Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPClassic: Brit Morin on Personal Branding, Entrepreneurship, and Unconventional Creativity

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

As a child, Brit Morin’s parents struggled to scrounge up $20 for her to go on her class field trip. She quickly learned that if she wanted something, she’d have to figure out how to get it herself. She started cooking and doing her own laundry at 8 years old. This creative spirit led her to work for massive tech companies and eventually start her own multimillion-dollar lifestyle brand, Brit + Co. In this episode of YAPClassic, you’ll learn how to exercise your creativity every day, how Brit makes investment decisions as a venture capitalist, and how she raised funding for Brit + Co. You’ll also learn about Brit’s experience working for Steve Jobs and Google. Brit is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Her most well-known company, Brit + Co., secured over $50M in funding since its inception in 2011. She has been awarded various accolades, including Ad Age’s 40 Under 40, Adweek’s Creative 100, Forbes 30 Under 30, Fortune’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs, Refinery29’s 30 Under 30, one of Parents magazine’s Most Influential Millennial Moms, and one of ELLE magazine’s American Women at 30. Brit is the author of the bestselling book, Homemakers: A Domestic Handbook for the Digital Generation and has been a regular expert on Good Morning America, the Today Show, Live with Kelly & Ryan, Rachael Ray, and more. In this episode, Hala and Brit will discuss:  - How middle school kills creativity  - Brit’s inclusive definition of creativity  - How Brit broke into the tech industry and worked for Steve Jobs  - The differences between Apple and Google’s culture  - Brit’s leap into entrepreneurship  - How social media advertising has evolved since the 2016 election  - Why Brit decided to seek venture capital  - How Brit decides what to invest in as a seed-stage investor  - How the mistreatment of women and people of color inspired Brit to start Selfmade - And other topics… Brit Morin is the founder and managing partner of Offline Ventures, an early-stage technology fund, and incubator that seeks to create companies that make our offline lives better. She’s also the founder of BFF, an open-access community to help more women and nonbinary people get educated, connected, and rewarded in all things crypto and web3. Further, she’s the founder of Brit + Co, a modern lifestyle and education company providing classes, content, products, and experiences geared towards women with a creative spirit and a do-it-herself attitude. She’s also the founder of Selfmade, an educational platform that helps female founders start and grow a business.  Prior to founding Brit + Co, she worked in product and marketing roles at Google and Apple. Her interests include tech, crypto, storytelling, design, women, photography, the great outdoors, and just about any creative project she can get her hands on. LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass, Have Job Security For Life: Use code ‘podcast’ for 40% off at yapmedia.io/course. Resources Mentioned:  Brit’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/britmorin Brit’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brit/ Brit’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/brit Brit’s Website, Brit+Co: https://www.brit.co/ Self-Made: https://tryselfmade.com/enroll Brit’s Podcast: https://www.brit.co/listen/ More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com   Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting. What is up my young and profiting family? Today we've got another YAP classic for you guys and we're pulling Britmarin's episode on self-made entrepreneurship from the archives. Britmarin is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and technologist. She's the co-founder and managing partner of Offline Ventures, which is an early stage venture fund, and she's also the founder and CEO

of the popular lifestyle brand, Britt Incoh. Britt recently launched self-made and education platform for female entrepreneurs, as well as BFF, an open access community for women and non-binary people in Web 3. Tune into this episode to learn how Britt broke into the tech industry and how she formed a relationship with Steve Jobs.

We discuss creativity and how to become more creative. We get the 411 on how she raised capital to start Brinko and we learn how Brit makes investment decisions as a venture capitalist. So let's get right into it. Here's my conversation with Brit Marin. Hi, thanks for having me. I'm very excited to talk to you. I feel like there's so many different things that we can discuss.

You are the founder and CEO of Brinco. You also had a very awesome tech career. You worked at Google and Apple, so definitely want to dive into that. From my understanding, you were very Google and Apple, so definitely want to dive into that. From my understanding, you were very creative from a young age, you know, from finger painting to drawing. This was something that you always had inside of you. So let's start from the beginning.

What were you like as a child, and how did you kind of hone this creativity at such a young age? Oh, like the very beginning. Okay. So, for better or for worse, I was a child of the kind of late 80s and early 90s, AKA the time very in life where there was not the internet. There was not social media.

And I was part of a generation where both the parents worked. So often I was at home alone, or my mom was working from home, and I was just left to spend for myself. And as a creative little girl to your point, I knew I was going to be an inventor one day. I like had a list of inventions. I still own that list, by the way. And I just like tinkered around the house, finding materials to try to make them a real thing. I didn't know what I was doing was actually entrepreneurship. I called it creativity because I was making stuff.

