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Investor Company Profile, News, Rankings | Fortune

Lucy Brewster

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Pickleball has burst into the mainstream due to its low barrier to entry and variety of health benefits—including the opportunity to socialize and build community—and investors big and small have picked up on the trend.

How pickleball became the fastest growing sport in America

Sports

Pickleball has burst into the mainstream and attracted big-name investors due to its low barrier to entry and variety of health benefits.

Pickleball has burst into the mainstream and attracted big-name investors due to its low barrier to entry and variety of health benefits—including the opportunity to socialize and build community.

there's this massive explosion and it's just really taken off first time hit the ball. I was like in love with the sport and I think once people play it, they become addicted to the point where they don't ever want to play anything else. Pickleball is a paddle sport, combines elements of badminton, table tennis and tennis. It's similar to tennis where you're trying to get your opponents to make an error either by hitting into the net out or letting the ball bounce twice and you're trying to score points. So first team to 11 wins the game, the dimensions are exactly the same as the badminton court, so it's 20 ft wide by 44 ft long. Pickleball was started and sort of 1965 by the pritchard family from Bainbridge island Washington and in Washington they had these boat races where they would have a boat which is the stronger rowers and then the B boat which was kind of random people thrown into the boat together and they would call that the pickle boat, they were looking for a game for their kids to play. They had ping pong paddle ball, they were trying to play badminton, they didn't have enough stuff and so they set it up and started playing the game kind of took off from there When I discovered pickleball, it was the middle of the first summer pandemic and I think there were the ideal conditions for the sport of pickleball to kind of really thrive. It was a game that families could go outside, you can easily set up a net in your driveway. Once people started playing it really kind of took off. Pickleball has a very low barrier to entry. You can learn the game in 10, 15 minutes. So relative to other sports where the learning curve can feel quite steep before you can actually play a game of all, you can really just jump right in from the get go. It's a low price point from an accessibility perspective when you play it, you can play it at a very active manner. You can play it very casually from when I first started playing, I played with my grandfather and my mom and I can still play with my grandfather and my mom. So I think this is really cool that you can just play with all eight Throughout your family. So I just think it's a sport for everyone and that everyone can do together. And so there's a really fun, joyous element to it as well. As of today we've got about five million active players growing at 30, We expected to be close to 40 million players in the next 10 years. If that happens, it would be the largest participated in the us, my friends when I first started playing pickleball had absolutely no idea. But then once it kind of exploded there, like seeing me on tv and stuff and they're like, oh my gosh, this is like a real thing, I would say in the beginning of my pickleball career when we would go and travel somewhere and we would tell someone why were in town, they would be like, what's pickleball? And we'd have to explain it to them and now when we go and I'm like, oh my gosh, I love pickle ball, I played all the time or I just started playing pickle ball. I feel like everyone knows what it is when you look at sort of the amateur grassroots game and you have five million players going to 40 million. That would be more than tennis or golf. So you have a mass population of players playing when people are playing games, they're gonna obviously buy equipment, they're gonna buy merch, they're gonna join clubs, they're gonna watch professional league. So when you think about that huge community, uh, there's a tremendous investment opportunity. There are a number of celebrities and athletes that have a real passion for the game. And as a result of that passion, a significant amount of them have been investing in MLP and other ventures in Pickleball. The Kardashian started playing it. Vanderpump rules, it was featured on there, some major athletes like Lebron James and Draymond and kevin Love and tom brady and kim clijsters started purchasing major League Baseball teams, longoria visit Azul Heidi Klum, I met Jamie Foxx, Michael Phelps, Larry Fitzgerald, like I played pickleball with all of them, there's like so many celebrities that are getting into Pickleball or that have pickleball courts at their house or investing to pickleball, there's just a lot of engagement because people fundamentally are looking to invest in where they have a passion and I think a lot of these folks come from a passion of playing and then they recognized that sort of growth in the game and that's the reason they come in to invest. Community is such a key aspect to pickleball. Once you get into it, once you start playing it's very easy to have this passion for it and want to play it every day. So when you find others who share this passion you instantly have this connection. It's one of these games where if you've never played it before you can show up to a court and people will always embrace you. They're really interested in teaching other people how to play it within a couple of games, you'll know all the roles and you're never gonna leave that community. Um It's really fanatical in that way which is really wonderful. I really look forward to it growing. Two point where 40 million people are playing in the U. S. And that number more than doubles globally. I think if we can do that it unites people, it brings people into community. It brings a lot of things that we sort of need in the world in the country and I'm pretty excited about all those things

Three advisors weigh in on the biggest risks and opportunities facing investors in 2023.

