468. When Product-Market-Fit Isn't Enough: The Hidden Forces Behind Brand Loyalty, Gravity, and Increasing Consumer Spend (Shamin Walsh)

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Welcome to the podcast about venture capital, where investors and founders alike can learn how VCs make decisions and reach conviction. Your host is Nick Moran, and this is The Full Ratchet. Shamin Walsh joins us today from LA. She's a managing director at BAM Ventures, early-stage VC firm focused on backing the next rising consumer brands, products, and technologies worldwide. Shamin has backed companies including Wondery, Thrive Market, Llama Naturals, FuboTV, and Prior to venture, she was an attorney and angel investor for over 17 years with early investments in companies including Sweetgreen, Flexport, and Sir Kensington's. Shamin, welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you for having me, Nick.

So I gave you a really short background and intro there. Can you give us kind of your 2-minute summary, your path to venture?

Yeah, I had a very nonlinear path into venture. As you mentioned, I'm an attorney by background. And I was the first investor in Sweetgreen. I was very fortuitous. It was a very fortuitous investment for me given they basically shaped my career. I invested back in college. We all went to college together and I had the benefit of seeing them from preconception through IPO. But as great founders got to meet other great founders, I got to meet other great founders along the way. So I got to build an angel track portfolio. And then prior to BAM, I worked at another early-stage fund where my 2 worlds converged. I kept legal in-house, but then also had a great source of consumer deal flow and then had had success there and then joined BAM in 2017.

Awesome. So tell us more about the thesis and investment approach at BAM.

Yeah, we are a pre-seed and seed consumer-focused fund. So anything where the end purchaser is an individual like you or me, And we invest largely, I'd bucket it largely into 3 categories, consumer brands, consumer tech, and B2B commerce enablement. The commerce enablement effectively means what does a consumer brand or consumer tech company need to better serve their customers? So if you are online grocer and you're figuring out last mile logistics, looking at technologies that help you either scale, Or better serve your customer.

Perfect. And can you give us a sense for portfolio construction? Like what stage are you investing at? Check size, do you lead, do you co-invest?

Yeah, we are, we're typically the first institutional investors in the companies that we invest in. What our initial check size is $500K, and we will invest up to $1 million in follow-on. We don't invest beyond the Series A, but a lot of our investors are actually Silicon Valley funds or growth stage funds. So we help our founders throughout their path, but we like to focus our effort and attention and energy on the very earliest stages. My partner Brian, who is the founder of the fund, has built a number of companies from zero through IPO, like LegalZoom in the consumer tech space and The Honest Company in the CPG space. So we really love that zero-to-one phase. We've either built it or invested in it. And that's where we like to spend most of our time. We are very collaborative and it really just depends on the round dynamics. So for example, if someone is raising $1.5 million and we love it and we're the first investors to commit, we're happy to lead and catalyze the rest of the round. If we're the last check-in, they have a lead for $1.5 million and there's $500K left and the terms make sense for us, we typically invest Sub $10 million post-money on the brand side, sub $15 million post-money on the tech side. So again, very, very early. So if the round dynamics make sense for us, then we're happy to kind of slot into that last $500K check. So it really just depends on what the founders need.

Perfect. And have you done investments that were pre-revenue?

Yes, we do investments that are pre-revenue, but it's more the exception than the rule in consumer. We really like to see products or services that are out in market. It depends. I, I think if you're a social media app, for example, you could be a Series C company and still be pre-revenue. So it's not revenue necessarily, but we like to see something that's out in market typically.

Well, while we were talking about some metrics in dollars, our dynamics are kind of changing in early-stage funding at the moment, and many successful companies are now reaching profitability or potentially even exiting without taking this series of fundraising stages, A, B, How has that impacted kind of your investment approach at BAM?

We actually see it as an advantage. And, and, and actually with our LPs, or we, we're going to be on our 4th fund now, folks have actually credited us with kind of our stage focus because our fund size and our check size and our entry point makes it such that we can benefit from material ownership at the very earliest stages and potentially return venture-like returns, whether a company exits for $300 million or $3 billion, and not necessarily need to wait for those later rounds. Because to your point, we are seeing some folks that raise pre-seed, seed rounds and then don't need to raise again. And so What we've seen is this dynamic where there are some folks who don't have the appetite to get in super early, say, I'll just wait for the Series A. And back when fundraising was more prevalent, maybe that day would come, but now they may just miss the boat entirely.

