Lessons from the climb: Michelle Battersby on building Sunroom

31:28And I'm like, I can talk about it. I know. Well, it's been like 12 months in private and it's finally out in the open. Yeah, it was just, it was that period of time was very challenging because we weren't like free to leave, but we were having to like present ourselves and put our best foot forward to get certain offers on the table. But I think it ended up being a really good confidence setting exercise. And it also helped me realize what I could be getting in these bigger companies and what I would be leveled at. And that was quite a rewarding experience because it did help prove like test this theory out, which has just left me feeling like there's just no such thing as failure.

32:16If you start a company and give it a crack, I just think it's really respected and it allows you to bring really unique experience to the drawing board when, I don't know if going back into business afterwards is something that you want to do but that's also something I was trying to figure out like could I go and work for someone else and I ended up reaching the conclusion that I probably couldn't go to a bigger company at this point in my career I feel like I'd I'd feel very annoyed and you know like having to ask for permission to do things I I think would be a bit of a difficult transition.

32:58So this role at peanut is more of a leadership role. It's president of the company. And I just felt like if I was to go into a business, that is a hundred percent, the kind of role that I need to be going into. And I would love to take on a role like that under the wing of someone like Michelle, who's like a seasoned CEO, just to, I don't know, absorb information from someone who's been doing it longer than I have. you talk about those moments of self-doubt and not knowing your worth when you come out the other end of doing sunroom how do you navigate those moments because I think a lot of people really resonate with that feeling of like what am I doing I don't know what my worth is how do you kind of yeah get through that it was honestly a pretty hard period like I journaled a lot um I also did daily card pulls on chat GPT oh my gosh which shows where my headspace was at like not overly stable I have a colleague at Blackbird who is going to just love that you just said that yeah honestly they're so good it really stopped me from going over the over the edge I think the the hard thing was once I had spoken to Michelle about this role at peanut my heart was so so set on it like I just felt I just knew it was the thing I needed to do and I desperately wanted it to work out but so much wasn't in my control when it came to the timing of everything and so I did have to do quite a lot of self-talk to almost convince myself that it was going to be okay but I think in terms of when you're working through that self-doubt like the only way to overcome it is just to start working on what could be the potential outcome and like talking to people in your network like I kind of had other things bubbling away as well like I did have some consulting opportunities I did have other jobs that I was interested in or like people I was chatting to about opportunities in their team and even though they weren't necessarily things I actually wanted to do they were good to I don't know how do I describe it it's kind of nice knowing that you do have some fallback options even if you can't find the thing that feels like soul aligned and right at the time so it might not always work out I guess as fast as it did in my situation even though it was like a long time coming but I think the only thing you can really do is start the process.

35:29I think I've told you this but sometimes when I'm having self out at work I ask myself what would Michelle do oh god I just feel like you're I don't know you're so good at the way you like think about things and the way you like approach stuff I just I don't know I find it gives me answers in terms of like how I present myself I think is the biggest thing I mean I don't know if it's good or bad that you do that Maddie your co-founder Lucy is a product person yeah and she designed Hinge and in her role as CEO of Sunroom she designed a lot of the product that ended up being Sunroom or that was Sunroom you a marketing expert built Bumble from the start from the very beginning in APAC I would love to know what you imagined your role as CMO of Sunroom being like when you started and then looking back now, what was it like in reality?

36:28When you imagine what your role could look like at the beginning of starting a company, you're dreaming really big. Like you're kind of seeing the headlines that you want. You're seeing the brand partnerships that you want and you need to think like that to go all in and to also sell the vision. So you need to be thinking really big. my day-to-day role ended up being so different to a CMO role I essentially played a sales role for five years I think I well both Lucy and I couldn't have imagined how much of a sales type business creator economy platforms like this actually are there's so much outreach there's constant ideation on how you can get in front of the right people on the comms that you're using on the selling points.

37:19And so it became incredibly repetitive for me. I spent like day in, day out talking to creators, especially in those first couple of years, my days would literally look like eight back-to-back calls to the point where my partner would be able to recite the script or like heed over him and be like, that sounded like a good one, you know, like, and yeah I think it's the sales side of it that surprised me the most and I can definitely play that role but it's not necessarily what I enjoy doing and I think that's something all founders have to navigate like you do have to do things you don't like doing and you do have to be able to wear many hats I guess one of the benefits of doing that is I became so close to the user and I it became very easy for me to read like certain things they would want or didn't want and I kind of knew how to like spin the pitch in a way that would really appeal to them but it didn't feel like a marketing role at the end of the day and all the marketing work that we did at Sunroom was like very internally driven so it was a lot of education, content campaigns, coaching and almost acting like our creator's talent agent because we attracted a lot of micro creators who didn't have representation which is which was actually a cool part of sunroom because it meant that we could actually offer revenue generating opportunities to creators that otherwise wouldn't find them but it definitely changed the scope of my role and of anyone who kind of came on to what was the marketing team, but it was really like a creator team.

