Future of Food Tech, Can A Retail Model Like Foxtrot Work at Scale, and Channel Strategy for Food Brands with Ashley Hartman and Andrew Bluestein @ Bluestein Ventures

27:25And if they're retail and wholesale, they've got to think about how they nurture a community online and drive them to purchase. So I think it's just another channel you have to think about. Just like you think about Kroger differently than you think about Publix and Whole Foods, direct-to-consumer becomes that separate channel. Amazon becomes a separate channel. Thrive becomes a separate channel. So it's really what is your channel strategy rather than kind of segmenting the two. Yeah. I mean, a couple of years ago, I had on a private equity guy and he was saying that one of the big opportunities that he sees, Well, when he analyzes, you know, uh, food brands was, was, can you kind of cross that chasm from going from natural to, you know, conventional?

28:10And then if you're able to do that, then that could be a really, really be, um, a huge business. Um, and so also having like the proof points, um, that, okay, maybe you're doing well in natural, but can you actually, can this actually be like a mass product too? Um, uh, does that actually make sense? How do you think about maybe distribution channels and also seeing if a company can be successful in natural or in the premium sector in grocery, but also able to maybe go beyond that and be a product that maybe not the top 1 % or 5 % or 10 % would enjoy, but a product that actually can go much deeper than that.

28:59I think for us, obviously, I mean, I'd say kind of just the outset, like we invest early stage. So these are kind of like hypotheses we have. And we would not invest in a company if we didn't think it could cross the chasm. Like we're not investing in kind of niche, small products that can't actually make that work. So we do look for as much as we can proof points that this can scale. A lot of it comes down to price and how premium is your product over the standard kind of that a consumer is buying in the category today. And then the second piece we look at is, you know, what does your consumer base look like or what is your early engaged audience look like?

29:41So I'd mentioned Vive earlier, and they had done a really great job of really building that playbook in Southern California. and they weren't just in natural. They were in coffee shops. They were in natural. They were in like a conventional store or two. So we could understand that that was working. Obviously, it was working regionally. And our bet was, okay, you could take this regional playbook and you could replicate it across the US. But that gave us confidence that it would be able to cross the chasm. But obviously, that doesn't automatically happen. It requires a lot of luck. It requires a lot of the market kind of moving in your direction and requires a lot of operational expertise to be able to expand.

30:25Yeah, the one example I give to is we're invested in a company called Real, which is a sustainable paper goods company, has bamboo toilet paper, bamboo paper towels now. And, you know, that was a business where certainly coming in at the premium end of the market, It's starting direct-to-consumer. And I think the big question is how much price sensitivity or willingness is there as a consumer to up to a more sustainable source? So it's unlikely for a foreseeable future this is going to be priced in line with traditional kind of pulp-based. But the company, though, has been able to prove over time as they've first direct-to-consumer in retail.

31:11It's been a very successful product at Target. They continue to now build out from there, right, is they're showing that there is a consumer demand at a premium price point, right? So the key thing is what I don't like to see is when a brand comes in and says, hey, we're going to price competitive with bad margins, right? Because that sets the business up for being unsuccessful. Like, great. Start with, like, your price costs that much? Fine. Price it high. prove that consumers are willing to pay that because there are premium consumers. And then as you get scale, find ways to get the cost down.

31:47Because when you are start becoming a 10, 20,$30 million brand, there are different manufacturers that will start working with you. And there may be technologies and ways, right? So obviously Reels continue to think about how do we innovate in our production to get the cost down. And that's what happens over time. A lot of the products that are at scale in the market that are so cheap, it's because they've been in the market for 40, 50 years and are at scale assets. So you can't always expect a new brand to be price competitive. But over time, with the right investments and as you prove out the consumer demand, it's possible to get price down.

32:24So it is possible. You do as an investor, someone has to say, what's it going to take to get there? And ultimately, a bet sometimes that, yeah, we think there's enough of a market and you can innovate enough to get down there. Those are great points. I think always it's really hard to increase your price. It's really easy to bring down your price. You've marketing, you've sales promotions. Maybe you price high and you run some sales promotions to actually get the customer in the door. That makes sense to me. But to actually start off as your price to be lower without that being a clear sale, then it's always hard, I think, once you're in market in terms of actually raising your prices.