So I, I love talking to consumer investors. It's, it's super fun. We recently had Craig Shapiro on the show from Collaborative Fund, and we had a really nice chat about sort of consumer behavior changes, right? So I want to ask you kind of about consumer spend because you've written about the bifurcation in consumer spend. What do you mean by that, this bifurcation in consumer spend? What are you seeing in the market?

I think we live in 2 different realities in some sense, where you're not seeing an entire economy follow a typical trend. And so we're seeing folks who are really focused on the essentials and not discretionary spend because the essentials are getting more and more expensive, but you cannot displace them either, whether it's education or your health or your car or your rent. And then we're seeing a segment of the population that just has so much discretionary income that they are really looking for luxury and convenience. And this kind of middle-of-the-road value, kind of, it's not the cheapest, but it's fairly priced, ends up getting lost in some of the categories because we're finding folks that are either price-driven or convenience luxury-driven.

What are some of those things that would be in the middle that have kind of gotten lost or are getting replaced?

Let's say in apparel, for example, I think there are mid-market type brands that are great quality, great value, but don't necessarily create an emotional connection or signal enough of what a consumer wants to present about themselves to stand out in the pack of a million brands. So then you see brands that sell at numbers where you think, I can't believe someone would pay that much for a t-shirt. And then you see kind of the essentials or Costco branded, et cetera, that still does really well. And then it's the folks in, in the brands in the middle that sometimes struggle.

Yeah. Interesting you bring that up. I don't want to call out brands specifically, but my wife was at the mall the other day and she said The Gap had closed. And it was kind of shocking to me. That was kind of a staple for decades.

Yeah, The Gap is having a comeback.

Are they?

Okay. Yes. Yes, because they have a new creative director. So The Gap to me is on the price-driven side of things. So it's very affordable and they've done an amazing job With, with their new creative director. And so I, I would argue that the Gap is actually having a resurgence.

Interesting. I wonder why they're closing stores.

Maybe they're just— Yeah, maybe it's just a brick and mortar location.

Maybe, maybe.

Yeah.

So consumer tech is increasingly noisy. How do you find signal amidst all these fast-moving hype cycles and TikTok Shop and this and that. It's kind of noisy, it's moving fast. So how do you find the signal?

So I would bifurcate it between social entertainment and utility value type products. So I think utility, like consumer tech from a utility perspective, I think we can look at some early numbers and repeat rates and retention and amount of time folks are spending. Because it's integrated as a utilitarian function and, and part of their life. If you, if let's say it's a banking app, so to speak, if you're, if you're taking the time to download it and move all your money into it and you're making transactions and you're, you're using it over several months, I think it's, it has a different level of signal than if you download a consumer social app and play a few games and in the early days and then drop off. There are certain things that, that have higher friction points, so it, the early metrics are more indicative than others. I think in consumer social, we're very careful not to be deluded by very early signals, particularly if something is free to download or free to use, because you'll see a lot of people download something out of curiosity or novelty or be really into it for a period of time and then kind of move on. I think I don't know if you remember companies like HQ Trivia, which seemed like it was going to be the biggest thing for the longest period of time and really had this zeitgeist for a period of time, and then it kind of faded away, and then people moved on to the next thing. So for I'd say consumer social is is a pretty tricky category, and the founders that do really well in it obviously know how to build a network effect and then adapt. quickly as the, as consumer preferences continue to adapt as well.

Are there certain metrics or signals or characteristics that suggest to you that something may be sustaining versus fleeting?

I'd say you look at churn rates and your retention after a certain period of time. So I know a lot of investors like to look at day 30 or day 90 at least to see Was this something that you just downloaded and played with for a little bit and then became bored and moved on? A lot of investors like to look at how many folks you've shared it with or have brought into the ecosystem. I think the more tentacles or you have to something, to other people in your life, and the more that you use it as a form of engagement or communication, just add bolsters the idea that this is something that you're going to continue using. So I think sharing, or some people talk about the K-factor, etc. Other than that, I mean, it is still hard to know because even if something is shared a lot and used a lot in the early days, you don't, you don't know, particularly if it is social or entertainment value, you don't know what it will look like 6 months, a year, etc. And so For us, I would say we, we kind of take a bird's eye view and just really think about the founder. Like, do we think this founder has foresight? Are they a forward thinker? Do we think they know how to adapt? Do we think they know how to capture interest? And it's less about getting super granular on the metrics today and really the founder who's building it. And do they have the big picture vision for what this will be?

