Jeff Kearl

and he's like, "Hey, you should come have breakfast with Will and Jada at their house." Through a series of networking, I ended up meeting the management team for Will and Jada Smith. When I pitched them on the idea of stance, uh his manager liked it initially. I remember his comment was, you know, everyone is chasing sneakers and you're chasing the sock. I like this. This is clever. You know, back when everyone was chasing MP3 players, you were chasing headphones. I see a pattern here. And he's like, "Hey, you should come have breakfast with Will and Jada at their house. Did you get me that breakfast? X2. >> Welcome back to the Startup Ignition podcast. Thank you so much for watching and tuning in. This is the show where we talk startups for the budding entrepreneur. So, anything that you're doing from idea to exit, hopefully we can be your guy. We are the father and son duo, John and Tyler Richards. We are your hosts. But today we have a very special guest who I forced my dad to postpone a vacation for [laughter] because I said I am not rescheduling on this guy. I want him to come into the studio. He's very special and I can't wait to talk to him. So we have Jeff Curl in the studio today. So thank you Jeff for coming in. You're welcome. >> We are very excited. And Jeff, I do have a bio on you. And like I told you pre-show, if anything's wrong, please correct me because I did task AI to put this together for me. So, so it's an AI built a bio. So, we'll see. But today, we have Jeff Curl. You are currently an investor partner with Pelleon Ventures. Is that your full-time main thing right now? >> 100%. >> Okay. But previously, he is entrepreneur extraordinaire. He is responsible for so many brands that you probably know of. Um, you sit on a ton of boards. You have a rich history in the Utah ecosystem being in VC going out to operator building a ton of companies and brands. I know that you guys met each other over one of your companies >> when he was even a lot younger than you are. Yes. >> Really? [laughter] I mean I'm 37. I I'm not that old. >> Were you in your before 25 maybe? >> I'm thinking that had to be 98 or 99. No way. >> So we're going back more than 25 years. >> Exactly. But um you're probably one of your most most famous ventures that people are going to know you by and that you're probably sick of talking about at this point, but was Stance Socks and Stance the whole brand. Um you sit on a ton of boards that at least us here in Utah we know of. Um I don't know what boards you sit on or your favorite board you sit on with Pelleon Ventures, but I'm assuming there's some recognizable names there. >> Yeah. You know, it's hard to call out a favorite because then it would make the others feel [laughter] feel less than. >> We'll keep that on the hush hush. >> They're they're all great. Yeah, they're all great. But um yes, but also investor um scaling, branding, um governance. Uh I just want to dive into Jeff's story. So, welcome Jeff Curl. He has a rich history and I'm so excited to talk to him and thank you for coming and making time because you live in Southern California and we are currently in Utah. So, it's extra special. So, thank you for coming out. >> Hey, glad to be with you. Um, when we start every episode, I do an icebreaker just to get in the mood and the mood of of podcasting and just have like a relaxed, chill atmosphere. And so I have an icebreaker for you that I'm calling memorable moments. Are you ready? >> Sure. Let's go. >> Okay, let's go. And I want my dad to participate, too. So John, you participate in this as well. Okay, so five minutes of this and then we're going to get into Jeff's background and story. So, um, you've built really cool companies and so I just want to ask you a couple of most memorable moments. I'm going to list a couple of moments and you tell me what the most memorable thing or moment of this scenario is. Okay. >> Okay. And you can you can participate too. Okay. First one. You ready? Weirdest or most memorable pitch you've ever gotten. >> What comes off the top of your head? Most memorable pitch you've ever received. It could be good or bad. >> So, I was working as an associate this little venture fund up in Salt Lake City. >> Yeah. >> Uh called Vespring Capital. Yep. In the early 2000s. A tech venture fund. And uh I back then the tech uniform was like banana republic khakis and a golf shirt kind of thing. Looked nice but not too nice. It hadn't quite gone all the way to hoodies yet. >> Yeah. >> And [laughter and clears throat] uh we had this entrepreneur and he came in and he just he looked different. Shorts, flipflops, and >> super casual. >> Ultra casual. Broke the mode and just >> the complete lack of refinement. >> Yeah. Most of the pitches are, you know, tailored for VCs. >> Yeah. >> And he was anything but that. And his idea was, look, I'm a snowboarder and Sony and Bose and Sennheiser don't speak to me and I want to build headphones for for our culture. >> Something that I can feel good about putting on my head. He would call it cranial real estate. Like, if I'm going to advertise for someone, it's got to be a brand I care about. >> He doesn't want Sony. He doesn't want the name brands. Yeah. and and his name was Rick Alden and the company was Skull Candy. >> Yeah. >> And I remember telling him, "Look, I don't think we'll ever fund this cuz it's so far off our charter, >> but I think you could build a good small business for uh snowboarders and headphones." And um and eventually he talked me out of a small angitially a loan and eventually an angel investment. He was very persuasive and um 7 years later that business was doing 300 million in sales. really profitably and eventually went public and and so you never really know the pitch you're going to get >> that and I had >> what it can turn into. >> Rick Rick Alden he pitched to Utah Angels the first time. >> I think Greg Waro brought him in probably. I brought him in. >> You brought him in to So I went home that night. He gave some uh samples. I brought them home to him and he thought they were the coolest thing ever. >> Do you remember the very first versions of them? Like the bass vibrating headphones >> that was called the Skull Crusher. the school. Guess what the valuation was on the company at that pitch, meaning 3 million pre- money. >> Oh my gosh. >> Crazy. And that was a Utah Angels. And um Utah Angels got another chance to go in at 70 million valuation. Of course, you know, it went to like two billion, right? Didn't it? Or 1.2 billion around 1.2 billion. So >> I think we peaked at just over 600 million. >> I thought it went over a billion. Really? I thought it went over a billion. But it was a good investment. And uh what's interesting is I cuz at first I didn't get it. I'm an old guy, right? back then I brought home to the kids. They thought they were the coolest thing ever. >> They were great. [laughter] I remember those headphones. >> Yes. But I the takeaway from that, the learning is >> if you're pitching consumer products >> Yeah. >> it should be the sexiest, most exciting pitch that a tech VC has ever seen. >> Yeah. >> Because you expect the tech stuff to be a little dry. >> It can be. It's technical. But like if it's consumer products, it the pitch better blow you away, >> right? >> Yeah. And also Rick Alden taught [clears throat] me a lesson. You know, I've been around the block before and he comes in and teaches me about this is a marketing play. He was getting those uh electronics for very inexpensive from China and wherever else he was manufacturing them. And he put the Skull and Crossbones logo on it and guess what? Sold them for massive markups. It was incredible business. