She Sold Her Startup for $500 Million, Here’s Her Next Idea

26:05And I just liked it. I just liked the people there. I thought they were really just interesting and diverse. And did you feel like you were did you feel like you fit in or fit out at Harvard? Um, a little bit of both. You know, I got my job at New York City Ballet when I was just 16 years old. So I had already been working for two years as an adult by the time I went to college when many of my peers were, you know, leaving home for the first time and finally on their own. So I felt a little bit out of step with some of my peers. But I thought there was an incredibly interesting group of people all very passionate about something.

26:43And that was what resonated for me. Yeah. And when you were 16... I know I'm in Stamford territory, so I'm sorry. That's right. It didn't occur to me to come to California. Don't worry. I, uh, none of the Ivy Leagues even come close to me anyway, so it doesn't, yeah, I hold, uh, I don't hold a candle to any of them. Um, when you were 16 and you were doing the dance, the, the, doing dance, doing dance, I don't know. Dancing. Dancing. Did you leave home? Um, I was, most of my peers did, were living away from home. So, um, I danced at the School of American Ballet, which is the school attached to New York City Ballet.

27:25And most of the students come from all over the world and live in dormitories and dance away from their parents. I just happened to be from New York. So I was able to stay at home while I was dancing. And they pay you? Uh, they pay you, yes. Like you're getting paid a decent wage at 16 years old. Uh, I was getting paid. Okay, okay, okay, okay. This is not like, you know, MBA salaries, but yes. And then at that point, was the goal and ambition to do this forever? I just always loved both. I always loved school. I always loved learning and I always loved dancing. And I tried to juggle both as long as I could.

27:59But did you think you were going to be a pro dancer at some point? I mean, I guess you were a pro dancer. Did you think you were going to stay a pro? I don't know. I think I just sort of, I kept taking it one day at a time. So I took my dancing job in New York City Ballet. I deferred Harvard. And then when I couldn't defer anymore, I got a job dancing at Boston Ballet so I could go to Harvard. I was always trying to kind of juggle both and not have to decide. And then ultimately, it just became too challenging and I committed to going to school full time. And then now I'm just purely so fascinated.

28:30What is the schedule for that type of dance? Like, what did that look like at 14, 15, 16 years old? Yeah. So you would basically, you know, go to school for an hour or two, go to dance for a few hours, go back to school for an hour or two, then go to dance all night. And then the weekend would be sort of divided between dancing all day and doing tutoring all weekend to sort of catch up on what you'd missed. So pretty much continuously, 10 to 10, you're in school or dancing. And then how did you do that when you were at Harvard? So Harvard, you know, most of you, you're not in class as much. So you're in class only a few hours a week.

29:08There's a lot of videotaped lectures or you'd have friends take notes for you and just try to juggle it. It only lasted for about nine months. So it didn't last very long, but I tried. I stopped dancing at Boston Ballet and committed fully to going to school. Why? I just, I couldn't do both well. And I just don't like doing things badly. So I reached the point where I had to make a choice. and I had already effectively enrolled in school and made that choice. So I needed to give it my all. Did it break your heart? Yeah, it did break my heart. You know, being a dancer was my identity. You know, it was who I was.

29:45Everything from how I looked, to how I felt to my body, to how I defined myself. And suddenly one day I woke up and I wasn't that anymore. So not knowing who you are at, you know, 18, 19 years old is quite hard. Did you think about going back to dance? do you still think about? Well, I did after college. I tried to, you know, I went back for my early twenties. I went back to dancing professionally, which is how I got involved in teaching fitness. Um, and then I think I just kind of reached at that point, realized at that point that I had evolved and being a professional dancer wasn't really the right fit for me anymore.

30:20Um, but it took me a little bit to figure out that being an entrepreneur really was the best essence of who I am. So yeah, it's definitely very hard to do something from the time you're three years old and then at 19 to not do it anymore. And then how do you physically train for that type of dance? Like what types of muscles, like what, like I'm so curious now, like what, where, where is it demanding physically? Well, I mean, it's just incredible strength and flexibility combined. You know, you're very, very hypermobile, and then you have to control that flexibility. And then you've got to do that set to music while being also artistically beautiful, while also dancing with a larger group of people together.