Yeah, I was going to ask you about like, Thesis-driven investing or sort of founder-driven investing? Like, do you tend to map out your thesis across, here are the segments, here's what the future looks like, here's where we should invest and the concepts we're looking for? Or is it more like you want to meet innovative leading founders that are telling you like, here's where the market's going, here's how we see the world and why? Do you have one philosophy or?

Or both? Yes, we are incredibly founder-driven. We like to say internally that we have to love the founder and like the idea because there are categories that even categorically, if you mention, are not— don't necessarily sound innovative, like a cosmetics company. One of our, one of our favorite founders is Catherine Power, and we're investors in several of her companies, and she has a company called Merit Beauty. And if you mentioned starting a cosmetics brand, that by itself in terms of ideas, not necessarily, wow, what cosmetics, that's never existed before. And so there are a lot of founders that are building really incredible things in crowded categories that aren't necessarily— what they're doing is disruptive in the way that they create an emotional connection with the consumer and the offering that they're bringing, the way that they talk to them, but not necessarily disruptive in the sense that that idea of that thing has never existed before. And I think you see that in a lot of large consumer companies. I mean, if you look at some of the largest companies like Meta, it wasn't like the first social network in the world. Or you look at WhatsApp, it wasn't the first messaging platform. And so where it's, it's really about who is good at breaking above the noise as opposed to The thesis itself.

I think that's a really good insight. Like we did a study a few years ago about the number of first movers that ended up winning the market. It was a much lower percentage than one would expect. You know, Google's like the— Google was the 18th search engine and Airbnb was like the 6th home share platform and Dropbox was like the 25th, like file sharing and et cetera, et cetera. The list goes on.

Wow.

But I, What's surprising in your example is not only that it's not the first mover, but 25 is pretty down the line.

Totally. Right.

Yeah.

And it's kind of a function of timing. It's a function of technology.

Yeah.

It's a function of who's really figured out the right recipe to hit the zeitgeist.

Yeah.

Kind of like your example with Facebook.

Yeah, absolutely. And if you are truly disruptive, It takes time for people to wrap their heads around something new. So sometimes you just need to see it a lot in different formats to really grasp onto it. We were actually talking about the idea of Uber and, and the idea that you would get into a stranger's car, that it doesn't feel weird anymore. But there was a point in time where it felt weird when to— or Airbnb to To have these value props where you're living in a stranger's home or you're getting into a stranger's car, but it, it comes up in enough iterations and it happens, and then people get used to it, and then people continue to adapt. But it's, it's often hard to— changing your psyche or changing organizational behavior is actually really hard.

I agree so much. We've had people on the show that passed on Airbnb because of Liability concerns.

Yeah.

Insurance. And what if somebody gets hurt or whatever?

And all those things manifest too, by the way. It's not like they're wrong. I mean, it comes up, but you can still build a business.

I mean, it's kind of like I had my son, he's 7. I had him take a Waymo for the first time when we were in San Francisco recently. And he was asking me, why is this not where we live at home? I live in Chicago. And I had to explain to him some challenging concepts, like if, if there's one accident in a Waymo, it's gonna get a lot of press, whereas they're probably in general a lot safer than human drivers. But it's really hard for people to accept the fact that this is so different and that some people may get hurt or injured.

So, yeah, it's, it's very interesting to see that mindset shift happen. And Waymo's a very good example because Just anecdotally, I know with all the press around individual instances and the idea of a computer going rogue or a robot or etc. happens, and then all of a sudden overnight, folks who said, I would never get into a driverless car, now you suddenly hear them say, I love not having to talk to anybody. And it all of a sudden is just accepted as something really safe because it's been around more. You hear about it enough. You hear about other folks, the folks that kind of survive. You just, uh, there's something in familiarity, I think, especially with really disruptive things that it takes time to become accustomed to.