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Okay, that was number one. We got four more guys. >> You can tell anyway. >> I know. We're skipping you. I'm doing it. >> Two great ones. >> Okay, fine. What's your most memorable? >> Well, just he he'll know. Brian Butler from Aliana local here in Utah comes in whole eight or so of us in the conference room. He comes in 2 hours grilled to death with questions on Alansa and everything. And he's like 22 to 23 years old or something. >> And in those two hours, we didn't see him sweat. He handled it so well. answered all the questions, was unbelievable, and we we put in $800,000. Yeah. He was incredible. Two hours of super old crotchety grilling. And he just was unbelievable at it. >> Jeff's like, I can relate. [laughter] Yeah. >> And and he's, you know, Brian, he's in he was incredible. >> Yeah. And look at his grit over the years. >> He's still going. I mean, he's kind of proved it. >> Yeah. Yeah. He's good. One one other thing is when I was pitching one time, the only time This is why it's funny. I've never had this happen. first pitch with investors. There are a few in the room >> and guy whips out a check, writes $125,000 check right after like a half hour pitch. It was crazy. That's awesome when that and I tell investors that are entrepreneurs. That'll never happen to you. It only happened once to me >> and it was a weird thing. >> Yeah. All right. >> Okay. Um and shout out to Brian for coming on the podcast. He's also one of our I don't know >> and also he mentors so many entrepreneurs. Whenever we ask, he mentors them. It's awesome. >> Um Okay. most memorable famous person moment throughout your whole career where you were just like pinch me or wow that was a memory to remember. >> I mean there have been a few >> I know that's why I'm asking you Jeff. I think the highlight is um gez through a series of networking I ended up meeting the management team for Will and Jada Smith and um when I pitched them on the idea of stance uh his manager liked it initially. I remember his comment was you know everyone is chasing sneakers and you're chasing the sock. I like this. This is clever. And at the time he said, "You know, back when everyone was chasing MP3 players, you were chasing headphones." >> Yeah. >> I see a pattern here. And he's like, "Hey, you should come have breakfast with Will and Jada at their house." [snorts] >> Did you get to that breakfast? >> Yes, I got to that breakfast. And just sitting down with the family and hearing Will talk about the art of film making. And I was asking him questions like, "What are your favorite films of all time?" and he pulled me around the corner and the time he was working up a movie idea and it was all like black and white sketches and um and just sort of seeing the true artist that he was. >> Yeah. >> Um that was a really meaningful moment >> for sure. >> That's really cool. That's that's like inside the kimona of the Smith family. You got to a dinner at the Smith's basically house or where was it? Yeah, it was at they call it uh her house and uh it's sort of halfway between Calabasas and Malibu. It's got a huge property up in the hills there and it's a beautiful place and >> Wow, that's crazy. >> Sitting at the breakfast table with the family >> was kind of magical. >> That's awesome. That's so crazy. Do you have one? >> Jeff Bezos probably. That's what comes to mind. I mean, but you know, I'm from Seattle. You know, he started in a nowhere little office in Seattle. No, all of us go selling books online. you know that's how he started right first few years selling books >> and then [clears throat] later meeting him when he was mega successful was pretty amazing >> yeah that's I don't know just because you know he's transformed two industries like I mean Warren Buffett says Jeff Bezos is one of the rare two or three individuals that at simultaneously completely disrupted two major retailing and AWS >> incredible right >> yeah yeah >> okay most memorable failure you've ever had that still makes you laugh or like wse? >> That would be easy. Uh my first company was called Freeport [laughter] >> and it's actually how I met John. >> Yes. >> You know, in the late 90s, you felt it felt too easy. >> Yeah. you could hang a shingle on a business and all of a sudden you had a valuation and and um you know in 2000 2001 when the music stopped it got really hard overnight and it it went from gez this is the easiest easiest thing I've ever done I can't believe it's this easy to no this is this is the pain that goes with it. >> Yeah. Um, and you know, just going from the high highs of what was perceived success to the reality of we have to have customers and profit and no VCs are going to give us more money was really sobering. >> Do you feel like we're going through that kind of right now a little bit or do you feel like we're not there? >> No, I think we we lived a mini replay of that coming out of the zero interest rate environment. >> Yeah. where for a minute a lot of companies I mean we were minting a lot of unicorns every single month y >> and a lot of those businesses raised money at prices that were completely disconnected from any fundamentals they were just raising on the dream. >> Yeah. >> And so then the playbook followup was well luckily they were able to raise so much money >> at that moment you know the Tiger Globals of the world just sprinkling 50 million on every new startup. >> Yeah. um the playbook just became like we've got to get profitable and most of those companies had enough money to sort of bridge there over a couple of years and didn't have to go back to the capital markets. But if you did, it would have been a sobering down round for many of those companies that were unicorns. That's why they >> cycles are paperorns. >> Yeah. And these cycles are about every 10 years. Think about your career. Um you know, because I've known you now for enough to go through three cycles. The dot crash. >> Yep. the great recession and then the zero interest rate period crash. I mean, we call it the rate hike recession kind of. And so those three all had those tastes of it. The dotcom crash was particularly bad for tech. Really bad. >> Yes. >> And the great recession was bad generally for everybody. And then this last one was smaller than those two. >> And there are a fair amount of parallels to right now. I think your question's important. You know, the companies that initially made so much money on internet 1.0 were the pick and shovel infrastructure companies like Cisco systems or Oracles [clears throat] playing the databases or Veraritoss playing the backup software because there weren't data centers really yet. >> Um, yes, [clears throat] running the traffic. Those infrastructure companies did really well. And then as soon as the promise of the internet sort of came back down to earth like it's something but it's not as transformational as we all thought in terms of valuation. >> Is AI getting there though too? >> That's where I was going. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Right. So I think I think right now you're seeing the infrastructure plays obviously led by Nvidia the data centers um just being able to raise incredible amounts of money. Obviously, the big uh, you know, AI companies have raised record amounts of money, but I think it is somewhat fragile. Not to say that AI doesn't have promise. The pitch deck of all of those big companies is we're almost AGI. That's the dream. We're almost there. Do you want AGI? Do you want to be part of this? And that's compelling. >> Yeah. Uh but all it would take is a handful of big public AI consumer companies, you know, the global 500 to say we've invested a lot of money in AI in the last couple of years and we're not getting the productivity gains that we thought we were. We're going to pull back spending a little bit. >> Yeah. >> Right. And just a little bit of that would probably cause a correction. >> The Gardner hype cycle. The gardener hype cycle, right? Isn't it crazy? You're seeing this play over and over and over. [laughter] >> Yeah. And we're short on energy and we're short on data centers and we're short on chips. >> But economics have an amazing way of bringing everything back to equilibrium. >> Yeah. >> And we're supplying all those things now in incredible amounts. >> And [snorts] will it swing the other way or will it at a very minimum take a couple of breaths along the way that shake people up? >> You know, like if Nvidia's stock corrected 20%. >> It's such a significant part of the market now. >> Yeah, I know. >> Like it would have a chilling effect. Yeah. >> Um and people would become more cautious. Right now it's just hey AGI is closed. Invest in the dream. >> Yeah. >> You better get through your questions. >> I know. >> No, I Okay, last one and then we'll move on to the actual podcast that the viewer and listener is here for. They're not here. >> Viewers and listeners are in for a treat today. >> Yeah. Jeff is a wealth of knowledge. You guys don't understand who's sitting in the seat right here. Okay. Um last one. Okay. You've been a center stage guy and a boardroom guy, but you've also been like a backstage and like in the trenches guy. Okay. Which one makes more memorable moments? Like what do you look back on and you're like, "Okay, this was the best part of my career." >> I think both can be true because the best memories you have of building something are with the people you built it with, >> right? >> And you get to be a part of that. you know, whether you're an investor or an operator. >> Um maybe you're a little more disconnected as an investor. >> Uh but being in an operating environment when you're building something from nothing and it starts to scale is >> it's a good feeling. >> It's pretty incredible. >> Yeah. It's one of the best rushes and feelings in the world. Like