31:05So it's a lot of things, a lot of athleticism and artistry combined. Huh. On your toes. Suspending your entire body weight on your toes. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, my feet don't look great. So luckily podcasts don't record your feet. Really cool. Really cool. Yeah. And then did you have friends at Harvard that were also doing dance with you? Or was that like, were those separate lives? No, those were separate lives. I had one or two friends who had danced professionally before coming to college who understood what I was going through. But I was the only one who was really trying to juggle both actively for a little bit there.

31:47It's a pretty unusual experience. Most dancers, you know, become professionals when they're 16, 17, 18 and maybe graduate high school, but don't generally go to college. It's pretty unusual. Why is that? Because it's just so demanding on your time? Yeah, it's just it's, you know, your dance career is very short. You dance your 20s, maybe into your mid 30s. So most people just go straight into a dance company in their late teens and then retire in their mid to late 30s and go into teaching dance or teaching fitness or working for a ballet company. Like, it seems like if you have your heart set on something, you just tend to figure it out and do it.

32:26In one point in your life, maybe that was dance. Then at a second point in your life, it became studios. Then at a third point in your life, it became mirror. Now it's become a new company. like uh um how do i ask this like how do you choose the right quest if you have so much self-belief that what you will put your mind to will ultimately play out but you know it's going to be like a time suck yeah yeah how do you choose the right quest i think you just you hit a personal problem that really pisses you off and you just keep thinking about it and it has to sort of resonate with what is what your values are as a port as a person at that point in your life so you know when I was building studios or building near I was figuring out my it was about me it was about my identity my body learning how to work out and feel good in my body again post ballet that was my 20s and my 30s now with board my new company it's very much about my family, my relationships.

33:40You know, I've had a little bit of professional success and now trying to really spend time with people I love in a way that feels good and meaningful. And so that's what's important to me now. And I'm building around that need. Super cool. Before I get to board. So you sold the numbers are out there. You sold the business for 500 mil. You were the solo founder, made a great amount of money. You didn't. Did you stay at lulu i stayed at lulu for a year okay for a year um why are you laughing no okay okay okay so you stayed you stayed at lulu for a year probably like had something in your contract to stay for a while make sure the businesses get integrated yeah um you probably never expected to make that much money no is that fair yes absolutely did you how did it feel on honestly when it hit your bank account you signed okay when you signed the deal yeah how did it feel uh surreal honestly um i think i mean it sounds crazy to say like money has never really been a motivator for me but um that's like never really what i envision when i think about success.

34:54I always envision, you know, impact on the world, impact on my team, impact on my customers. But certainly it's a surreal moment when you sort of have a lot of money and you've never thought about that before. So yeah, surreal. Could you do anything with it that you've always wanted to do? You don't have to answer if you can. I know, I'm thinking. Money is a very taboo topic. no no I'm not not at all you know it's so funny I um the first thing I did after I told my team was I actually left my apartment I went to the NYU bookstore down the block and I bought like a bunch of textbooks which sounds really nerdy but I felt like I'd spent you know so long really just like thinking about fitness and I just like wanted to be excited about learning something new I just wanted to just clear my mind of fitness and think about something new and I went to the bookstore and just like bought a bunch of books about stuff that looked cool and that's how i spent like the next month was just like getting excited again about learning and discovering new things um so that was the first thing i did with my with my money was a big in what you textbook haul are you kidding no it's the day of it's i did i literally i have a picture of me you know in front of my pile of textbooks looking very excited um and now you know probably before that I would have gone and looked at the cost of all those textbooks and thought to myself, okay, that's kind of crazy.

36:21But I just went in and did a wide sweep across art history and healthcare and all these topics. The day of? Day of. I left my, I turned off my Zoom and I walked outside and was like, I just want to read a good book and just use my brain in a fresh way and get excited about learning. How big was the team at that point? I think we were about 200 when I left. a little less than that. So you tell everybody. Yeah. Shock, awe, wow, excitement. Yeah, shock. Sadness? Shock and sadness for everyone. They enjoyed what they were building. Yeah. Okay. You're in person? It was over Zoom? This was when I was leaving, yeah.

37:04So when I was leaving, when we told them that we were selling, people were, I think were surprised but excited. And then when I told them over Zoom that I was leaving, I think people were sad and I was sad. Leaving Lulu? I was leaving Lulu, yeah. Yeah, okay. So after the year. Yes. And that year was the COVID year. That was, no, that was the end of 2021. So I left at the end of 21. Okay. Okay. Okay. But you've been doing COVID basically. We've been doing COVID. We were deep in COVID. Through that year. Exactly. Yeah. And the business was probably like tripled overnight. Yeah. It had gone crazy.