33:10And I think that certainly with everything that's happened over the past couple of years as well on the supply chain side and with I've heard some companies being short of ingredients or short of packaging, that you really have to think about what the pricing is and maybe have to go a little bit higher just to ensure that you can actually grow in a sustainable way and actually be profitable. And then you can retool, rethink once you get to scale. Yeah, I think taking the shortcuts to accelerate growth are where a lot of brands and companies get in trouble, right? And I think this is where, again, you have to build good businesses from the beginning and take the long view.

33:57And too many entrepreneurs, I think, they're trying to figure out something to just get people excited. And it's like, no, do prices the right way. Build the right margin structure. then figure out your business around it. Don't just kind of try to go so fast because you think that's what investors want to see because what you, you know, investors are going to look at you and say, well, that's great, but your margins are pretty terrible, right? I don't want to fund that, right? I don't want to fund, there's products I take off the shelf that we've screened that I know that they are paying me to take the product when it's on promo.

34:29And like, I don't want that to be my dollar, right? I'd rather that be someone else's dollar. This episode is brought to you by Propeller Industries. If you run a high growth business and you're focused on profitability, extending your runway and improving your operational efficiency, you probably need a finance and accounting whiz that will grow with you. Well, instead of hiring someone full-time, what would be cost-effective is working with Propeller Industries. Propeller Industries is a leading strategic finance and accounting partner for venture stage companies and has partnered with over a thousand startups and high growth businesses across consumer products, consumer tech, and enterprise.

35:06Some of the brands that they've worked with are Liquid Death, Olipop, Hims, Farmer's Dog, Away, MoviePass, and Giphy. Propeller also provides specialized support for fundraising and M &A with transaction advisory services. Propeller's TA team of former investment bankers and investors can step in on more of a project basis when pursuing full-scale financing and M &A. There's a link to Propeller Industries in the show notes if you want to learn more information. As a company scales, right? And let's say gets up to, you know, a hundred million in revenue, right? What are the main metrics that you actually look out for that this is a, um, or I guess, you know, as a company scaling, really, what are you kind of tracking or the main kind of financial metric that you believe is most important, um, to ensure that that company maybe will be sustainable, uh, profitable, or, um, or even, you know, in your case as well that could attract like a really great exit.

36:02Yeah, I'd say that, you know, the fundamentals of a business as it scales, you know, I think it starts to become much more financially driven, right? What are your margins? What are your operating margins, right? What is, if you're investing, you know, how much capital are you investing? How easy or difficult growth is I think one of the biggest challenges of a scaling brand is hitting the plateau points, right? Unfortunately, you see too many brands, right? They get to 20 million and they can't break through. They get to 50 million and they can't break through. And oftentimes there are warning signs, right?

36:40Which is, you know, you can look at the velocities, right? You can look at what is the return on ad spend, you know, online, right? Those are the indicators where if you as a board, right, are really zeroing in on kind of what makes this business, you know, one factor with scaling, right? Every week, we will look at, you know, how much were we spending on customer acquisitions? What were our retention curves looking like? You know, how was, you know, what was our contribution margin on our products, right? Those were three of the most fundamental metrics around the business. And as long as those metrics kept holding, and we were performing, we knew we could keep scaling.

37:18And as we increased marketing spend, right, the cost of customer acquisition obviously would be a key question was, would that scale? And so oftentimes with certain businesses, it's really zeroing in on those leading metrics. And that leads to whether it's building a great business. And I think as a business truly scales, what ultimately comes to say is how big is this market opportunity now? How big can this business get? How productive are their sales and marketing channels? And can you not just get to 100, but can you break through that to even large? All these markets are very large, right?

37:54We don't have to struggle with addressable markets, but it's can a brand really break through those potential plateau points? And that's what you're kind of monitoring, particularly from an investor perspective. That's really helpful. Shifting gears a little bit. one area that you've invested in on the food tech side is plant-based meat and also plant-based dairy companies. Plant-based meat has received quite a few mixed reviews over the past few years. Can you give us a bit of a pulse where we're at today when it comes to innovation within plant-based meat? What you find interesting, what you don't find interesting in plant-based meat and why overall you're bullish on the category?

