When Brynn Putnam bought her final firm, Mirror, to Lululemon for $500 million in the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed to this editor like she’d bought the good health firm too quickly.
As a substitute, 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 normal supervisor at Lululemon, Putnam had new working insights, a giant win underneath her belt, and a contemporary concept that she has since was 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 associate 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 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 calmly for size. You too can watch the total interview beneath.
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 screen behind it to point out you what a mirror would appear to be 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 great gymnasium model for herself however was additionally an inventor . . .Brynn received us over very, in a short time, and perhaps we seemed loopy for a couple of years, however ultimately 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 couple of decade, and we had been spending lots 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 the world over 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 on that sale, he stated:
I did have an opinion on it. Look, enterprise is a humorous enterprise due to the facility legislation and the concept you’re imagined 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 imagine within the energy legislation, however I additionally assume generally enterprise loses sight of simply actually fundamental, 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 all the time must proceed to return to the on line casino time and again and once more. On this case, when Brynn got here and stated, ‘Hey, I obtained this supply, I’m actually excited about taking it,’ I stated, ‘Yeah, it’s best to do that for you; that is wonderful for us. And should you’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, way more forceful and highly effective than I’m and also you’ll deal with this.’ However it was the precise choice. For a yr or two after, I believe Brynn most likely obtained some individuals who second-guessed it, and now I believe individuals see the arc of your entire 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 be taught, 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 all the time promoting your organization, and one of the best factor you are able to do, after getting made the choice to promote, is to essentially be taught as a lot as you’ll be able to from this enterprise that you simply’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 final 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 distinct stage of my life. I went from being pregnant to then having two kids, and actually, I simply took inventory of what was necessary 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 section, my life was actually simply way more about my household and my associates and my relationships and people issues that I used to be discovering necessary. I used to be actually struggling to seek out high quality time with my family members the way in which that I had rising up — you recognize, we might sit across the desk and have a meal, play a board recreation, 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 tougher.
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 client {hardware} firm, however within the gaming area reasonably than health, actually geared in direction of how we spend time collectively nose to nose, the place know-how is just not 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 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 training firm, though we do hope that individuals discover it attention-grabbing and strategic and artistic, but it surely’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 traders all of a sudden:
I believe we’re about to enter a golden age of {hardware}. All of the VCs listed below 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 believe there’s a possibility in the marketplace for one thing new. A whole lot of the core parts of those applied sciences have gotten much more mature and subsequently 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 the way we work together with our gadgets. So naturally, there will likely be new gadgets in the marketplace. You understand, we’re betting on this concept of not one other private laptop however reasonably a brand new shared system within the dwelling, 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 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 stated:
I discovered not too long ago about Nintendo’s design philosophy. They’ve this idea that they use ‘withered’ know-how 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 reasonably 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 individuals collectively offline), Lerer stated:
I’m an investor [in Pie]! Look, I’ve younger children and I’ve the identical challenges that each one my associates have and everybody has: we’re all hopelessly addicted to those gadgets, and at a excessive degree, we’re interested by alternate options to that dependancy and new codecs of leisure or alternatives to get individuals off of screens or out on the earth. We very not too long ago did a [related] deal that’s not but introduced in an utility 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 utility 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 individuals’s passions is all the time a great wager within the client area.
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 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 lots of client, lots of media, lots of direct to client commerce. And there have been a couple of developments 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 quicker 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 massive tech adjustments that encourage individuals 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 top quality group of founders saying, ‘Now’s the time to get again within the pool.’ There are issues which can be doable immediately that weren’t doable 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 de facto thrilling for me as a result of that’s my ardour. I constructed a client enterprise. I really like investing in client founders, and it’s been fairly crappy the previous few years, fairly frankly.