37:37Nuts, right? Nuts. Yeah. So did you regret it? Like, did you, okay. Like, let me just ask you this. Let me ask you this. I'll see a different way. If you had just seen your life's work, basically you sold it, and then a month later, you probably saw as much demand in that month as you had seen in the last years of that company. That's my guess. You could tell me if I'm wrong. You'd only been in business for 18 months. Right, okay. So probably more in the next month or two than all of those 18 months. We had a good 2020, yes. Okay, amazing, right? Of course. Of course. Like everybody comes home, everyone's trying to figure out what to do for fitness.

38:23Of course. Yeah. All the celebrities are posting about it at this point. That predates. That predates it. Predates COVID, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

38:35You're probably, you can't say this, so I will. You're stuck at a big company. You are a independent thinker Lulu's a big company Not like a tech company either And so I guarantee There was like a lot of cultural Things that you had to navigate Like I've gone from small company into big company I also am Maybe I have a deference for authority And it didn't go well for that long Like there was only so long that I could last in that type of environment Because I just couldn't get things done That was like the thing that mostly frustrated me. Yeah. And my view, not yours, was like big companies are so far away from a meritocracy.

39:20And like in a startup, like it's just the true essence of earning it. And people get rewarded for earning things. And it's just not that way at a big company. And my observations are always that people that come from a world that is about meritocracy and about autonomy and reaping the rewards of being a driver, not a passenger, when they go into a big company like this, start to go. It just like it orcs every bone in their body because it's like so counter to their values.

40:00is that it was not a fit for me it wasn't a fit for you no were you a little bit salty that maybe if you had waited three months the business is worth triple no honestly i i i feel like um i made the right decision with the information that i had at the time it was the right decision for for the team it was the right division for our customers It was the right decision for our investors and for the future success of the business. So I've never looked back and thought, you know, what if three months, what if six months? Was it sad to leave and then watch the company basically go to zero? I mean, it was sold to Peloton and doesn't exist anymore.

40:49Of course, absolutely. I was sad for watching something we had built not be enduring. You know, do I feel like I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder because I thought we built something great and it doesn't endure? Absolutely. But I've never second guessed that decision at the time. Like we made the decision. It was the right decision with the information we had. Do you think the company died as soon as you left? That's awfully arrogant. But like, do you believe that? Can I maybe reframe it? Actually, I won't reframe it. Let me clarify the question. Sure. Like you were the solo founder of this company.

41:25you were probably fighting battles that only you could fight internally inside of Lululemon. And I think when probably you stopped fighting, I have no idea, so you tell me, but when probably you couldn't fight that fight anymore, nobody else really had the moral authority in many ways to be able to fight on your behalf. Yeah, I think that's accurate. Is that fair? That's fair. Okay. I'm not like trying to be salacious for anything. No, no, no. I am very curious. No, I mean, I think, um, And it's just it's a really challenging marriage between a very new, fast growing tech company and a very mature retail company.

42:05And there was incredible overlap of brand values and customer base and really good people on both sides. But fundamentally, just two very different companies that were not only learning in real time about how the other operated. You know, as you said, I never had a job. You know, my first boss was the CEO of Lululemon, but also doing that through a global pandemic where we were navigating things that neither side had ever navigated before. So it was just a very hard situation and just definitely not a fit for me personally.

42:42Can I keep asking about this or no? I can stop if you want. No, no. I can stop. I'm happy to add anything, anything useful I can add. Immediately, did the distribution fire hose turn on with Lulu and Mirror went into all retail locations? Yes. I mean, it was phased, but we were... I'm trying to think how many stores ultimately we were in. I think we were in probably 100-something right away and then 300-something ultimately across North America with some pop-up appearances in Europe. And with the like, with the like tension, let me just give you an example of where I think tension could be. And then you tell me like yes or no.

43:20Sure. Like, for example, where they put it in the store and then how they marketed it, where they put it and what you thought about the brand relative to their brand. they probably had a particular way that they thought about Lululemon and you had a very particular way about how you thought about mirror and even small micro decisions about how you would place something in the store and educate customers about it would that be like a small example of something that would eat your life yeah I mean you know the Lululemon retail stores and team are the heart of that business I mean they are incredible passionate um people who like love their products, but it's a very different education process to sell someone who is coming into a store to buy a pair of pants on a$1 ,500 piece of technology.