I remember when I was building my company and we were using Stripe a lot at the time just to communicate as a team and I remember we plugged in our uh sorry uh using Slack to communicate as a team. But we plugged our Stripe into Slack. So every time we got a payment it would ping one of our our Slack channels and I remember the first time just seeing like oh 500 bucks, oh 1,500 bucks 15,000 bucks 150,000 bucks. It's like that rush of just building scaling and actually building value is one of the best rushes in the world. So >> yeah, how about you? What what do you think? >> I you've heard me say a thousand times, climbing the mountain is way more fun than getting to the summit. You climb the mountain for years and you look back and you kind of forget the tough stuff and you remember all the fun stuff. You're at the summit and it's a great feeling, but then after a few minutes you go, where's the next hill to climb? That's what happens. >> And and because just sitting at the summit >> is not what life's all about. Yeah, it's a great metaphor. >> Yeah. >> All right. Okay. Thank you for playing my icebreaker. We are done. Okay. Now, Jeff, I'm really excited. Okay. Before Freeport, which you already mentioned, take us back like where does your entrepreneurial journey actually begin? Does it begin with Freeport or were you I don't know where'd you go to college? Where did you high school? What did you do? >> You know, I grew up in the Bay Area. My father was a dentist and a lot of his patients worked at HP or Cisco or Intel or Apple and so I grew up in that environment and just always knew what tech was. >> Yeah. >> And uh I don't think I quite groed entrepreneurship yet, but I had a little mobile disc jockey business and I would do school dances. >> Was this in San Francisco? San Francisco. >> In the Bay Area. Yeah. I grew up in a little city called Pleasanton. >> Uhhuh. And um and I think that was my first taste of entrepreneurship. And it did feel good to do work that I enjoyed doing and always have money in my pocket. And I continued that in college except it ended up being working at nightclubs more than you know mobile DJing. And and I loved music and I loved playing music to a crowd and you would get paid and that felt like a great start. But I don't think I really thought of myself as an entrepreneur until probably my late 20s. >> Yeah. um because I did spend four years at a venture fund right out of college and um that really gave me the exposure to >> How did you do that by the way? how like how take us through that path because I was telling you pre-podcast like most students are very interested in VC like when you're going to universities and speaking or addressing you know the student bodies like most of them are like how do I get into VC what what can I do to get into venture capital like how did you do that how did you transition from going to university to getting to four years at a VC firm >> yeah you know I had met uh a couple of the angel investors in Utah and they had this idea that Utah was going to be a right place for entrepreneurship and it needed more venture capital. There were a few venture funds already on the ground here. Uh Pelleon being one of them and Wasatch Venture Fund now called Epic um out of Zans Bank was another. >> Yeah. >> Um but it was a pretty limited amount of capital and a small number of people doing it and probably not a lot of startups in the grand scheme of things. and their vision for this being what eventually became the Silicon Slopes um really resonated with me and it just felt like entrepreneurship is almost part of the culture of Utah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> There is like you know a industriousness uh and a creation component to our culture here and so it felt natural and it felt like this would be a good place to do it. And I think we were really fortunate and that we had Word Perfect and Novel that were so successful early on in sort of computing 1.0. And that really showed, hey, you could build billion-dollar businesses right here in Utah in tech and therefore there's going to be more. And that's exactly what happened. Those businesses, >> what happens in tech is those alumni that were part of that building, they eventually leave. >> It's a virtuous cycle >> and they start something new. >> And we've seen that over and over in Utah. >> That's right. And guess who we just had on our podcast prior to you, David Bradford, who was the general counsel of Noville and went on to do a ton of other stuff here in Utah and a huge contributor. >> It's a great example. If you look at how many startups David has contributed to, >> whether as an investor, an adviser >> or CEO. Yeah. >> Uh since he left Noville, like he's had an enormous impact, butterfly effect. >> And that same thing has probably played out with hundreds of other people that worked at those two businesses. And that laid the foundation for today's tech landscape in Utah. >> Yeah. Yeah. So to summarize that for the question, was it just knowing the right people, rubbing shoulders with the right crowd and getting opportunities or >> I think it was >> or just being willing to be there and do >> it was good luck. You know, I met those partners. They were starting a fund. They were hiring associates and >> you're like, I'll do it. >> They somehow saw something in me that I could contribute in that way. and and um I was just lucky enough to get on board and um yeah I it it's really hard to say hey I want to go have a career in venture capital because there's so many divergent paths to get there. >> Um >> and I didn't really start out saying I want to be a venture capitalist. I was just fortunate enough to get a job at this. It was also right at the dawn of venture capital becoming something real in Utah like Vspring Capital was uh you know took a lot of risks and did a lot of things differently than what Utah had seen before right I mean isn't that I mean and so new things try new things and you got in just >> by the way what was the was it Venture spring or what was >> Vespring Capital >> yeah but why was it called Vespring Venture Spring >> yeah I think that's you know look I don't think this is the best example of branding we've ever seen [laughter] um so let's not go too coming from the guy involved with Candy and Stance. Yeah. >> But uh look, they did perceive an opportunity uh to try and create a real venture fund in Utah. Not to say that the other ones weren't real, but they obviously thought that there was an opportunity to >> to add to the >> And there's so much entrepreneurship still to this day. There's not enough capital in Utah to fund everything Utah's doing. Utah has so much entrepreneurship, it has to import capital from other areas. >> Yeah. We Yeah. People are still going outside of Utah to raise funds, right? Yeah. >> Um, okay. So, you are four years at Vespring and you took a leap at some point to leave Vespring and go into this operating entrepreneurial role. You just said, "Okay, I wasn't entrepreneurial really until my late 20s." Okay. So, take us to that point. Why? Why? >> How old were you when I met you then? I'm curious. You 80 98 99. >> Yeah. I would have been mid 20s. >> Yeah. About 25ish. Really? Wow. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think I perceived a lack of career path, meaning there were five partners at the firm and it just didn't seem like on any near-term horizon, I could progress >> into being an owner in the firm. >> Yeah. >> And when you're working really long hours and you're really giving everything to something and >> and you just sort of realize like I've got to own this and there's not a path here to own this. >> Yeah. >> So, I've got to go create something. The reality is this and for our viewers and listeners and the students wondering this cuz we it is a question. How do I get into VC? And we've talked about on the podcast with other becoming a VC straight out of college is near impossible. >> Um you sometimes have to go to the right school, have the right connections, all that type of thing. Also, if you get in straight out of school to a VC, you'll face what Jeff faced, which is there's a glass ceiling. Most partners are exited entrepreneurs. And if you haven't been an exit entrepreneur with financial independence and all that that entails and the experience that comes with that, it's really hard to be a general partner, right? I mean, to land I I don't even know if I've ever met a general partner that hasn't been an exited entrepreneur or super successful. >> Really? I thought that was like the least. >> There are some for sure. There are no good example would be something like Battery Ventures where I think they have a partnership of 11 or 12 folks >> and they have a pretty big team >> and some pretty blueblooded finance people that came up. But >> but they've probably created more general partners at other firms. >> Yeah. >> Than their own because they have great associates, great principles, grace vice presidents, whatever they call them. >> And at some point they realize, look, I might not make partner here. >> Yeah. >> And so I've got to change it up. And so you either join another firm that needs a partner hopefully and and not at every firm can you even develop a track record. And ultimately the firm has to sell the track record of the new partner to the LPs. >> They're going to look at that and say do we trust our money with this person? And if you've never invested or never operated, if you don't have either one of those, >> how can you be trusted? >> Like there's a reason you're not getting hired. >> Yeah. I have a general question for you then. Do you agree or disagree with this? that more more often than not a student wanting to get into VC at a university or a young person in their early 20s should probably go out and be an entrepreneur and take a run at a company and have that experience as well if they goal is to be a partner and a VC that to me seems like a more common path. >> Yep. That's a great way of course although startups have such a high failure rate. >> Yeah, >> that's not any kind of a guarantee. Another option would be you join a company that you know has a great future. For example, you could argue it's better to be employee 5000 at Google >> than employee number 10 at the average stage >> startup. >> One position I really love for a young person is chief of staff. >> Yeah. >> Like find a hot growing venturebacked company. My partner Tyler Hogue publishes a list >> of like the hottest startups that are hiring. >> Yeah. Um, and there's some ground rules like they have to have 5 million of revenue and some other things have to raise money. But >> joining a company like that, if you could get the chief of staff role, which is usually a more junior role, >> Yeah. >> is fantastic because now you're in the leadership meetings. Now you're in the board meetings and you're having interactions with all of those people at a young age. >> Yeah. And that's a great opportunity to develop a relationship >> and see what leadership and responsibility and success and growth and scaling looks like. Yeah. >> Yeah. Because even if you joined a startup and you don't have a lot of work experience, you're probably not joining as the chief revenue officer. So you're probably not in the room. So how do you get in the room? Chief of staff is chief of staff. >> That's a really good Okay. So you went four years at Vspring and then did Freeport. >> Uh Freeport was before. >> I thought it was before. Yes, it was before >> because that's so I met >> I was doing that right out of college and you know even to some degree and still in college but >> yeah that's what I'm saying. So that's when I first met you. Yeah. You went to Vespring after that's what I thought. Okay. >> Yeah. So I met him in an elevator. >> Oh >> San Antonio, Texas. >> Yeah. >> Why in San Antonio, Texas? >> Well, we were selling technology solutions to small businesses. Uh and one of the leading industries in selling to small businesses was the yellow pages industry, right? >> Google before Google. >> They had been selling ads to small businesses forever. >> Put your information in the phone book and you'll get phone calls. That was the >> you wanted to leverage existing >> and so by then there were a lot of very large uh yellow pages companies and they were all trying to figure out how to adopt technology to their small businesses. So we thought that would be a perfect distribution partner. So we went down to meet all the folks at the Yellow Pages conference. I can't even remember what it was called. >> John knows a thing or two about the yellow pages. >> Yeah. And Infospace, John's alumni company, was >> was really the first big tech company went public that leveraged that distribution channel. >> So it had been done. >> Yeah. >> And I just remember we were riding up an elevator and we introduced ourselves. He was living in Seattle. >> Yeah. >> And I saw Utah in his >> and he's like Utah what? [laughter] and uh we started talking and and John was an incredible >> well, let's just say he helped orientate us to that whole industry and teach us, you know, how to go about it. >> That's hilarious. San Antonio. >> Yeah, San Antonio. It was great. And and Jeff was I don't know. I just really ambitious and just personable and I don't know, just you could tell you could tell he just and and you just you have a natural curiosity. Do you do you think that's a true statement about you? You're curious about everything. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And that and it just came across and so we actually got along really well and then I met the CEO that Jeff was working for, Elliot Jacobson, who we all know. And then they invited me to be on the advisory board and I got to know the team there. And then that's how I met Ron Lindorf. >> Oh, wow. >> Yeah. And uh and >> what was Ron doing? Ron was an adviser as well. >> Yeah. Ron was one of my uh professors at BYU. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. >> And he was one of my angel investors in >> Freeport. Yeah. and uh was just a great support and you know I guess fortunately or unfortunately he lost money in that transaction I believe. Yeah. >> Um, but >> so I I became an angel investor if you remember. I put in money right early right before Ken pulled out his investment. That's the whole story. But but what's really cool is I met a lot of good people that became friends and awesome. That's good. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So Freeport then Vespring, we've now established that. Where do you go after Vespring? How do you get pulled out of VSpring? How do you get pulled out of that associate role? >> Yeah. It was really just this idea like I've got to start something. I've gotta be a part of a startup because I can't work this hard for someone else. >> Yeah. >> And you probably would have that same feeling if you worked in an investment bank or a management consulting firm where you're working long hours and you're really dedicated, but you don't own it. >> Yeah. >> And so if the if the career path is there, you probably stay. But it becomes obvious that it's not, you just at some point you got to pull out. >> Was that the first one you went to? Was Skull Candy or did you No, no, actually Logo Works was the first starter >> and I had a a dear friend of mine in undergrad at BYU. His name's Morgan Lynch. >> Yeah. >> And u Morgan was working in marketing a company called Insure Quote, which was kind of a hot startup. Its valuation was probably two or 300 million back in the late 90s. And he did a big deal with Mary Mer and it merged with some other Colorado insurance company. And this was going to be like insurance goes online. internet 1.0 and um he was responsible for creating a new corporate identity for the combined merged company. He was running marketing. So he hired a local ad agency, went in there and became entirely frustrated with the process. And he was like, why couldn't we leverage the internet with all the designers in the world? Couldn't we crowdsource design? >> And this was right when eBay was starting to inflect. And so there weren't really any services companies yet doing this, but we thought, okay, there might be something here. So we created a marketplace for designers and businesses. And this was right when AdWords launched and no one knew how to advertise on Google or what it was. And keywords were like pennies. >> And we're young, so we groed all of that. >> Trying it out. >> Yeah. And so very quickly, we scaled the business to a million dollars a month. And uh we went out fundraising to Sand Hill Road and actually had the experience you mentioned earlier. We lined up all the top firms, Seoia, Kleiner, Perkins, Benchmark, and our first pitches with Bob Kaggel at Benchmark and we get maybe three or four slides in and he was our number one target because he was on the board of eBay and the only venture investor in eBay. And maybe by the fourth slide, he's like, "Guys, I'm in." And we're like, wait, we got four more fundraising meetings after this. [laughter] And um and so Bob ended up investing in the company. It was the first time Benchmark invested in a Utah company. And um not long after that, in another strange story, I was at a conference, sort of like how I bumped into you, and a guy came up and asked me for directions to the registration booth, and his name was Chris Roel, and he was the head of corporate development at HP. and he had heard of our business and he did a double take on