Advice for investors from top financial advisors

Finance

I think of this market as being winter, we can't have harvested summer forever. Eventually we need to have winter and eventually we'll have early spring again, inflation has weird, its ugly head. Interest rates have skyrocketed and stocks have fallen both in terms of valuation and market cap. So I think that we're at a point where it's getting more complicated to generate returns from stocks. I think the big risk for investors now and as always is their own behavior. We obviously have no control over what may happen. The only thing that we can control is our own reaction to those events and headlines. I think in times like this, individual investors will decide they know what they need to do to take control in this market. So they'll sell in a down market or they'll decide to reallocate in a down market and that is not a good idea if you realize that your allocation is too aggressive, This is not the time to reallocate, Hold on, stop looking. And when the markets come back, that is a great time to reallocate, but don't don't secure your losses in a down market by selling the risk to stocks is that we go into recession because in recession, companies will historically earn less money and you know historically it will be hard for them to find ways to grow. And so that will reflect in the prices that people are willing to pay for stocks and of course there will be blowups, there will be bankruptcies, there will be failures. So we do see some selling pressure for the S. And P. 500 as investors move out of U. S. Large cap stocks out of mega cap tech into other areas of the market, like small caps, like other regions of the world. I think there's a huge opportunity that's been created in the market this year stocks are selling at 25% lower valuations than they were a year ago and on the fixed income side now you can buy a portfolio of risk free bonds for 4% which is something that you could only have dreamed of a year ago, two years ago, you can buy tax free municipal bonds at a tax equivalent yield of 6.5 to 7%. This is they dream scenario for investors. If you had offered them that two years ago they would have been over the moon. So now that dream is a reality, we've also been taking people up for big Roth conversion because if markets are down 20% your portfolio is down 20% that means it costs you 20% less to do that Roth conversion and that's teeing you up for long term tax exempt growth for your retirement. And let me tell you a financial planner loves nothing more than a Roth ira Equities participate in inflation earnings grow with inflation. So there are lots of spots in the equity market to benefit from this inflationary cycle. I think that where you get your real bang for your buck from equities as income, and, you know, a third of the market's returns over the last, you know, 100 years have come from dividends, that hasn't necessarily been the case in the last 10 years, but dividends are a really important part of the investment spectrum. Our advice to investors is focus on the cash that you're getting out of companies rather than companies that are promising great growth over the long term. The most important thing that investors can do is to stay focused on why they're investing in the first place. I think it's important to acknowledge that anxiety is not a great place to make financial decisions from. I don't think this is the time for action. I think this is a time for reflection and then pausing. I think this moment is analogous with Greece. This has been very hard, from a, from the Black Lives Matter movement to covid to political upheaval. It is important for us to acknowledge that we have lost and that we can pause and not do anything, and that might actually be the best thing for this moment, because we'll be clearer moving forward about how we want to utilize our wealth for the benefit of our families and our community at large

Meena Flynn, Co-head, Global Private Wealth Management, Goldman Sachs 
Jaclyn Rice Nelson, Co-founder and General Partner, Coalition Operators
Moderator: Terri Burns, Investor; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

MPW Next Gen 2022 - Wealth Generation

Conferences

Meena Flynn, Goldman Sachs 
Jaclyn Rice Nelson, Coalition Operators
Terri Burns, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

Meena Flynn, Co-head, Global Private Wealth Management, Goldman Sachs 
Jaclyn Rice Nelson, Co-founder and General Partner, Coalition Operators
Terri Burns, Investor; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

