#067: How Brett Perlmutter Built Bulletpitch to 100K+ Subscribers in 2 Years

Okay, well, that all makes sense, I guess. You run the media side, but then, you know, I know you guys have made some really interesting investments. Who runs your venture syndicate? Me. Wait, so you're telling me that those 26-page memos that you write, which is a true thing, are all you? Yeah.

What? Brett Perlmutter, founder and CEO of Bullet Pitch, has crafted a distinctive path in venture media by blending investment with media-driven platforms. Drawing inspiration from the media strategies of top VCs, Brett identified a unique opportunity to foster connections between founders and investors by creating an innovative ecosystem around Bullet Pitch. With its weekly newsletter and well-curated events, Bullet Pitch rapidly grew, attracting over 100,000 subscribers eager for the next big opportunity. In this episode, Brett dives into the foundational strategy behind BulletPitch, revealing how he bridges the gap between investment and media. He discusses the platform's evolution, his approach to partnerships, and the strategic decisions that shaped BulletPitch's syndicate model. Welcome back to Season 3, Episode 10 of the Turning Pro Podcast. Today we have Brett Perlmutter, the founder and CEO of BulletPitch. Thanks for joining us today, Brett.

Thanks for having me, guys.

So we all know that a huge value of your business, you get access to like the craziest deals and you were just telling us about one. I want to kind of start with just talking about that if we can, because it's one of the coolest ideas I've heard in a while.

The way I usually explain Bullet Pitch to people is what is Andreessen Horowitz at the end of the day? Fundamentally, they are not the best investor. They're a good investor, but they are the best media company. And the thesis for Bullet Pitch was in the fact that media oftentimes yields deal flow. And so if I can build a media property that actually attracts founders I'll have great deal flow. And so the impetus with Bullet Pitch actually came from looking at the TechCrunches of the world, right? Who often have the articles, this company just raised this amount of money backed by, you know, Andreessen, Sequoia, right? And those are great in theory, but if you actually think about it, the TechCrunches of the world cover startups solely based on media, right? Here is a news story that comes across my desk, I'm going to write on it. And my thesis at the time was, well, wait a second, it makes no sense. Because if you're in venture, if you're an investor, sure you care about who already raised the round. But what you really care about is the rounds that you can get in, who's actually raising the rounds. Why are none of these media companies covering startups like that? And the answer is actually pretty straightforward. It was, well, in order for them to do that, they can't act like media companies. They have to act like VCs, right? They have to go out and source. They have to put their mind in the venture investor mindset in order to be able to actually do that. And so that was kind of the— wait a second, I think I might actually have something here. And so spun up this newsletter and the thought was, well, who's going to read it? Investors. Because whether you're an analyst, associate, partner, angel investor, investors are looking for deal flow. And so the thesis was, well, one, give investors really great companies every week. Make it scarce, so do it every week. And then to actually do high-level diligence on those companies and essentially present the company on a silver platter to an investor so that they know whether or not they want to invest. And out of the gate, this thing just had product market fit, which is kind of crazy because like I talked to so many founders, right? And a lot of these founders, their whole search while they raise their pre-seed round is to go find product market fit immediate for us. And so I started to get all these investors that started reading this newsletter. And then the big unlock was as I started featuring companies, and people often ask me, they're like, how did you find the first companies? Same way any venture analyst would, right? I go on LinkedIn, I go on AngelList, I find these really interesting companies. Half the companies wouldn't even get back to me, so I was literally writing on them based on their websites. But as I started putting out some of these companies, these investors started reading it, and then founders started reading it, and they were like, How do I get my company featured? And that was the unlock because it was, well, you can apply. And that was kind of the beginning of the flywheel because it was like, well, wait a second, I've got investors reading this thing who actually want to invest in the companies. And I now have founders that are reading this thing who want their company featured. This is a marketplace of sorts. Step 2 is, okay, well, you know, we've scaled this up. Now we started— we're starting to have these big brands come to us. They want to sponsor the newsletter, almost like a Morning Brew model. How can we get creative in terms of scaling this thing? And the next logical step was I kept having all these founders coming to me and saying, hey, Brett, you know, I applied a while back, but I really want to meet all these investors in your audience, and I have all these investors who are starting to want to catch up with me, you know, once every 2 weeks. Hey, Brett, I want to see, you know, I would love to catch up and learn about what you're looking at. Code for, you've got really good deal flow, how can I basically get interest in the company? So, I was like, you know what? Let's put them all in a room. Let's do dinners, let's do pitch events, let's do— I don't love the pitch events because I like to do things that are a little more, and you've been to some of my events, you haven't yet, but you will. The events that we like to do are a little bit more extravagant, right? Because it's how can I get founders in a room to let their guards down and how can I bring investors in a room to very organically connect with founders, right? And so we start doing these events and again, they just explode out of the gate because we already had the distribution to put them on. And so all it really took was, come, here's the link, sign up, sign up, sign up. They all show up and we started sort of small. And you know what's crazy? And I think a lot of people also don't know this. I haven't even been hosting events for a year, right? Like to date, our first event was October of '23. It's not even October of '24 yet. And so we've, within less than a year, gone from hosting these like tiny little dinners to like 1,000+ person events in cities that I've never even been to before.

1,000+ person?