my name tag and was like, "We should talk. Do you have a few minutes? Let's grab a seat in the lobby." And within 30 minutes, he's like, "I want to buy this business." And 60 days later, we sold it to him. >> Wow. >> Yeah. So, um >> that was with that was with Morgan. >> Yeah. So, the first one of the first persons I went to lunch with after moving to Utah in 2002 was Morgan and he about logo works and everything at PF Chains. It was a great meeting. got to know him and to this day right now I'm we're talking to Morgan about his next venture. He's working on a cool one right now a lot actually I'm going to be a beta tester of it. So yeah and so it's really fascinating and uh I want to for your viewers and listeners I always like to make sure they understand. So you mentioned Mary Mer some of the younger people here won't understand in the first goround on the dotcom era which you were involved in I was involved in Mary Mer was a captain maker a kingmaker in in I mean Mary Maker what do you mean for Morgan Stanley she was a a top person at Morgan Stanley that tracked everything to do with the internet and if she blessed you it was magic >> yeah she to this day publishes an annual report sort of everything that's happening in tech it's still a very well- read presentation I think she's still a bond capital. >> She and I can't remember the name of the other guy. There were two analyst type SLVPs, whatever for these um big uh underwriters and if they wrote said anything positive about you, >> your valuation would increase like crazy. >> Wow. I didn't [laughter] know that. >> Yeah. So, when she did a deal in Provo, Utah, >> Yeah. >> It's like people people got their attention. And logo works also to Morgan and Jeff who did logo works also I still view that as one of the first sharing economy models where you're distribut a distributed workforce model you know that has some of the underpinnings of Airbnb and Uber are based on kind of what Logo works was doing. Do you agree with that statement? >> Yeah. I mean it was certainly an early marketplace when marketplaces were >> not a thing >> really new but that probably wasn't even a term yet. >> Yeah. But leveraging that distributed workforce is the same way that Uber leverages people's cars and the drivers and the way Airbnb does their spaces and the and renting, right? It's just it's fascinating. And that's right here in Utah. And he did a great job. And you did a great job with it. >> It was a really fun ride. >> That's awesome. So, how did So, okay, you did logo works. You sell it to HP, you said? Yes, that's what it was. Wow. And 60 days done. That guy wanted it. You got that check from Benchmark within 2 seconds. It seems like everything was going swimmingly there. >> It it did. Look, we worked really hard because my first startup had not gone well. [laughter] I didn't want to leave anything to chance. >> Yeah. >> And I don't know if that's the right model or not. I sometimes question like uh would we have got to the same place in just a little bit longer had we not worked so hard? >> Mhm. >> And obviously it takes luck too. It's not just your hard work, but >> it's timing too. we we if we were going to fail, we wanted to be able to say like we gave it everything >> and so we were really dedicated to it and um luckily it worked out in our favor and um you know it ended up being a happy memory and a you know >> so after that after the acquisition to to HP how long did you stay at Logo Works for? Well, I immediately moved over to HP. The CEO at the time was a guy named Mark Herd. And um he was great. We didn't have any contract. He paid all cash. Uh but he asked me, "Hey, how long are you willing to stay?" And I said, "I'll stay as long as it's fun." >> Yeah. >> And I said, you know, I'll give it at least a year. And I stayed 366 days. >> There you go. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Sounds about right. >> And so what next opportunity came by that took you away in 366 days? Well, back to that pitch we started with earlier in the the podcast, uh I had developed a friendship with Rick Alden and I had uh invested some money in Skull Candy and it was still quite small >> from your logo works exit. >> No, prior to that when I was still working at VSpring, >> I went to him and said, "Look, our firm's not going to invest in this. It's not tech, but I think it's a fun business and you know, I grew up as a snowboarder, so it resonated with me as well." >> So, you just felt really passionate about Skull Candy then, huh? >> I did. Wow. And um and so I got involved and joined the board of the company initially and um you know started going to the trade shows and meeting the customers and recruiting people to the company. Some of my best uh workers at Logo Works came over to Skull Candy and um and then eventually I went full-time after I stopped working at HP and became the executive chairman because Rick was the CEO. >> Mhm. And um we'd uh crossed paths with a guy named Jeremy Andress who I'd gone to school with and but I didn't know him at BYU. I met him after and he joined as president and was a phenomenal operator and always kept the trains running on time and that freed up Rick to be this creative force that he is. >> And um and then I could think about the bigger picture things about how do we finance the company? It grew really quite quickly. >> Rick Alden is a great example. you know, left brain and right brain thinking, just an incredible rightrained entrepreneur. Do you agree with that? I mean, >> I think he has more product sensibility than almost anyone I've ever met. I can't think of anyone who understands consumer products better than he does. >> He can just pick up a box off an aisle in the supermarket and start critiquing what's right and what's wrong from the language to the colors to the positioning to the counterpositioning. analyze categories. He's really really savvy at that. >> Was he mo he was the main mind or the only mind behind the product all the product? >> Well, he was the founder of the business. He founded it on his own and um and yeah, his superpower for sure is product. >> Yeah. And and what's interesting just to know this virtual cycle we have in Utah like I learned from Rick Alden about market taking a commodity product and putting and creating a brand and the value of a brand. Okay. So then I teach an executive MBA class with Reed Quinn in it. And he and Spencer Quinn, they go and do that with KT tape, this kinesiology tape that's been around forever. And he sees the Olympics where those women were in the beach volleyball while he's taking the class and says, "Nobody's put a good brand around this commodity tape." >> And look what he did with KT tape. Right? And the exact same thing. And I learned from these guys much younger than me the value of marketing and creating a brand. It's pretty incredible. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So you So you're joining Skull Candy. You What was your main role? Was it fundraising? Was fundraising kind of your thing? >> Yeah. >> Wasn't Rick a pretty good fundraiser or no? >> Oh, he's a phenomenal storyteller for sure. >> Yeah. >> But at the time was not sophisticated to the financial markets and he's self-aware enough that he he knew that. M um and you know our business scaled really rapidly so we had to be smart about how we financed it both on the equity and the debt side and that was just a world that he'd never been a part of. He learned quickly. Um but >> can we ask you a question on that? Just the entrepreneur because this is a big thing. Consumer products is Utah does software but it also does a lot of consumer products. So what does an entrepreneur do because I've got the call professor Richards I need $2 million for inventory. What? H how did they because in Skull Candy, finance and inventory must have been a big deal. >> That's exactly how it started, right? Um you know, Rick called me at one point and said, "I'm going down to the Consumer Electronic Show." This was 2003. I have my samples and I'm going to show uh buyers what I've got and um >> I'm going to get orders. >> He's like, "I need 25,000 bucks for the rest of the payment to the trade show just to get there. Would you lend me the money?" [laughter] >> So, I lent him 25,000 bucks. and he goes down to the trade show and to my point about good storytelling, he sells $900,000 worth of headphones and he comes back and you know he he does have some hyperbole in his storytelling. So I said, "Hey, give me the POS." So he sends the POS over and like a good associate at Adventure Fund, I start calling them and I make this call to the buyer at Sam Goodie Musicland who's placed an order for these headphones and I start talking with this guy who said he has been the buyer there for 20 