As one of the founding fathers of the L.A. tech scene, Brian Lee is used to having entrepreneurs pitch him on ideas. What does he look for? It's not so much a business plan or even an idea. He says he goes off a vibe.
That's how he ended up being the first investor in the deal-finding browser add-on Honey, which was bought late last year by PayPal for $4 billion in what ranks as the biggest acquisition L.A. has seen to date.
<p>The low-key Lee, wearing a baggy black hoodie, talked about that and other topics in a wide-ranging conversation in the decidedly un-sleek West L.A. street level office where he oversees BAM Ventures, the early-stage consumer-focused fund he co-founded in 2014. The onetime Skadden Arps attorney co-founded LegalZoom in his condo in 2001 and after that became known as the business guy celebrities go to to launch their consumer brands, such as Shoedazzle with Kim Kardashian in 2009 and The Honest Company with Jessica Alba in 2011.<br/></p><p>Lee also discussed whether Honest, where he stepped down as CEO in 2017 after the once high-flying unicorn raised a down round, grew too fast and what Moviepass, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/9/23/20874031/moviepass-shut-down-explained" target="_blank">the widely mocked</a> movie subscription service he backed that folded last year, should have done differently.<br/></p><p><strong>How did you first find out about Honey?</strong></p><p><strong></strong>I gave a talk to some entrepreneurs at MuckerLab and George [Ruan] and Ryan [Hudson] approached me as I was coming off the stage and I really liked their vibe. I believe we were the first capital into Honey and then followed on to that investment, which was interesting because to be really honest – and I'm not sure how honest I should be – not a lot of venture capital firms took them seriously. It was tough to raise capital for that business, partly because they were just a browser extension. A lot of venture funds turned them down because they've never seen an extension company scale to that extent.</p><p><strong><span></span>When you say you got a vibe, can you explain what you mean? Was it really more of a vibe than what they exactly said?</strong></p><p>Yeah. That's what we invest in, we invest in people. There's certain criteria that we look for in founders, a proprietary kind of checklist that we go through to determine whether or not these are the founders that we want to back. </p><p><strong>Can you share what you look for?</strong></p><p>I can't without fear of being sued [Laughs].</p><p><strong>But can you share what about their vibe attracted you?</strong> </p><p>First there was this quiet confidence they had in spades. They knew exactly what they were building, and how they were going to get there. It gave us a lot of confidence to back them. Every time we met with them the numbers were growing, and we knew the future was very bright for Honey very early on. I thought they were very intuitive when it came to the next steps for what they were going to do. </p><p><strong>By nature of your business you have very successful companies and a lot of ones that don't work out. You were an investor in Moviepass, which got a lot of press. What did you see in Moviepass that appealed to you?</strong></p><p>It was disruptive, with great entrepreneurs. I really liked their approach. It's just the economics were never quite figured out. Moviepass is one of those ones I look back on and I still to this day think it should have worked. It's just that the model itself maybe shouldn't have been all you can eat. Maybe it should have limited how many times you could go, or when you could go, maybe not opening weekend.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY4MzEzMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzc2NTgzN30.pNncDRGKo5PBpn8l975kHXwF0jD9q9M8B1N4bjZVHwQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="060a7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3a3d654aeab27bb0dd3b08f54dc7abbe" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">"Moviepass is one of those ones I look back on and I still to this day think it should have worked."</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Shuttershock</small></p><p><strong>When you say the economics were not figured out, isn't that something you would want to have figured out before you invested?</strong><br/></p><p>Not necessarily. We invest in entrepreneurs. So long as the idea seems like a big idea we will invest and try to figure out the business model at a later date. I don't think anyone can tell you that they thought Google or Facebook would have been what they are today in terms of the monetization engines that they've created. They were out there building social networks or search engines. I don't think they ever really thought that the end result would be selling ads. I can't imagine [Google co-founder] Sergey Brin woke up when they started Google saying it was going to be the largest ad company in the world.