38:36I know that it's a pretty broad category because there's a lot of different kind of ways that people are doing it. But why you're pretty still bullish on the consumer sentiment of plant-based for the future? I do think that we are still at the early innings of the category. And now we're going through kind of this trough of despair. And I think where we've fallen down as a market is we haven't seen anything that's hit really the triumvirate of taste and texture, price and nutrient density. Those three things have to be hit in order for it to succeed. And so for us, it's a very high bar given the market right now.

39:19And it's not like we're prioritizing plant-based alternatives to meat or dairy, but we're only investing companies if we think they can achieve those three criteria. And so I think that's where you're going to get power and you're going to get the next wave of growth. Because I do think Gen Z, which is the generation that will be behind us, is going to be consuming these in higher quantities, presuming you can actually hit that trifecta. So Gen Z is more focused on the environment than any previous generation, and they're consuming less meat and dairy than any previous generation. So like, for example, 8 % of Gen Z reported purchasing conventional cow's milk compared to 37 % of baby boomers.

40:05So I think that's like kind of a sign of where the market will go over the next few years. But nobody, no consumer is going to compromise. And I think you've got to hit those key criteria for a consumer to pick up a product and keep buying it. Yeah, I would just add is I think we're the category is today. I mean, we're still very much interested in the long run. I think, I think there's, there is a certain element of wait and see a little bit to see kind of where, you know, where is the category going to go? How long is it going to take? Because I think there's, yeah, there's certain players in that space that are not going to exist or going to change, change their mark.

40:51Right. And it was a category that somewhat got competed away against each other, We don't need 10 different plant-based chicken nugget companies. Maybe we need two or three. What's going to happen to those five or six that raise a bunch of money and are probably no longer going to exist? There needs to be a little bit of that. I think to some extent, the consumer conversation needs to evolve. I think anytime something gets hyped, you get the negative Nancy's that come to the market. But as continued innovation happens in that space, it's going to continue to grow. I mean, you know, I think it's, you know, 16 % of, you know, plant-based dairy is 16 % of the overall dairy.

41:32You know, plant-based meats is still sub 1%. So, you know, there's a long ways to go. And we think with continued innovation, that will happen. But, you know, it's got to be the right bet. And I think what Ashley, you know, mentioned is, you know, you just can't throw money after bad products. It's got to be great products. Mike, curious to hear your thoughts on the industry. I think it's interesting. I think that certainly there's been some concern sentiment around how, you know, plant based meat is, is really heavily processed versus, you know, real meat. And I do think that process has kind of become like a dirty word, even though, you know, in some ways, what does process mean?

42:14Right? Because it's such a broad kind of term. um i think you know i i will say that one of like a memorable interview that i had was i interviewed jason carp in austin texas a couple years ago and what i thought was an interesting concept that he was talking about was better for the planet versus better for you and sometimes there's misalignment between the two something that could be better for the planet might not actually be better for you and don't want to misrepresent him or anything. But I would say that some of the conversation was, you know, from his point of view was sometimes if it's better for the planet doesn't actually mean it's better for you.

43:01And maybe with some of the food tech stuff, it's still, we still don't really have all the data if it's actually better for you versus the alternative when it comes to meat and um so i still think with with that sentiment that i i do agree with both you that i think that we are in the early innings um of of plant-based meat um my thing that i that i think about when it comes to plant-based meat is really the price the the price side of it obviously it has to taste good it has to taste delicious um i'm i'm actually quite curious i'm interested in in the companies that actually don't try to make plant-based meat tastes like meat actually tastes something something different but it actually is delicious but it's not actually trying to replace the meat um what i have a hard time is on the price side i feel like sometimes plant-based meats is just way more expensive than normal meat and i understand like this is a this is you know food tech tech tech is very intensive and takes a lot of time to actually make this and where i'm at is can you actually get the price where it actually where it actually is comparable to a piece of meat i don't think we're we're quite there yet when it comes to price i'm curious how both of you think about price because um i still when i find you know even at you know food at food joints whenever you when you have a plant-based alternative you're usually paying extra for it for example it's very very small example but um i uh but for me like i i don't it's it's hard for me to justify in terms of paying extra for for plant-based meat if I know that maybe it might not taste as good as meat and everything, even though it might be better for the planet.