Yes. Wow. So, we did an event in Austin, Texas where we, again, creative event. We put founders in carnival booths. And instead of having them pitch what their company was, they had to pitch what their game was. And so, it was this really natural almost conversation throughout the— and it just rippled throughout the entire event. and we had probably 1,200 people come in and out in Austin, which is a city I'd never been to within the span of like a 4-hour event. And so now it's become like a pretty natural thing for us where it's like, yeah, you know, Benny Rare, tight week event, right? Like, we can pack 2 stories worth of founders and funders because we know how to get them all in a room. We know the right sponsors to work with. They all love sponsoring the newsletter. They love sponsoring our events. And so the media company has just taken on a life of its own. And what's been really crazy is this has all happened in the span of like 2.5 years.

Oh, what's your favorite part of it? What gets you up in the morning?

You know, it's funny. I think it's changed a little bit, but fundamentally— so we invest, right? Like I invest now, and this has been— and I can talk about that part of the business in a second. But when founders resonate with BulletPitch and they want to be featured, right, and they want to— talk to me about what's next. They wanna talk to me because they understand that I'm not an investor. I'm a founder. And because of that, it's this really interesting thing where like, I've done the gut check a couple times, I'm like, I'm a founder. I love building this thing, and I love coming up with different ways to get this thing kind of to the next level and the next level. So I would say one is that, but then two, I eat this stuff up. A lot of people do their jobs and like, I can't believe that Bullet Pitch is my job because they have to. And I'm fortunate enough to be in a place where I do it because I'm obsessed with it. I'm obsessed with what founders are building. And so when I get on the phone with a founder who I think is building something cool, I look at their deck and then they get to pitch me. I'm like a kid in a candy store for 35 minutes or 30 minutes or however long the call is, just listening to this incredible business that this founder's building. And it's not ever for me like, Am I going to invest? Am I not going to invest? Am I going to feature? Am I not going to feature? It's like, how can I do anything in my power to help you? Maybe it's investment, maybe it's feature, maybe it's just come to one of our events. Maybe it's just, hey, can I introduce you to someone? But anything under the spectrum of helping founders.

The thing I love is how genuine and authentic you are. Like, I'm sitting here just watching you talk about it and it's just like radiating and you actually embody the thing you say, which I don't think is true for a lot of founders. Um, but one thing I think that I'm so fascinated by, and a lot of people don't know this, but you're like a one-man wrecking crew.

So it's funny when we did this event in Austin.

Juan, give, give him for his context, just like the magnitude in terms of like metrics that you're willing to share. So he understands like what you've built and then back into how you're literally doing this by yourself.

Okay. Well, let me do the story in Austin. Cause I think it'll help explain that. So this journalist who's been wanting to follow, and we've been written up in a few things, but this journalist who's kind of been following along shoots me a message before the Austin event and says, hey, I see you guys are putting this big thing on. I see it's being sponsored by Fidelity, et cetera. I would love to come and talk to you and then obviously experience the event. I was like, absolutely, come. So this journalist shows up and she's looking for Ethan. And she like asked a few people and she comes up to me and I'm holding like 3 boxes. And I'm like helping set up for the event. I've got like— it's— we're in Austin, it's March. I've got like sweat beating down my head. And she's like, I'm looking for Brett. And she knew what I look like. Maybe I had a hat on and some sunglasses. And I go, I'm right here. She goes, wait, shouldn't you be like, you know, in a blazer and getting ready to like be the host? And I was like, yeah, I'm just helping set up. And she goes, well, I've actually had this question for you for a while. "If you're doing this, I know you guys have a newsletter that comes out tomorrow." It was a Monday, the next day was Tuesday. "Who writes the newsletter?" "Me." "Okay, well, that all makes sense, I guess. You run the media side, but then, you know, I know you guys have made some really interesting investments. Who runs your venture syndicate?" "Me." "Wait, so you're telling me that those 26-page memos that you write," which is a true thing, "are all you?" Yeah. What? So, that is the magnitude of it because it's pretty much at this point we're doing events biweekly, right? Some are like small intimate dinners, some are 1,000-person events. We've got the media side day to day, right? Which is like, you know, it's a big deal because when people are reading this, it's not like— and I have to always pretend like it's 10 people, but it's not, right? It's over 100,000 people reading this thing.

100,000 subscribers.

Dude, isn't that bananas?

Whoa, that's insane.

That's what I was waiting for, his reaction.

And, and what's really crazy is, is we've actually taken our foot— and this has been intentional, and it will come back— I've taken my foot off growth a little bit. But there were days last year where we were doing 1,000 new subscribers a day.

Where were they coming from?

Twitter.

Twitter specifically.

Twitter was a huge one. And then if you think about it, right, every time I would send out a feature, what happens? Every investor and think about like a firm. One firm is interested in the deal, so they send it around to every single analyst and associate and partner in the firm and then they all sign up or founders see it on LinkedIn or Twitter and they go, that's really cool. And for a founder to apply, they have to put in their email. And then plus obviously the events are helpful where like every time we host an event, people opt in. So it's been very natural, but the growth I think is still in its earliest phases because like I truly have not turned on the jets yet in terms of what we're capable of doing with media. So this has pretty much been like all— I'd call it like first, second inning type of growth for the media.

