Zehra Naqvi is a 30 Under 30 alum, angel investor and founder of Lore. In this interview with Forbes Associate Editor Alex York, Naqvi discusses her entrepreneurial journey, including founding her first e-commerce company Glo as a teenager in Hong Kong. She also details her experience in venture capital, emphasizing the importance of community and obsession when founding and investing in companies. Naqvi's latest venture, Lore, is a website designed to curate internet content for users based on their interests and obsessions.
0:00 Introduction
1:00 How To Build Community As An Angel Investor
4:43 Consumer Based Everything: How To Know A Business Is Right For You
9:55 How Zehra Naqvi Became A Top Venture Capitalist
15:23 Zehra Naqvi Shares Her Networking Secrets
20:41 How Top Companies Approach Hiring Problem Solvers
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0:00 Introduction
1:00 How To Build Community As An Angel Investor
4:43 Consumer Based Everything: How To Know A Business Is Right For You
9:55 How Zehra Naqvi Became A Top Venture Capitalist
15:23 Zehra Naqvi Shares Her Networking Secrets
20:41 How Top Companies Approach Hiring Problem Solvers
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
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More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I've passed on a ton of companies where I've met the founder and
00:02I've just felt like they're not obsessed with what they're solving.
00:05And I think that hunger that is brought in from an obsession about a problem or
00:09experiencing the problem for years on end, that kind of just creates
00:14a level of determination that I don't think you can replicate without that obsession.
00:18Hi everyone, it's Alex York, an associate editor at Forbes.
00:24And I am here with Zarin Akhvi today to talk about all you are building as
00:28a 30 under 30 alum and now founder of Lore.
00:31Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:32Thank you for having me, I'm so excited to be here.
00:35I'm super excited to have you here.
00:36You've had a crazy career journey, I feel like.
00:39Over the past couple of years, you've gone from one industry to another, and
00:42now you're entering into the founder space.
00:45So I'm really excited to talk about the company that you are launching.
00:48But before we get into those things, I'd love to know just a little bit about you
00:51for our viewers to learn about you as a human first.
00:54So let me in on where you grew up, where you're from, and kind of who you are today.
00:59Yeah, so I was born in Singapore, but I grew up in Hong Kong, and
01:02that's pretty much where I identify as home.
01:04I'm ethnically Pakistani, and so it's like, I always like to say,
01:07it's like a huge melting pot of Asia and all of those cultures that I grew up with.
01:11I think fundamentally, when I think about growing up,
01:13a huge part of it was obviously my identity and growing up abroad.
01:17And in that kind of vein, having this desire to learn more about American culture.
01:22And it's funny to talk about it now, but 15 years ago when I was 10, 11,
01:26the only way you could learn about American culture was via J-14 magazine,
01:31Teen Vogue 17, and there was almost a delay that kind of existed within Asia.
01:37And so when Tumblr came out, and Pinterest, and obviously social media,
01:40that to me was a huge unlock because I found communities of fans,
01:44particularly One Direction and that whole era of just
01:49existing on the Internet with so many other people.
01:51And so Hong Kong was a huge part of just who I was growing up.
01:54And I actually founded my first company in Hong Kong, and
01:57that was also born out of this frustration that people in my school,
02:02in my middle school, would literally go to, let's say, Bath and Body Works,
02:06buy a hand sanitizer.
02:07And because it was so desired via the YouTube videos we had seen,
02:11people would come back and literally charge 20x the price to just get one bath
02:15and body.
02:15Like at school?
02:16Yeah, at school, and so it was kind of this black market happening in this school
02:20in Hong Kong, but there was such a desire for American products.
02:24And that also kind of manifested in clothing and trends.
02:28And again, we went from a three to four month delay to immediately,
02:31we could see everything trendy in America.
02:33And so I started my first company, Glow,
02:35which was an e-commerce fashion company.
02:37That was my first foray into entrepreneurship,
02:40literally just a teenager wanting to make things that my friends wanted.
02:43And I think, again, being in Hong Kong where we didn't have Forever 21 yet,
02:47Topshop, there was no Abercrombie, no Justice, that kind of was a solution.
02:53And so I thought we would stay a local Hong Kong brand,
02:55but because of Instagram and us kind of being early to marketing on Instagram,
02:59we could send products to influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers
03:02and not pay them, and they would just post themselves in the shirt.
03:05And it was kind of this crazy snowball experience
03:07over a course of a couple of months.
03:09So we scaled that enormously, scaled it to profitability,
03:12and that was really my first experience in entrepreneurship.
03:15And a really huge part of that was just growing up in Hong Kong.
03:18Definitely, yeah, you are an entrepreneur from the get-go.
03:21And you founded that company with your sister?
03:22Yeah, with my sister, yeah.
03:23And what was that experience like being so young?
03:25And like you said, trying to tap into multiple different ecosystems
03:29of business and trends and all those sorts of things.
03:31What was that like for you?
03:32In a weird way, I think when you're younger,
03:34there's a level of fearlessness that you just cannot always
03:37capture as you get older.