44:12So I don't know if any of us had a clear answer on how to do that, but it was definitely very challenging to try to get a team used to educating customers on clothing, to educate on a piece of electronics, which is a much more involved, hands-on sales process, and to get that customer to be in that mindset. You know, just because you love to work out doesn't mean when you walk into a store to buy pants, you want to sit and watch a demo for a technology object. So it was interesting and very challenging, not even just the placement and all that, but sort of how do you think about training a team to sell a very different kind of product to their customer?

44:52Was it all online distribution at that point until Lulu bought it? We had done a few stores. So we had New York, Stanford Mall and The Grove, L.A. OK. And is there a short, short term? Is there like a counterfactual that maybe you could have just built more stores? Like, I don't know, like, is there a way where maybe that's impossible? Like you can't get acquired by Lululemon and then be like, all right, we're going to have. A mirror store like next to Lulu, I can't imagine that would work, but. Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely there's lots of counterpoints of brands that are really maintained as separate entities with their own, you know, stores and their own presences and really sold as independent brands.

45:38That was not the choice that was made here. We were integrated into the stores and we closed down our stores. And was that decision already made as the acquisition was happening or did that get made post acquisition? That was made prior to the acquisition. OK, yeah. So you were cool with it. Yeah, I mean, our stores were new at that point. You know, I think the oldest store at that point was, I don't know, maybe nine or 12 months. So, and I mean, Lululemon is best in class at operating retail stores. So, but it's definitely, it's a challenge. It's a challenge to be a shop and shop. You know, you're a tech product shop and shop in a retail store.

46:14That's different. And then Lulu sold it to Peloton? Yes. For like parts? I wasn't present when that deal happened, but they stopped selling the hardware product. Existing mirror owners now receive Peloton content instead of mirror content. But they still have that physical form factor. Basically, the existing mirror user base continues to operate with Peloton content streamed to mirror devices. And they don't sell that physical form factor no longer exists. They don't sell anymore hardware, no. So Peloton content is now streamed to mirror devices. Does that bum you out? That bums me out. Not because it's Peloton.

46:56Peloton's an incredible company, but the content is not recorded the same way. It's taking content that was made for a landscape bike tablet and trying to put it on a portrait-oriented mirror device. So the visual experience of the mirror now is no longer exists. You can't see yourself and the content the same way. I know you're working on something else. Yeah. I did just see a story about how there's rumors that Travis Kalanick is coming back to Uber to do self-driving. Oh, gosh. Amazing. Is there an opportunity for you to have your... No, I'm honestly, I'm so excited about what we have built at Bored, and I think it's just a much bigger opportunity.

47:47Can you talk about it? Yeah, absolutely. So Bored is the first ever face-to-face game console that takes the best of Bored games and the best of video games and puts them together into an entirely new platform. So we basically spent two years... Is it here? I've heard it's here. It is. It's next door. Can I grab it? Well, I'll grab it in a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we spent two years training a 24-inch touchscreen to do what no other touchscreen can do, which is recognize physical pieces. So our technology allows our board to know what the piece is, where it is on the board, and what it's doing in real time.

48:28So it creates an entirely new way of playing games together around this shared device. So a new, entirely new platform. Come on. And how long have you been working on this for? It's been about two years now. Are you nervous? I am nervous. I'm excited. You know, we haven't really shown the device to many people. So it's really, it's exciting to put all this work into something and then finally get to share it. Have you raised money? We have. We raised a seed round from folks that were previously invested in Mir. And what, tell me about the inspiration for this. So, you know, when I started Mirror, I was pregnant with my first child.

49:09And then, you know, fast forward, I now have five kids. So I've got two kids and three step kids that range from two to 21. And we were really struggling to find ways for everyone to connect. And for me, like games, be it board games or video games, have always been the way that I've come together with friends and family. And it's really challenging to do today because most of family time is like you on a phone or an iPad in front of a movie. And so the thinking was like, can you take the feel and the togetherness of board games and mix it with the interactive magic of video games and create a really new way to play?

49:45um and so did the same thing i did with mirror tried to build sort of like a hacky prototype using physical pieces on an android tablet realized it was cool and it was fun but we had to figure out a way to actually build the technology because traditional tablets don't recognize more than 10 fingers and they don't recognize physical pieces so we had to build an entirely new custom touch stack uh to make that happen tell me what is this so that is a physical game piece. So we basically have built, you know, our pieces don't have any electronics or sensors in them, but they do have a special unique pattern on the base that's made with capacitive material that allows the board to recognize what the object is, where it is, and what orientation it's at in real time.