years. This is a mall retailer that doesn't exist anymore. >> Yeah. >> But it had over a thousand stores and for a long time it was a staple of every American mall. And that's where you bought music before it was digital. and of course the music players and headphones. And so I asked him why he was buying these headphones and he said, "Well, Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser. They're all silver and black. They're all in the exact same box. And the positioning is we sound better than the other guy." And what I like about Skull Candy is it's in clear blister pack with pop colors. And there's no mention about sound quality. It's like a culture. It's like a lifestyle. It's this rebellious brand. And he's like, "So I'll just drop Panasonic and see how these do." >> Yeah. And it's just a great example of counterpositioning, right? The category was really homogenized, just a sea of sameness. And Rick came in and in every single element of the headphone category, he counterpositioned. >> Yeah. >> And so it gave a lot of reasons for buyers to try it and then it resonated with consumers and there was product market fit. So then you get repeat purchase and it was just a matter of stacking retail doors for years and you know eventually you get Best Buy and eventually you get Target and eventually Amazon and online sales and >> that was really how the business was built. But we financed it at first through factoring because we'd have to pay the factories a down payment on raw materials and then by the time it gets built and shipped over from China it takes a long time. So your cash is sitting out there. And once the business gets big, like let's say you're a few hundred million in sales. Every container ship has millions of dollars on it that you're bringing over and you're fronting that cash because it's a long time till you ship it to the to the retailer and the [clears throat] customer eventually buys it and you get paid. And that cash cycle, if you're growing really quickly, that gap Oh, yeah. >> becomes really painful. So you have to figure out a way. And you just don't want to sell every equity dollar to do that when you know you're going to get paid because these are good retailers that pay on time. >> So you have to come up with creative solutions to really bridge that gap. And the faster you grow, the more acute that need is for cash. >> Yeah. >> Explain what factoring is to our audience. >> Uh there's a group of specialized banks that based on the quality of the PO, they'll say, "Geez, this is Best Buy. Best Buy has a high likelihood to pay these POS. So, we'll front the money for that at a higher than average interest rate. It's actually usually quite punitive. It could be 15 or 20% like you're paying more in interest. >> You sell a million dollars worth to a retailer as a man as a wholesale or manufacturer >> uh today like an e-commerce company would, right? Sell a million dollar. So, you do this million dollars you sold. >> How you going to pay for the inventory and the expenses to get until they pay you that million dollars? That's right. >> You then sell that collectible. >> You're going to collect a million dollars. In the future, you sell that at a big discount. >> Well, they might only lend 50, 60, 70, maybe depending on the quality of the paper, maybe an 80% of that at a pretty high interest rate, but that at least gives you the money to pay your factories, pay the freight, get it to your warehouse, get it sorted and shipped. And is it a loan structure or is it also sometimes they actually take over and they're the ones collecting it? >> Uh they often will collect but not always. >> Not always. Okay. >> And so that's one avenue to finance a consumer product company. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Instead of financing inventory with VC dollars. So you better have good unit economics. If you do factoring though, if you have bad unit economics, you're going to have a >> expensive money for a reason because there's risk there. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So where does where does school candy go? How long do you stay with Skull Candy and and where does it reach? What what what was the end summarized story of Skull Candy with Jeff Curl? >> It became clear that we were going to have the size and scale to go public. So, we started positioning the business to do that and we took it public on the NASDAQ in 2011. We had a great IPO and we put headphones on the bull in New York City and it was an amazing celebration and um you know that provided liquidity for all of our early shareholders um that had backed us a lot of angels. Uh we didn't have a lot of institutional capital um but uh it was a really great win. And then two years later we had a private equity firm Milroad Capital that came along and made an offer to buy the business. And the stock had sort of been round or rangebound for some period of time. And you know, we had saturated retail. And there's a lot of stories there. At one point, we >> we had basically uh reached an agreement to merge with Beats by Dre. Uh we were bigger, they were growing faster, our board didn't want to do it, >> and um so we didn't do that deal. In hindsight, they sold for 3.3 billion, so we had a much better outcome. Yeah. >> Um, but, uh, it was a great run from 2003 to 2013, >> uh, selling headphones and turned into a great business. And I'd heard last year that they had their best year ever. Still still in Park City and, >> you know, uh, still a business. >> Yeah. I mean, I see them everywhere still. They're they're huge. Yeah. They're still cranking. So, you leave there in 2013. >> Mhm. >> And what what do you do? Where do you go? Well, Rick and I were over visiting some factories in China in 2008ish and um we started asking the question, look, we've got a playbook here. Are there other categories that we could chase? And we spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a good consumer products category. things like gross margin, repeat purchase rate, because a lot of these things are quite structural, meaning you're not going to fundamentally change the gross margins of headphones because everyone's using the same factories to build them. Uh you're not going to change the rate at which customers buy these. If you're Casper and you're selling mattresses, it's still probably 5 to seven years. >> Yeah. >> But if you're a restaurant, people eat three times a day. The repeat purchase rate is really high. >> Yeah. The frequency of the pain or problem of the customer, right? >> Yeah. A lot of consumer products have seasonality, right? If you're Burton snowboards, you sell full price for four months, sale for two months, and you don't have a lot of revenue for 6 months, but you have expenses for 12 months. >> Yeah. >> Think school supplies, think sunblock. >> There's a lot of businesses that structurally have challenges. Yes. >> So, if you're choosing a category from scratch, you might pass on some of those things for those reasons. >> So, we actually created a spreadsheet. I created a spreadsheet with 300 product categories that I had identified. You know, things that you sunblock, luggage, >> anything was on the table. >> Yep. And then across the top of the spreadsheet, I put all these attributes and we would rank these company, rank the categories based on what we thought uh the quality of the attributes were. I think we had about 25 attributes, but five core ones. And um and we started lining them all up. And one of the things that I mentioned earlier is just is the existing product category really homogenized because if everyone is the same >> Mhm. >> then it's a lot easier to counterposition. >> Oh yeah. >> But if there's a lot of innovation in the category already, it becomes increasingly hard to do something that's truly different. And if you're not different, like you don't have a reason to exist. Mhm. >> So that really led us to this underappreciated category of socks and we started talking about the idea of what would it take to do a sock company. So on one of my trips to China, I found this city called Datang where there's like 50,000 residents and all they make is socks. So, I went over and I started touring sock factories and learning how socks were made and uh where the raw materials came from, the cost structure and who was making socks for Nike and who's making socks for uh Adidas and Puma and how does this world of socks work and we just thought this was a underappreciated, overlooked category that was homogenized and structurally uh wasn't as disadvantaged as a lot of the other categories we looked at. So, so those were the attributes that stuck out about socks. >> Yeah. Right. It's a consumable. It uh is fairly inexpensive. Most of the sock companies, the big ones