03:38And I think that also comes down to the notion of being perceived.
03:42So when I was doing this with my sister, we were literally kids,
03:45and we built the website on Shopify.
03:47And back then, it was like, oh my god, how are these kids doing this?
03:50It's crazy.
03:51But now Shopify is everywhere, and it's kind of become democratized.
03:54And I always say it's like, I think just us on the internet.
03:56Before this, we were talking about iMovie.
03:58My parents had no idea how we were stitching these music videos together
04:02and editing them so seamlessly.
04:04And I think it was just like the freedom of being a child at the time
04:07that really just makes you fearless in a way
04:09that I'm still trying to capture now.
04:11I think thinking about myself as like a 12, 13-year-old pursuing this,
04:15I'm like, who is she?
04:16She's amazing.
04:17And I know it's still me, but it's kind of crazy
04:19because I do think you have just so much more, I guess, yeah,
04:22fearlessness is the way I would describe it when you're pursuing
04:25and going down that direction.
04:26And I think it's also a lot of trust in the authority of what
04:29you're doing because now, if I'm trying to create something for teenagers,
04:32I'm very aware of the fact that I'm not a teenager.
04:35And so I think it's also the idea of truly just solving a problem
04:39that I was experiencing, my friends were experiencing,
04:41and running with that.
04:42That was a huge part of it.
04:43Definitely.
04:44And to recognize that at such a young age,
04:46that is literally the key to business, to fill a void in the market.
04:50So you were, through these experiences growing up,
04:54you're very pop culture obsessed, consumer obsessed,
04:57all these sorts of things.
04:58When did you then move to the US?
05:00And how did that change your perception of these different things?
05:03Yeah, so I went to Columbia for undergrad.
05:05So that was 2017.
05:07Decided pretty much like I had learned entrepreneurship
05:09from the perspective of e-commerce.
05:11And I want to say there's a whole conversation
05:13you could have about what being an entrepreneur versus a founder
05:15means and the connotations.
05:17I very much saw myself as an entrepreneur.
05:19But kind of funnily enough, I saw New York
05:22as the place to be for startups and tech.
05:24I was like, Silicon Valley?
05:27New York is where you need to be.
05:28And so when I came to Columbia, obviously,
05:30wanted to do well in school.
05:31But I hounded as many New York-based founders as I could,
05:35particularly the VC-backed ones, to just learn whatever I could.
05:39If it meant me just changing colors on a website
05:42to A-B tests, like pop-ups, and see how that led to average order value
05:45changing, I would do that for three months.
05:47If it meant me just following the founder around to photo shoots
05:51with CPG products, I would do that.
05:53And so when I came here, I think I recognized I had one experience,
05:57but I wanted to broaden my horizons.
05:59So I worked at a pre-seed fintech company, a Sephora beauty brand that
06:03ended up being my first angel investment, a cat food company that
06:06had raised a series A, a consumer tech platform for managing your wardrobe.
06:11Anything and everything in between.
06:13And I think those experiences basically made
06:15me realize the commonalities amongst all of these companies
06:19were just frustration with VC and being afraid of VC fundraising to a degree.
06:24And not even afraid, but just daunted because it was such an opaque process.
06:28And so that realization is kind of what propelled me towards understanding,
06:32OK, I've gotten all this tactical experience.
06:35By the time I graduated, it was like 14 different startups
06:37from as little as a two-month long project to as long as two and a half
06:41years, I pretty much realized founders that had raised no money
06:44and founders that had raised $200 million had the same problems.
06:47And it all went back to VC.
06:49So at a certain point, I was like, OK, I spent the last eight,
06:52nine years building my own company and then working for these founders,
06:55learning operating.
06:56None of these companies could continue to exist if they did not fundraise,
06:59and I had no idea how VC worked.
07:02So that kind of realization was a next step for me.
07:05And, OK, this is a whole other area of my, I guess,
07:08skill set that I need to address and understand.
07:11Definitely, and I want to get into your VC experience in a second.
07:13But first, I want to ask, you said that there's
07:15a difference in your mind between an entrepreneur and a founder.
07:17And I think that that's something that a lot of people who are building brands
07:21or who are employees at a company kind of gripe with.
07:24Can I be entrepreneurial in this sense, or am I?
07:26Whatever it is, whatever the experience is,
07:28what would you say is the difference in your mind between those two?
07:30So I think it's kind of like a false difference.
07:32I don't know if I necessarily believe it,
07:34but I think it's this weird dichotomy between VC-backed founder
07:39and VC-scale and then everything else.
07:42This is what I kind of hate about it, because I think anyone
07:44who is brave enough, again, and fearless enough
07:47to create a company from scratch and take that leap,
07:50there should be no hierarchy in the way that we describe things.
07:54But I do, unfortunately, think there is this almost unwritten rule
07:58that a founder is one that is VC-scale, VC-backed.
08:01It's almost truly ingrained in the tech scene and the VC scene.