44:42And the jury's maybe still out if it actually is better for you. So those are my thoughts. I think 100 % you kind of hit that like holy grail I was talking about, right? Like why would I pay more for something that doesn't taste good and it's not good for me? So like you've got to have – like no one's going to compromise that much for a product. So you've got to hit that trial. I'm willing to pay more for something if it tastes really good and it's healthy for me. Or I'm willing to maybe pay price parity and take a little bit of compromise on the taste and maybe a little bit of compromise in nutrient density.

45:16If you can hit all three, that's the holy grail and that's what we're looking for. So you hit the nail on the head there. Yeah, I would say that, you know, and I think with our new fund, one of the things we're most excited about is really advancements in nutrition and the concept of, you know, food as medicine as really being a major driving factor. We think the consumer is going through a fundamental change in how they think about what they put in their food, in their bodies, right? I think Better For You was a starting point, but I think in the next five to 10 years, we're only going to take this to another level because consumers are much more knowledgeable about their bodies.

45:53People are wearables. They got whoops and auras. People are taking frequent blood tests. We're going to think there's going to be advancements in the microbiome that's going to unlock the value of understanding your gut. They all know in consumer. And at the same time, this concept of health is wealth. right consumers what do they care about right they care about their energy they care about their mood they care about doing as much as possible in a given day and if you are frankly eating bad stuff that is inflammatory that drains your energy that screws up your sleep you're not going to keep doing that like the the people who are you know if you look at not just the biohackers but this is like people in the middle right and you know this is why you're seeing non-alcohol and such a growing trend in consumers because people realize, yeah, this stuff is really affecting my life.

46:46Right. And so I think when you bring this back to the plant based thing is if you can give better products, people will pay for it. I think price is kind of a crux. You know, there are people who go to steakhouses and spend literally 60,$70 for a 12 ounce steak. You know, good meat is not cheap. I don't know where people think that, you know, now highly processed, antibiotic, heavy, you know, Meat that maybe is not the best for you is also... There's a lot of cheap options out there. Don't forgive me. And yes, if you're trying to get to a billion dollars of plant-based revenue, yes, price point may ultimately be something you got to get to.

47:24But to get to a really good, I think, plant-based business that has a great product, I think let's get a great product. And then, again, let's figure out price over time with scale. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's true. I mean, great meat tastes, I mean, great meat is, you know, very, very expensive too. I think what on the health and wellness side, since we've, you know, there certainly has been, right, a huge trend in terms of what people really thinking about what they're actually putting into their body and also rethinking, you know, what the standard American diet is and if it is actually, you know, good for you, right?

48:04And I think a lot of people would say standard American diet was not, is actually not a great plan to approach your diet if you want to eat healthier. I think that, but I think sometimes I do think that when better for you, it can come out as better for the planet or better for you in terms of what you're digesting. And I think also convincing the consumer that, hey, what you're actually digesting, what you're actually taking, that's maybe a plant-based form. I think we've seen maybe a bit of a setback a little bit from, you know, from that it's, you know, highly processed or what have you in terms of the ingredient choices that are currently there.

48:47I think once you can marry the two, and I think that this is like the future that hopefully we're all hoping for, right? That you can actually marry the two where actually something is better for you. And also, it also kind of appeals. And then also, consumers know that and marry that from that's also better for the planet. I mean, sign me up. That sounds great to me. Well, thinking of like all these different categories, I understand in terms of diversification for which categories, how you also think about different categories, whether it's, you know, software, whether it's food tech, whether it's brands.

49:28How also do you think about the duration of your fund? Because you might have food tech companies that, you know, you've said might not actually commercialize and come to market for, you know, a few years. Then you also have consumer brands that have already commercialized. Hopefully they have some revenue before, or I guess they need to have some revenue, right, before you make a bet on them. But so how overall do you think about how to actually return, like the actual fund cycle for Fund 3? Yeah, sure. I mean, it comes back to, I think I mentioned earlier, but this kind of mix of risk and reward.

