Brynn Putnam: Founder of Mirror and Board

23:01Well, if it makes you feel any better, no matter what their experience is of going back to work after having a baby, I don't think anyone in America feels like they've done it correctly. So it feels like a sadly universal experience in some way or another. Talk to me about actually building this product and taking it from your vision to actual reality. What were the biggest hurdles? What went easily or well?

23:24Brynn Putnam:I think something that went well and that enabled us to move pretty quickly. So I think, you know, we went to market about a year and a half later, which I think is quite unusual for original hardware, software and content, is having a really clear vision for who the customer is and what the customer wants and not building things that they don't want. Sounds simple, but I think oftentimes people who build hardware in particular or technology in general tend to over-engineer things because they can, because they have the ability to build. So they continue to build more features and more things.

24:05Brynn Putnam:I think the same thing often happens when you have a very large team. You know, there's something about the constraints of having very few people and fewer engineers that I think kept us very focused on who was our customer and what did they want. That went very well and saved us from some pain. I think things that didn't go well is I was insecure about my abilities in certain areas, you know, finance and some areas of technology. And so at times I didn't trust my own voice or my own vision. And I think those times sometimes took us off course. I think it's really important when you're a founder to know where you're going and plow ahead and obviously hire great and smart people and take their input.

24:47Brynn Putnam:but ultimately to drown out the noise. And in the early days, I didn't always drown out the noise. Well, I also feel like we are set up to think that it's so complicated and so above us and that we couldn't possibly understand it. And a lot of it is just common sense. Absolutely. I mean, there are certain aspects that require technical skills, but I was always insecure about the fact that I had never taken a business class and knew nothing about marketing or any of that stuff. I have great respect for education, but I don't always think like having those bona fides necessarily changes anything, especially when you're making a product for you and for a customer that you understand so inherently, like that's the most important part.

25:25But we, I think especially as women, our insecurity gets the best of us in those moments.

25:30Brynn Putnam:Yeah. Okay, so tell me about your official launch at TechCrunch in 2018. We have been very in stealth up until that point. You know, I think we were so worried about someone seeing what we were doing because we were creating this new product in this new category. So we really hadn't shown it to very many people. But then we had this big reveal on the main stage at TechCrunch where we did a demo of the product and launched publicly. And I remember sort of walking on stage and thinking to myself, I wonder if anyone's going to like this. We haven't shown it to very many people. And this is going to be a very public failing on this big stage in front of all these people if they don't.

26:09Brynn Putnam:And then we were really fortunate. it. It was immediately very well received. And our first holiday was kind of a rush. You know, I remember being at my family's house and hearing someone scream in the other room. And Alicia Keys had posted on Instagram, her husband had gifted her a mirror. And you would have thought she'd gotten a pony or something. Like her reaction was just so outsized and positive. And, you know, there was many more sort of celebrity influencer moments to follow in that first quarter that really made our launch astronomical. So we were very lucky. How do you keep up with demand when you're planning for something like that?

26:49Because that feels like a difficult problem, like a great problem, but a bad problem.

26:53Brynn Putnam:You can't plan for a crazy launch Christmas. You just have to do your best to show customer empathy as you try to catch up with the demand and deliver things as quickly as you can. But, you know, we went into the next year in a pretty serious backlog that we sort of dug ourself out of over the course of Q1. Definitely a good problem to have. So by your second year of business, Mirror had reached$150 million in revenue and you had grown your team to 125 people, which is like mind-blowingly wild. Talk to me about scaling this business. What was easy? What was challenging? Where did you need advice?

27:31Where were your strengths?

27:32Brynn Putnam:One thing that we did well early days is we knew that we were creating a new category and that we were a new company at a premium price point. So we needed to seem bigger and more real than we were. We needed people to trust us and have the confidence that if they invested in me or that the product was going to be there and we were going to continue to create great content. And so we sort of took the approach of showing up as a big brand, I would say. We put ads on television very early, including the first Super Bowl after launch. We opened a pop-up store on Fifth Avenue. We got billboards and did subway takeovers.