08:05And I think the entrepreneur captures everyone else.
08:08In a way, I think the type of financing that you get literally means nothing.
08:12Building a business and having it be profitable,
08:14that is what everyone should admire.
08:16I don't think chasing VC or just pursuing VC as a metric for success
08:22is really one that makes all that much sense.
08:25And again, love that ecosystem, and I've learned a lot from it.
08:28But I think the founder, when I think of myself,
08:30I scaled a company to profitability, and yet even when I talk about it,
08:33it's like, that was e-commerce, not VC-scale.
08:36What I'm doing now is VC-scale, and the opportunity's huge.
08:39What I'm building right now compared to back then,
08:41that was profitable, and I'm just getting started right now.
08:43So it's more just kind of, I think, an unwritten conversation or rule
08:48that I want to challenge, because I think a beauty brand
08:52that goes on to exit for a couple hundred million,
08:54I have heard VCs kind of talk about that in a disparaging way,
08:58being like, that's not good enough, or that's not enough.
09:00And I kind of hate that notion, because I think there needs to be
09:04more nuance behind the way that we talk about being an entrepreneur,
09:08being a founder.
09:08There should be no hierarchy, and VC-backed founders certainly
09:11shouldn't be put on a pedestal that's above what I did,
09:15building an e-commerce business.
09:16And I think there's been a big shift in that the last couple of years,
09:19because obviously, COVID, just after COVID,
09:22there was a huge boom in VC investments, and valuations skyrocketing.
09:26And for the past couple of years, it just has been a huge,
09:29like you said, an indicator of success.
09:32And I think that recently, and maybe this ebbs and flows,
09:34there have been other forms of either funding or just making money
09:38that more and more founders have come across and realized
09:41this is just as legit as being invested in.
09:44And coming from the other side of it, being in the VC world,
09:47have you seen that same difference?
09:49Or how are people in the business ecosphere right now
09:52looking at venture capital funding in those ways that you're talking about?
09:55Totally. And I think this is also such a good question,
09:57because it goes back to my first experience before being a VC full-time,
10:01which was at a startup called Republic, currently Series B.
10:04And their whole mission was democratizing access to private investing,
10:07which I think is the focus for the main consumer.
10:10But really, in the background, it was also changing exactly your point,
10:13how startups got financed and what that meant.
10:16And so it's funny, because I think there's this whole argument right now
10:20that consumer is dead.
10:21I think we're very much, everyone's excited about it again.
10:23But for the last couple of years, people hated on consumer.
10:26They were like, whether it was tech, CPG, anything,
10:29they were like, it's not a good business model to invest in,
10:33regardless of what it is, consumers were kind of finicky.
10:36And I think it goes back to the fact that a lot of companies
10:39were just overvalued, to your point,
10:41and were taking VC money at valuations
10:44that they were not going to be able to grow into.
10:47And I think people are recognizing that,
10:49especially in the 2016, 15 era, a lot of that happened.
10:53And then they kind of dipped down around the 2020s.
10:56And so now I think there is a lot more willingness
11:00to explore angel investors as a route for financing,
11:03because the valuations don't get so aggressive.
11:06Syndicates are a whole other example of, you could go to a syndicate lead,
11:09and they have 1,000 individual angel investors that'll
11:12come together and invest in you.
11:13I think crowdfunding and equity crowdfunding,
11:16particularly what Republic does, also a really good example of that.
11:20So I think, in a weird way, I feel like everyone's
11:23reprioritized and focused on the fact that equity is the most important thing
11:27at the end of the day.
11:28And I feel like with these sky-high valuations,
11:30people kind of gave themselves the assumption of, oh,
11:34this valuation means I'm going to give away less of a percentage of my company.
11:37Therefore, my equity is more valuable.
11:40But then I think people forgot you have to grow into the valuations.
11:44And I think it's a really, really delicate dance
11:47between being pragmatic enough to not have a sky-high valuation,
11:50but then also recognizing you're going to have
11:53to give up some of the company.
11:55So I feel like we're kind of coming to homeostasis,
11:57and people are recognizing, OK, we need to pay a little bit more attention
12:01to not just prioritizing our ownership.
12:04We also do have to, to a degree, think about dilution when it is practical.
12:09And at a valuation, that makes sense.
12:10In your role at Republic, when you were working
12:13with a lot of the founders themselves, what was that experience
12:16like to kind of walk people through this decision process?
12:18And were there similar either questions or challenges
12:22that you helped them through?
12:23Or what was your primary role in helping them achieve the things
12:26that they came to Republic to achieve?
12:28Yeah.
12:28I think a huge part of it was the community side of it more than anything.
12:32And I find now that there are a lot of founders, particularly in pre-seed
12:35and seed, that will prioritize, let's say, an angel investor
12:39route or a Republic, an equity crowdfunding,
12:41more than just taking a single check from a VC.
12:44And I think at the end of the day now, it just goes to community
12:47is the most important thing out there.
12:49Those are your customers, people who advocate for you.