So the media entity is newsletter, you have a site as well, and then social channels.

Yeah. So it's pretty much like on Twitter we look pretty big on like Instagram. Haven't even touched that yet. The newsletter is obviously how we get across all our information. So like all who I'll put the events that we're hosting on LinkedIn or Twitter, but like, at the end of the day, I put the event in the newsletter, within like an hour, there's like a couple hundred signups, right? [Speaker:BEN_SHARF] Yeah. [Speaker:CHRIS_KLEMMER] So, that's primarily where it comes from. And I wouldn't want it any other way, because we all know this, when you've got the newsletter, you own your audience. And so, I know reliably who's come— like, I just— I don't have to send invites individually to people. I know people are gonna sign up, right? And if they don't see it one newsletter, they'll probably see it the next.

[Speaker:BEN_SHARF] Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there's the site, which basically is sign up for the newsletter and then sign up for our events, which you could sign up for on the site, or you can also do it through the newsletter. And what's really crazy is I actually just, I dug up a little stat and our site traffic from May to May, so this past May all the way to 2023, we had over half a million hits on the site, which is like, for a newsletter that sends once a week and honestly the site brings no value other than getting people to subscribe kind of says it all.

Yeah, that's incredibly impressive. I have so much respect for anyone that puts on events, whether it's friends that put on dinners. Like, I think those are the most like understated, undervalued friends that are like consistently host and bring people together. You on your roof, obviously, if you have friends like that, hold them dearly because it's like a lost art of like learning how to bring people together. Our mutual friend Luke does like supper series and brings a lot of like cool artists and creatives. What goes into doing not maybe like a 10-person dinner? Like I've done some of those before and even that requires a lot of logistics.

Mm-hmm.

But what goes into like a 1,000-person event?

Oh my God. And like, keep in mind, like, it's not like I just want— I was like, well, I have all this event experience. I'm young. I don't have all this like event experience. I never worked for anyone hosting events, right? Like, I worked for a media company and I worked in venture. That was it. And so like, for me, the idea of doing this was really simple. It was, okay, let me start with the premise. How can I make this something that people will actually want to come to? Right? Because it's really easy to say, come to this room. We already have that, right? The hardest part, I imagine, in hosting an event is actually getting people there. That's not the hardest part for us. The hardest part for me is coming up with a concept that actually gets people to derive value from the event, right? So, this one that we just did in New York for New York Tech Week was really interesting because the idea that I had was basically, the way Bullet Pitch works, these founders get featured, they end up raising money just because investors look at the company, they really like it. How can I basically recreate that in the span of 3 hours? And so, the solution was every company that wants to come to this event, Anyone can submit their logo and I'll put it on the massive billboard in front of the entire audience, right? And what happened was all these founders were like, oh my God, everyone in this room, whether they know my company or not, is gonna be able to see it. And I'm gonna be able to take a picture of my massive logo in the venue that I probably wouldn't have had access to ever doing. And I'm gonna be able to put it on my LinkedIn and say, look at us, we're growing so quickly. And anyone who wasn't at that event would be like, wow, they got their logo up there. That's pretty cool, right? And by the way, whose logos are underneath it? Google and Fidelity and Citizens Bank. Like, that's pretty impressive. And so, that was the premise of this event. And then you basically build it all out around that. So, okay, founders are coming, great. They're gonna be able to submit their logos. Investors are coming. They know that the founders are gonna be really excited about this, so they'll probably be here. And then of course, you have your sponsors who you got to make sure meet the founders, meet the investors in the room. How do you position them very well? Well, they know everyone else is excited about it. You prep them a little bit before. That's just the logistics part on like, what is the event? And then there's of course like find a venue. Are we doing bar minimum? We paying outright? All those types of things kind of go into it too. And then it's like, are we going to do a photo booth? Are we going to have a step and repeat? All those like little intricate details, which like, frankly, I'm still doing.

Like, who decides on the food and the catering and the music and the tables? Like, I don't even know what goes into that. Are you renting from one company? Are there multiple companies?

It depends on the event, right? So like the one we did in Austin, like we did have help on the ground, which was nice, but it was like, I find a carnival tent pop-up place. We have the venue.

So wild.

And then we kind of like bring it all together. I know the costs going into the carnival. I know what the sponsorship costs are gonna be, and we make money. And it's been really actually great unlock because I would say that like pre-events arm, like obviously media company was doing 100% of the revenue. It's almost split 50/50 now, which is kind of amazing.

Wow. Between newsletter sponsors and event sponsors.

Correct.

And like, it's interesting because what I do now is I like package it together where I'm like, hey, we're doing this event. And you can have 4 newsletters and like kind of like make it all a package, you discount it. But like everyone wants IRL right now. It is the hottest thing. And like because we have a track record now of doing these things, it's really easy to get some of these sponsors in the room first and foremost for events. And then like, and this is like a perfect example, like Google, we started, we did an event with them and now they're sponsoring the newsletter, right? So we kind of work backwards with that one, which is fun.

What do they expect when they sponsor a newsletter?

Clicks, Google signups, right? So like Google Cloud, Google Cloud. Yeah. And they're, they're a great brand and like what they want.

That's such a perfect sponsor for your newsletter.