39:03I can imagine, especially coming off the back of your Bumble experience as well, where essentially your role was to like play as big as possible from a marketing perspective in Australia with that brand. Yeah, it definitely felt like I was playing in a different pool. Again, like there are pros and cons. I didn't really get to do, I didn't really get to play as big as I have in other brands And Lucy and I have had very candid conversations about this where I've said, you know, you're so lucky because you got to do your best work. You got to design a beautiful product, a really full feature set.

39:41You got to solve all these intriguing problems within the product. I feel like my role was a little bit more confined because of where we got to on like our growth trajectory. but also because our brand was a little bit edgier. So we had, and I mean, I even hate saying that, like the fact that our brand is considered edgy, it annoys me. You know, it shows the stigma that exists out there. But because we allowed, you know, slightly more sensual content, that also limited the kinds of brands we could partner with, which is such a massive shame. Our brand was so powerful and helped us get to where we got the platform to, but it also created a ceiling where like it stopped us from being able to reach many different other categories of creators.

40:37And it ended up impacting our growth, which is something we just couldn't have guessed at the time we started. And I don't think is a reflection necessarily of our work, product, our amazing creators. It's more a reflection of society. I think we thought society would shift a little bit more with us and also recognize that like a woman's boobs aren't offensive, but we haven't quite got there. Shame. Yeah. Talking about Sunroom's growth, you have said before that Sunroom is a business that objectively works, but that never quite reached escape velocity. What do you mean by that? I'm like I said this to you in the car yeah it's something that Lucy and I have spoken about and I think we'd both be comfortable sharing it and it kind of like segues nicely off what I was talking about before in that I think we overestimated the size of what this market could have been it ended up being much more niche than we could have predicted and that still helped us build an incredible business.

41:48Like we raised money three times. We could grow up until a certain point. And then it felt like we had almost maxed out of our category. And this is something that we've seen happen to other platforms in our space as well. Like there was another competitor of ours called Fan House and they attracted a whole bunch of gamers. And then it was like, they couldn't quite get beyond that. And maybe it's because that's what they became known for. And so it's a really interesting place. It's kind of a hard place to get to with a business because you have all these early signs of success and all this amazing early growth where you're growing month on month, you know, at a pretty good rate.

42:33And then it stopped in our case. Like we kind of just got to this level where it was really quite flat and we kept trying to break out of this pocket that we had discovered, but nothing we were doing was working. And it was very frustrating from my perspective because I'd be sitting there thinking, you know, if I could get all these women and they can achieve X, why can't I just go get a thousand more, you know? Like if they could make it work, why can't all these other people? like Lucy and I so many of times so many times we would kind of get to this point of thinking you know maybe this is it but then we'd be like but it can't be it because we did this and I still haven't really worked through those thoughts yet I truly believe we left no stone unturned like there was absolutely nothing more we could have tried I think there are probably some things we did at the start which maybe affected the the end like we actually ended up getting quite headstrong in terms of who we thought was going to be the user of the product and what they needed and I think we launched with it over with an overly sophisticated product where we were trying to reach feature parity with the other products that existed at that time but what we've seen is like you really don't need that good a product to actually gain success in this space and we really felt like we needed to build an app because that's what we were hearing from our creators that they wanted but you know we've just sold to fan vics who are meant to have paid out a billion dollars to creators by the end of next year and they don't have an app really yeah they don't have an app wow yes and I think that just shows and I mean even when we look at our payments I think we ended up getting to a place where maybe 70 or 80 percent of our payments were on web it was quite high as opposed to on the app so it kind of gives you an indication that you know a lot of people are happy just browsing um I do think apps make the creator experience better but I think we probably could have got to market faster saved a hell of a lot on engineering like that was the one place where we did make, I don't know, we just had a lot of setbacks on the engineering front and we ended up spending a lot of money on contractors because our product was taking so long to build.