12:51It's almost like having many salespeople just everywhere.
12:54And I feel like back then, we were still, when I first started at Republic,
12:59it was 2020.
13:01And so we were still in the era of people
13:03wanting to chase those valuations, wanting VC money.
13:05And after we would have a conversation with them,
13:08they would kind of realize the power of having 500 to 1,000 people
13:12that were raving about your product who wanted to see you succeed
13:15versus a VC that has a whole other portfolio that they have to worry about.
13:19And so I think we leaned very heavily into that.
13:21And now it's kind of proven out because the Beehive founder, Tyler Denk,
13:26he, I think in his Series B announcement,
13:29announced that they were doing an equity crowdfund as part of it.
13:31And that's incredibly rare, a company that's
13:33been backed by insane tier one VCs to also prioritize an equity
13:38crowdfund in the Series B. That's kind of game changing.
13:41And I think that is proof, more than anything,
13:45all the questions we were answering five years ago
13:47have kind of just shown to be true because founders are now
13:50prioritizing the community, the angel investors,
13:53and the smaller investors that make a really big difference.
13:56What's your advice for founders today?
13:57Or just people building operators, people in the business space
14:00in general, in order to create that community?
14:02Are there things that you advise people do
14:04or ways that they should go about it that's not?
14:06Because I feel like a lot of people, especially our age,
14:08feel like networking is icky or not the vibe that they want to create
14:13true connections in or those sorts of things.
14:15So what's your advice to young people today
14:17that want to start fostering those communities?
14:19Yeah, it's such a good question.
14:20And I think about myself.
14:22So I did not realize that Twitter was such a huge deal
14:26in VC land until I started at Republic
14:29and everyone was like, you have to get on Twitter.
14:31So I started from scratch.
14:32I had no followers, no followers on LinkedIn either,
14:34didn't have a newsletter.
14:36And now five years later, I have 14,000 on Twitter,
14:3817,000 on LinkedIn, and my newsletter has 70,000 subscribers.
14:42But that like, again, five years ago, it was nothing.
14:44And I think the biggest action and kind of step I tell everyone to take,
14:49it goes into two things.
14:50I think the first category is you do have to just kind of get over
14:53like the cringe of it all.
14:55I like to call this like the cringe epidemic
14:57where people are just so afraid to look like they're trying
15:00that they just don't try at all.
15:01And you just hold yourself back that way.
15:03Like, it's like the classic saying,
15:04it's going to be cringe until it's not.
15:06And everyone is asking you how you did it.
15:08And so I feel like putting yourself out there,
15:11just trying to get over the idea of being perceived.
15:14My favorite hack for that is literally just schedule all your posts.
15:17I do not tweet or post on LinkedIn live.
15:19I just get it scheduled.
15:21It goes out.
15:22I don't have to think about it.
15:22Turn the other way and let it go.
15:23Yeah, I'm like, I'm not going to worry about this right now.
15:25And that honestly helped a ton.
15:27And then the other side of it is I think,
15:29to your point about like networking being icky,
15:32I think it's because the connotation with networking is like,
15:34here's a transaction.
15:35Like I pass you something, you pass me something.
15:37I've always been a very like community minded person
15:41in the sense that like, I'm a Pisces.
15:44So I'm very like, I just want to give.
15:46And that's like my biggest thing.
15:47And I truly think that being like a giving kind person
15:50and leading with that, eventually when you need something,
15:53you then have kind of like the relationship
15:55to help out with it.
15:57But again, like even if you give
15:58and you don't get anything in return,
15:59I think giving is so important.
16:00And there's been so much restraint in a way
16:03of people wanting to like keep doors closed,
16:05not make space for others.
16:07And I try to lead with the opposite of that.
16:08And I'd say in the last five years,
16:10that mentality has helped me more than anything else
16:12that I've done in this space.
16:13It's really just lifting others up with me,
16:15giving as much as I can.
16:17And now that I'm founding a company,
16:19I've like come back like,
16:20hey, like I finally have something to ask you for
16:23after like five years of having the relationship.
16:25So yeah, that's how I think about it.
16:26But it does take time.
16:27And I feel like that is something
16:28that's so critical to understand is like you might not,
16:31and in fact, like probably shouldn't get something
16:33out of it right now.
16:34But like there are so many things
16:36that that relationship can foster in the future
16:38or support with or whatever that is.
16:40I wanna talk about your newsletter a bit.
16:42You started that a couple of years ago, the Z-List,
16:43and it has become like such a community place
16:47for things in VC, for things in business,
16:49like just such a well-rounded kind of like hub
16:52of information, support, all those sorts of things.
16:55What was the inspiration behind it?
16:56Why'd you start it in the first place?
16:57Honestly, I started it out of kind of going back
17:00to like when I was an undergrad.
17:02I, again, had met so many founders
17:04and there were founders that had raised
17:05200 million founders who had raised nothing.
17:07And I think for me, my frustration was like,
17:10I still have no idea why VC is such a fragmented industry
17:13in the sense that like the founders,
17:16it's almost like they have to like claw
17:18to even get like a VC on the phone.