It takes time. And every person is kind of on a different spectrum when it comes to comfort and acceptance. So, Shamin, we talk a lot on the show about product-market fit. And, you know, I'm going to make up a new term here, brand market fit, right? So we've all seen it with companies like Apple, like Nike, right? You get these zealots that just love these brands and routinely buy their products over and over again. And we've even seen this to some degree with, like you mentioned, your cosmetics company. Like people get like really connected to a brand and buy all their products or Or a food retail company like Sweetgreen. We've got Nicholas, he's gonna come on the show soon, and I know you're an early investor. How do you think about sort of brand gravity and loyalty, and is that something that's measurable? Like, do you know when you have brand market fit?

I think you do. I don't necessarily think it's quantifiable into a particular metric, but I think you have brand gravity when I think a, a strong brand is something that can connote something about you. And enable you to identify something about yourself. And a strong brand is a brand that is true to its own identity. So whether it's cool or not cool, or for fuddy-duddies or value or whatever it is, as long as it's consistent in its own identity, I think it's a strong brand. So if I told you I eat at Sweetgreen and I wear Lululemon and I go to SoulCycle and I shop at Whole Foods. You are start— whether you like it or not, I think you're starting to paint a picture of who you think I am as a person, how I spend my time. You're starting to get a sense of my identity. And, and I think brands help you do that. And I feel like if I told you I only— yeah, I drive a BMW and I only shop at Costco, all of a sudden you think, okay, let me piece together how I reconcile these 2 brands and who I think Shamin is. Because now I feel like there are disparate brand affiliations around her, but both of these brands are so strong in their own identities that you've already matched an identity to that brand and what that means for that individual. And I think that's what a strong brand means. It's somebody where you can, if you, if you look at the way some people may try to lift someone up or put someone down in terms of they look like they wear that, or mentioning a brand in terms of creating an identity around that, I think that's what brand gravity really is.

I think that's a great point. Like the mentioning it, I, I feel like attachment to a brand is a direct function of how many times you tell other people or other people notice it about you, right? And then that just increases like your internal sort of level of brand attachment in a way. Because I noticed that happening like with my wife and with my friends. Like if you notice something about somebody, they like are very passionate about, oh, I discovered this before you did and it's so cool. Yeah.

You know, yeah, whether it's a musician or brand can translate into a lot of different things. But I think if a brand is function only, then it's— it can potentially be replaceable. But if the— if it connotes something more about you or who you want to portray yourself to be, then there's There's, there's an intangible that's beyond just swapping out one for another. So I, I don't have an affinity to what phone charger I use, right? Any of them. It's like, it's purely functional. I can swap it out. I don't really care. But some folks can even make soap have brand affinity. I mean, you go into a certain home and, and they don't have Softsoap, they'll have like a beautiful Aesop soap or a Blueland soap. And you— it's— they're trying to signal something about themselves that I care about the aesthetic beauty of my home, or I care about sustainability. And, and so even in the details, can you find folks trying to signal something about who they are and their values through their brand choices?

Love it. Love it. So I want to ask you something that we've never really address on the show, but you and I had some correspondence about Korean brands. And classically successful US startups are often copied in other geos. So there's this transfer where like something that worked in the States becomes a big thing. Like you take like a Rappi or a Meituan or something like that, right? In, in a new country. So there's whole playbooks on that. And I know that there's a lot of investors that specialize in it. However, on the brand side, there's been a couple instances where I've heard the opposite. So like I recall a conversation with Ben Son at Primary years ago where he talked about couponing and then he was also talking about short-form video that really was like getting a surge in Korea and in China. And this is years before like they were big in the States. And so they were following these trends and then looking for models here. So I'm curious. Do you look for successful brands in some of these other emerging geographies and consumer concepts and then try and figure out what insights might emerge here in the States?