50:03And so we want to have investments that return quicker. And that's usually ones that have more proof points to start. And then, you know, later investments are maybe larger moonshots, maybe take longer, have more IP associated with them. And then we expect those to kind of be a longer life cycle. But we are a seed stage fund and we have, you know, a long duration. And so hopefully our investors are in it for the long haul because that's what they signed up for. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we tell them like the point of venture is long term compounding returns. It's really hard to do that in any other asset class.

50:40And certainly it's even hard to do it with Inventor. So that's what we aspire to. It's hard at the earliest stages to predict how fast or how long certain things are going to be, what the exit markets are going to be, the exit cycles. Frankly, just we need to focus as investors is how do we invest in great businesses and help those people build great businesses and then, you know, let the exit markets kind of take their hold. And certainly, hopefully, if we're investing in great businesses, we'll have investors who are excited and patient to go along the ride with us. Cool. That's really helpful.

51:19Thank you. Yeah. I mean, certainly, VC is a long ride in terms of when you're actually with these founders and actually making investments for all these companies to kind of play out. Um, it's just, it's, it's kind of interesting. I mean, I had on someone that was investing in deep tech, for example, which probably, um, maybe might look similar to, you know, food tech in that, um, for, you know, the first few years, you really don't have anything in terms of revenue. And then all of, all of a sudden it kind of shoots up, um, and it kind of scales actually very, very quickly. Um, so it's kind of interesting just to see some of the differences between, um, that kind of model versus investing in a consumer brand that maybe is a bit more linear when it comes to the growth and how that kind of folds together from an investor perspective into returns.

52:16I know you all were investors in Foxtrot. I know we experienced a tragedy over the past last few weeks with Foxtrot closing down, which was awful to see. Really bad. Of course, awful for employees, awful for brands whose products were in Foxtrot. And also, of course, as investors too. But at the time, why did a retail concept like Foxtrot make sense as a venture investable business? Yeah. I mean, I agree with you. It was super disappointing for food and Chicago. And it's just a good lesson that we've been talking about this kind of throughout the session here around how a strong brand just can't route run bad execution at the end of the day.

53:08Like, you know, you can have the strongest brand in the world, but you've got to have operational focus. And that's, it's super important. So I do think Foxtrot was a really important innovative retail concept. It had a very unique customer experience that was unmatched. It provided a really strong place in the market, as we can see that everyone is depressed now that it's not here. I have to rethink where I go for coffee all the time now. So it was this new corner store that combined emerging hot products, food service and alcohol. And it was really unique in that it was multi-day part. You know, you had morning, day and night and multi-category.

53:49And so they, at the earliest stages when we invested, had really strong unit economics and potential for really strong unit economics across their store fleet. But retail is hard and you need to figure out your four wall unit economics before you expand. And if you raise too much capital at the height of the market and aren't cash efficient, that can cause some misaligned incentives and expansion probably too quickly. But coming back to kind of what we were talking about earlier, like I think you have to just stay disciplined and you can have a really strong venture outcome if you have an innovative concept and cash efficiency and actually figure out union economics.

54:28So I think Foxtrot had the potential to do that. They just hit the nail on the head. Yeah, I just had from like a venture level outcome, right? I mean, Starbucks, you know, McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, you know, these are massive businesses. And the number of restaurants, yeah, Cava, Sweetgreen, you know, and the number of restaurant chains that are out there that are in the 250 to 500 location that people have never even heard of. we've got some restaurant technology investments and, you know, I hear things like Dickie's barbecue. I'm like, I've never seen a Dickie's barbecue while I live in Chicago.

55:05Right. We don't, we don't, we don't, you know, uh, maybe dad go down to the Southwest. I see that type of stuff. Right. Or then, you know, so, so I think, you know, when retail is a, is a major, you know, major market, you can get venture like outcomes out there. Uh, it's a four wall unit, you know, economic driven business, uh, something that can be fundable too, right. There's, there's different expansion opportunities of franchise, not franchise. So it definitely falls within the venture landscape. And I think it's there. But I think the one thing of that segment versus some of the other ones is that it can be unforgiving when you make bad real estate choices or you tie yourself into long-term leases or long-term opportunities that can really kind of be a drain on capital.