28:10Brynn Putnam:And we really made sure that if people heard about us, that we felt like a real and established brand that they could trust. So I think a lot of our growth was partially due to that early days. And then some of it was just a bit of luck in the incredible network effects of the product. So, you know, early days, we had some celebrities who purchased gifts and then people would come to their home and they would see the mirror and the celebrity would show it off and be very excited about it. And then the second celebrity would buy a gift. So we reached a point where just the celebrity network effect was incredible.

28:43Brynn Putnam:And that, of course, was helpful in providing validation for other customers to buy. Not intended, but definitely taught me about just the benefit of your customer as an advocate and the importance of that. So in 2020, just two years after launch, you sold Mirror to Lululemon. Let's go back in time. How did the opportunity come up? What made you decide to say yes? And were you concerned about selling so quickly when the company was so young? Since I started in fitness, I've had a relationship with Lululemon. And Lululemon has an incredible ambassador program where they partner with local fitness instructors and showcase them in their stores and work with them on product development.

29:27Brynn Putnam:So I had known the local team at Lululemon since my early days of teaching fitness. And that led to a mere partnership where we worked together to create content with Lululemon ambassadors and do some co-marketing events. And that kind of naturally evolved into a bigger conversation about how the brands could work together more long term. But, you know, as you said, we were young, we were growing really quickly. Everything was very exciting. We were definitely not for sale. But it just felt like this incredible alignment of brands and audiences and values that would take this business and just ensure that it became this generational company that really had impact in making people's lives better.

30:09Brynn Putnam:And for me, that was the goal. It was just sort of scale of impact and the enduringness of the company. And it felt like a partnership with Lululemon was going to ensure that. I love it. I love a fast success story. I mean, I love all success stories, but like, oh, that just feels like so exciting and so cool and frankly unusual. So like what a delight. I'm just thrilled for you. So talk to me about the acquisition itself. You decided to stay on after purchase. I'm assuming then you suddenly had to report to a boss. Was that a good thing? Was that a bad thing? What were the expectations? Like, what was the reality?

30:44Because I feel like you'd been such an independent person for so long that coming into a more formal structure has to be a little head spinning.

30:51Brynn Putnam:Yeah, I think what people don't realize is they think that the acquisition occurred after COVID or as like a result of COVID, but the acquisition actually occurred prior to COVID. And so we spent the first part of the acquisition navigating COVID as a young business. So taking our production studios and moving them into our instructors' Airbnbs. How do you live stream workouts from an instructor's Airbnb in Vermont? Or moving our factories from Mexico to Mississippi because our factory was being shut down. You know, just real business pain we were sort of navigating in addition to joining a much larger company.

31:29Brynn Putnam:So I think there was certainly that challenge, just learning how to lead a company. And then obviously, you know, the positive was that COVID had a huge growth impact on the business, but that was a lot to absorb while also being absorbed by a larger company. And I think for me personally, I went from being a founder where I had to have trust and confidence in my taste and vision. Not that I was right or wrong, But it was just, it's my taste and my vision and setting that direction for my team to navigating a lot of stakeholders in a matrixed organization. And so it was really a transition from founder and CEO to GM of a business unit reporting into the CEO of Lululemon.

32:13Brynn Putnam:And on the positive side, I certainly learned a lot. I had never had a boss. I certainly never worked in a large corporation. but for me, I think my superpower is my taste and my instincts. And so it felt like a better fit to be able to go back to building and going back to following my gut. So how long was the timeline between thinking, you know, I've gone through this acquisition, I've done some time at Lululemon, ultimately, I think I'm better off starting something else. Or did you think like, oh, I'm going to leave. And then the idea came for your next project. Like walk me through all of those timelines, please.