I was making products. I was burning things, lighting things on fire on accident, cutting the wrong things. And so it was kind of a mess in a disaster, but that was the only way I could learn again without Google or YouTube or something around me. Yeah, that's really cool. And I know I've heard you say in the past that making and the active actually making something can help us rediscover our creativity. Because when we're younger,

we are like kind of fearless when it comes to trying something new and getting creative. But then as we get older, we kind of shy away from being creative. So can you talk to us about that? Yeah, it's really interesting because, you know, we did an experiment a few years ago where we surveyed a bunch of like five to seven year olds and we asked them, do you think you're creative? And as you can imagine, like almost all of them said, yeah, for sure. Like,, I'm the most creative person in the world. Super ego about their creativity. Then we interviewed a bunch of 25 to 35 year olds and asked them if they felt they were creative.

And as you can imagine, the majority said, no, I am not creative. Oh, that's not me. I'm not an artist. For some reason, everyone kept referring to it as being an artist instead of just a trait of humanity. And so we realize that something happens between 5 and 25 or 35.

And I think it's middle school. Middle school is to blame for everything in life. But no, I think it's actually like when we start feeling judged about our creative skills and that can come with grades, you know, when you get graded in art class, which is sort of counterintuitive, or when we start to become really afraid and insecure of what our peers think about us, when we're showing things to them that feel really vulnerable as teenagers. But the fascinating thing is that oftentimes specifically for women when we studied creativity as adults, the only time it did come back in a really statistically meaningful way was

around the time of getting married. And we explored this for a little bit and we realized that with the rage of do it yourself weddings and Pinterest and all of these things, women in particular felt like there was a creative moment that was happening that they wanted to put their twist on to make it more themselves. And that reinvigorated their little child inside of them. And it, many times, encouraged them to be more creative as adults on an ongoing basis.

So I thought that was a really fascinating study that we've done. And then the other thing to note is that Halloween, of course, is the one day a year where every single person, well not everyone, but like 98% feel creative and feel like it's okay to break the rules and play and experiment without the judgment that comes and being silly. So I do think so much of it is just about adult insecurity

at the end of the day. Yeah, well that's so interesting. And you know, I've always considered myself to be like a very, very creative person. Like I always have like these natural design abilities. And even when I was in jobs in corporate where I wasn't a designer, I was like very strategic in kind of a higher level role, I found my creativity to be like a huge asset because when I was doing presentations, I can make them very visual.

And even my spreadsheets were really easy to understand and things like that. So talk to us about the scope of creativity and like your definition of creativity because I don't think it's just art, right? And can working on these DIY projects like help, you know, you and your corporate career or your professional job as well. You know, it's so funny. That's exactly right. Everyone thinks that when I say creativity, I mean like glue and ribbon, like crafts. Even the word craft is so overplayed, it means popsicle sticks and kindergarten. But when I say the word craftsmanship, that's provoked something more sophisticated.

And it's your point. DIY even has a crafty tone. But like when you're doing something yourself, let's do it yourself, right? Like I can go make dinner for myself. I can put on makeup by myself. I think creativity is this horizontal layer across everything we do in life, right?

And literally you're making probably 10 to 20 creative choices every day, minimum, just because you're picking out what you're wearing, you're deciding if it matches, you know, if you're a woman, maybe you're putting on makeup, you're doing gradients with your eye shadow, you know, you're blending your contouring, you're literally doing artistic things to your face, in your hair, you know, you're deciding what to make for dinner, you're maybe decorating or organizing your home, you're literally doing artistic things to your face, in your hair, you know, you're deciding what to make for dinner, you're maybe decorating or organizing your home, you're being creative and problem solving

that worked your point. And so I definitely think creativity is an asset, no matter what, but the problem is it's like a muscle. You have to work it out. You have to explore that side of yourself, even when you're not working and problem-solving. And to me, even 30 minutes a week, literally like exercising, whatever, pick a creative thing, cooking, painting, photography, it doesn't matter. Just do it and understand how

it feels to get into that flow state. Because at the end of the day, there's also been a lot of studies about creativity as an antidote to anxiety, depression, all of these mental health issues because it does put you into a meditative flow. And you don't have to Instagram it, you don't have to show it to anybody that can just be for you, it can be messy.

And isn't that such an amazing analogy for business and for life? It can be messy. You can try. You can play. You don't even have to put it out there at first, but like, explore it for yourself and see what comes from that.

Yeah, I love that. And it doesn't need to like make money or do anything fancy. It can just speak for you. And it's for men and women too. Like, men can be creative as well. And I think even there's a lot of men out there who think that crafts and creativity is kind of for women. And I think that there's plenty of things that men can

do that are creative, right? Oh my gosh. I mean, I'm married to a man who might not call himself a creative actually, but like he's an amazing photographer. He is an incredible architect designer, thinker. Literally, he studies real estate. He's on the board of dwell. He also plays Legos with my boys every day, and they're building from scratch. They're not following the guidebook. They're just making houses, making battleships.

That is creativity, too. And it's so fun. It's so fun to let that side of you go and just explore and see where it takes you. So yeah, men can totally be creative. Yeah, I love that. So let's talk about all of your success. Like you are an extremely successful young woman.