throughout today. We've heard from innovative entrepreneurs and inspiring leaders as they discussed, how they built and managed a diverse set of businesses. The capital accumulation is impressive, but how do we ensure that we pass it on to future generations. These questions could not be more timely given the widespread economic turmoil, rising inflation and interest rates and the looming prospect of a recession. How will we pass on the wealth up next? We'll discuss a number of investing strategies to generate long term wealth and how to invest for social impact. Please welcome Mina Flynn, co head of global private wealth management at Goldman Sachs and Jaclyn Reiss nelson, co founder and general partner of coalition operator. Welcome welcome. Hi Meena. Hi Jacqueline. How you guys doing so Good. 100%. So let's cut straight to the chase. I'm sure everyone here has been looking at their investment accounts over the last few weeks and months and crying at least I certainly have. What opportunity are we facing right now given the current market climate and therefore how should we all behave in terms of wealth creation? You can start with you. Sure. Sure. Um yes, all of us have been crying because I think the only things that have worked in this market over the last year are carbs and carbon. So um energy and agriculture and despite um usually where equity markets and fixed income act adversely. Um, it's been a year where both equities and fixed income have declined and have declined materially. And the reason um, is really the known unknowns is what uh, you know, we're focused on. And that would be recession, that would be the central bank increasing interest rates to a point that does put us in recession to offset inflation and then also geopolitical concerns. So given that backdrop, um our perspective is that in the US we're actually not going to see a recession, that's not where consensus is consensus is that we are definitely going to see one, but even if we do see one, our view is that growth is going to be relatively anemic. Um but it won't be that substantial from a downtrend perspective, because if you think about the components of inflation, it's really been wage inflation, it's been rental inflation and it's been supply chain, supply chains are normalizing there's a huge supply of apartments that are coming um that are coming on the market and you've actually got a job market that is uh cooling. And so we do think inflation is going to come down um from relatively high levels right now. So with that backdrop, um I would recommend staying invested if you are invested in us equities and doing that in a diversified manner. And the reason why is because most of clients, despite the move that we've had this year, most of our clients are still sitting on gains is I would assume many of you are, if you have been investing for quite some time and there's really a significant after tax consequence of selling, it's also impossible to time markets. And so let me just give you a stat on that. If you were invested in the equity market, the SNP for the last five years, the market would have returned roughly 12% per year, 12% per year. If you were out of the market on the 50 best days, you would have earned negative 15%. And so whether we do a recession, we don't do a recession. If you are in a diversified us focused portfolio, we recommend staying invested for incremental capital. I think fixed income is finally attractive. You finally have an alternative from a risk perspective and so high grade fixed income, if you have the opportunity to do alternative investments and invest in companies such as Jackie's, I would, I would make those investments and then also um from an equity perspective, um take, you know, called take a 6-18 month approach and add exposure to the markets relatively systematically over that time period. The more risk risk conscious, you are make that over a long time longer time period, the less risk averse, you are doing that over a shorter time period. Oh, um, sorry, um, I love you already, because first of all, you already told me there's not a recession and now you're getting the investors, so this is the best channel ever. I think first of all, that's amazing news. Um and I think the way I kind of thought about things is similar in the sense that there is a portfolio that you're optimizing and I think what you're guiding on is how to optimize with your cash, which is amazing. Hopefully many of us have a lot of that. Um and then in addition the other two assets that you definitely have are your time and your expertise and that's really where I sort of think about building a portfolio for your career and in this moment that becomes even more important because even if we're not heading for a recession, which I sincerely hope we are now not the things that used to be risky like startups are now even riskier and the things that used to feel safe, like working at google or amazon or meta no longer do with them like laying off tens of thousands of people per week. Um and so how do you really think about balancing the portfolio of time and energy that you have and where can you really poor that? Um And this is how I manage my career as well. I am the Ceo co founder and Ceo of a company called Tribe ai we are a network of top machine learning engineers and data scientists, you can kind of think of it as a kind of talent agency or matchmaker for top Ai talent to companies who really need this type of talent. Um and then in addition I started a fund called coalition um and we invest in early stage tech companies, some of them are in the room, we have Christina from a quest and Rebecca from little otter. Um, we have someone from santa as well. Um, so really, really cool companies. Um, but then in addition we've built this model to get women onto cap tables, top venture backed companies at scale. And the reason I believe