32:49Brynn Putnam:Yeah. So, you know, I spent the first year very immersed in the business and ensuring that the product and the team was, you know, hopefully set up for success. And then as I reached the end of the first year, it was feeling like it wasn't going to be a long-term fit. And so started to have conversations with the team there about how to transition. And that process was reasonably fast. I'm a decisive decider. So once I decided that I was ready to go, we moved pretty quickly and I had no plans for what I was going to do next. What I did was I told my team and then I went to the NYE bookstore, which was next door down the block.

33:26Brynn Putnam:And I just bought a bunch of books about things that seemed interesting and just sat in my living room for a bit, just reading and thinking and learning and getting excited again. And that was for me what I needed to do for six months. A reset. Yeah, just reset, you know, get excited about what's possible again. get excited to dream again. Also, Brynn, like you had had a crazy ride in between like starting a company, having a baby, starting another company, selling a company. Like you had a very jam-packed six to eight years. That is a lot happening in a short period of time. Some major life changes and all really fast and without a break.

34:09Of course you should take some time to breathe and to reset and to discover what your next passion would be. At what point did you start thinking about the idea for bored?

34:20Brynn Putnam:It sort of always happens the same way for me. Something happens in my own life that frustrates me. And then I sort of start to try to cobble together solutions. And then I become frustrated with the solutions. And then you find yourself starting to build new things. And that was really the same case here. So, you know, the other big life change during this period was I got divorced. I got remarried and I had another child. Brynn, that is a lot. I'm like, let's just do all the things, you know, throw another one on. Oh my God. So now I have this kind of crazy Brady Bunch family with a two-year-old, an eight-year-old and three older stepdaughters, 17, 19, and 21.

34:58Brynn Putnam:And so during this period, you know, I was trying to kind of connect with my loved ones. I had been so heads down working and so busy for so long and was finding it really hard to find a way to spend good quality time together. And that was sort of where my next adventure comes from, that pain. So first of all, can you talk a little bit about the idea for Bored? Because I had the amazing opportunity to get to see a preview of it and I am obsessed. Like I cannot tell you how excited I am about it, but can you walk our audience through early prototype, early product offering and sort of what the process was of getting to today?

35:42Brynn Putnam:Yeah, so the aha moment, I think, was we were all sitting on our phones watching a movie. And my initial instinct was to take the screens away and turn off the technology. And then I kind of thought to myself, really, the issue here is not the technology. It's not the screen. It's how we're using it. Instead of using this screen to enable an experience that brings our family closer together, we're using screens in a way that is isolating and making us feel not connected. And so for me, I'm pretty familiar with screen technology now from mirror. And so thinking to myself, what do I want? And I wanted a way to reconnect.

36:23Brynn Putnam:And for us as a family, games have always been a way that we have connected from holiday Monopoly games to my husband and I do the New York Times board game suite every night before we go to bed. But I didn't feel like there was an easy way to use games to bring everyone together. So video games, you're dealing with like complex controllers, lots of buttons, a lot of hand-eye coordination. Sometimes the content isn't always appropriate for all the levels. And board games was a lot of pieces, a lot of setup, a lot of rules, very challenging to kind of get everyone together. So what I wanted really was something where you could get the board game feel, but the video game magic and kind of smoosh it together.

37:04Brynn Putnam:And so I started with the touchscreen, very similar technology that I know from Mir, and started to try to figure out how could you get this touchscreen to recognize lots of people touching it at the same time, as well as physical game pieces. And that's where Bored was born. You know, it's a face-to-face gaming console that brings people together by combining, you know, the magic of video games with that incredible feel of physical pieces like board games. I just think it is the coolest idea ever. So you had said that you didn't have a functioning prototype when you were pitching Mirror to investors.

37:41Did you have a similar approach this time with board?

37:44Brynn Putnam:Same thing again. You must be really good in a room, Brynn. I don't know. We hacked it again early days. We tried to play digital board games on an iPad with the kids using physical game pieces just to try to understand, is there something really interesting about moving pieces on a digital screen? So once we had confidence that that was an interesting experience, I really focused on raising money about the brand and the experience I wanted to create. And then we used our funding to actually build the product. But again, built it off of a hacky prototype. Was it easier this time around? Well, you weren't pregnant.