Yeah, we, we love Korea as a market. My partner Brian, who founded the fund, is Korean. And so we feel like there's a lot of overlap beyond that between the categories we excel at. And what Korea is also really good at, they're given the size of the country, they're such a large exporter of popular culture and particularly now. So it's absolutely a market that we look at both ways, things that are successful here that would be interesting there and then things that are interesting here that would be successful there. I think that you have to look at certain universal and global trends, you know, For example, anti-aging is a pretty universal thing. Everybody wants to be younger and more beautiful, but I'd say the nuance of what that means within your particular culture is different. So perhaps if there's something that's a retinol alternative that came out first in Korea, that would translate really well. But potentially what color cosmetics means here might be different than how people, you know, portray themselves there based on skin tone or based on how flashy you like to be or bold colors or, you know, so I think subjective style elements are definitely different. I also think individual elements are different. So you look at platforms like Pinduoduo, which is huge in China, but I think the community buying aspect is much stronger than it is in the US where we tend to be a more individualistic society. And I think that they're great examples in seeing what has emerged, but then, but you need the knowledge that you need to adapt it for your own market because you do need to understand that it is a different market and consumer behavior here. And to your example around short-form video, some of the examples like Taobao, et cetera, in Asia, We've seen so many iterations of with live shopping or next generation of HSN, etc. Here, and one I I don't think I've seen one yet that is 24-hour, which a lot of the ones I've seen here have been kind of like scheduled programming or drops, etc. But it's not; it hasn't necessarily been the form factor of you can watch TV on your phone any time of the day and just tune in and there's somebody there. So I don't think. We've exactly replicated it, but I think that's been part of— I mean, I guess you could argue that TikTok is that, but— and it is doing really well here. So I think that's also a piece of it, is you can't take all of it and you can't take certain elements of it without— I, I mean, I could talk about this for hours. Like, in the US, for example, we, we care about skincare, but we don't— we're not as good about like multi-step skincare routines as we are in Japan. It's harder to sell like a 10-step, use your cleanser, then your toner, then your essence. And we want solutions fast. And so there's definitely a lot happening in other places that we should, we should look to. But we, we have to be mindful of the fact that it's a totally different demo, different values, different habits, different patient levels, etc.

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I call the US the magic pill culture. It's like we all want the magic pill for everything.

Yep.

And yeah, I mean, that's why Ozempic is huge.

Yeah, 100%. So how do you think about making money as a consumer investor?

Part of what has been successful to our strategy is getting in Early such that we can potentially yield a venture-like return at a $300 million outcome or a $3 billion outcome. So in consumer, consumer brands that are successful typically exit around the $300 to $700 million mark.

Mm-hmm.

And if you're a large fund, we're a 50, we choose to be a $50 million fund. If you're a very large fund, if you're a $500 million fund, Given the ratio of companies that may go to zero and the speculative nature of venture, it's, it's a pretty dicey situation to be in if you're looking at $500 million outcomes because you need your winners to compensate for companies that go to zero. So for us, it's a $50 million fund. A $500 million exit where we got in early is fantastic. But if we're a much larger fund, then we need to consistently look for multi-billion dollar outcomes. And I think that's hard to find. Fine with frequent frequency in consumer. When you look at the largest companies in the world, they are, many of them are consumer companies, but a lot of them are generational companies. And so our strategy is to make sure we'd love to invest in those as well. And we have with companies like Honey, that was a $4 billion exit, or FuboTV that went public and just had the Disney deal. But we also, Want to invest in the great brands that, that have a strong strategic acquisition exit opportunities as well, that exit, that don't necessarily need to be a multi-billion dollar outcome to make, to be successful.

How do you feel about CPGs? And I bring this up because there's, there's a lot of CPGs out there pitching, first of all, and Very recently I read news about the exit of Simple Mills. I think it was a $795 or $800 million exit right around there. And I kind of like looked at that story and said, they did about as good as you can do. They went from a product to a brand, cross-category, hit the nerve of like what was popular at the time. But if that's kind of like the best you can do and it's an $800 million exit, then Kind of puts an upper limit. And I know you said you only need $300 million to make it interesting, but a lot has to go right within CPG even to get to that level. So how do you think about CPG and do you invest into CPG companies?

Yeah, we invest in CPG, but our, but we really care about entry price because, you know, to your point, $800 million, but if you own 10% of that $800 million company, You've made a lot more than owning 1% of a much larger company. And in CPG, a lot of times you can be capital efficient and you can reach profitability. And so if you have the right— and, and if it is something that consumers resonate with, it can often become integrated into your habitual behavior. So it can be something that you're buying on a weekly basis or a daily basis or for your entire household. Mm-hmm. So if you do it right, you know, you can have the outcome that you want out of it. It's not about the end number, it's about how much of it you owned. And I think we, we over-index a lot on these splashy headlines of this new $5 billion outcome. And then you look at the actual cap table and, and the founders didn't have that much, or the investors, may not have had as much as you think without putting huge amounts of capital. But if you could put in an example is we're investors in Pretty Litter and we, they, I use this example a lot, but we invested at a $4.5 million valuation and I think they only raised a couple million bucks total and they exited for $550 million and that was a huge outcome for everybody and they didn't need that much capital and everybody had a great outcome. And it was around a 70, 80x return, which from a venture perspective by any standard is extraordinary.