this really matters is because, um, while this is not a tech centric thing, um, there is, and I really believe that will continue to be dramatic wealth creation opportunities happening in tech over the next generations. And I have a very, I get to be the scandalous person on the panel and have a very shameless Agenda to make a lot of women very wealthy. Um, and that, and that is not always happening today. Um, so if you look at recent acquisitions and exits companies like sigma, um, that sold for $20 billion. I see nodding heads already to adobe. There wasn't one woman on the cap table. Yeah, gas. So that doesn't mean that there were no women who benefited from that. But my gosh, there's so many people who became exorbitantly wealthy. Um, and a very small percentage of those are going to be women. Um, and so this is the thing that a coalition, we really want to change. We are only going to be one piece of the problem, but starting to think about how you can spend your time kind of in fractional ways and lend your expertise in exchange for equity is really, I think where I've been focused, I want to double down on this point because as as you mentioned, women are poised to control more assets than ever before in the coming years. What about this moment is unique in particular to the female investor base? How should the female investor base really be thinking about having access to these types of opportunities? Um, thinking about their own portfolios and our own portfolios and risk assessments of wealth wealth generation. So, um, just in terms of females controlling more wealth, um, we anticipate the amount of wealth that females are going to manage to double um, into 2030. Um, and so roughly right now women control a third of us household wealth. We think that's gonna again more than double. Why is that? Um one is you have aging baby boomers. The first, um you know, women tend to marry five years older and they tend to outlive men by two years. And so the first wealth transition goes from the patriarch to the matriarch. Second, you have more women that are making decisions for their household financial decisions. And third, just Jackie mentioned, you have more women making money. So those are the reasons why women are going to be controlling many, you know, more assets going forward. Um the first thing I would say is just don't be passive about it if your name is on that statement that financial statement get involved, ask the questions and that's what I found that I really enjoyed when working with our female clients is that they are not ashamed to ask anything. Um And and it's also you know, I would say that they're not necessarily more risk averse. Like I think sometimes women get tagged with being more risk averse, they're just really more risk aware. And in terms of how they you know, if if I was qualitatively going to say what is a different investing trend of women versus men, I would say that women really want to invest to propel their communities further. And so if you think about E. S. G. It's really the s is where I found most of our female clients focused, how can I help, you know, from a housing affordability from an education perspective, how can I help propel markets, communities etcetera ford and make money at the same time. And in many ways they are giving their money from a philanthropic perspective in the same way they're investing and you no longer need sub optimal returns when you're investing in this fashion. It's really interesting. Um I even just start with trends across people. Um The reality is that people tend to invest in their networks. Um it's just easier who do you know um who's next to you, who's sort of telling you about whatever it is, whether it's crypto hopefully not F. T. X. Um but you know, you're you're sort of learning from the people around you. Um and for better and largely for worse people tend to to spend time in homogeneous groups. Um and so that means that they end up investing in people who look a lot like them. Now. That has been a problem historically, when the people who have largely been check writers or founders that have gotten funding have been men or angel investors. So people who make money from companies like Sigma, then go on to pour that money back into the ecosystem into people who look like them. Now, the thing I get really excited about is that the people who are amassing wealth are changing. And so now we get to pour that money back into people who look like us who look like people in this room um and support the next generation of female entrepreneurs, of GPS adventure funds of executives of large fortune 500 companies, we saw many of them today and over the past few days. Um And I think that that is why this is a really exciting moment. And tipping point and that to me is why wealth matters, it's because then we can pour it into communities and fuel a future that we all believe and I want to see. Um and when I just look at coalition as a microcosm of that, there are four of us, we are all founders and operators ourselves, we are all women. Um, and we have no explicit uh, sort of charter or mandate to invest in women. Um, but our goal is truly just to generate as much financial return as we can. So we are just a pure investment venture fund. Um, and yet when we pulled the numbers, we saw that 68 percent of the founding teams we invested in had a woman or a person of color on the founding team. And so it's just to highlight that, um, there are incredible opportunities out there to generate huge returns and also, you know, invest in the s which is communities of people who can go on to do incredible things. Any questions from the audience right there? Yeah. Hey there, Whitney Magnuson. I have seen some research saying that millennials and now gen z following are largely trying to retire at earlier ages than ever. Early retirement being a key motivator. Now, some of that