</p><p><strong>Do you think that this emphasis on profitability being more of a focus now is detrimental?</strong></p><p>Yes and no. It comes in waves and that's the thing about venture capitalists in general. When it's time for growth they want you to grow at all costs and when things tighten up they want you to get profitable at all costs. It shifts like the wind and it just drives me crazy. For me, we just want to build great businesses and that depends on the business model. It shouldn't be macroeconomics.</p><p><strong>Another company you personally invested in as well through BAM was the luggage company Away. What did you see in that?</strong></p><p>I thought it was a category that was sleepy. It was old, and it was stodgy and this millennial brand was coming out of nowhere and taking up a lot of the mindshare of the consumer. I thought it was a great product, so I thought they could get big.</p><p><strong>The co-founder and CEO, Steph Korey, recently returned as the co-CEO <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20995453/away-luggage-ceo-steph-korey-toxic-work-environment-travel-inclusion" target="_blank"><u>[after an expose published in December in the Verge detailed a toxic work culture</u></a>]. Did you think that was the right move?</strong></p><p>Absolutely. Founders always make for the best CEOs at least until the time comes where the company scales beyond the founder. Sometimes you get those rare instances where the founder can be CEOs forever. You get your Michael Dell's and your Bill Gates and your Mark Zuckerberg but that's rare. Usually the CEO will get to a certain stage and you have to bring in professional management at some point. </p><p><strong>Were you concerned about the culture at Away? There were some serious allegations raised.</strong></p><p>I don't know much about that. I can't comment on the culture of the business. I haven't spent time there.</p><p><strong>Is that something you focus on at your level, the culture of companies? </strong></p><p>No, I would say that we don't really focus on the culture of the company that we invest in because there is no company when we invest. Typically, we like to invest in entrepreneurs that we think will create a great culture. We don't sit there and say we want to pick an entrepreneur that will create a horrible culture.</p><p><strong>As you go forward with all these companies what lessons do you take forth from your time at Honest Co.?</strong></p><p>We love mission-driven businesses, when people are very passionate about the company they work for. I believe in great teams, and I think we had a wonderful team at the Honest Company that really helped build that business. Mostly, singular purpose is a great thing for a business. </p><p><strong>Do you think that you were not focused enough there and were trying to do too much?</strong></p><p>Maybe a little bit, but I think we built the business with great size and scale and I think we brought in professional management at the right time. </p><p><strong>Did you grow too quickly?</strong></p><p>No, I don't think so. I think we grew at the pace that was allotted to us. I mean the consumer speaks volumes and they awarded us with growth.</p><p><strong>What do you mean you grew at the pace that was allotted to you?</strong></p><p>If the consumer is demanding your product then you're going to grow. The consumer fell in love with the Honest Company's products and mission, and we had great success.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-proxy-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbWVkaWEucmJsLm1zL2ltYWdlP3U9JTJGODAzNyUyRjc5NzU2NTI2MjlfMDNhNzZkYTA2MF9iLmpwZyZobz1odHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRmxpdmUuc3RhdGljZmxpY2tyLmNvbSZzPTUyMSZoPTdlZTljM2ViYTc3Y2MxZjQ4OTczMzY4MzE2ODIwZjJkODdlMzBjMDQ2ZjZkN2NmMmNmOTk3Y2Y4MzNkNzIyOTEmc2l6ZT05ODB4JmM9MjU5Mzc0OTE1NSIsImV4cGlyZXNfYXQiOjE2Mzc3NzcwOTJ9.KNjjb3Fr2ciisMEP5PelzR1jio9md36c3lanKRnN8B0/img.jpg" id="8f87e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4d16702f5ddffe2b4906fac43a0a05b4" alt="" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..."> Brian Lee and Jessica Alba, founders of the Honest Company, at Disrupt Conference in 2012.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/8037/7975652629_03a76da060_b.jpg" target="_blank">live.staticflickr.com</a>