Amazing.

So I think you have to look at the inputs and the nuts and bolts is what I'm just saying, not just the end number. The end number is, is, can sometimes be a shiny distraction. Now, if you exited for $10 billion and you owned 80% of that company, then sure.

Yeah.

Right.

Right. So, it's kind of a weird market. I feel like we're in recovery. Like, I'm just seeing signals, but they're anecdotal. The data suggests we're still in a pretty bad trough. You know, what types of founders do you see performing well kind of in this tough market we find ourselves in?

I think founders that are aware of their capital needs. And then just put their head to the ground and execute and have the ability to tune out the noise are who we really gravitate towards. And founders who are looking to solve the problem that they're set out to solve and build the business that they want to build rather than building their own profile. And founders who truly believe in the category that they're investing in. And so the type of founder, it's easier The type of founder we don't like is the founder that is chasing a particular category because that category is hot, right? So they're like a momentum-driven founder as opposed to looking to build within something that they truly have conviction in for whatever reason. Or the founder that is, that gravitates towards the allure of being a founder and CEO or spends a lot of their time publicizing their own image as opposed to kind of focusing on the actual business and building the business and making the business larger than themselves. And then I think the founder who knows—

What's your opinion?

What they're like, who keenly understands what their strengths and weaknesses are and know how to attract talent and hire around them. So maybe you're an amazing executor, you know this like the back of your hand, but you're building a business that needs a lot of money and you're not the best fundraiser, then maybe you have a co-founder or somebody who is an incredible fundraiser. Or maybe you're somebody who doesn't, who needs a business that's, that can be capital efficient, but like you really know your numbers and being a founder who really knows their numbers. I think this isn't necessarily the environment where capital is so free-flowing that you have as much buffer as you used to. So it's, it's if you don't kind of hit your goals, it's, it's a harder, it's a less forgiving market, I would say.

Yeah, agreed. So, so clearly you've invested in some great companies and, and that's, that's very notable, I think, in your track. What else would you say sets BAM apart from the, the other venture investors out there?

I would say there are more and more funds out there that are founder-founded funds, but I think we're unique in that Brian has founded multiple public billion-dollar companies across consumer categories, which is pretty unique. I think with LegalZoom, he founded a consumer tech company with Honest Company, CPG company, and then that he's remained active as the CEO, which we consider a strength and a feature. So he currently is CEO of Arena Club, which is a sports card marketplace co-founded with Derek Jeter. And that's been incredibly valuable because the things that I think there are universal things that any great business person who has scaled a business would know around ethics or scaling a team or things you look for in the folks you want to hire. But then there are things that are incredibly tactical, like customer acquisition, that's incredibly different today than it would've been 10 or 20 years ago. He uses the one example with LegalZoom where They were one of the first companies out there to benefit from pay-per-click acquisition. That's not an edge. If you were to tell a founder, try this, this is this new and innovative thing. And so I think staying relevant in the category is, has been incredibly advantageous because he's speaking to a moment of time where he knows what's happening today. And then I think being the first investors in the companies that we've invested in keep us as Closely aligned to the founders that an investor can be. I mean, very often whatever outcome is good for them is also good for us. And so we're not really in a situation where we need to be at odds with each other. For example, we're not investing at a round where if a founder decides, I think I'm happy with this level of exit, and we think we're not gonna hit our target unless they exit for a much larger number, we're, we don't— End up in those kind of conflict areas. And so I know it's a cliché term, but I think our setup and our backstory actually does make us founder-friendly. And I think the proof is in the pudding and how many of our founders are LPs of our fund after they exit. And then I would say last thing is just our dedication to the category that we invest in. We've been doing consumer for over 10 years now, and We have never followed the shiny coin. We've stayed kind of consistent and disciplined in our strategy and our stage and our category. And so I think people value talking to folks who truly understand what it is that they're trying to build.