might be kind of wishful Thinking at some point. But what, what advice would you have that may differ from kind of traditional portfolio management or things for uh, individuals who are trying to pursue something other than a 40-year working lifetime. So I'm happy to start. So at first day save and invest as much as possible and as I said, stay invested as well. And let me just expand on that a little bit. What we see as being the worst, worst, um, wealth destructor. It's a permanent loss in somebody's portfolio. How do you get a permanent loss? You get a permanent loss because you're too conservative and you can't keep up with inflation. So your whole portfolio is in bonds that is not going to help you retire on the other end of the spectrum. You are invested in a very concentrated position. That as you know some work very well, some have idiosyncratic experiences or you are in a portfolio where when you do look at it, you can't sleep and you sell at the wrong time, right? Or you take on leverage whatever it might be. So how can I save as much as I can right now to invest and have those compounding returns in a way that is diversified and has a growth aspect to, it is not too conservative that allows me to sleep well and grow that over time. So I think Nina is going to be the true expert here. I might just take this in a slightly different twist, which is that prior to the panel we were chatting um what if we, you know had life changing outcomes, what would we do in our lives? We got deep before the panel um and uh and I think we both kind of came to, we actually love what we're doing, we would probably be doing the same thing. We just might be doing a little less of it or like a lot less of it um and having a little bit more time freedom, flexibility um and so I I sort of share that as an alternative because there are now are so many more ways to work on a fractional basis work sort of not just in traditional part time, which means you work full time and get paid for part time, but actually like really work you know for designated amounts of time and get paid really really well for your expertise rather than in your time for the value you create and produce. Um And this is very much what I focus on that tribe for data scientists and engineers. Um but there are there are many other ways to do this um and you know that might not be the sort of like laying on the beach retirement that everyone has in mind. Um but I think finding ways to have a little bit of the best of both worlds is probably a little bit more where where I orient I want to go back to um this concept of risk and how to really think about um risk averse versus risk aware what might prevent folks from ultimately facing their wealth generation or preservation goal. Um and how should folks consider risk? What's what's what's your advice in terms of how people should really think about that? So I I think about it again as as a permanent loss and you don't want to experience a permanent loss and so you need to have a portfolio that is diversified enough that will outpace inflation and by the way inflation for this room is not the C. P. I. Inflation for this room is actually higher because if you look at medical costs, if you look at college, you know education, you look at the shoes, it's 1.5 times inflation actually, Especially it's literally I'm not even joking, there's an index that's called the clue we index. It's the cost of living extremely well index and it's 1.5 times. So if inflation is 10%, it's 15% on an after tax basis, you have to make 15% to break event. Right? So the biggest thing like I said is avoiding a permanent loss. Um and so it's keeping up with inflation but also you know, not extending yourself to the point where you're not um where you're not comfortable. So I think of it again, going back to sort of career philosophy is um when you're earlier in your career, the best thing you can do is be head down all in on your job really. The only currency you have is your ability to outwork everyone else when you get more senior. Um It's actually quite the opposite. It's why we're all here. Um You get tremendous benefit from looking up um from getting, you know more perspectives experience or across across a range of industries companies um just different exposure to groups of people, um, and ideas. And I think one of the biggest risks for, for women is staying heads down as you get to the more senior levels or trying to really break into these more senior levels. Um, Deb Deb lieu of ancestry spoke about how Cheryl Sandberg opened the door to board positions for her. Um, and how, uh, you know, that overnight, you know, changed roles she was eligible for. Um Now that's fantastic, but that, that's probably not a solution at scale. Um Well, while she's doing incredible work, um, and and I think that this is something that, that we felt personally mentioned, there are four of us, we each have had careers and startups raised over a billion dollars collectively, uh for those companies, we've had jobs inventor and yet that we all came to investing personally very late. Um, and when we did, we realized that none of our female peers were participating. Um and all of our male peers were. Um and this is really, I think the missed opportunity for for everyone in this room, um these are the people who then go on to have more influence on our system, um, and also more wealth generation opportunities. Um, and I think that when we really think about what, what, what's one tangible thing you can do, um it's to really seek out some of these opportunities, whether it's investing advising, um, you know, joining groups like I know chief is here, um, and really getting that exposure exactly your point around, um, not looking down, not looking down, but looking up. I think it's a great note to end on. Thank you both. Mina Jacqueline. You both have been wonderful. Thank you.