17:20And then I, now that I know VCs,
17:22I realized that they're just constantly parsing
17:24through everything and constantly searching
17:26for a company that they believe in or resonate with.
17:29And so when I started the Z-List,
17:31it really just started as like a tiny Gmail.
17:34It wasn't even a newsletter.
17:35It was like an email that went out to 20 people.
17:37And it was like, okay, here are the 15 VCs
17:39that I've met through just like going up to them
17:42when they were speaking on campus at Columbia
17:44or just like messaging them on LinkedIn
17:46and just sending them a list of the companies
17:47I was seeing in the wild.
17:48But then the founders I'd met
17:50and the founders I'd worked with.
17:51And that slowly started snowballing
17:52because the VCs would of course like request introductions
17:55to the founders.
17:56And then I remember I got like my first email
17:59from a founder that said,
18:00this person you introduced me to invested $75,000.
18:03And I was like, okay, there's something here
18:05in the whole like notion of giving and creating a community.
18:08And so the Z-List like very selfishly the Z is for myself.
18:11Everyone's like, oh, it's Gen Z.
18:13And I'm like, no, no, it's for Sarah.
18:14And I basically at a certain point realized,
18:17okay, I have a couple hundred people on this.
18:19I think I need a software to do it.
18:21And I'm a Substack hater.
18:22I'm sorry, I don't love Substack.
18:25And so when Beehive came out,
18:26they were also kind of early stage at the time.
18:29I was like, this is the perfect platform
18:30for me to get this off the ground.
18:33And so it really just started
18:34with like a couple hundred people.
18:36VCs would tell their friends about it.
18:37It was like a point of deal flow.
18:39And then I started angel investing.
18:41So I would have portfolio updates
18:42and it really just kind of snowballed online
18:45as like a form of introductions and deal flow.
18:47And then founders would wanna be on the list
18:48so they could get featured.
18:50And then on the other side of it,
18:51I was just hosting so many events in person.
18:53So again, if I was making the introductions over email,
18:56I was also hosting like a dinner for 10 people.
18:58Like I'm the type of person where if I just like
19:00get a reservation for 10 people,
19:01I'll just call enough people
19:03until I can fill the reservation like last minute.
19:05I won't give anyone like a chance to say no
19:07and I'll be like, okay, you're gonna show up
19:08and we're gonna build community, talk to each other.
19:11So I think the Z-list also in person
19:13kind of in tandem with IRL and URL.
19:15The IRL side of it was like,
19:17let's make these introductions in person.
19:18Let's actually create valuable events
19:21that people want to go to.
19:23The event side of it came out of the frustration of me
19:26being on the Upper West Side,
19:27going deep into Brooklyn for like an event that was bad
19:30and then having to go back up on the subway.
19:32So I was like, okay, I wanna actually give people
19:34like what they're looking for
19:35and not just like another, you feel awkward,
19:37you don't know how to interact with people,
19:38just create some structure.
19:39What do you, or did you,
19:41and currently, because you're an angel investor as well,
19:43what do you look for in companies
19:44that you're going to invest?
19:45And you mentioned like VC, capital VC
19:47might have like red and green flags.
19:49What are yours and how does that align
19:50with like the industry standards?
19:52This might be a hot take, but I,
19:55while at Republic, my clients were founders
19:58and then at Headline, obviously,
19:59I was only talking to founders.
20:00And so for the last better five years of my life,
20:03I was talking to anywhere from 15 to 30 founders every week.
20:07It was genuinely shocking the percentage
20:11that would actually sound enthusiastic
20:14about what they were talking about and obsessed.
20:16For me, and this will lead into what I'm doing eventually,
20:18but I think like, if you're building anything,
20:22you should sound obsessed and you should sound excited.
20:24And it's bizarre to me that sometimes like,
20:26I know everyone has different styles of communication,
20:29but I, again, I'm a Pisces.
20:30So I feel like I can actually tell the way
20:32that someone feels about what they're talking about.
20:34And I think that obsession about the problem,
20:37about the solution, about what you're doing,
20:39to me, that's my ultimate green flag.
20:41Even if something looks good on paper,
20:42I've passed on a ton of companies
20:44where I've met the founder and I've just felt like
20:45they're not obsessed with what they're solving.
20:47Like, and I think that hunger that is brought in
20:50from an obsession about a problem
20:51or experiencing the problem for years on end,
20:54that kind of just creates a level of determination
20:58that I don't think you can replicate without that obsession.
21:01So I guess it's kind of nebulous,
21:02but I think it is just like really reading people.
21:04And I really only angel invest early stage.
21:07I'll sometimes do a series A
21:09if I've known the founder for a long time,
21:10or a series B, or I use the product, whatever it is.
21:13But for me, from an angel investing perspective,
21:15I'm like, I'm only giving my capital to someone
21:17if I see that obsession in their eyes
21:19and that determination to actually create something
21:22that they're extremely passionate about.