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</p><p><strong>When you're coming up with new products, where do you get your ideas from?</strong><br/></p><p>Everywhere. Ideas come to me at the most random times. I'll give you a typical story, for let's say<a href="https://artofsport.com/" target="_blank"> <u>Art of Sport</u></a> [which Lee co-founded in 2018]. I went to the drugstore and I was looking at sunscreens, which on a mass level is dominated by three brands and the number one SKU for each one of those is the sport version. The sport is in bigger font than the brand logo, so I was thinking to myself, "Are people buying the brand or are they buying it because it's sport?" I walked around the corner and I was looking at the deodorants and a third of them were sport related. I went to the body wash section and it was the same thing. But what occurred to me was that none of these brands – although they're great brands – were authentic sports brands. Old Spice was started in 1929, and now it's Old Spice Sport. It just didn't feel very authentic to me so I thought it was time that an authentic sports brand entered this category. </p><p><strong>You were involved in LA's tech scene very early. How do you think it will be different in the next couple of years than it has been for the last decade?</strong></p><p>It's a great question because even when I started LegalZoom 20 years ago – and I started it out of my condo – there was zero venture capital in the city, no angel investors and there were probably five engineers and we got lucky because we got one of them. In the earliest days of the L.A. tech ecosystem you had to fend for yourself. You had to build a profitable business very early because there was no capital. So anytime you look at early stage companies in L.A. back then they're monetization engines. LegalZoom was profitable really from day one. I would argue it wasn't until Snap came into the picture that we finally got some capital into the city, where it was more a question of scale, as opposed to monetizing immediately. That really changed the landscape for all of Los Angeles. Going forward, more and more capital is coming into the city which attracts more and more talent. I think the ecosystem is definitely taking hold. </p><p><em>This interview has been condensed and edited.</em></p>
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- After WeWork, VC's noticed a major shift in how founders were pitching their companies. Growth and costly customer acquisition strategies are out while profitability is in.
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- VC's are excited about employees leaving SpaceX and starting new companies. "That talent is going to be game changing."
As the new decade begins, Southern California's tech scene continues to sizzle. More than 7,000 investors have poured money into 4,768 startups, ranging from a unicorn that aspires to have scooters whizzing through every city on earth to one that has ambitions to colonize Mars to the thousands of smaller companies just trying to get to their Series A, according to data analyzed by dot.LA.
"No one is doubting L.A.'s place in the tech ecosystem anymore," said Arteen Arabshahi, vice-president at WndrCo. "People realize L.A. is meaningful."
Last year ended with what is arguably the most consequential local acquisition to date when Paypal bought Honey for $4 billion. According to Pitchbook, L.A. VC exit deal flow hit $8.4 billion last year, the second highest amount ever after 2017, when Snap went public.
"I don't think Los Angeles will ever be Silicon Valley," said Brian Lee, co-founder and managing director of BAM Ventures. "We don't have grandparents named Fairchild Semiconductor and we don't have aunts and uncles named Google and Yahoo. But we are growing and we do have some great businesses being started here."
<p>Despite all the momentum, there are plenty of headwinds in the broader startup world to keep L.A. entrepreneurs and investors up at night. After WeWork's disastrous flameout and the disappointing IPOs of Uber and Lyft and shelving of IPOs for Postmates and Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., founders are under increased scrutiny to demonstrate they can deliver profits and not just meteoric growth. Meanwhile, Pitchbook data shows deal value fell slightly last year from 2018's record high, to $136.5 billion. Lastly, as this bull market approaches its eleventh year, companies are stockpiling cash to weather a recession, <a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/2020/01/19/58-of-investors-expect-a-recession-in-2020-heres-h.aspx" target="_blank">which 58 percent of investors say could happen this year.</a></p><p>To find out where L.A.'s tech scene is headed next, dot.LA interviewed some of the city's top VC's to ask where they are putting their money and what questions they think will shape the beginning of the new decade.</p><h2>1. What's the right balance of profitability versus growth?</h2><p>After WeWork, VC's noticed a major shift in how founders were pitching their companies, a trend they expect to continue for the foreseeable future. Growth and costly customer acquisition strategies are out while profitability is in.