at that point, you know, the Hannes of the world were selling to Costco and Walmart. And the game is, >> you know, how do you sell at the lowest price and give the customer the most volume? But that usually means you take a bunch of quality out of the product. Like you can buy an elastic that goes hard, loses its rebound after five washes and dries or you can buy an elastic that'll keep its rebound for a 100 washes and dries, but it costs a lot more. >> Yeah. >> So if you believe the target is lowest cost, you know what they're going to pick. >> But if you're engineering for quality, >> you might go a different direction. And so we perceive that there an opportunity to create something really high quality. And then the other thing coming out of the snowboard world is like we grew up on skateboard and snowboard graphics and those board graphics is like a whole language in it of itself. And for we couldn't figure out this was like the last unbranded part of the human body and no one had touched it. They were all black, white, navy and gray. And we were like this is a blank canvas. What if we put skateboard graphics on it? you know, we could do all sorts of things from a design perspective to these socks and differentiate them. So, we knew we could differentiate in two ways. One, we just build a much better product. We're going to go in with all of Rick's product sensibility. We're going to learn everything about sock manufacturing and sock making. We're just going to become better at it. And then we're going to put designs on the socks that are relevant to the world. And we think the combination of those two things is enough differentiation to stand out. But you discover this or kick around the idea in like 2008. But you and you don't act on it until the whole Skull Candy ship had sailed. >> No, we start parallel processing. >> Oh, you do? >> So, we start doing a little work on it. We actually incorporated in December of09. >> Oh, wow. >> About a year later, we're like, let's do this for real >> and um and started getting after it. So, we were trying to keep it separate from Skull Candy. >> So, who who were the original players in the stance business? Like who >> initially? It was just Rick and I. >> Yeah. for probably the first year, year and a half. And then uh when we finally created the company and put some money in so we could hire people, um we started hiring and the first four folks we hired all became what I would consider my co-founders, >> right? Uh Rick ended up sort of staying at Skull Candy and because I was the executive chairman, I could kind of >> spend part of my time on stance and um and so we did that for a while and Rick stayed on the board for the first couple of years >> and um and we really just built a whole new team. >> Once Skull Candy exited, we started recycling some of the great people. They came to work at Stance and knew the program. Um, but it was just a it was like, you know, Skull Candy part two with just a different category. >> Yeah, it was kind of it was almost rinse and repeat. Not to like downplay the stance and what you created and did there, but it was like really like the playbook was the playbook. >> Yep. It's exactly how it was. Everything we'd learned doing it the first time, we tried to do the second time, but a little better. >> Yeah. So, is is the success of consumer product good really start with the product itself? Because like you just said and what my dad said was these are commodity products. These are like average Joe things that you're sprinkling a little bit of like pizzazz on. But is that is that the key to consumer product goods? Is is the pro like the the the I don't know what's the word I'm looking for the commodity of the product itself. >> The answer is yes. >> Why why explain that? >> I think it all hangs on the product. You know, the product differentiation is the thing that matters. And as long as you're innovative with your product and you continue to develop products that delight your customers, they'll keep buying from you. >> I think you need the brand and the marketing to have awareness that the product's superior. >> Yeah. But I'm saying, isn't isn't a lot of it >> the success of those two plays that you've been heavily involved with in your career, which is Skull Candy and Stance, which are huge, massive CPG successes. Wasn't the marketing and the brand more important than the product itself or was the product is the brand part of the product? I guess >> I'm always going to fall on the product side. Right. There's a lot of great companies particularly in tech that do really well with great product and have no branding. Right. >> Right. Right. That's a huge problem actually. >> But I can't think of a lot of companies >> that have consumer product >> great branding >> and poor products that win. >> Yeah. [clears throat] or even >> it's not it's not sustainable >> and it has changed a little bit. You make a good point. You can contract manufacture anything today including an automobile like socks is relatively easy to contract manufacture. Um and so you do need a brand and that matters. It needs to stand for something and ideally it's an idea that's a little bit abstract and stands for something more than the product you sell. You know, Starbucks has always tried to position themselves as a second living room, as a 5minute break from your busy day. And it's not positioned around coffee. And that gives them license to sell a newspaper, a croissant. Yes, coffee is the addiction that keeps people coming back. But they don't think of themselves just as a coffee company. It's really this experience that you have, a ritual. And I think Nike is the same way. If you think about a brand like Nike, yes, they have differentiated product and they've been trying to create better and better uh athletic product for every sport that they participate in. But if you look at the branding and marketing, it's all about celebrating great athletes. >> And then when the co-founder says, well, if you have a body, you're an athlete, >> right? It includes everyone. >> And so they have this big idea of celebrating great athletes and great athletic achievements. That's the brand story. And it's big and abstract and that allows them to sell more than just shoes. >> So you need a bigger idea and that's what connects humans. Humans like to be part of tribes. >> Yeah. >> We like, you know, if you're a Porsche owner, you probably have an affinity for the brand. >> But it's also a differentiated product. >> Yeah. >> Right. So you want to be a part of the tribe because you like the product so much. So both are required. But I think it's there are a lot of case studies of companies that take their eye off the product ball. >> Mhm. >> And competitors catch up. Capitalism is brutal. >> Mhm. >> And if they don't continue to innovate, >> the revenue will go stagnant. >> Yeah. >> Right. And if you continue to push the envelope on really creative new great product innovations, each generation gets better than the last. >> Then the consumers will keep buying from you. >> That's true. Not just in consumer products but in tech too. I mean I think here in Utah the first time I used two companies that are legendary in Utah's software product. Omnature and Qualrix first time I used Omnature site catalyst I go what? And it's I used it I invested before actually ever using the product which is interesting right but I use that product first time I go oh this thing is like Cadillac this is a good product. And then when I use Qualrix the very first time I go now this is how this software should be. This is the way software should be. And you and you know they had years to work on that product and make it incredible. But the experience as a user for both of those products made me very happy for the products and the company and Utah. >> Good good products sell themselves too. It makes the job really easy. Right. >> And when you put on a pair of stance socks you can feel the quality difference. >> Yeah. >> Although I think many people have caught up. So the challenge for stance is like, hey, yeah, in 2015, >> Runners World said, "This is the best running sock we've ever seen. >> We'll never run in anything else." >> And today, I would argue there's a lot of good running socks. >> I will tell you, I will tell you that I've noticed in the last couple years, as I've been given gifts at different events and stuff from different brands, it seems like they're fast follower copycats of stance. >> Is that true? >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean look, I could get into the nuances and the differences and and be defensive, but the truth of it is no, you have to continue to innovate >> and >> that is the beauty of startups though, right? So like the old stagnate