38:27Brynn Putnam:I wasn't pregnant. That's true. I mean, I think certainly we had a handful of partners from here who were just really excited to back me again, which is incredible and I'm so grateful for. But I think I experienced sort of the same thing that I did last time, which is a solo female founder. I don't come from gaming. And so, you know, lots of no's along with the yeses. I love that. I'm like, so is sexism still real? And you're like, yes. It remains constant. Yes, that is my experience. Fun. Okay, so talk to me about the game aspect of it, because that was one of the things when you all walked me through the experience, like the games are so amazing and they're original, which is wild.

39:11How did you go about the game-making process? because obviously you had experience with making content from the fitness side of things, but this is a different sort of content. So walk me through that process and how you went about creating a suite of original, really excellent, interesting games.

39:33Brynn Putnam:This is definitely another example of people telling you things that are a bad idea and then trusting in your instincts. And I don't know yet whether or not my instincts have been correct on this one, But I talked to a lot of gaming folks who said, you can't create 10 to 12 games in a year and a half. There's no way that's too fast. Everyone tried to encourage us to port existing games onto the device. So rather than create original content, bring over Monopoly and bring over Scrabble. And everyone said to hire a senior games leader and create sort of a more formal in-house game team. And we haven't done any of those things.

40:13I was going to say, let me guess, Brynn, you said, no, thank you. I will do this my way.

40:18Brynn Putnam:No, thank you. You know, I think the feeling was like swiping on mobile unlocked mobile games in Angry Bird, swinging in Wii unlocked Wii Sports. And both of those things brought more people into gaming. It made gaming more intuitive and accessible for a new group of people. And I felt like it was the same thing here, Like putting down a spaceship that shoots or putting down a knife piece that cuts is this incredible, new, fun, accessible and intuitive way of playing with the piece as a controller. And it didn't do that service to try to bring over existing games into our ecosystem. So the right thing to do was to build things that were new, even though it is the scary thing to do.

40:58Brynn Putnam:And so that's what we've done. And I think for us, it made sense to try to partner with all the incredible game studios that were already existing to build games together where we help them understand the technology and understand the customer and they help us on execution. So instead of hiring 100 people in-house, we've remained 10 on our team and we're leveraging incredible game studios around the world to help us make our games. So we'll see if it works, but, you know, everyone tells you no and you just have to trust your gut. So of all of the games, can you tell me about a couple of them that you are particularly excited about?

41:36Brynn Putnam:Well, the first one that comes to mind is Chop Chop. It's a collaborative cooking game where you're working together with your friends and family to operate a chaotic kitchen. So you use your knives to cut, your spoons to stir. It's like the bear, but as a game. Exactly. and what's so great about it is I think it's really the screen enabling this incredible collaborative experience and it's less about what's happening in the game even than how the game makes you communicate and work with each other so we had a bunch of eight-year-old boys my son and his friends in the office yesterday playing and you could see they went from sort of screaming at each other and grabbing the pieces out of each other's hands to figuring out okay, Edward has to man the sponge and George has to man the pepper mill.

42:24Brynn Putnam:And, you know, Alex is really good at managing the tickets. And so getting really good at communicating and cooperating. So I'm very excited about that game and sort of the values that helps promote with my own kids. We have a suite of retro arcade games that I find personally super fun and exciting as a great party game and remind me of going to the pizza parlor as a kid and playing, you know, Pac-Man on the tabletop arcade. So I'm excited to kind of relive that nostalgic experience. And then probably the last one that I love is called Mushka, where you're using tools to care for this virtual pet and this pet simulation game, probably because it's my two-year-old daughter's favorite game, but also because it was one of the first things that we built that really showed off the magic of our technology.