45:13But we quickly learned that once you bring on a whole bunch of contractors, your code is actually incredibly messy. There's kind of less ownership and care on certain pieces of the product. So we had to do a lot of rebuilding. So I think like when I talk about the validating piece as well. I actually think we could have started just with a web-based product, eliminated quite a lot of our features that ended up becoming relatively unused and got to market faster. So that's kind of one thing and we would have ended up with way more money on the other side. But I also think when people first came to the product, something that I noticed was that a lot of like everyday women were coming on who weren't influencers almost wanting to use it like it was close friends or their own private locked Instagram and I remember having like little thoughts at the time like oh this would be interesting to experiment with you know maybe this is something that's a little bit more social appy maybe people are really longing for a women unfounded social platform that's like for their own little micro community and it's not about mass reach I don't know these are just like I never fully allowed myself to think about it because we were so set on but we're a monetization platform we need to make money and so we quickly killed things like being able to follow people for free and just kind of kept going down this path that we were quite set on.

46:50So, but also if we did those things, maybe it would have failed the year after and we would have completely run out of our money. Like I actually don't know, but I do think if I was to do it again, once we got to that point of actually having launched and actually having a product out in the market, I would have really tried to shut down every personal opinion and assumption that I held and just let, like, just watch it for a bit. Like, just sit and kind of watch it for longer than we did rather than, like, forcing people to use the product in a certain way or just, like, yeah, I don't know, like, staying a little bit more committed to the original vision.

47:35Like, maybe you need to be a little bit more fluid than we were. I think one reason why I really wanted to ask you about that escape velocity point is because what I've seen in the founders that I meet, and I want to say this probably leans more towards female founders as well. Yeah. Kicking. Yeah. I'm being abused. I appreciate this is an audio podcast, but Michelle is just touching her stomach because she's got a baby and they're kicking. Yeah. I do feel like there is this sense that sometimes people count themselves out of venture capital for the fear of what it would look like to not achieve essentially that quote unquote escape velocity, like to not achieve the billion dollar vision of the business.

48:21And look, I think what I would say to that is like, you have to have the billion dollar vision, which you guys did. You knew what the really big version of Sunroom looked like. But the reality is like in venture capital investing, like we invest in lots of different companies. And the whole idea is that one or two succeed and become really big and the rest don't. And I think sometimes we don't talk about those ones that don't enough. And as a result, people almost count themselves out of even trying to begin with. Yeah. Do you want me to read the LinkedIn post? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. We were talking about context.

48:57We were talking about a LinkedIn post that was really good before we got on mic. So let's do it. Okay. I'll read where this escape velocity came from. And I do want to call out, like, I feel like we're talking a lot about the hard truths. and maybe I'll make sure we get to like the positives. No, but I think this is the whole thing, right? It's like Sunroom was an objectively great business with founders who did like incredibly well and now you've had this incredible exit. So I think it's actually kind of nice to, behind all these like amazing headlines for the outcome that you guys have had is to like, yeah.

49:35Talk about how. Talk about what it was really like and what's happened. Yeah. So this LinkedIn post says, the most tragic companies aren't the ones that fail fast. They're the ones that succeed just enough to trap talented founders for years, making enough progress to stay alive, but never achieving escape velocity. And it hits pretty heavy. Yeah, it does. And I'd never really been able to describe how it felt. And to your point, and like Lucy and I spoke, we've spoken about that LinkedIn post so many times and like reminded each other of it. Cause we were both like, oh, you know, trap talented founders for years.

50:20And how previously I was talking about that very frustrating feeling of like, if all these women over here are doing it, why can't we just go get a thousand more, you know? and that is kind of like what comes up when I read that because I would often think, how would it have felt if this just never worked at all, you know, like if we raised money and it failed within a year and we had absolutely no success, what would that feel like compared to what we ended up going through? Well, I kind of came to the conclusion that even being trapped for years quote unquote no like I just kind of look at this outcome now and where I'm able to take my career next and I'm like god it was so worth it like it was so worth the struggle and it was it was really hard like sunroom was hard the entire time like it was a grind to grow and those like you know eight back-to-back creator calls a day like constantly searching for these people that would find success on our platform and I relate to that you know I relate to I think she says the most tragic companies oh dear and and it's weird and like I don't know if I should admit that this but it it does like really kind of yeah like it really resonates and for me to say it really resonates but for me to say I'm so happy and grateful and glad I had the experience I think maybe says a lot that even though it was really hard it was it was so worth it and I definitely do it again and I would you know put myself through the same sacrifices over and over and And even though, and I guess, you know, we're also talking about Sunroom from the perspective that I think it would have felt very different if we didn't raise capital and we weren't looking at all of our achievements on a venture scale.