and lack innovation which allows for a startup and someone in their garage, a new budding entrepreneur to start something and build up a massive >> the innovator's dilemma. >> Yeah. Right. That's the whole cycle of entrepreneurship. So >> yeah. So you either disrupt yourself or you let someone else >> be disrupted. So So okay, because we're running short on time here and I don't want to take much more of your time. Where does Stance end then for you? Like how do you get from stance to where you are today? Heavily involved in VC again with Pelleon where you're at today. >> So how does Stance wrap up? >> From 2007 to 2019, I had made a large number of angel investments and so I was still in the investing game, but I was just using my own money. Mh. >> And so I was still involved with a lot of really neat startups. And um in 2018, the partners at Pelleon came by my office and they said, "Hey, we have a partner. He's 71. He's probably going to retire pretty soon. We're looking for a new partner. We know you have a good investment track record. Would you ever consider coming back to VC?" And at first I didn't take it too seriously. Just so in love with what I was doing. But I had done it for 10 years >> at Stance. >> Yeah. 2009 to 2019. >> Yeah. And um and you know over the course of the year we spent a lot of time with each other getting to know each other and I had of course known Blake from my early VC days and um I really liked the rest of the team. And as I talked to a lot of my friends who were VCs in Silicon Valley, even partners that I really respect that I think have differentiated brands that work at highquality branded firms would often talk to me about just how competitive it was and how often they were losing great deals because it is so cutthroat competitive. And I just looked at the Utah market, a market that I knew, I'd made a lot of angel investments here, built a company here, and I felt like the level of venture competition was much lower. >> So, could [clears throat] we build a firm that would have the service level, the bespoke help that you'd get at some place like Benchmark >> or CRV, small firm that's really architected to help entrepreneurs. um and could we exploit the Utah market and really turn it into something fun and interesting? And so as we talked more and more about that project, I became more interested in it. And I was getting older and I sort of thought like I have maybe one more chapter left. Like I'm in my 40s and and so if I'm going to do one more thing >> to build anything interesting is like a 10-year run. >> Yeah. >> And so I'm like I can't wait till I'm like 55 to do this. and it seems like an experience I want to have, so I should go do it. And so I went to my co-founder, his name is John Wilson, and I just said, "Hey, look, I'm flirting with this idea, and I just want to be upfront with you. What do you think?" He was like, "Dude, I've always wanted to be the CEO stance." And he'd been the president. And for all, >> were you the CEO up until that point? >> Yeah, I was the CEO for 10 years. >> Yeah. >> And when he got excited about sort of taking over, that was sort of licensed that, okay, I can explore something else and he's not going to feel abandoned. and I'm like, I'll stay on the board and support you and and um so he took over in 2019 and I joined Pelleon and um you know that we immediately went out and raised our seventh fund. Another thing I loved was that Pelleon was the first venture fund in Utah. It had all this heritage. >> Yeah. >> Um >> started as UV partners. >> Yeah. Yeah. Changed names. >> And a shout out to Blake and you and the whole team there. I mean, Pelleon is, you know, just a quintessential successful venture fund out of Utah and is kind of the the ambassador. >> We hope so. That's what we're trying to build. And that's been the part that's really fun is how you build, you know, a leading firm. >> And up to that point, a lot of LPs didn't even believe venture returns were possible in secondary markets. >> You know, people had invested in Denver and Seattle and Austin really early. and some of those LP investments hadn't worked out as well. So, there was a little bit of convincing the LP community that actually a secondary market can actually create venture returns. And fortunately, before I got to the firm, they had a couple of funds that were incredible. >> Yeah. >> Uh by any standard, if you can do a 10 >> and other firms around here in private equity venture have had some incredible vintage years that have had great returns. I mean, you Utah for about a decade now. You go to other places in the country and they say Utah's one of the top three markets now for them to want to >> be involved. >> I think the outside markets are looking at Utah now. I think that you guys have helped put Utah on the map for sure. >> Exactly. We're still trying to. I mean, it's the companies that do it, >> but we do everything we can to participate in the ecosystem. >> Can I say this? From the one of the young kids I met in an elevator 25 plus years ago, you've done incredible and it's fantastic. We and honestly for the listeners and viewers, we really glazed over your 10 years at Stance like really quick just because of time. So maybe I might preemptively commit Jeff to come back on this podcast and talk a little bit more about Stance in a year from now when this podcast has a couple more episodes under its belt. But I cuz I really wanted to dig into Stance and we really stuck into your your earlier years. But that's totally fine cuz you everything was interesting from Logo Works to Freeport. I like to hear the the the downside of all the entrepreneurial wos last two questions though since time is short. >> I do want I was going to wrap up with one more question, but we can do two. Do you want to do one? >> I just want to ask him the question that I was asking at the end mostly. >> Yeah, that's what I was going to ask him. >> Go ahead. I just want to know like if you could go back and tell yourself something when you were 21, 22, 23 or building your first company or the first time that you were doing anything entrepreneurial like what what is the one piece of advice for those listening and watching right now that you're like, "Okay, this is it." >> Yeah. >> Comes to mind. >> I think at my age now, the metaphor that I think about the most is just this idea of inputs and outputs. And I think all the great things in life are small consistent inputs. There's a quote, I think it's Benjamin Franklin, that says people underestimate what they uh they overestimate what they can get done in a year, but they underestimate what they can accomplish in 10 years. >> And it's really [clears throat] this idea of consistency on a daily or weekly basis, whatever the thing is. Like physical fitness is a good example. If you go to the gym two or three times a week and you sort of pay attention to your diet, you're going to wake up a couple of years later and your physique will be different. But it doesn't happen quickly. And the same thing with a startup. It's consistent inputs, highquality inputs consistently over time and you sort of wake up one day and you're like, "Wow, okay, we've got some scale now." And so I really think it's there there's not a get-richqu. There's not a magic deal that happens. It's just consistency over time >> when you get old. I mean, I have friends that are in not in tech >> that built plumbing businesses or things that you would >> never >> not intuitively believe would be large and they're like, I just sold my business for 40 million to a private equity firm. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> And you're like, well, makes sense. You showed up to work every day for 30 years. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Right. Like it's consistent input over time >> and you have to have the consistency. >> It's just daily habits. >> Thank you for that advice because that's so consistent with the startup ignition way what we believe and what we teach. So that's awesome. >> Yeah. So, okay, we're going to wrap up. Thank you, Jeff, so much for coming on. Thank you for listening and thank you for watching. Jeff's story is incredible. And again, we didn't even touch 90% of it. This guy has done so much things in his career. But thank you Jeff for coming on. We really appreciate all the time. This is it for this episode. And subscribe, like, share, and um I'm sure if you want to be connected to Jeff, you'll have to do that through me. I'm not going to put any contact information out there because this guy will be hammered with requests. But I'm sure he's a nice dude and mentors so many people, too. So, thank you so much for listening and we are out. Thank you, Jeff. >> Thank you, guys. [music] Rock next to Rock.