21:23Right, yeah, that totally makes sense.
21:25How do you feel like your, you know,
21:28what were some of like the expectations
21:30versus reality of the industry?
21:31You and I have talked about this a lot,
21:33like just what, and like, as you were mentioning,
21:35it can be such an opaque industry
21:37and like not really understanding like how it works,
21:39what the conversations are like,
21:40how were those conversations
21:42when you were like in the room with these people
21:43and how, was there anything that you like wanted to change
21:46after experiencing it firsthand?
21:48Yeah, I think I always knew that VC was very like,
21:51okay, we're gonna reach out to people
21:53and we're gonna have a conversation
21:54and we're gonna chase folks.
21:56But I didn't realize the degree to which it was like,
21:59this is a sales job, like at the end of the day.
22:02So that's why when I referenced Republic,
22:03I was in business development at that startup
22:05and then I was a junior investor at Headline.
22:08And being in both of those positions,
22:11I kind of realized at the end of the day,
22:13this is a job where you're talking to people
22:16and I don't think I realized how precise
22:18the VC side of it was.
22:20I'm, again, someone who has like a list of companies
22:23that I'm obsessed with, it constantly changes,
22:25things get removed, things get added.
22:27I didn't realize how systematic like Salesforce CRM
22:30ask the experience of VC is across all types of investors.
22:34And I think this applies even up to when you're a partner.
22:36So I didn't, that was one realization
22:38that I truly didn't realize.
22:39And I also didn't realize,
22:40even if you are meeting with one investor
22:43on another side of the team,
22:44the whole fund is gonna be able to look
22:46at your email chains, all the notes from your company,
22:49everything in one place.
22:50So I always tell founders, if you're meeting one person,
22:53don't just assume they're the only person
22:55who's gonna read everything you're saying.
22:56Yeah, you're meeting everyone.
22:56And that CRM link is gonna get shared around
22:59on email, Slack, everything.
23:01And so that was, I think, one true realization
23:04where I was like, I kind of knew this,
23:05but it was also crazy to experience it firsthand.
23:07And then I think the other side of it
23:09is really just how winning deals
23:12and like chasing founders comes down to
23:15not just getting them on the phone in the first place,
23:17but also just now like founders are in a position
23:20where I think there is a lot of capital in VC
23:23and founders want VCs and are looking for investors
23:26that are proving to them beyond the capital,
23:28what else are you good for?
23:30And so I think that, I'm so thrilled by that
23:32because I don't think that was always the case.
23:34I think it was hard enough to get VC funding
23:36in the first place.
23:37Having a VC now be like, here's all the talent
23:40that I can introduce you to,
23:41the engineers that I know, the designers,
23:43like anything that actually helps the company function.
23:46I think that side of it has become incredibly important,
23:49at least from what I've seen in the last year.
23:50And that's a huge reason why certain funds
23:53are able to win incredible deals.
23:54Do you think that now then like the founders
23:56have the upper hand in these things,
23:57even though they're really asking for something?
24:00I think so.
24:01I think the founders do actually have the upper hand.
24:03Now, I feel like we're in an era where
24:05all the like hot deals, quote unquote,
24:06that I heard about would have
24:08anywhere from three to eight term sheets
24:10that were all competing against them minimum.
24:13It was multiple offers from different people
24:15who then again, after the capital,
24:17it came down to conversations of
24:18let's double the valuation
24:20or let me prove everything else
24:22that I can actually add to this
24:24beyond just the term sheet that I'm offering to you.
24:26So I actually think we're in a founder's world,
24:28which I love.
24:29And I always like to say,
24:30if a VC is interested, you're gonna know.
24:31And it's kind of one of those things where
24:33they will just keep pursuing you.
24:35And that's just kind of the reality of the game.
24:36It is really a sales job at the end of it.
24:38Definitely.
24:39And as you said, we're in a founder's world now.
24:41You yourself are now officially
24:43like a founder of an enterprise.
24:45I wanna talk about Lore.
24:46As we've been talking about this conversation,
24:48you've always been consumer obsessed.
24:49You've always been like community driven,
24:52as you were saying, walk me through what Lore is
24:55and why you wanted to build this company.
24:56Yeah.
24:57So I like to say Lore is the internet curated
25:00for the obsessed.
25:01And the way that I really think about that
25:04is when it comes to my experience,
25:05being a fangirl on the internet in the 2010s versus now,
25:09it's almost weirdly harder to be a fan.
25:11I think information is diluted and fragmented.
25:14When I watch a new TV show or I'm obsessed with a new book,
25:17I Google, let's say like, okay,
25:20The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
25:21And then I'll have to go through like a whole Reddit thread,
25:23parse through everyone's opinions.
25:25Then I go on TikTok and maybe find a couple of videos
25:27that resonate.
25:28And it's just this whole fragmented experience.
25:29And then I will never get information
25:31about The Secret History again,
25:32because there's no platform that will give me that.