Lucy Guo, Chief Executive Officer, Passes; Co-founder, Scale AI 
Daniella Pierson, Founder and CEO, Newsette; Co-founder and Co-CEO, Wondermind
Moderator: Terri Burns, Investor; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

MPW Next Gen 2022 - Founders: Breaking Barriers

Lucy Guo, Passes; Scale AI 
Daniella Pierson, Newsette; Wondermind
Terri Burns, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

Lucy Guo, Chief Executive Officer, Passes; Co-founder, Scale AI 
Daniella Pierson, Founder and CEO, Newsette; Co-founder and Co-CEO, Wondermind
Terri Burns, Investor; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

today's event and the M. P. W. Community encourages us to embrace responsibility and opportunity as we realize our power. Our next guest embody this with their professional and personal journeys, lucy grow is chief executive officer of passes. Uh, she became a coder at the right age of seven in middle school, lucy created one of the first twitter bots, but it wasn't until she was at y Combinator that she had the idea of merging machine learning with people. The result was scale ai a multibillion dollar company today. Daniella Pearson is founder and ceo of new Set. She started a newsletter focused on female centric content as a sophomore in college rather than follow the traditional path into publishing. She built new set into a million dollar company. Lucy and Daniella joined us today to talk about how they broke barriers with innovative ideas, personal drive and much more. Please welcome them to the stage together with fortune brainstorm tech. Co chair terry Burns lucy, Daniella. Hello, how are you both doing today? I'm excited to see you again after aspen. Yes, we were at brainstorm tech. Fortune brainstorm tech just a couple months ago. I'm super excited to chat. I know that you guys know each other, our new friends, There's lots to dig into today. So let's just go ahead and jump in the description for today's panel reads, being told they couldn't do something was all it took for these founders to find a different way of achieving their goals. So I want to jump straight into that. Can each of you tell us about a time you were told you couldn't do something and how you use that as motivation maybe Danielle we can start with you. Okay I've been told many times so let me choose one story. Um I was told in college I was a bad student so um I'm actually labeled the dumb twin because I have an identical twin sister who looks exactly like me except she was the best student in her class and she went to U. Penn, I went to bu and while I was at the U. I started my first company, the new set which now is valued at $200 million and I'm really proud of that because we never took any VC funding. And my only other partner is my immigrant mother from Colombia, so I was able to make her a millionaire in the process. Um But while I was building that company, I not only had O. C. D. A. D. H. D. Depression was like a bad student, I was basically a poster child for like someone not to believe in. Uh So all of my professors did not believe in me. Um And I actually failed the entrepreneur project. Yeah and it was because and I had a call with the dean the other day because now they want me to be their commencement speaker which is so funny because I literally got a letter from the previous dean saying if you don't get your ship together you're going to be kicked out one semester before graduation, so I barely passed that stage and now I guess I'm gonna speak on it and in front of all the professor excited me. But anyways, the crazy thing about the entrepreneurship project was we were in a group of eight people where I don't know about you guys, I've never heard of anybody start a company with eight people and then it was peer reviewed and so basically one person had to fail and I got to be that person. Uh so it just shows you how, you know, school isn't everything. So I was a bad student, but I was told by everybody, not only the people in that group, uh by my teachers, by the dean who said that they were going to kick me out of college if I, you know, didn't jump through all these hoops um because I didn't pass, you know what they thought success looked like at the school, and now I'm lucky enough to be going back not only to speak at the commencement, but also to help them um put together a program that is more holistic and more real stick for entrepreneurs because they also told me I'm the most successful entrepreneur that's graduated there in like 20 years. So, okay, what a comeback story that is, we are looking forward to that, that commencement speech for sure. Oh yeah, I'm gonna like turn around and be like, I know what you did lucy, what about you? Yeah, I think I've always just been a really rebellious child and my parents never really believed in me. Um Not because they're like bad parents, but because my little brother was just significantly smarter than me, like you skipped six grades in math, was taking a peek at Bc in sixth grade. Um Total genius. So all kind of started when um I wanted to take an electrical engineering course in high school at Carnegie Mellon Summer classes, and my parents told me you can't be an engineer because you you are a woman. And that blew my mind because my mom actually got her graduate degree in electrical engineering, but her argument was that she was the only person in class, so I secretly switched to e after they forced me to change out of it and they found out like while we were at Carnegie Mellon and started screaming at me in front of the entire dome of students that I was going to fail, kind of embarrassing. Um but I felt the need to prove them wrong, so I ended up doing really well in the course and and then the professor at cmu ended up writing me a recommendation letter and I was just really lazy with college applications, so um I knew I would get in because of that and I did. Um and then the second time was when I dropped out of college, I got the thiel Fellowship and yet again, they're like, hey, you're never going to succeed, you really think you can run a company. Uh And I was like, yeah, like I ran a bunch of online businesses when I was younger in like middle school, high school, elementary school and I made a good amount of money from it And uh they just were not happy. They viewed it as like a sign of disrespect that I was doing that. So I ended up not talking to me for like, I want to say good, like 2-3 years. Um in between I ended up getting a job at like snapping cora and getting paid extremely well for my age. So they start talking to me and then when I decided to quit trying to quit to go start a company, I got into y Combinator, I got VC funding. Uh they again