43:06Brynn Putnam:I think when you see the brush scrubbing Mushka and the suds appearing, you kind of have this real moment of joy that I think is so fun. Yeah, it's magical. I'm also curious about what it is like this time around as a, I mean, now thrice founder. So what learnings did you have this time around from your time at Mirror, your life experience in general about culture or management or office politics or whatever it may be where you're like, oh, I got that really right before, or this is an area of weakness. And so I'm trying to fix that this time around, whatever it may be. I think a few things. One is it's really important that you do a few things and do them really well.

43:52Brynn Putnam:So just focus is really critical. We learned that the first time around. And as the resources grew, as we became part of Lululemon, it became harder and harder to do fewer things and do them really excellently. So I think that's something definitely I've tried to continue to bring into this new endeavor is remaining focused and executing really well. I think as it relates to people, for me, all I want to do at this point in my career is do something that's meaningful to me with people that I like and respect. How revolutionary. It sounds very simple and silly, but I don't think I felt that way before.

44:29Brynn Putnam:Before I really wanted to succeed and build something with impact. Whereas this time, it's important to me to work with people that I like and I respect. And so I think that often means firing faster the second go around. I have not had to yet, but I think just knowing when the people around you are a fit or when they're not a fit and making that decision more quickly. Because even if people are excellent and high performers, if they have negative impact on the rest of the team and on you personally, it's not worth it. I don't think that's silly, by the way. We get one shot at this life as far as we know.

45:05And so to work with people that you like and who you work well with and to create things that are meaningful for you and things that you like, like that is a really good North Star. It's a really great way of navigating. I think there's a lot of value in it.

45:22Brynn Putnam:Thanks. So by the time this episode comes out, you will literally be back at TechCrunch Disrupt unveiling board for the first time. Once again, I'm very pleased that I got an early peek at it. That's my love language, sneak peeks. And I'm really excited for people to see what you've been working on. When you think about launch, when you think about the next three to six months, even 12 months out, like what are your goals this time around? Do you have different expectations than you did when you were launching Mirror? Or are you like projecting further ahead or not as far because it's something different?

45:59I'm interested in where your headspace is right now.

46:02Brynn Putnam:In that respect, I feel really the same way. I think when you're building something new and complicated, you really have to stay grounded in the present. Certainly you have to be aware and you have to plan, but you have to just really live in where you are in the here and now. So right now I'm deep in launch anxiety and living in it and, you know, getting ready for October 28th. So I think my feelings are the same as before. Like we're going to walk out onto the stage at TechCrunch. We haven't shown it to that many people. You were one of the first. and we're going to hope that people love it and that it brings families together and makes people feel joy.

46:37Brynn Putnam:But I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen, which is scary and fun. It's exciting too. It's like full of possibility. Well, for the record, I just have to say like within, I don't know, two minutes of you showing it, I asked if I could pre-buy one for my son's birthday. I was like, I'm not asking for a gift. I'm not asking for a PR. like, take my money. Please take my money because I need to buy this. Like, it is so joyful and it is so cool and it's sophisticated and it's thoughtful and it's fun. And I can see what my daughter is going to like and I can see what my son's going to like and I can see what we're going to do as a family.

47:16I was literally trying to give you my credit card information in that demo where it's like, take my money, Brynn, please. I feel very good about what this holiday season will bring for all of us. I'm holding you to it.

47:28Brynn Putnam:You're my first pre-order. Seriously. I'm like literally like I have my credit card memorized. I'd give it to you right the second if you would take it. Like that's how in I am. I do not endorse lightly, but I really believe in what you're making. I think it's phenomenal. Thank you. So one of the things that we like to talk about on this podcast is mistakes because we all make them throughout the course of our career and we don't always talk about them. And I think it's important to talk about them, one, because it shows resiliency and two, because it humanizes the whole process. Like we don't just go from like win to win to win without some really difficult moments in between.

48:02So with all of that in mind, can you tell me about a mistake that you've made in your career and what you've learned from it?