And that's the other thing, right? Like it's interesting because so many of these like newsletters I've seen just, they scrape for sponsors, right? They're like, I will take anyone who will pay me. I actually get to be fairly selective about who sponsors the newsletter because they all want one thing. Founders and, and investors too, but really Google Cloud. How do I, how do we get founders to, you know, cloud credits, et cetera. We have this really great product that founders can use and some of them don't know about it, especially first-time founders, right? Fidel Capital, who's the banking solution, and you can kind of go down the list, right? HR Payroll, I mean, law firm. And so the way I've kind of structured it is who is my partner in every single vertical? Because at the end of the day, half the time I get founders that just reach out to me and they go, so Brett, like, I'm opening a bank account. Who should I open that bank account with? This is our partner. I'll introduce you right now.

Yeah. And it's all underpinned by you've done the diligence and you actually think they're a great product.

100%. I would, I would not partner. And this has like been the case where like there has been people who have reached out who are like, hey, we'd love to sponsor, you know, what you're doing on the media side. and I think about it and I'm like, I just, I can't get behind it. Like, if I wouldn't use it, why would I tell founders? And that's why one of the reasons why I think things have been so successful is because founders trust me because they know I'm not gonna throw them under a bus, right? They know I'm not selling out because that's just not the point of this for me. The point of this is how do I get as many founders to succeed as possible and how do I be like, this is fundamentally the only thing I care about. How can I be a part of as many great startups as possible? I don't care how I'm a part of them as long as I'm a part of them.

Yeah, I think, I think sponsorships and referral incentives or commissions or kickbacks, whatever you want to call it, it depends on the business and the buyer and who's referring in new things. And it also depends on if it's a service, it's a product, software tool, it's a consumer brand. Like I remember before this I was working in venture and I was also working at a credit firm and we would do referral relationships with a lot of people because we had these big contract sizes. But it was selling capital as a service, right?

Yeah.

And so that's kind of like more quantitative. It's a little bit more transactional.

100%.

Where with Verbatim, the agency that I run, we have like a hard and fast rule of we don't do referral incentives because I've talked to— this came from conversations with like some of our early clients and I offered it because like it's a pretty common thing for agencies. And they were like, no, I don't want to do that because it makes it harder for me. Like it makes it more awkward for me to make an introduction because in the back of my mind I'm like, I love you guys, but I don't want money involved. Correct. And so I think it really does matter on the business.

It does. It does. And I say this to every sponsor of ours. You're a partner of ours. You— I don't think of you as a sponsor.

You're a partner.

And so at the end of the day, you are helping fuel like our events. You're not paying for our events and you're not paying me money. You are one of the reasons why we are able to do these things and bring people in the room. And it's— it seems almost silly, but it's that little shift in mindset that actually just ripples across relationships with all my sponsors, like, you know, relationships with all the founders, and it really works.

Mhm.

I want to talk a little bit about the investment side of it. So I— we talked about it a long time ago. I don't know how it's kind of evolved over time, but are you now like angel investing? Are you doing SPVs into businesses? Are you going to like raise a fund behind Bullet Pitch? Like, what's— what are you doing today and like what's your vision for it future state?

So fundamentally and this is after building a media company, getting an absurd amount of deal flow, what is early-stage venture? It's a commodities game. Meaning, what differentiates one fund's capital from another? And the answer truly is absolutely nothing.

[Speaker] Not much.

[LAUGHTER] Yeah, I can agree.

[Speaker] A dollar's a dollar no matter how you spend it. So, at the earliest stages of venture, what does it actually come down to? And in my mind, it's 3 things. The first, as an investor, how much value do you actually add to the company, right? Second, what kind of access do you have to deals? And third, how good is your brand? That's it. And of course there's other things, but if you think about those 3 things in terms of the media company, we add a ton of value to founders. We help, we feature them, we help them get funded, You know, we host an event. What do I do for the events? I send the guest list to every one of my portfolio companies. I say, "If there's anyone you wanna meet beforehand, I'll set it up." Right? So, our events are actually the most beneficial for all our portfolio companies because they just work the room like there's no tomorrow. Okay, so that's value-add. Access. Well, again, media side. I get hundreds of companies applying a month to be featured in Bullet Pitch. I see some pretty interesting companies, and it's also gotten to a point now where like so-and-so will call me and be like, you should probably take a look at this. So yes, brand. And so if the media company yields all three of those things, right, value-add, access, and brand, immediately I'm one of the most differentiated investors in the room by a long shot. And so the thought was, well, okay, if that's the case, I've also got this distribution of all these people who are already accredited investors who know me and want to— what do I do? I give them a deal every week. What if I said to any of these people, you want to invest in the deals now? Chances are they probably go for it. And so it was just the most natural progression for me to say, okay, well, I'm going to spin up a syndicate. And when I did, overnight this thing blew up.

Right.