50:31And so we have basically a custom software stack that takes the raw data coming out of the touch sensor and then uses embedded AI on the device to translate what the piece is and what it's doing and then we feed that to our sdk so developers can build games in unity or unreal to take advantage of this physical piece meets digital world why are there seemingly two sides to this piece um that piece uh on the side that has the signifier goes down this side yep uh like this that this yeah this one is the side that's read by the board okay Okay. Oh, cool. So that's actually for a game that's sort of a bit of a take on Lemmings.

51:16It's like a reverse platformer. You have these little creatures that are moving through the world and you have to use physical pieces like stairs, a cannon, blocks to get them through the world. So each of these bags that have the pieces in them correspond to different games. A specific game, exactly. And then, sorry, just like, if you want to play chess, like this is certainly not designed to take a refactoring of an old game into a digital format this is not what that's meant to be yeah i mean i think that was the sort of one of the core product decisions for us was do we sort of port over existing games onto this large multiplayer screen or do we create new native experiences and we felt like we're completely changing how games are played, and so it made sense to make new and native games.

52:07So it comes with you? It comes with me. I will consider leaving it with you, depending on your desired use case of it. Well, aren't the use cases defined? Like, aren't I relatively constrained by the games that you have on there that I'm going to play? That's true, yeah. We have, so you've got 12 games that come with it at launch, and then we're building a developer ecosystem. So the App Store will launch next year and our goal is to get developers to build new experiences on board and then over time to give consumers tools to build themselves. So first off device and then able to load games on board and then eventually on device to build their own game experience.

52:51Where are you selling it? We're selling it at board.fun, our website. And then for holiday, we also have a partnership with Camp and we're selling in their retail stores across the US. And you're not doing it on Amazon or anything? No, not for lunch. Why not? Maybe they won't pick it up. You tell me. But like, why not go to a, I don't know, a retailer and use their distribution channels? Yeah, I mean, I think we had really, I think you certainly reach a point in your life cycle where going to big box makes sense. But early days, having a direct relationship with your customer and getting those learnings really quickly is very valuable.

53:27So that was our playbook at Mir that we found very valuable is we sold D2C and then select retail pop-up and learned a lot. And so since this is going to be launched tomorrow, this episode won't be out tomorrow. Yeah. So it'll be launched when everybody hears this. Yes. What's your launch strategy? Who's going to pick it up? Like, are you like, I imagine being a second time founder having sold this company already, like you have interesting ways to do cool launches. What is it going to look like? Yeah. So we're launching again on the main stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, which is really exciting. That's where we launched Bored seven years ago.

54:01Mirror. Mirror. I get them confused now. Which is where we launched Mirror in 2018. Is that true? Yeah. Okay. So running it back there, I think one of the core learnings from Mirror was just the importance of making your customer your advocate and building that into the product experience. And one of the really cool things about board games or multiplayer games is that for every game you sell, you tend to sell one and a half to two just through play. And so we've really thought about that early days. And so we're doing a lot of game night experiences where we're inviting groups of people together to play or we're loaning out boards to groups and letting people be our advocates early days.

54:43So we think that will be really powerful here. How old are your kids? I go to almost nine, 17, 19, 21 stepkids. Have they played it? We play it every day. I mean, that's one of the core things for me is like we would try to play board games and we have to play something that the littlest could play, which was boring for everyone else. Or we'd try to play video games and the teens would like smoke us because they've just logged so many hours on modern controllers and there's like too much hand-eye coordination. And so every game here, because the piece is the controller, it's really intuitive. You put the stairs down, the character walks.

55:19You put the knife down, it cuts the fruit. So it's really easy for people of various ages just to jump in right away and play, but they all scale up. So my littlest one knows how to play box because she can put down Legos, but she doesn't understand the complex spatial strategies necessary to really do well in strata. But it allows everyone to be at the table. You know, everyone can be a gamer. What was the hardest thing about building it? Finding the fun. I mean, you take hardware, software, and then games, that entertainment layer of just finding the fun is totally different than creating fitness content, which is more formulaic, honestly.