Uh, Shamin, if we could feature anyone here on the show, who do you think we should interview and what topic would you like to hear them speak about?

Anyone in life or an investor?

Well, the, the focus of the show is usually VCs and then unicorn founders. That's kind of the topic area.

Oh, unicorn VCs and founders. I'd love to see Fred Wilson. He's been doing this for a very long time, and I know he has his own blog, but I think to have maintained such a strong reputation and track record for such a long period of time shows the ability to adapt in a way that Is that I'd love to learn from.

Honestly, uh, Shamin, what video would you recommend to listeners?

It's, it's tried and true, but I really like the How I Built This podcast, mostly just to learn how different everyone's experience has been and how they built their business, and just to take a more granular approach. And sometimes you hear about funny little tips like when Sara Blakely from Spanx would seed her own product in retail stores and just literally put them on the shelves without distribution. And I think when you hear about how nitty-gritty their early days are, I think just that in itself is interesting to learn about and also to just hear people's stories in their own voices and to get a sense of their personalities is always fascinating to me.

Shamin, do you have any habits, habits, tactics, or behaviors that are a force multiple?

I think something beneficial I've done has been to segregate my time into deep focus and multitasking and, and to really be disciplined about those, that separation. So at our fund, Brian and I are equal partners. We don't have titles, but if we did have titles, I would probably be the COO, so to speak. And so there are times where we're going through audit or doing something really that requires deep attention. And I remember in the early days, I would try to, I would just schedule things as they came up. And so maybe I'd be working on an LP report and then I'd have a call and then I'd be answering emails and then I'd do something else. And the context switching between a deep focus task and listening to pitches was really disruptive and I'd lose a lot of time that way. So I'd say the force multiplier for me has been kind of allocating time to listen to pitches into a segment of time or like instead of if, if I think it's going to take me half an hour to write a presentation, to really set aside 3 hours for it because it takes time to sit down and to get in the zone and really think about it and be in the middle and to And to break up my day such that I'm not tab switching constantly. And I, and I think one of the hardest things in VC is, is learning the craft of time management, not specific to VC in particular, but I think in the many of the investors I talked to in the early days, you're just, you're just trying to do everything. You try to go to every event, you want to talk to everyone, you say yes to everything. And so you end up being in a very reactive position as opposed to proactive. And, and I think learning how to segment your time in a way where you're optimizing your brainpower has been incredibly valuable.

Do you think about the buckets like within a day or is it a week? Within one day, do you segment between like, I don't know, 3 major or 4 major buckets or? Do you kind of spread it out over the course of a week or longer?

Yeah, I, I try to segment it between meeting slash call heavier days and then lighter days. So I find that if I've had several calls on a Monday and then to have several calls on a Tuesday, I don't ever want to do a disservice by a founder by burning out or not giving my Full active attention. And so I try to segment it by day where I have more calls on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and then Tuesdays and Thursdays it's a little bit lighter. Or the types of calls. So a pitch call versus just a general networking catch-up call uses a different level of attention in terms of the amount of information, how hard it is to think about like what The person is presenting to you. So that I, I often think about it that way. And then I think about time of day. One of my most alert, so usually around that 3 PM type slump is, is when I usually like to do kind of like more admin type emails where things that are important that you need to do but are not necessarily using really deep thinking, and then spend time earlier in the day where I'm my sharpest.

Perfect. And then finally here, Shamin, what is the best way for listeners to connect with you and follow along with BAM?

Well, you can go on our website to learn about us and our portfolio, and then you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I try to, I try to read the messages. And our email address, we have a good central email, info@bam.vc.

Well, thank you so much for the time today and congrats on all the success and the exciting logos in the portfolio. Looking forward to talking about more in the future at some point.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks, Shamin.

All right, that'll wrap up today's interview. If you enjoyed the episode or a previous one, let the guest know about it. Share your thoughts on social or shoot him an email. Let him know what particularly resonated with you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that some of the smartest folks in venture are willing to take the time and share their insights with us. If you feel the same, a compliment goes a long way. Okay, that's a wrap for today. Until next time, remember to overprepare, choose carefully, and invest confidently. Thanks so much for listening.