48:09Brynn Putnam:Oh gosh, there's so many. There were many moments throughout the mirror journey where I had to juggle what was best for the business versus what was best for me personally and my family. And I think that I didn't always make the right choices there. I think, you know, at the end of the day, it's just you and the people you love. And I think the first time around, it was so hard for me to put down the cell phone, turn off the Zoom and be present for the people that I loved in some moments that I needed to be and I should have been. And so I think for me, that's probably my biggest meta mistake or meta regret is being just grateful for all the success as it's happening and hopefully happens again, but also just having the perspective to know that ultimately your relationships are everything and work is a thing that should bring meaning and fun to your life, but should never eclipse those relationships.

49:14Brynn Putnam:So hopefully I'm carrying those learnings into this one. Hopefully we all are. That is a lesson. that is sitting a little close to home. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah. So a lot of the folks who listen to this podcast are in their first lives and they know they want to do something different. Maybe they want to stay in the same industry, but tackle a different aspect of it. Or maybe they want to change industries or start a company or do something different, make a leap, but they're scared. They're nervous about making that jump. What advice would you give someone who's standing there thinking about it, but just hasn't been able to do it quite yet.

49:51Brynn Putnam:I think that fear is normal, that all great things come on the other side of fear. And you can either let fear paralyze you or give you a sense of urgency. And I would definitely encourage you to jump onto the other side of fear because everything on the other side of fear is usually great. And if it's not, you'll figure it out. So I think I always had this feeling that people who did things that I perceived to be great or had great lives, weren't scared while they were doing them. And that's definitely not the case. I think fear is normal for everyone. And it's worth it. It's worth it to jump.

50:27Brynn Putnam:Also, fear will be there no matter what you do. So why not do it? Because fear is not going anywhere. Fear will just happily take up residence in your brain for as much room as you will give it, for as long as you will let it be there. You know, the constraints, in my case at least, provided the biggest benefit. But not having enough money or not having the knowledge or not having the right resources were the times when we were the most ambitious and the most creative and things turned out the best for us. So I think, you know, don't wait for the moment when you have more money or you've absorbed this degree or this thing has happened because I think those constraints are actually your greatest strength.

51:07Brynn Putnam:And what you don't know, you can figure out. So my last question is also my favorite question, which is, if you could get inside a time machine and go back in time and speak with your younger self and give your younger self some advice, what would you say? My husband said this the other day to our daughter, and I actually thought to myself, wow, that's really thoughtful and that should be a motto to live by. He said, be nice, try hard, and have fun. And I think if I could tell my younger self anything, it would be be nice, try hard and have fun. Well, from here, it seems like you're doing all three.

51:45So well done, Bryn. And congratulations on everything. I'm so excited for board. I just think it's the coolest idea ever. It's like literally game changing, pun intended. I can't wait to see this rocket ship because it is just the coolest. and I look forward to apparently sitting down with you in another handful of years and talk about your third, fourth, fifth life because you just keep iterating and I love it. Thank you so much for your time. I enjoyed every word of this and wish you all the continued success.

52:18Brynn Putnam:Thank you, Hilary.

52:27That was the founder of Mirror and Board, Bryn Putnam. For more inspiring interviews with women like Bryn, head on over to secondlifepod.com, where we have so many more for you to peruse. If you like today's show, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review us. We love seeing you spread the word on social. And now you can tag us in your posts. We are at secondlifepod on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We always want to know who you're interested in hearing from on the show. So send in your requests to hello at secondlifepod.com or you can DM us on Instagram.

53:08I'm at Hilary Kerr. The show is at Second Life Pod. Our DMs are always open. I'm Hilary Kerr, and you've been listening to Second Life. This episode was produced by Hilary Kerr, Summer Hamaris, and Natalie Thurman. Our production assistant is Raven Yamamoto. Our audio engineers are at Treehouse Recording in Los Angeles, California, and our music is by Jonathan Leahy.