stopped talking to me and they like pulled my cellphone, health insurance, etcetera. So I was like really alone but it was the desire to prove them wrong, but also to be able to make them proud because like even though they stopped talking to me the entire time I realized that uh they immigrated from china and gave up everything they had known to give their kids a better future and I wanted to like return that favor and part of that was like proving them wrong and making myself uber successful. So I'm really happy to say that like, now I can provide for my family and they're proud again and talking to me, That's great. A lot of themes here. Yes, we can definitely clap for that. A lot of familial themes here, educational themes, there's kind of a through line with both of your stories, which I very much appreciate. Exactly, oh my God, this is claire power trip, we literally just like 24 hours ago and we're like, your parents didn't believe in you either. Well, one thing that you guys did do a bit differently lucy, you have previously raised venture funding and as you mentioned, Daniella, you did not raise venture funding for the new set of which I am a subscriber um I'm really curious to know why did you choose to not go to VC route if you did um if that was an intentional decision and what advice would you give to folks who maybe are trying to figure out what Models might make the most sense for their business. Yeah, I would love to say that I turned down every VC and that's the reason why I didn't have VC funding, but it was because basically I like 22 when I moved to New York, it was about three years into my business, I got meetings, you know, with incredible VCS, I had a meeting with one of the most notable VCS, like the guy, you know with his name on the building um and I ended up having a meeting and he, essentially, the entire time I was talking, he was laughing and I was like, what's so funny? And he goes, you remind me of my granddaughter, and I was like, oh, that's great, she must be so successful, whatever. And then his face just dropped and he was like, no, she actually talks way too fast and is not successful, and I was like, I literally was like, am I like, like in a dream right now, like, or a nightmare? Um and I literally got up, I was like, okay, thank you very much, got in the elevator and literally says Vcs, I'm just gonna build it my way. Um and I know a lot of people have had really great experiences with VCS, so that's the reason why I didn't raise because no one would give me any money and I decided I was spending too much time trying to get the money. So instead of, you know, uh you know, a few years ago knew that made a million dollars instead of raising that a million dollars and convincing maybe two or three people, I had to convince thousands of people because I got a million dollars through advertising. And so it actually was a really great lesson and it took longer, it's going to be, you know, eight years in the news that um in january and we did, you know, 40 million last year um with eight figures of profit, which is profit is crazy, you know, in the media world especially uh and we grew an agency out of it during the pandemic. So that's really what catapulted our growth. Um So we were able to fund our growth with money and I didn't even think about taking my own money out of the business, you know, and paying myself until I was like oh wait there's a lot left. Um And now I'm very lucky that I get to invest in other female founded companies and really, you know, be able to empower people who were not empowered like myself but I am a hypocrite because I have a new company called Wonder Mind um with Selena Gomez and Mandy tv and we raised money at $100 million valuation when it was just the three of us in an idea um Serena Williams, her venture funds um led the rays. And so I have now raised money. Okay, so now I'm appreciative that I had time to do both, but truly if I would have had the money, you know what, for the first venture, I probably would have spent it on things that didn't, not, not, you know, in in a way that didn't make sense, but just like there were so many things that I had to do and I failed small, whereas if I had all that money, I would have failed big and it could taken me out. And so because I had 100% control of my company, I was able to continue going even when things like shitty things happened, whatever, I don't think I have that luxury now with wonder mines um so yeah any advice I would really give is I was lucky enough to have three years in college where I didn't have to worry about getting myself food, having a place to live because I love, I was in college and my parents were you know generous enough to pay for that, that's the ultimate gift they gave me and I knew okay these are the only three years in my life because I was a sophomore that I am never going to like I don't have any responsibilities except to be a good student and I guess party and make friends. Second part did not have and I would love to because of business but I just, maybe it was weird, but I but I took all of that time that I knew I didn't have to have a job and I created a job for myself because I knew nobody was gonna hire me to be able to build that business and then again use that revenue to grow it. Yes, but but I was lucky again, I had three years where I didn't have a family to support, I don't have to have a job able to hyper focus and on what it was in the building you see, I want to hear a little bit more um about your perspective. You have raised venture funding. Um And you're also currently working on passes right now. So I'm curious to hear about both your new company. What is it? Um And what are your what's your sort of perspective on raising venture funding and how that can impact the future of your business, yep. So my thing is that if you're a founder and you're able to build a M. V. P. You should do that. And if you can even get traction before the M. V. P. Before you raise funding, that's normal because it is I think it's possible to raise funding. But you're talking about very different valuations like a $3 million valuation. If you don't have an M. V. P. Versus like a $50 million valuation. If you do have an M. V. P. $400 million $100 million valuation. Nothing. So yeah I've been a little scared to raise $100 million valuation salesperson. Yeah. Yeah I am a hypocrite because I ended up raising VC funding for my second venture even though I have told pretty much every single founder not to do so until they have a little bit of traction. Uh My excuse is that I got a very good valuation ended up raising out of $50 million valuation. Um With no deck, no product and I didn't take a