52:34That's also the weird thing that I've been toying with is like, this was a successful business that made loads of money, but it didn't reach that venture scale so you do feel like oh we didn't achieve what we set out to achieve so it kind of like messes with your sense of pride perhaps because we did have much bigger we thought we could take it so much further we thought it could be an only fans competitor we thought it could be you know it's like you're an you're a creator you're on instagram you're on tiktok you've got a link tree you've got a sunroom you know we kind of thought it could be that piece of a creator's ecosystem of the the platforms that they use and so there's that side that's like oh we couldn't do it but then there's the other side that's like that's like but we did it for so many women you know and so many we had creators earning like half a million dollars on sunroom we had creators quitting their jobs putting themselves through college paying their rent their car insurance we had messages all the time like this product means so much to me and in the aftermath of selling it like we've had creators cry to us about how sad they are to see it go and that's really meaningful so this is why I'm in I'm in a very torn yeah I feel a whole range of different things about it I mean I guess it's the dark side of having that huge huge ambition but now that all is said and done it's almost like you can step back and think yes but all of that that you did achieve and like all the creators lives that you did change never would have happened if it weren't for that huge ambition of like we are going to build the sunroom to the link tree instagram tiktok yeah and i it's probably worth me mentioning like i just internally kind of giggled because like i'm sitting here talking about it from like what might be a quite a harsh perspective like I'm pretty I do have like pretty high standards for myself you know and I had Lucy and I both had like very big ambitions for this it's probably worth noting like I'm the kind of person where if you came second you lost you didn't come second you lost so I think that is like might be also worth knowing about me like I could so easily sit here and paint like the most polished positive story about this if I wanted to.

55:05It would all be true. Yes it actually would. Yeah it is like that is the reality yeah. Yeah I could like a hundred percent not go into any of this and I could just focus on the bright side but I think it's good to get into the nitty-gritty of it because there is so much I I found challenging. Like there's so much Lucy and I battled through and still feel happy about it at the end of the day. I don't know if I have a question here. So I'm just going to talk and see what you come back with. But one of the things that, I mean, I love most about my job, but also that I wish people would just do more of is like raising their ambition and thinking bigger.

55:47Like sometimes I think when I speak to female founders versus male founders, there is this dynamic of like the men can just, and generalising majorly here, can just back themselves a bit more to be like, yeah, this can be a billion-dollar business. Like, yes, this can be massive. And I think sometimes when I chat to female founders, there's this more like, oh, I need to like prove it out first. And like I'll start in Australia and I'll test it and I'll see how it goes and then maybe we'll expand to the next country. And it's kind of like I actually don't think there's any difference in terms of the outcome when you say, when you imagine what the billion dollar business vision could look like, but that's what opens so many doors.

56:30It's just like communicating that version of the business rather than taking it step by step to maybe eventually get there. Does that make any sense? No, it does. And even as you're saying that, it's like, I think Lucy and I would have, we clearly were capable of selling the big vision because that's what allowed us to make like to raise capital. But even when you're describing that, I can then remember being in it and having launched and doing a lot of what you were just describing. Like, oh no, we can't go get the creators with this amount of followers just yet because our product has all these bugs, you know, and it needs to be better for them and it needs to be more perfect for them.

57:12I think like that was also another thing that we got wrong. And like now that we've kind of done this huge sweep looking at all of our competitors and really digging into their products, I've just realised, oh God, they just have fucking gone for it. And they don't care at all if this isn't, the standard's not here and it's helped them get ahead. Yeah. So I think there's probably this like perfectionist element. And actually I went to an event the other night and I saw Hannah Ferguson speak and she said something which could be a good takeaway for any woman listening. She said, if you're a woman, if it's an 85 % yes, then it's a yes.

57:52Like don't wait for it to be a hundred percent because it's probably not going to get there. So 85 % is like, yep, that's your tick and that's get going but I don't know you would know more than me about the pit like the differences in pitching that you see from men and women yeah I think sometimes my biggest question to female founders and again like I want to emphasize how much I'm generalizing here but when I'm speaking to them and they're sharing their vision for the business and it's like they might be talking about oh like you know we'll start with these customers and then eventually hopefully we'll start pitching or like we'll start selling to these customers.

58:34And it's like, you know, often the local smaller businesses first and then later you start to go to the bigger businesses. And I always think I'm like, why not just start there? Like just go see. And they might say no, they probably will, but you'll learn something from that or you'll start to form those connections, which means that in another 12 months or 18 months when you go back to them, it's like there's already that groundwork laid. I don't know, that's just one small example, but I think I'm just constantly being like, why not? just like what's the bigger version look like and just do it yeah I wonder and like I don't know if this is something that Blackbird does but I do how I mentioned before that like even once we'd raised money I was almost looking for someone to give me permission to spend it I feel like I probably should have brought like more mentors in and actually I don't know our investors really like left us alone and so we would send a monthly update you know once a month and if we asked for something specific they would help but I like probably needed a guide to be honest like a buddy I probably needed someone like assigned to me and I probably should have objectively looked for this myself no but sometimes when you're in it right you don't realize that that's what you're doing because you're just you're living it and it's the benefit of hindsight that you can realize that Yeah.