25:35On top of the fact that like,
25:36when Liam Payne passed away, RIP Liam,
25:38One Direction was such a huge part of my life.
25:41And I found out like 12 hours later,
25:43and I was just frustrated.
25:44Cause I was like, why is there nothing
25:47where the internet knows me well enough
25:49to tell me about this?
25:50Similarly was frustrated like Lord of the Rings.
25:52I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan.
25:54And I just found out that they're doing
25:56a whole orchestra performance at Radio City Music Hall
25:59with the last movie playing.
26:01And I was like, why didn't I hear about this?
26:03And so lore for me was born out of this frustration of,
26:06I love following people.
26:07I love following my friends.
26:08I love social media.
26:09And obviously I love content,
26:11but I was just really frustrated with the fact
26:13that there was no place for me to just follow my fandoms,
26:16follow topics that interested me.
26:18And so lore, eventually when we get the product out
26:21is really gonna kind of feel like a place
26:23where you're able to fall down that internet rabbit hole
26:25the way you might have as a kid.
26:27The reality is though that we all have bills to pay.
26:28And so we don't have the time to parse through
26:30like every Reddit thread the way that we want to.
26:33And I think it's kind of like bringing,
26:35basically lore is to give people access
26:38to the things that bring them joy a lot easier.
26:40And I want to create platforms that are driven on joy
26:43and focused on the joy that you get
26:44from the things that you love.
26:46And so if there's a place where I can log on
26:48and see Disney updates,
26:50but then also Lord of the Rings updates,
26:52Donna Tartt secret history updates,
26:53and then also like the Brooklyn Nets
26:55and random niche lore about like New York in the 1970s,
26:59like I want those updates.
27:00And so lore really is a platform
27:02to allow you to follow your obsessions.
27:04But then I also say it's also for the nosy.
27:06So if you just kind of want to get the TLDR
27:08on like some beef that's happening in pop culture,
27:10you no longer have to Google
27:12and try and read these like incomprehensible articles
27:15or Reddit threads.
27:16Lore will be the place where you're like,
27:18what happened with this breakup or whatever?
27:20And then you actually get all of that presented to you.
27:22So very, very much early stages,
27:24but it's for the nosy and for the obsessed.
27:26I love it.
27:27Is it going to be an app?
27:28Is it like a website?
27:29What's the like format that it's gonna exist in?
27:31So we're starting with a website.
27:33I remember again,
27:34all my fondest memories are like tumblr.com on Google Chrome
27:38and having that bookmarked Pinterest, initially everything.
27:41And so we're really going back
27:43to like the 2010s era of the internet.
27:46And so we're starting with web.
27:46We'll eventually have a web app and an iOS app,
27:48but I really do want this to feel like
27:50you are spending hours, not even doom scrolling,
27:53but you're really just like doom clicking
27:55and in the nicest way possible
27:57where you're falling down that internet rabbit hole
27:59and learning all of these things,
28:00but then also having a way to maintain it
28:02and being told like this month,
28:04you learned 15% more about One Direction lore
28:07or something like that.
28:07So we're starting with a website
28:09and it's gonna be out in a couple of weeks.
28:10Yeah, that's super exciting.
28:11You also have already closed your pre-seed round
28:14for the company despite not having launched yet.
28:16And I'm assuming that a lot of this
28:18was from these connections and the community,
28:20like we've been talking about
28:21that you had built up over the past couple of years.
28:23What was it like to start having these conversations?
28:26Were you reaching out?
28:26Were people reaching out to you?
28:28How did this happen?
28:29Yeah, I think funnily enough,
28:31everyone's told me even when I became a VC
28:33that they knew I was gonna be a founder again.
28:35I don't know if that's like some aura I give off
28:37or something, but I think it was kind of this
28:39like underlying understanding
28:41that if I were to pursue something,
28:43I would be incredibly serious about it.
28:45And so I got to a point with Laura where I was like,
28:47am I gonna regret not doing this on my deathbed?
28:50Can I commit like five decades of my life to this?
28:52And when I got to those two points,
28:54I was like, I have to do this, there's no question.
28:56And the founder market fit is kind of crazy
28:59because I, again, like grew up on the internet.
29:01I have that whole fangirl perspective,
29:03but then also coming with this like operating VC background.
29:07And so when I started having initial conversations,
29:09the first investor that actually ended up
29:11being my pre-seed investor,
29:12they were like so just bought into this idea.
29:15And I think it was because the way that I talked about it,
29:18like fervently and obsessively,
29:20because that was a huge part of it,
29:21they had to believe in me as well.
29:23But then also just the opportunity again with AI right now,
29:26this, I've had this idea for eight years
29:28and I've been telling people about this for years.
29:30You can ask anyone.
29:31It just never would have existed before AI.
29:33And so I think that side of it
29:35is also what made it so pertinent.
29:37I really only spoke to a couple of investors,
29:40the ones that I trusted and loved
29:41and got to see how they interacted with founders
29:44and really just had that experience
29:46of knowing that they were incredible people.