And it's like amazing because it takes some investors, right, your GPs, years to build up that list to get to 100 LPs. I had 100 LPs within the first 20 minutes of launching this thing, right? Accredited investors. I knew where they live. I know how much they make. Whoa. The thing that's become even, I think, more rewarding is it's one thing to say I wrote on a great company, right? We wrote on Beehive in June 2022. I wish I had invested in Beehive in June 2022, but we weren't. What's been amazing is now actually saying not only have we written on really great companies, but since we started the investment arm, which is 8 months ago, I've already been marked up to the point where it's very clear that the deals I'm investing in are pretty fantastic. And so there's no guess anymore as to whether, like, you know, oh, well, Brett, that's really great that you did the media thing, but like, can you actually— one, will people give you their money? Yes. Two, will you actually invest in good deals? The first two deals we've invested in, both have been marked up exponentially already, and not exponentially, but pretty good. And it's looking like by the end of year one, every company we've invested in so far will be marked up on fire. I mean, it's just— it's remarkable.

So it's mostly syndicates you're doing?

All syndicates.

Do you ever plan on changing that, or is it because the model almost makes so much sense that why try to fix something that isn't broken? So because then you also— you lose all the responsibilities you have of like a traditional fund, but you're still getting the same like exposure and potential upside.

Correct.

There is. And it's amazing, right? Because, you know, I was on the phone actually with Solo GP, who's a friend of mine, the other day. And she was telling me, she's like, yeah, you know, I raised this fund and it's been so hard because the fund is nothing. The management fees are nothing. And I'm like, can't crush the fund. I can't. I'm like raising fund too, as quickly as I can. And I'm sitting here, I'm like, well, I've got a media company paying my bills, dude.

You.

Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of— I'm at like a loss for words. So like, you, you figured out the model.

The long shot is the investment arm. I know this, but I'm taking my sweet time because I'm in no rush. And because of that, I'm picking the right winners so far. And it's already gotten to a point where some of these family offices or, you know, high net worth individuals are like, so when's the fund? Because what you've been able to do in 8 months, you know, the Poshmark was huge, is remarkable. And I'm like, I might never do it.

I, to be honest with you, I really don't. I actually don't see the, the upside in doing it because you can continue to scale the media arm. Because like, if you're, if you're sitting here saying the upside is like the management fee, it's like, I think you've lost sight of the thing you're building. So you've built the media arm to not have to rely on that, if I'm understanding it.

So what's really cool is as follows. So the investment arm and the media arm are two separate entities.

Yeah, totally.

But because I own the investment arm and I own the media arm, I can actually run ads for the investment arm through the media arm. So I can put in Bullet Pitch. And this is— no, this is the biggest— this is the biggest hack. Sign up for— I can't say this is a deal.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Sign up for Bullet Pitch Plus. And the really interesting part is I could never go run Twitter ads against Bullet Pitch Plus, but what I can do is I can run an ad for them to an audience that I have a prior relationship with.

Mm-hmm.

I have a prior relationship with over 100,000 people. So when I spun this up, it was really that easy. And so you're absolutely right. Now, the one thing that I will say is the detriment to not having a fund is when I see a deal that I like, I have to back time and I go, okay, well, it's going to take me a fucking 2 weeks to write the memo. It's going to take me another week to like go hunt down all the LPs. That's going to take them another 2 weeks, right? And it's like, now I'm at a month and this is a perfect example. We just did our biggest deal to date and it literally, from the time I was done and I knew who was committed to actually wiring, it took 3 weeks because I had one LP who was on vacation. That's a pain.

So my advice or my— I mean, unsolicited advice, obviously take it with whatever you want. My advice to you would be to do like a decent-sized fund with like one LP family office where it's not about the fact that you want to make a fund, it's that you want a larger amount of money. If there's an opportunity where you're like, this company is a winner, I want to take 10% of the business. It's different to like scrape together a $4 million SPV. Even if you have the, the LPs, it's still just like a lot of headache to like go back and forth versus like, I have this deal, it's ripe right now. I know they're getting a lot of interest. I want to be able to act on it. Like, let's do it.

And that is exactly why the, the, the thought in my head has never been, all right, I'm going to go raise $100 million fund. It's who are my anchor LPs and would they be interested in anchoring some of these things? So when a founder comes to me and says, Brett, what is your average check size? I don't need to say it's, well, $50 to $250, you know, we're kind of erring towards the $250. I can say we're starting here. And this is where it can go. And it just changes the dynamic because now it's a wedge into the deal and now it's like, okay, at least I know they're in for this much. And now it becomes—

I also think another interesting angle that you have is you have the leverage to say that you won't invest in a deal without pro rata. And so if you write like a $100,000 to $150,000 check, let's say you're only doing pre-seed out of the bullet pitch SPV model, you now have the ability to wait for the signal to have the right to write that $4 million check or whatever it is when you already saw the deal is going the way you'd like it to.

And the best part is, is that I have people who are signing up for the syndicate all the time, especially now.

How many acquisition offers have you had?

None that I've taken seriously, but there have been a few people who have come knocking at the door.

What about funds who've tried to just be like, hey, could we make you like a partner in our fund?

Many. And what's so funny is, is that they say to me, it's like, yeah, you know, we could like potentially acquire Bullet Pitch and you could become a partner. And I'm like, but you're not a media company.

Sounds like my biggest nightmare. I'm— thanks, but no thanks.