55:59And then making 49 original game pieces, all of which are tracked by the device. So it's a lot. The pieces are tracked by the device, which correspond to the game, which are purpose built for the game that you made up from your imaginations. All original, yeah. with a form factor that I've never seen before. So I'm assuming you invented this version of a form factor. Yeah. Does it have to be plugged in? Has to be plugged in. That makes sense. Yeah. So, I mean, we could do an embedded battery pack or a plugged battery pack. Is it going to be at home? Yeah. I think the feeling was, you know, that can be a V2 if people want to have embedded battery.

56:36Or we could do larger screen sizes or smaller screen sizes. 500 bucks? That seems pretty reasonable. Yeah. I mean, when you think about, you know, an iPad is north of$1 ,000 and it's a personal device. This is a shared device for your whole household to find value. It's got to be expensive for you to make all of this. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things we do have a pretty strong competitive advantage in is we understand screen technology and display technology. So we were able to manufacture the hardware efficiently from V1 because we have a lot of learnings from here about how to make display products.

57:12And also, you know, I learned recently a Nintendo phrase, which is withered technology with lateral thinking, which I love, which is what we're doing here. This is really commodity hardware. This is mature, affordable touchscreen technology, but so much innovation at the software layer. So we're able to, you know, to be cost efficient on the core device. Have you met Bing at KP? Do you know Bing? Seth, next door, who leads games for us, knows Bing. From Zynga. Yeah? Yeah, he sold his company to Blizzard. He used to run World of Warcraft. So he knows Bing from those days. There you go. Yeah. Bing would be all over this.

57:52Oh, we should chat with him. You should definitely chat with Bing. Yeah, yeah. Happy to connect you. Yeah, I would love him. He's a legend. He's the best. I know. I've heard. He's the best. Yeah. He took me down to Bobby Kotick's house. Oh, cool. For Activision. And then he's taking me down to L.A. next week with Spiegel. with evan spiegel yeah he's like he's the guy thing is the guy uh yeah yeah um this is amazing what were the things across all the things that we just talked about the pieces the software the integration the hardware yeah that was like most difficult to actually solve for the games yeah finding the fun in the games is incredibly challenging and just um i mean every single piece needs to be trained to operate in real time with no latency.

58:39So the amount of training hours and modeling work and all of the incredible sort of IP that goes into making every single piece work perfectly in real time for gameplay is just a lot. So to make sure that when this stair goes down, the system immediately knows that it's a stair. It's a stair. It's going down when the person picks it up and moves it over there, that the stair has moved, that the cannon has gone down, the blue gets shot right out of it. And how do you train, how are you training that? These are all proprietary models that the team has built. So we're really lucky that our, um, our HCI team is a group of guys that had worked together before on, um, self-driving cars and scooters.

59:22They had built a startup that they sold and then they came over as a full team. So they had a lot of experience working together with sort of similar touch recognition. And so you built your own model to train all of these individual pieces across the games. You have to. There's no other way. Yeah, proprietary models, training. And right now, is this connected to Wi-Fi? We only connect to Wi-Fi to download the games and then we don't play on Wi-Fi. So everything is local on the device. Correct, yeah. This wouldn't have been possible in 2018. It's only possible now because of how lightweight way we can build on device, on a compact device.

59:58Did you decide to start the company and then met the team that was doing all of this modeling work or did those two things happen at the same time? Yeah, we had built like hackier versions before I met Ryan, who's our CTO. So Ryan was, you know, I love my LinkedIn, was sort of like a LinkedIn to a LinkedIn kind of connection. And And then he brought some of his guys with him as they rolled off their other company. How many people are in the company now? So we're very lean. I think we're probably 15 in-house, something like that, 15 or 20. And then we work with a lot of contractors and a lot of partners.

1:00:39For the games, I imagine. For the games, yeah. So in-house, our game team is doing sort of game design and some in-house work. And then we partner with larger studios to sort of collaborate and execute against the vision. So a lot of people have touched it. A lot of great studios. This is so cool. Oh, cool. I'm glad to hear it. I just so wasn't expecting this. I think that's good. Hopefully in a positive way. A lot of times I have second time founders on here that have been quite successful. And my observation is that anytime you have sold your first company and it went really well or you went public, there is a real burden that comes with that, which is that you're always worried about being cast in the shadow of your first success.