meeting that all kind of happened in 48 hours. Um And then my new company, I'm working on the web through creator economy. Um Think of like web three Patreon penthouse only fans. Um But like very focused on on adult content. Um And I'm like very excited to help creators really be able to own their fan because there's such a problem with creators essentially like losing full control. If they accidentally have copyright music playing in the background, they accidentally swear word etcetera and suddenly they lose their account, they lose all their income potential. Um And that's like their whole life being right now and have a lot of friends going through this where they've either lost their social media platforms or they're like one warning away from getting banned and it constantly stresses them out every single day. I also just think overall platforms take away too much. A lot of my friends are twitch streamers and now they've gone from like a 10 20% rev share to 50% and they're not happy about it. Um And then just I think there's like long term income earning potential with royalty fees etcetera. Like one thing I like to say is like art is a really good example where artists art isn't worth that much until they die and then um when they die, their families don't get the benefits of their artwork increasing in value. Whereas now like they get the percentage to their like trust funds or whatever while they're alive. Great. Um I want to take a moment just to see if there are any questions in the audience. You can take this conversation lots of places, but just wanted to see any questions. Looks like we have one question way in the back there. If you want to wait just a second to get a microphone, hey, I'm Danielle. Great Panel girls. This was awesome. And the question I have for you is given the experiences you've had personally and how that's greatly impacted the way you see your businesses. How has that impacted the way you work with other people at your company specifically around core values? Yeah, So one thing I'm doing differently this time around is um I think that in our first company there was definitely like we overworked people significantly and I'm not saying I'm not like overworking people per se, but definitely just being a little more empathetic and making the work environment more fun. I think it's naturally more fun because of instead of enterprise sales now, um we get to work with creators, which um my company loves, like I'll invite creators over to the office and we'll be jamming and working while having conversations on the side, which is actually product feedback. So it's a fun little loop. Um and it's something I've learned also it's just like we talked about this, but I'm very, very bad at building a remote culture. Um I haven't really figured it out yet, I think this could be because of my first company, it was all in person and we were able to communicate efficiently and I was remote for maybe the last 1 to 2 months and I'm forcing everyone to move back in person because I do, I think that like within a small company, it's incredibly important to have that fast communication loop and I like props to people who figure it out, I'm like how to have that mis communication loop without miscommunication remote, but I, like, I met the founder have not figured it out. Um well that's a great question and thank you for asking and you have a great name, uh Danielle, I'm Daniella also an identical twin chatting about, she is, oh, they're also both badasses, uh that's your identical twins name is Alex then that's ultra weird, but anyways, that's my twin, not yours. Uh so when I started off, I like to say that there were three people working at my company, me, myself and I um and we all just did everything from the sucking chief janitor officer to the ceo to the sales person because I had the luxury of hiring people and that was actually a really good thing because I had never had a job before, so how did I know how to manage anyone, I didn't, and so when I finally started making revenue, when we finally launched revenue, I made $25,000 the very first month and I was like Okay I can do this, I'm gonna start hiring like you know paid interns and then assistant whatever. And I slowly learned that because of my age I was 22 at the time I would hire people that were you know a 10 years older than me and not be respected and I because I was almost overly nice um and almost like so grateful that they wanted to work with me even though I was paying them um and not paying myself. And so I really have evolved as a leader as the news that has grown and now it's like you know 50 people and by the end of the year we're gonna have over 100 people between the two organizations. Um What has been very um I guess I opening is that I I always felt bad with my um team members to ever have anyone work after like six six p.m. Just because I I just thought you know if you have a good work life balance, I've never had anybody work during a weekend. I mean maybe some people have like by their themselves but I like get mad at them. And that's very weird because as you said like you know in most high growing companies or fast growing companies like it's like 24 7 I just haven't really had that. Um I guess working style and I think that it's paid off in dividends because people have their weekends, they have time um after, you know, work to do their thing and so they come refreshed and they like just really own the day and really just show up as their best selves. I also have a mental health company now so I don't think I could get away with, you know, working people to the bone and we have mental health days, et cetera. But I think it's more about uh it's it's more about the, I've evolved as a leader knowing that I can say I did something wrong or I was wrong in a meeting or maybe I, you know, uh this morning I was with my C. 00. And my co Ceo. Um for wonder mind, I was just really really stressed out and I like took it out on them and I immediately apologized after and so I think it's being mature enough to take accountability when you're wrong that, that, I mean I just had so much stuff. I have a hp bouncing off of that though. I think that was a really bad micromanager before and now I delegate more and I trust people a lot more, like I trust off the bat and that also makes them happier and get put them in the best place to do their best work empowers teams to do the best that they can Daniella lucy, thank you so much. I really appreciate you guys taking the time today. I wish we could keep chatting. We are at time now, but super excited to see what you both continue to do. Thank you so much.

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