59:57So I don't know, maybe that's something people need. So now that you're at the end of the sunroom journey, how do you reflect on the last five years and how does that, how do you think about or define what success means? The sunroom journey has completely changed my perception, definition, idea of success. I think to be brutally honest going into this I probably was more driven by what financial outcome will I reach on the other side if I'm being totally frank I don't know maybe because I'd worked for a unicorn you know I kind of had these big ideas and big dreams about what running my own company could look like I of course also wanted to work on a mission that I cared about Like I would not be able to show up.

1:00:47I wouldn't have been able to survive if I wasn't passionate about it and if I didn't feel like I was putting good work out into the world. But that's probably a part of how my idea of success has changed. Like to get to the end of this and to have that moment where you can take everything that you've learned over that five-year period and go on to do whatever you want to do next is the most – yeah, I think I said it at the start, like a liberating feeling I've ever had in my career. Your founder journey doesn't have to land you on like the biggest scale ever for you to be able to take that and go wherever you want.

1:01:31I also think to survive running your own business for five years, like putting that good work out into the world and having those creators in our dms daily sharing the impact of the product was also the most fulfilling part like if you're actually doing good work it's amazing how long you can survive off what felt like smaller wins at the time they can actually be quite yeah fueling but I don't know like if I've got I don't know if there's more I need to say like if there's another way I can sum it up to be a bit more succinct. Do you know what? There's this Matthew McConaughey quote. Have you read Green Lights?

1:02:15I have. I listened to the audio book specifically because that is the only way to consume that book. Yeah. So he says this one thing in Green Lights where he was like, it's not about winning or losing. It's do you accept the challenge? Do you know that line? Yeah. So good. And when I heard that as the kind of person I am, we're like second place is a loss to me. It really like also struck me and, you know, I've kind of spoken a lot in this about wanting to have done more, but that even though we couldn't quite reach the original vision, I'm still so happy and I'd totally do it again. And I like, can't believe what I'm going on to do next.

1:02:55And I just, I never would have got this if I hadn't have done that. Like I look at my career and all the roles that I've had. And there's just no way I'd be in the position I am now if I had stayed where I was and kind of worked my way up a corporate ladder. I just don't think, I think like taking risks really pays off and it does not matter if your risk is a win or a loss. I think choosing to start your own business and to go on that founder journey is inherently risky. what would you say you've learned about yourself over the last five years in making those decisions? Where do I start? Yeah honestly because so much happened like I also became a mum which is a really interesting thing to navigate off the back of having raised money running your own business existing in the US but I honestly am a completely different person and I think going into this startup journey, I did have a very fixed mindset on what success looked like.

1:03:59And I was being driven by kind of wanting to say I could do hard things, like raise capital, start a tech company, get it off the ground, sell it, you know, these are. Tick, tick, tick. But I think as I have grown, alone I have realized that success actually isn't as black and white as what I thought it once was and I was definitely much more fixed to what are the headlines what are you know those big glossy wins and out the other side of this I'm definitely making decisions with my heart and being really confident about that probably for the first time ever as opposed to my head and I have really been thinking more about like what the day-to-day work looks like and what will be really fulfilling and really fueling for me and kind of take all this experience package it up and channel it into something that just feels very soul aligned and very meaningful well what a beautiful note to end on michelle blackbird is so proud to have backed you and lucy and to have watched you guys over the last five years in what has been an incredible success for you both and now like such an incredible outcome as well thanks I love blackbird well I can tell you internally like I've had the privilege of being able to work with you on different events over the last six to twelve months and like whenever I post about these events internally everyone is just like Michelle what a legend like we are so excited for you guys and for what you are going to do next and so we will just be staying tuned and if peanut ever wants to raise money let us know i will i'll be coming knocking great thank you so much for joining us today and i was gonna say good luck for the future and goodbye thanks for having me here thank you

1:06:00thank you so much for joining us for another episode of wild hearts if you want to learn more from other ambitious people building, designing and creating the world that we all want to live in, then please hit the subscribe and follow button. It would mean the world to us, the founders, the operators and the investors who join us on Wild Hearts. This podcast is a labor of love from the Blackbird team and day one. The show is produced by Camilla Herring and Melia Rayner at Blackbird. Our marketing genius is Eva Telemachus and our editors are from day one, Annie Jones and Sanjay Chavaria. Thank you all so much for listening and we'll see you next week.