</p><p>"It's the soup du jour," said Amanda Groves, a partner at PLUS Capital. "It's trickled all the way down to the seed stage companies, which I think is healthy for people to be aware of."</p><p>Some very young companies are pitching how they will have a sustainable business model even before they've figured out a model for monetization.</p><p>"Now it's in decks and presentations and e-mails," said Groves. "That would never have existed before."</p><p>VC's say it is still important to focus heavily on growth, which is the point of venture capital afterall. They don't need to see profits right away, but they want to see a realistic way for companies to sustain themselves without burning through cash.</p><p>"We are focused on a path to profitability, said Dustin Rosen, managing partner at Wonder Ventures. "When I take companies from pre-seed to seed or series A, I'm coaching them on their presentations to focus on that."</p><p>VC's stressed that they have always been mindful of investing in sustainable businesses. It is not as if they only discovered the magic of profitability after WeWork.</p><p>Lee, one of the area's most experienced tech entrepreneurs who co-founded LegalZoom in 2001, has seen times when VC's prioritize growth and other times like now when profitability is paramount.</p><p>"They shift like the wind and it just drives me crazy," he said. "For me, we just want to build great businesses and it depends on the business model itself and the scale that something has to get to decide whether you want to run for profitability or growth. It should not be macroeconomics that determines that."</p><p>VC's should still have a tolerance for burning through cash relative to product fit and the maturity of a management team, according to Kara Nortman, a partner at Upfront Ventures. Still, she says companies are tightening up post WeWork.</p><p>"People are caring a lot more about capital efficiency," she said. "There's less tolerance for spending in extreme ways."</p><p>It is a shift that Nortman hopes is well-suited to L.A. companies. Nortman says many have long been forced to be more prudent than their Bay Area peers due to the shortage of local VC's like her writing bigger checks.</p><p>"In L.A. you've always had to be a bit more capital efficient," said Nortman. "The valuation is much more reasonable every step of the way."</p>
<p><br></p><h2>2. Will valuations come back to the earth?</h2><p>Despite signs of a modest cooling, Pitchbook data shows valuation size set another record last year at every fundraising stage. Checks are ballooning. And what would have been a pre-seed amount a few years ago is now seen in the seed round and what would have been a pre-seed is now series A, and so forth.</p><p>"Last year we saw an incredible amount of hubris," said Groves. "We're seeing it come back to earth a bit."</p><p>Some VCs, scared off by high valuations, are holding back their dry powder waiting for the market to cool. For instance, PLUS Capital's team compiled a list last year of companies it wanted to invest in if only the price was cheaper.</p><p>"The expectation is that if the market were to turn it might create an interesting buying opportunity for some of those companies where those valuations were out of whack," said Groves. "It sounds a little malicious, but is really just about keeping an eye on companies we really love that we couldn't make the numbers work."</p><p>While the average size of late-stage deals fell from $11.5 to $10.4 million last year, the size of early stage deals rose from $6 to $6.5 million, according to Pitchbook. (The average size of angel and seed funding deals stayed flat, at $1.1 million.)</p><p>"It's tough for price sensitive, early stage funds," said Matt Lydecker, lead investor at Luma Launch. "For us, there's definitely a threshold of valuation we need to be below. We will see a great company with a great founder and we're just priced out."</p><p>Investors will likely have to wait some time for valuations to decrease much due to the massive amount of capital flowing into venture capital. <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/softbank-vision-fund-2" target="_blank">Even if Softbank does not succeed </a>in raising $108 billion for its Vision Fund 2, there is still plenty of capital pouring in from nontraditional investors like asset managers and hedge funds. <a href="https://files.pitchbook.com/website/files/pdf/PitchBook_2020_Venture_Capital_Outlook.pdf" target="_blank">Pitchbook predicts</a> "pre-money valuations will continue to climb in 2020, with the median reaching a decade, if not all-time, high."</p><p>"There's a ton of capital chasing alpha, " said Will Coffield, a partner at Riot Ventures. "There's not really going to be a shift."