But it's not even that. It's like what I believe is I am not— again, I'm not an investor. I'm a founder. Media is my thing. And people don't think of Bullet Pitch as an investment firm because it's not. Bullet Pitch Plus is the name of the syndicate. Bullet Pitch is a media company. I run a media company. The media company gives me really great opportunities to then do this other thing called invest. That's how I think of it. And so when these firms have come to me, it's like, or this— I've gotten this one before too. Hey, Brett, we're so-and-so Capital. Can you build us a media arm? You can— like, it can be a consulting deal on your bullet pitch. I go, why would I give you the golden ticket? Because I know this. Andreessen has done this. They have figured it out. Almost no one else has. You are not going to be thought of as a media company because people think of you as a venture capital firm. That is not the future of venture. And if you look at the Harry Stebbings of the world and the Pitch Podcast, they've all figured out one thing: that venture and media are so damn aligned that there's practically no difference when you're sourcing, right? If you— if you're good at it, you content, you will get deal flow, you will get LPs, you will get people who are actually paying attention. And this is not a trade secret because it's really hard to do.

In addition to Harry Stebbings is like the obvious example here. Like Jason Lemkin comes to mind. Packy McCormick obviously comes to mind.

Sahil Bloom is similar.

Probably he raised a fund off of it, but I wouldn't say liquidity with ExactSum has done a fantastic job. Yeah, yeah.

That's another good one.

Well, I guess my question would be, aside from those obvious ones, are there any kind of like under-the-radar folks that are building stuff kind of similar to you right now?

Yeah, I mean, there are some funds who Their GP has a really big Twitter following and they haven't necessarily cracked media. But what they have done is they figured out how to put out really good content on Twitter and they just get the DMs that blow up. Right. Eric Wenger's done a really good job of that. And so, like, again, the model is there. But it's funny because just because it's there, you would think that everyone would be clamoring to do this. And like, even, I mean, some of these Service providers, right? The banks, startup banks, they've gotten smart and they're now seeing this and they're like, wait a second. I think it's brilliant. If some of these GPs and some of these firms are figuring out how to use media to get deal flow, can't we use media to go get customers? Answer is yes, but it's not an easy thing to do because the customer doesn't think of you as a media company. They think of you as service. And so it's this really kind of delicate line that you have to balance, but what I think I'm most proud of with what I've built is it completely walks, toes that line all day long, where people know, they know the deals I've been in, they know, you know, we did the Rainmaker deal, but they also know that I'm like this founder who just started a media company.

[Speaker] So here's my question for you though, 'cause it's almost, it's like confusing to me, but I think one of the beautiful parts about community businesses is that like, sure, there's going to be ones bigger than others, but it's not like a one winner takes all space because like founders can be part of many communities and investors can be part of many communities. Why have there not been like 15 venture funds that have like watched what you're doing and be like, we need to take like a hard left turn and try to like— because to be honest with you, there's funds that have raised a shitload of money, a full infrastructure, that if they do what you've done at like 10% of what you've done, their returns on their fund because they have— I think the thing they have that you don't is like this full team that could sit there and dig into numbers and market analysis and all this shit all day, that if they did 10% of what you do with Bullet Pitch in their own right, they'd probably be way more successful in the end.

100%. So why haven't they done it? Because it's not easy to do. And that's the reality is like most of the people in the venture— this is at least what I've seen.

What would you say are the hardest parts of what you're doing?

So most of the people in the venture industry, it's really interesting, especially for me, because I live a double life. I hang out with founders, and then I also have my investor friends. And the conversations between the two, I tend to hang out with founders more, is remarkably different. And the creativity on the founder side, you know, you see founders talking about, okay, let's start a side business. You guys have a podcast and you run your own day-to-day businesses, right? That's the founder mindset. The investor mindset is it's a job. And because of that, there is a lack of creativity. And then of course, okay, you have all the money in the world. You're gonna go hire one of these, I don't know, media people to come in and try to build you a media arm. That's not what works. What works is this create— I mean, like, think about the way we do all of our events. Everything starts with the creative. It really does. I mean, even like the bullet pitch logo, People will come up to me and tell me that they don't read Bullet Pitch, but they know exactly who we are because they've seen the logo everywhere, right? It's a branding play. And so it's really hard to build a brand. And it's even harder, and this is the other piece, right? I think there's a large advantage to being someone who is associated with the brand, right? I was told this a long time ago. So we last year did a little bit of like, you know, Twitter ad type of things. I would run Twitter ads in the Bullet Pitch account. Cost per subscriber?

Eh.

I would run Bullet Pitch ads on my account. Cost per subscriber cut in half. People invest in people. People invest in people. And so it was this really kind of, why don't these firms do it? Because who is the face? And like maybe you could say Andreessen, okay, there's maybe Andreessen. But like, who is the face of some of these, like, no-name firms? I don't know. And so the hardest part is not only do they have to build a media property, they have to build a personal brand and they have to— people that resonate with them. So it's not— it's not impossible to do. I'm fairly convinced that if one of these firms hired me, I could probably figure out how to do it.

There's no amount of money I think that they can give you with the path you're on where it would make sense for you to take a left turn like that.

I don't—

and you know that. You know that, which is why I can sit here and laugh with you about it.