29:48And I think that's kind of the direction
29:50I ended up going in.
29:51We are still fundraising with angel investors.
29:53And so I have a whole other conversation there
29:56about the angel investor fundraising experience.
29:58But yeah, that's kind of how it all worked out, everything.
30:00How do you plan on monetizing it?
30:02Do you plan on monetizing it?
30:03Because I feel like, especially in consumer social,
30:05there's a lot of like opinions about how,
30:08without ads essentially, like you can't monetize it
30:10or you have to pay a subscription, whatever it is.
30:12So what are your thoughts on that?
30:13How do you expect to move forward?
30:14Yeah, we definitely don't want to have ads in lore.
30:17This might like in 10 years, come back to haunt me.
30:20But I think right now I'm very pertinent.
30:23I'm very, very focused on the fact
30:24that I really don't want ads on lore.
30:26I want this to almost be such an intimate experience
30:29that you have on the internet
30:30where it feels like your diary.
30:32And I'm like, do I wanna open my diary
30:33and see like an ad for something
30:34that's not relevant to me?
30:35No.
30:36So I don't think we're gonna go down that path.
30:39I'm still exploring what the business model
30:41is gonna look like.
30:41And again, I'm extremely fortunate
30:43that I was able to fundraise and explore up to this point
30:46without necessarily having the most like concrete idea
30:49of what every possible opportunity of revenue generation
30:52for lore is gonna look like.
30:54I think we have an idea of potentially going down
30:57like a B2B avenue and working with the individuals
31:00that are creating like the canon stories
31:02for fandoms to be based off of, but still exploring.
31:05So we're really gonna allow the fans and the users
31:08to tell us what they want.
31:09And I think that's my frustration
31:10with a lot of the internet.
31:11And I think even just like consumer in general,
31:13we need new like inventive business models.
31:16And I think with AI,
31:17we're gonna have a lot more experimentation there.
31:19Definitely.
31:19When do you expect it to be like available to users?
31:22So we're gonna actually start with an MVP,
31:23which is more of like a beta testing situation.
31:25That's gonna come out around Valentine's day.
31:27And we're gonna line it up
31:28with like a couple of fun little activations
31:30related to just fandom lore around Valentine's day.
31:34So we're gonna do an MVP,
31:35which is gonna be kind of like that first step
31:37of being able to traverse,
31:38let's say like the lore of the internet
31:40and the fandom side of it,
31:41the subjective search of it all.
31:43And then eventually in the next couple of months,
31:45hopefully in the fall,
31:45we're gonna have that like full first product
31:47for you to actually be able to like
31:49maintain your interest, follow them,
31:50and then continue going down that rabbit hole.
31:52Yeah, I love it.
31:53In the next like, let's say three to five years,
31:55what are some of your expectations for the future
31:57of what people are going to be obsessed with?
32:00Yeah, I think funnily enough,
32:01I feel like we're gonna have this weird,
32:04like reverting back to almost like the core fandoms
32:07of I wanna say the early 2000s.
32:10In a weird way, I feel like fandom now
32:11has almost become like a diluted term
32:14because there's just like so much content out there,
32:17which is great and people love it.
32:18But I just read an article
32:20and I'll send it to you about this
32:21where the quality of content is typically assessed
32:24by like someone going on their phone
32:26during the TV show, the book, the movie,
32:29whatever it is, or are they not?
32:30And so I think we're gonna go back
32:32to almost like the core idea of fandom
32:34in like the early 2000s,
32:35where there was like a specific place
32:38or a fan account that you went to
32:40to find all of the new fan theories about something.
32:43And just like, and I would say this even existed
32:44in the 2010s, there were like certain fan accounts
32:46you went to that aggregated all that information.
32:49I think we're gonna go back to that
32:50and maybe I'm like leaning very heavily
32:53into what Laura's gonna do.
32:54But I think that's the direction we're going into.
32:56And then I think we're also going to have a very,
32:59maybe this is like a far out there prediction,
33:01but I think we're gonna have this like reversion
33:04back to like the ancient Greek, ancient Egypt obsessions.
33:08I'm just starting to see things online
33:10and I feel like history is gonna have its moment again.
33:13A lot of us who are now like the older Gen Zs
33:15are the ones that were obsessed with like Percy Jackson
33:17and like that era of like the 2010s.
33:20So I kind of see us going back
33:21to that like historical obsession.
33:23And I think just given where we are in the world right now,
33:25there's gonna be a lot of like attention
33:27on what's happened in history.
33:28So those are some of my theories,
33:29but I think there's a lot more out there
33:31that's gonna become popular.
33:32But I think we're gonna revert back to some of that stuff.
33:34Yeah, no, it's super exciting to think about all
33:36that like community that you're gonna create
33:38and just these different corners of the internet
33:40that are, you know, the internet is growing
33:42and if you can find a place that's like niche
33:44and serves your needs,
33:45that's what people are looking for today.
33:46So thank you so much for joining me.
33:48This is so fun to chat.
33:49Of course, thank you so much for having me.