</p><p><br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-proxy-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbWVkaWEucmJsLm1zL2ltYWdlP3U9JTJGd2lraXBlZGlhJTJGY29tbW9ucyUyRjAlMkYwOSUyRkV2YW5fU3BpZWdlbF9hdF9UZWNoQ3J1bmNoLmpwZyZobz1odHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnVwbG9hZC53aWtpbWVkaWEub3JnJnM9NTcwJmg9YzZmM2M0YWVhYzI1ZjkwNmFlMjIzYzAzZTUzOTRmM2M5NmViNTZhODYzYmUxMTJmZjI1MDEwZDdiYjA1OWI3ZSZzaXplPTk4MHgmYz0zMTE0MjQ2MzAwIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTI2Nzc5NX0.uNv3jNl-rrCNNJ2oWYqU3q63Ujrjub2LkdoGTHS6vuQ/img.jpg" id="4b5a5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b0e04b6a5737a7d8afd25a9afed1921c">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Snap Inc.'s Evan Spiegel at TechCrunch's Disrupt Conference.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Evan_Spiegel_at_TechCrunch.jpg" target="_blank">upload.wikimedia.org</a>
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</p><h2><strong>3. How many offices will Sand Hill Road open near the sand?<br></strong></h2><p>While L.A. now has a sizable number of VC funds – mostly at the early stage – companies here have traditionally raised heavily from Sand Hill Road. For instance, Menlo Park's Lightspeed Venture Partners led Snap's seed round, turning $485,000 into around $2 billion when the company went public in 2017. Benchmark led Snap's series A, resulting in another multibillion dollar windfall for a Bay Area firm. By contrast, Honey's investors – including Wonder Ventures, BAM Ventures, and Mucker Capital – were primarily L.A. based.</p><p>"That demonstrates that if you want to get into the best companies in L.A. you can't just wait for them to knock on your door on Sand Hill Road," said Coffield. "We're seeing more investors from San Francisco have dedicated strategies for how to cover L.A."</p><p>At Wonder Ventures, Rosen is noticing the same thing.</p><p>"I've never seen more excitement from Bay Area firms looking to do deals in L.A. because they know there are great companies and they know the prices and competition are less than they are dealing with," he said.</p><p>Just as many Silicon Valley firms have opened up New York offices but there are also homegrown New York firms, Groves says local VC's can co-exist with ones from up North.</p><p>"Silicon Valley has so many more venture funds, particularly ones with certain vehicles that we don't focus on," said Groves. "I think L.A. will mimic what the evolution has been on the east coast."</p><p>More Sand Hill Road offices could drive valuations even higher and reduce the discount that VC's still say L.A. early stage startups are priced at compared to the Bay Area. Even so, L.A. VC's say more capital flowing into L.A. can only be beneficial.</p><p>"It's absolutely helpful," said Nortman. "It's good for us and good for our founders."</p><h2>4. What sectors will shine?</h2><p>L.A.'s tech scene has largely been known for consumer standouts like Riot Games, Snap, and Dollar Shave Club but scores of lesser known, less flashy startups are poised to break through, according to VC's we interviewed.</p><p>"I am expecting more deep technology companies to be launched and more enterprise companies," said Groves. "A lot of that is a function of having the Googles and Amazons and some of these bigger organizations opening up offices, which is drawing more talent to the L.A. ecosystem."</p><p>Nortman too is focused on enterprise, and also agtech, aerospace, and companies that help with climate sustainability. She's excited to see founders who led successful companies in the Bay Area return to L.A to start their next company.</p><p>"They grew up here and are ready to come back," she said.</p><p>Rosen is focused on startups working to improve mental health and wellness.</p><p>"The effect of digital addiction and digital isolation of less traditional human contact has created a unique set of mental health issues that need solutions outside traditional therapy," he said.</p><p>Jamie Montgomery, founder and managing director of March Capital Partners, is looking for more artificial intelligence startups in the area. Up until now, he has found more promising ones in the Bay Area and New York City.</p><p>"We haven't done as much in Southern California as we would have liked, but I think that will evolve," Montgomery said.</p><p>Coffield thinks local defense, aerospace, and robotics companies are ripe with opportunity.</p><p>"There's a whole robotics community developing between downtown L.A. and Pasadena," he said.</p><p>He is particularly excited about employees who have left SpaceX to start new companies, like Relativity Space or Elementary Robotics.</p><p>"We spend a lot of time trying to track the talent out of SpaceX," Coffield said. "That talent is going to be game changing."</p>
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