1:01:28And said another way, like, there is, from my observation, like a deep insecurity of like, was it me? Was it the market? Was it the timing? Did everything come together? It did. By the way, all those things were like N of one events that led to mirror being sold in this case. And thinking about all of those things, having to come together again is I think like, honestly, why a lot of people don't do another company. That's my opinion. And for you to be doing another company that is so creative and unique is so impressive. And I think what I'm most impressed by is like you are not worried about being cast in the shadow of your previous success.

1:02:21I don't think that. I mean, maybe it's the ballerina in me, but it's always just like me versus myself. It's like my problem, my standards for myself and just trying to build excellent things that can help as many people as possible. I always think sort of the score takes care of itself like I don't really worry about the victory conditions I just kind of stay focused on what I feel like needs to get built and I try to execute in a way that makes myself proud so I hope it works I mean I hope it makes lots of people happy and brings people together in a way that adds value and it really endures in a way that me or didn't but um I'm not scared of failure no no so like over the last couple of weeks as you've gotten closer to launch.

1:03:05Have you not had more sleepless nights thinking like, what if nobody cares? Oh, I'm thinking about all sorts of things, but not generally that. What are you thinking about? It's just a laundry list of things across the entire business. I have just, you know, the whiteboard on the wall of like things on fire by vertical. And then I just cycle through them in my mind from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed and trying to do my best to spend time on the stuff that really does matter. That's always the challenge for me. It's because I, if I want to execute well and everything, I have to decide when some things can be executed, not as well, and it's okay.

1:03:41And that, that becomes hard in the, in the, in the final minutes to just let some things drop and say, it's good enough. We got to go, we got to launch. And so you are completely detached from the outcome of what happens. I mean, obviously I hope it's a big success and everyone loves it but i feel good that we've built something really cool and i love it i mean i literally use i use it every day with my family my two-year-old like goes to bed asking you to play more board so to me that's like a success how many have you built like how many do you have just like what if it goes crazy tomorrow yeah so um we'll see i mean i think we're we're well equipped to scale pretty quickly for the holiday season so um if we sell a million we'll be in trouble if we sell tens of thousands, we'll be okay.

1:04:28Hundreds of thousands will probably be okay. But it's definitely just going to be a tight timeline with holiday ship. That will be our biggest challenge is getting things to people in time for the holidays. And tomorrow at TechCrunch, how are you going to demo this? So that's been the big debate. I think where we've landed is we're going to show it up on the big screen on video, and then we're going to have demo units set up in the expo hall so people can come and play it live. Okay, but you'll have like you and your kid or something video playing on screen playing board. Yeah. We're going to have like our launch commercial playing up on the screen.

1:05:01And then you're going to get up there and talk. Yeah. I'm going to do a three or four minute little talk and then we're going to do a Q &A and show the video and then people hopefully will come to the expo hall and come play some games with us. Wow. Yeah. You got to come by. I'm so, I was just, I was actually just thinking if I, I have a flight to Dallas tomorrow at like two o 'clock and I was like, I wonder if I could. That's really cool. Yeah. Well, if you come in the morning, we can pull back the curtain for you. All right. All right. It's like the, this is so random. It's like the Steve Jobs, like, you know, the movie where like the whole movie is set around his launches.

1:05:39Yeah. You know, on stage. My team was like, do you have your black turtleneck? I was like, no turtlenecks. Just your green one. Yeah, I know. Just your green one. Do you get nervous before you go on stage or something like this? The bigger the audience, the better I am. That's what I'm used to. You know, I'm used to dancing in front of 10 ,000 people. If I can't see your face and there's more people, I'm happier. If I could dance and not talk, I'd be even happier. But smaller, more intimate audiences makes me more nervous. Yeah. You're kidding me. Yeah, I'd much prefer big stage. I mean, that's what I've done since I was seven years old.

1:06:12It's Lincoln Center. So I'm used to big audience. Do you know who's going to pick it up? I don't know. We'll see. Yeah. Hopefully lots of people. this is so cool yeah i love it i'm glad you're excited that's uh energizing for tomorrow this is so cool how did you pick the the um the beige uh exterior yeah we had so many debates i mean ultimately where we landed is so it's magnetized so it comes off so we're going to sell start selling frames so you can put on different colors different wood finishes ultimately we wanted something as neutral as possible for the base frame just so it could work in as in as many home environments as possible.