Yes. And there's been moments where it's been kind of intriguing to be like, holy shit, this is a brand that I've admired for a while. It's crazy that they're talking to me and we're having these conversations. But my— I'm now unwavering with this thesis. And at first it was, yeah, this makes sense, it's working so far. I'm now unwavering to the point where I know this is how venture is gonna work. I know this is how deal flow works. And it's Gen Z, all the founders now coming into the ballpark are Gen Z. How are they actually consuming content? On social media. I mean, it's just, it's all trending this way. And I think that a lot of these venture firms who do this traditional thing are gonna start to see difficult times ahead because, not 'cause they're not great investors, but because the world is changing. You have to be able to change with it.

[Speaker] I'll tell you my personal perspective being on the founder side. Like, I also think there's something to be said about a class of investors who aren't just barking up your tree, like looking for metrics and updates. And like, there's enough founders who are driven enough. And that, like, to your point with the, the founder we were talking about before is like, I'm not filling out this round because I don't really need them. Right. So like when you don't really need them, or there's people with the same green dollar who are willing to abide by your working style of like, don't annoy the fuck out of me. Like, I'm obviously here to talk to you if you have any questions. But like, you hear these horror stories around traditional venture, and if you're a founder that can get over the hump without that, it becomes all that more attractive.

I don't like metrics and like, I don't know where the camera is, but like, if there's one thing I could actually say, if you were a founder and you were pitching me, I don't care. I care about two things. Are you building into a mission? And do you have founder market fit?

Founder market fit.

What do those mean? Founder market fit's fairly obvious. Are you someone who's not just building an idea in AI because everyone else is? You have generally had years of experience in something that you care so deeply about. Avante Fritposh had been DJing since he was 5 years old, right? It's just like the founder market fit is no-brainer. One of the reasons we invested in them. But also, and this is I think the most critical piece, I wanna see good traction. Like, yes, If your ARR is zero, like, we should talk about that. Why is it zero? But like, if you're starting to build and you're building into a mission, what does that look like? There's a company we're investing called Rainmaker. Augustus is building into this mission of curing the drought. How he's doing that is an idea, but I didn't invest in him because he had an idea. I invested in him because he's building into a mission, and that mission is to cure the drought. So even if the idea pivots or doesn't work, I'm not worried about him because he's not going to stop until he solves that mission. Right? And that's what it's all about. And it's like, you see this all the time where a founder sometimes OpenAI goes and crushes their idea and they're like, well, now what? Because they're not building into a mission. There's not this fundamental problem that they care so deeply about that they don't actually care how they get there. That's what I care about. And like, that's not traditional venture. But to be honest with you, if you actually think about, and you probably really dig in, you, you know, have a couple drinks with a longtime GP, you go, so why did you actually invest in that company? He or she will be like, gut feeling. And that's all this really is. You're investing in people at the earliest stages and you're investing in what they care about. Everything else is extra.

What does your day-to-day look like? You're running events, newsletters, syndicates, meeting with investors and founders. Like walk me through tomorrow. What does that look like from wake up to going to bed?

[Speaker] So, the way I have started to frame the business is there are 3 things that I do, right? I throw events, I run this newsletter where I have to write on companies every week, which kind of also feeds into me finding the next company we're gonna write on and talking to founders, and then I invest. So, I would say that the majority of my time these days is actually now spent on the investment side of things. The reason why is because it's really easy to, at this point, see a lot of great companies. It's really difficult for me to say, okay, this is a company I think I'm gonna feature, and I'm gonna follow along and see maybe if there's an investment opportunity down the line, or this is a home run. I'm gonna invest in them and I'm gonna go blow them up through my media arm, right? And so a lot of my time is spent, okay, what is the next deal we're going to do? Because at the end of the day, that's not anymore like the media company. Obviously, we feature great companies, but it's lower stakes, right? The stakes are a lot higher when I'm investing people's money. And so the majority of my time and by majority, I would probably say like, let's call it 50% is okay, right? I'm writing the next deal memo. This is the other thing I do. Every syndicate lead has made fun of me for this because if you look at a syndicate and you look at a deal that they're doing, The deal memo is usually a page or two. Mine are 26 pages, which is hilarious because bullet pitch itself is a minute-long read. My job as GP is to give every one of our LPs as much information about the company as possible. We had 17 FAQs in the last deal we did, and it was intentional. And so I spend a lot of time digging and digging and digging into these deals. I have conviction in them already, but it's so that I can give everyone else conviction. That's 50% of my time. The other, let's call it, let's say 30% is very much focused around the events, right? Where's our next event? We're doing some, I mean, our two big ones, three, we'll call it three. We're doing an event for LA Tech Week. I'm renting out a two-story venue with a helicopter pad. Yes.

Insane.

Yes.

I love it.