55:53And if you're opening up stores, they have to be good stores. So you got this balance of, hey, I want to open up a bunch of stores, but they got to be good stores. And if you don't do that, you can put yourself on that side. So it's a difficult category, but I can say that about every single business. I think something we forget about startups is they're all hard. If they were easy, there would be many of them being successful. And so we're here to take on tough challenges. And it really, it sucks when it doesn't work out. Like, you know, it sucks for everyone involved. I feel for, you know, everyone who's put so much into it.

56:34So unfortunately, failure can be a bit ugly. And, you know, I'm so hopeful, though, that, you know, long term innovation can win out. Do you, I mean, you've named a few examples, you know, of retail concepts that have, of course, become household-made brands, you know, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A. With, like, the Foxtrot-type model, this kind of, you know, modern... I've only been to a couple of them, I'll be honest, because I'm here in LA. But modern kind of convenience store, coffee shop that... I mean, I love my experience in coffee, in Foxtrot when I've been. Um, but do you, do you think that this could be with this, um, with grocery or retail concepts of the size where it's not, you know, a full on grocery store?

57:26It's, it's, it's much smaller. Um, but, but, and it has, um, a lot of, you know, more premium brands, um, uh, per se that are, that are in it rather than, um, and kind of more, you know, up and coming brands, better for you brands, um, that are considered, um, in, in, uh, that it's in its aisles. Do you think that this concept could actually still work, knowing what you know now? A hundred percent. It all comes down to the productivity per square foot. And the productivity per square foot in their stores that were working was really high and really attractive. And so then it's about optimizing the store and all the kind of, you know, bottom line labor costs, et cetera, to make sure that it's a profitable store.

58:21And I think they had ample opportunity to do so. They just, you know, made some poor execution decisions. Yeah. I mean, I think that it was a complex concept with, you know, a cafe with a convenience in-store element. With that, you got to think about how the two live together. I think there were a lot of great synergies of the model, as Ashley mentioned, all the different day parts and how they kind of intertwined with each other. But that still needs to be honed over time and what that really looks like. I mean, if you look at even these retail concepts, they are constantly evolving. You go into Starbucks today and it's barely even a coffee shop now.

59:03You know, it's a, you know, it's a milkshake business with a bunch of refreshers and some heated up frozen food, you know, and some cake pops. You know, it's like that business is so evolved. And you know what? They're facing challenges right now. They just had one of the worst earnings in the last, you know, 10, 20 years. And, you know, there's some chirping going on there. So it's a, you know, retail requires, you know, kind of that evolution. I think, you know, I do think that Foxtrot, the configuration of it definitely makes sense. And you look at, you know, you know, Arowana's, you know, what's happening in the kind of grocery side, right?

59:38I mean, I, you know, I don't know the insides of that business, but, you know, if done well, it can really be powerful. And, you know, I think that there are with unique differentiation, different consumer experiences that can be very powerful and, you know, can be executed well. For each of you, I know, Ashley, I've asked you this question before, but I'm going to ask it again. And of course, Andrew, since you're a new guest, you haven't received this question yet. But what's one book that's inspired you professionally and one book that's inspired you personally? I'm an avid reader, so I will never run out of recommendations.

1:00:14Okay, great. That's good. I wasn't out my first time around. So I can answer again if you want me to. Yes, go for it. Go for it. Go for it. Okay. So professionally, I'd say The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. It is a book about how other people think. And he examines the origins of morality and moral foundations and how people just make moral judgments and choices. And so we often think that we make our decisions rationally and we come from a very rational perspective, but we all really do place kind of, it's really more about like instinct and group dynamics. And so we place different weight on different kind of moral foundations.