1:06:52And there's something about the wood finish that made it feel just made it feel more like a piece of home decor, which is what we wanted. And was it always obvious to you that it was going to lay flat on a table versus a mirror that lays against the wall? Yes, always. Shared device to sit around, gather around. And how many people can play it once too? No, most of the games we play four to six. Six. Yeah. Okay. We thought it was important that everything is really scalable. So most of the content scales from one up to many. Most of them have multiple modes, so you can play competitive or cooperative.

1:07:24We really like cooperative games. So like we have a game, Chop Chop, you have the pieces there where you're all managing a busy kitchen and you're using like your knife and your spoon and your spice grinder and the tickets are coming in with different point values and you've got to really communicate to build the dishes. So we think it's really fun to have that mix of player count modes and then duration. So like the arcades are a few minutes long and a strata session is probably 45 minutes to an hour. So it can be a full game night or like a quick hit before dinner. And these are labeled, the pieces are labeled corresponding to the game?

1:08:00Yeah, so you get - Does each game have a unique set of pieces? Yeah, so we have a little, so the device comes in its own box with its power cord and then you have a separate piece box and each game has its own storage bag that tells you what pieces are supposed to be in it. So most of the games have one to five pieces. Are your kids out here? My little one is here and my older one is back in New York in school. You can't ditch third grade. You can ditch preschool. Is he going to come and watch Mom on stage tomorrow? I think so. Yeah. If I think if she's, if she's awake, she's hopefully she's got a pass.

1:08:34She's got a TechCrunch badge. So hopefully we'll see. That's cool. That's definitely cool to have a, to have a kid in the audience for sure. I'm like totally blown away. Oh, yay. I love it. I'm like totally blown away. This is so cool. I'm so stoked for you. I'm hopeful. Fingers and toes crossed. How much did you raise? Is that public? We raised about 15 million. Okay. And is this expensive to like, was this expensive to do? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I think the positive thing about building these types of games is these are not AAA games. You know, you don't have super complex graphics in worlds.

1:09:12So these are, you know, our games are tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand builds. They're not multimillion dollar games, which I think enables us to build this launch suite pretty efficiently. And then from here, we really are stoking in developer ecosystems. So, you know, we have an SDK. We want people to reach out and start to build on board. So the next, you know, the next hits from here, you know, probably won't be ours. They'll be someone else's. Yeah, as long as your hardware is good enough. The hope is that the developers will create hit games on your behalf. Yeah, I mean, I think the amazing thing is of this first 12, we partnered with a bunch of studios and great studios with like award winning games.

1:09:50And they were just really excited about the opportunity to like play with the technology. So we were able to work with, you know, Chur Studio that helped us with Strata. They made Manifold Guard and this amazing indie game because they wanted to build a physical digital experience. And so they took time out of their busy slate of game development to work with us because they liked the tech. So I think hopefully there'll be lots of developers that feel that way. It's easy to build on board. So if you can build in Unity or you can build in Unreal, you can build on board. So it's not like you're learning VR, AR.

1:10:22You know, our SDK just makes it very easy to learn how to integrate pieces into experiences that you're already building on a traditional game engine. So there's much less of an on-ramp than there would be with, you know, other technologies. Are you hiring? It depends how this goes. Yeah, we'll see. I think, yeah, right now we're focused on launching and raising our Series A, I think. And then certainly there'll be some hiring from there. And your Series A is all going to be timed. This is all coming together. Tomorrow. You're building the plane as you fly it right now. Exactly, yeah. So once we go live tomorrow, our Series A tour begins.

1:11:02That's why. You don't want to leave this here because you want to bring it to all of our frenemies. We've got some other friends to meet with the board. All of our frenemies up and down the road over here. That's why. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, no, we would love to show it to Bing there or anyone else here who wants to see it. I will, I'll ping him on it. Yeah, yeah. For sure. He's going to go, I mean, he's also the perfect, like. Yeah, I love it. We met someone who also was involved with Skylanders or one of the toys to life who was like, you gotta talk to Bing. Like Bing always wanted physical digital, so.

1:11:39So cool. Yeah, it'd be cool. Thank you for doing this. Yeah, thank you for having me. When you hear the word grit, what do you think of?

1:11:50Just running through walls.

1:11:54Just running through walls to make things happen. Amazing. I'm so stoked for you. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, well, we should show you. So they're sitting here. You want to play some games? Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, let me go get some. That's it for now. If you liked the episode, please leave us a review or go back into the archives where we've done more than 200 episodes with some fantastic folks. This podcast is a Kleiner Perkins production, and I'm Juven. Thanks for listening.