Yeah. So, you know, like, and, you know, our sponsors are top tier. So it's like all that kind of stuff. Me talking to sponsors, figuring all that stuff out. That's heavier lift usually in the beginning. And so I'll spend like sometimes I'll just do a whole day just dedicated to that stuff. And that's not the stuff I love, like logistics and like, okay, sponsor, like, great. But that's probably 30% of my time at this point, right? You know, we're doing a dinner in Boston in 2 weeks, right? What venue should I book out? We're doing a dinner in New York, which you both should come to on September 17th. Where am I doing the dinner, right? And these things are getting easier, because now I have like a partner that we go to kind of every time for this. And then the last 20% is like, and it's funny because you would think it's more time writing the newsletter and finding new companies. And the reason that it's been so quick is because I've gotten it down to such a science. I have all these companies that apply. Sometimes it'll just be late at night, I'll go through 10 or 15 in the pipeline. I'll be like, good, good, good, I have the email locked and loaded, send, send, send, send. They all set up calls usually within the first 20 minutes of getting the thing, 'cause they're all so excited that they, 'cause it took me a while to get back to them. Talking to founders, and then obviously writing the newsletter. So that's kind of the split of my time, which is not easy. And I think one of the reasons why ultimately it is going to make sense to have someone running my media arm, right? 'Cause like I said, we're still in really early stages there in terms of what I believe we can do with it. Someone running my events arm so that I don't have to be bogged down in the logistics anymore. I can show up and be the best version of myself and not have to worry about X, Y, or Z. And then what investments am I doing, right? Those 26-page memos are fun to write. It'd be really helpful if I had someone helping me write 13 at the time. 26 pages.

Are you pulling crazy hours or is it fairly time?

Yeah, okay, it's like people have asked me this before and the answer is I don't know. And the reason why is because none of this feels like work to me.

So that's a really good answer.

So like Sunday night I was up till probably like 2 in the morning like working and like it didn't even occur to me that I was pulling a late night because it's just It's not what I think about because I'm so excited to do this. It's just like I get sad when I have to like go to sleep and I'm like, oh shit, I guess I got to write that in the morning. I got to do that in the morning. And I get so much pleasure out of like our newsletter this week. Normally, like, it's at a point now where like I can't even start the newsletter till Thursday or Friday. I started writing it on like Monday because I had a light day and I was loving every second of it. I was like, this is why I love writing the newsletter.

It was a kid in a candy store.

It's always For me. And it's like, I think you said this earlier, like, if it's not abundantly clear that I love this stuff, it should be because this is all I think about. And not all I think about, right? Like, there are definitely moments where I like, especially as things have continued to scale and grow, where like I actually have to remove myself sometimes from, you know, I actually learned this is a really good thing. I actually learned on a podcast. It's the founder of Kindbar who said this. When Bullet Pitch has a really good day, So often I want to have a really good day, and when Bullet Pitch has a really bad day, so often I have a really bad day. But one of the things I've learned after doing this for a while and obviously listening to that podcast was that when Bullet Pitch has a good day, I can have a good day, but I should have had a good day because I was building Bullet Pitch, not because the company had a bad— and same, like, Bullet Pitch has a shitty day. And it's got to this point where finally I'm starting to be able to do this. Bullet Pitch doesn't have a good day. I still probably had a great day because at least I'm doing what I love. And that's how I think about it.

I mean, dude, talk about like founder product fit. It's like the craziest thing.

I fucking love it. Founder market fit, baby.

It's, it's— yeah, I mean, it's so, it's so real. I— this has been probably one of my favorite episodes that we filmed, honestly.

So glad.

And you can go back and listen to every single episode. I don't know if I've said that on like live on the episode. Uh, I think just like the, the honesty about what you're doing and like why you should be doing this is like so crystal clear from someone on the outside looking in, which is what I think makes it so great. And to be honest, it's part of the reason I love doing the podcast is to hear stories like this. Um, I'm curious for you looking back, what would you say was the biggest turning pro moment in your journey so far?

I've told this story maybe once or twice, but there was early, early on Bullet Pitch. I had featured this company and I remember waking up, because Bullet Pitch gets schedules sent, I remember waking up in the morning and the inbox was just flooded with investors who wanted to meet this company. So, I spent my morning making the intros. Two weeks later, I think I just landed from a— on a plane actually. I look at my phone and it's blowing up and I'm like, what's going on? Founder of this company posts on LinkedIn without me asking him to, I just want to thank BulletPitch. We've raised more money in the last 2 weeks than we have in the prior 2 months. BulletPitch is game-changing. And it wasn't necessarily like all of a sudden, you know, the classic story. I get hundreds of companies that reach out. But it was the first time in my head where I was like, "Why is no one else doing this? I know I— that this is gonna work, but it's working." And so, I would say that that was probably the first moment where I was like— I connected the dots where I was like, media yields investment, investment yields who's the most valuable of the entire relationship now. It's not the investor who invested. It's not the founder who took the investor's capital. It's the guy who is in the middle of the entire thing. Right. And the thesis then became, if I can continue to build this web with me in the center of it, whether I'm facilitating intros, it's all going to come back around. And so far that thesis has proven true.

I'm going to say this on the podcast so we can look back at this in like a decade or two. But when people get on podcasts to reference an Andreessen, Andreessen, Brett's name is going to be at the top of that list. The next wave of people. I really believe that. I appreciate that. I know we're almost at time here, so I'm going to say this now. I want to do a part 2 of this in like a year from now just to see where, where Bullet Pitch has gotten to. But can you look at the camera on the left and let everyone know where they could find you and what you're working on?

@BrettPearl on Twitter. And then definitely subscribe to Bullet Pitch as well. It's bulletpitch.com. Maybe the next episode I'll tell everyone the story of how I was able to get the dot-com. It's actually a pretty great one. But bulletpitch.com, you go right to the website, you can subscribe. And then if you are an accredited investor and interested in that field of what we do, you can reach out to me at brett@bulletpitch.com.

Oh yeah. Thanks for coming on, man.

This was great.

This is awesome.