared in the direction of how we spend time collectively nose to nose, the place expertise will not be the expertise however actually an enabler to constructing higher relationships.
Requested if her new product is for kids (or if 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 youngsters’ firm, though we do hope you’ll take part along with your youngsters. It’s not an schooling firm, though we do hope that individuals discover it attention-grabbing and strategic and artistic, 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 prime of thoughts for founders and buyers out of the blue:
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 taking place. 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 possibility in the marketplace for one thing new. Numerous the core elements of those applied sciences have gotten much more mature and due to this fact inexpensive, so having the ability to construct, in our case, show applied sciences, is feasible in a means 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 units. So naturally, there will likely be new units in the marketplace. We’re betting on this concept of not one other private laptop however slightly 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 bit of tech that helps deliver your 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 mentioned:
I realized lately about Nintendo’s design philosophy. They’ve this idea that they use ‘withered’ expertise with lateral considering. So the concept is utilizing mature, inexpensive, extra available applied sciences however creating a extremely attention-grabbing expertise round them, and that’s what we did with Mirror. It was slightly 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 mentioned:
I’m an investor [in Pie]! Look, I’ve younger youngsters and I’ve the identical challenges that every one my mates have and everybody has: we’re all hopelessly addicted to those units, and at a excessive degree, we’re involved in options to that habit and new codecs of leisure or alternatives to get folks off of screens or out on the earth. 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 folks’s passions is at all times an excellent guess within the client house.
On the sensation that ‘client’ as a class 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 a number of client, a number of media, a number of direct to client commerce. And there have been a number of developments 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 clients quicker than ever. Possibly 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 when it comes to large tech modifications 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 prime quality group of founders saying, ‘Now’s the time to get again within the pool.’ There are issues which might be attainable at this time that weren’t attainable six months in the past or a 12 months in the past, and the slope is steep proper now when it comes to utilizing your creativeness. So I’m extra enthusiastic about client than I’ve been in a very long time, which is actually 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 couple of years, fairly frankly.