1:00:55So from this, I know it sounds like maybe it's not a professional thing, but I always assume that wherever people come from is rational. So whether I'm talking to founders, or I'm talking to other investors, or our portfolio companies, I, this was an enlightening book for me to understand, okay, how, what weight are they placing on their different priorities? and how are they different from what I would expect so that I can problem solve and really kind of come to a win-win solution, you know, across my interactions. So that's one book that's helped me tremendously professionally. And then personally, I'd point to Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

1:01:32It's a little bit of a woo-woo book, so you have to be in for that. But he simplifies how to quiet your inner monologue in your mind and harness your kind of internal energy. Um, so it's helped me kind of stop that mental chatter just to be an observer of myself without kind of filtering it through this narrative. So those are two extra books I'll point to. On my side, I'm not as much of an avid reader, so I may be fully exhausting this question. Uh, but I actually, and I have two professional ones and one personal, so I'm cheating a little bit, uh, professionally, um, one book just foundational.

1:02:10So I started my career in I worked for a business called The Monitor Group, which was a consulting firm that Michael Porter started. And one of the guys there eventually wrote a book with H.J. Lafley, who was the CEO of P &G at one point called Playing to Win. And it really walks through the seminal kind of foundational strategic framework that we used at the company at Monitor, which is about where to play, how to win, how to configure. and we've adopted that ourselves here at BlueSign to kind of build a platform for startups on go-to-market strategy around vision, playbook, and the engine, right?

1:02:46Which is really comes into like all the different pieces you need to get to product market fit. So I think it's a great strategy book. The book is very easy to consume. And I think a lot of startup entrepreneurs would kind of, I think, benefit from that read. So that's one profession. The second one on more the esoteric of the emotional side of professionals, a book by Ryan Holiday called Obstacle is the Way, which we as a team read as part of our book club. And, you know, I think the more and more we do investing in startups and the journeys of business, it is obstacle is the way. And we get to ride many different...

1:03:31Every startup is a roller coaster. We ride many with them. The reality is that the central point of that book is that you're going to find set obstacles. And if you as a person, those obstacles need to give you energy. You need to have a mindset of, we'll get on a call with the founder and this problem happened. Co-founder divorce, product issue, customer issue, you name it, right? I expect you to give me bad news. The only option is for us to think forward. And so obstacle is the way. We need to kind of move forward. You need to be able to channel that positively if you really want to be successful.

1:04:10And so I think that was a great just, I have to say, unfortunately, I say obstacle is the way too many times for all the challenges we face. So that one thing personally, and I'm like pseudo talking my own book here, but it's not my own book. It's my parents' book. But my parents wrote a book called Doubling Down. I forget the tagline, like the secret success to dual career couples. So both my parents were high, powerful executives. They had both amazing careers and in their retirement decided to write a book around what it was like for them on how to manage a dual career household and to do it successfully.

1:04:50Because I think if you ask them, you know, where their pride is, it's not just their professions, but having done an amazing job, you know, building a great family, and I can certainly test that. But this is really not a topic that many people talk about, right, is which is like, how, what is it like? How do you really, and I think it's not just about dual careers, but really, some of the foundational elements of, you know, great marriages and great partnerships in life. And I think there's some great lessons. And I've had many friends who've read it, and they've actually said this was actually really good.

1:05:23And so I do want to give them some publicity because... I will agree with that. It's a quick read, and it's super helpful because no other book talks to a couple, right? Everyone talks to the wife or the husband and what you can do individually, but how do you build a life together is super important. This is great. I don't. think i think we've had playing to win on before um i don't think we've had the other books mentioned and doubling down sounds um phenomenal because i agree that it's a subject area that that we don't really talk about or or or touch on so that's that's amazing yeah if anyone wants a signed copy just you know you know reach out to me and i'm sure i can arrange that you got some connections you got some connections got some connections just trying to get the gospel out of society.

1:06:15I'm not sure we've run a profit on that book yet. So I'm just trying to help them out a little bit. There we go. There we go. Well, Ashley and Andrew, thank you both so much for your time. This is so much fun. Thank you. This was a blast. So, so appreciate the place you fit in this industry. And there you have it. It was incredible having Andrew and Ashley on the podcast. Thanks again for coming on the show. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe on whichever channel that you're listening from. That really helps. And if you love this show, check out the newsletter at theconsiderbc.com. Hopefully it's helpful.

1:06:49Hopefully you dig it. Thanks again for listening.