You're only 35 years old. You're the CEO of a company that a lot of people know about. You're an investor in multiple different companies. You've been on the 30 under 30 list twice. Like, you are very, very successful. And when I looked at your childhood, it's not the typical childhood that I've seen with all the different successful people that I've been on my show. Usually, I get the underdogs.

They were picked on at school. They were nerds with no friends. Or, you know, they never got any opportunities. But then I look at your profile and straight A's, Captain of the soccer team, class president, spelling B champ. You name it. You seem to have been crushing it your whole life. So I want to know, are we just seeing the highlight real of your life? Did you have any challenges growing up?

And how do you stay motivated if you had a very easy childhood? How does that keep you motivated knowing that you had it so easy or is there something more missing? Oh, well, thank you for insinuating that it was easy. I'm like, I've been in years of therapy. I can tell you all about my childhood. No, but for real, my, you know, we were were very middle class. I remember when it was really difficult for my mom to write me a $20 check for a field trip. Like we didn't have that much money in the bank. My mom was and is a court reporter. My dad when I was born was a restaurant manager and then later turned car salesman. Like no one had really gone to college in my whole family. My dad put himself through community college later when I was like seven.

So I didn't grow up with like the college educated super successful working class family. super successful working class family. These were people that were just like trying to make it and get by. And my mom suffered from debilitating depression when I was in first grade all the way till like sixth or seventh grade. And ever since then, she's still had it on and off. And largely, my childhood memories

were of my dad at work and my mom sleeping in her bedroom. And I think that I became so fascinated with creativity and invention and DIY do it myself because that was my only option. I had to figure things out for myself to survive literally. I had to learn to cook for myself. I did my laundry when I was eight. I had to go seek other people's approval, like teachers and coaches,

because I didn't feel like I was getting that at home. And I've talked to my mom about this at this point. But it also encouraged me to never want to be like that. My mom was a very negative person during those times. She definitely didn't think she was smart enough, pretty enough good enough at anything in life. She was not ambitious at all. She did not want to change her life to do

anything different or new. And I think I pushed against that so hard, like so hard. That not only did I throw myself into being the most ambitious go-getter person in the world, but I truly believe every woman can be that as well. And it's become my mission in life to like pull women along with me and push them off the edge when they're scared

and push them to do things that are really, really uncomfortable for them because I know they can. And that has been what's created Britain Co and self-made the new brand we've made and everything else. And I do feel like, right now in my life, I feel like the most whole authentic version of myself that I can talk so openly about this.

And I can be a resource for other men and women going through similar things, whether it's with mental health or the achievement push that, you know, any a gram three over here, can't ever like, say shit, my need to achieve. Very cool. So you ended up going to the University of Texas, right? And you wanted to go there because you knew

you would graduate early and then head out to Silicon Valley when you were, I think, 20 years old, right? So talk to us about that. Talk to us about that move to Silicon Valley. I think your first job was Apple. Tell us about that story. Yeah, you know, it's really funny because along the same time I was fascinated with computers in Silicon Valley.

I was equally fascinated by media and entertainment. I was binge watching television all the time, like most teenagers do, and LA felt so glamorous to me, a girl from Texas. And I remember when I was graduating, I was graduating early, I had two opportunities. One was to move to LA and work on the Jimmy Kimmel show, which had just launched. No one knew who this guy was,

or to move to San Francisco and work for Apple. And I was very conflicted. I remember being like, oh, this is really tough. And my brother talked some sense into me and was like, are you crazy? Like, you have to go to Apple. But Apple wasn't sexy at the time.

This is like, Dell was still number one. And PC's was what everyone had. iPods were still hard to sell to people. It's like early 2000s. So I was like, okay, I guess I'll go to Apple. And I'm so glad I did because not only did I get to work in iTunes, which is the coolest group at Apple, and we have like, John Mayer stop by for fun. But I met my husband there. It was an awesome bonus. And of course, got getting to work and meet Steve Jobs, even though I was so low on the totem pole,

was really, really cool. I remember I had to, at one point, one of my jobs was to send out the chunk of press that had happened the day before. I had to deliver it, hand deliver it to each one of the executives in the morning and go by their offices. And I like had heard horror stories about Steve Jobs firing you on the spot. Like if you said something wrong, and so I remember I would always like tiptoe to his office

and like hand him the stack of press from the date of war, like so afraid, like it was a bad press day. I would be fired or something, I don't know. But like, it was just like, you know, little stories like that. And I got to ask him questions at town halls and it was a really, really cool time to be there. And I'm so glad I got to work at Apple

briefly during the Steve Jobs era. Yeah, and I heard that he actually lied to you about releasing the iPhone. You had asked about a phone and he was like, oh, we would never put a camera and an iPod and one device. We would never do that. And then six months later, it came out. Tell us about that story and tell us about like,

just, it's crazy that you had, like, you actually met Steve Jobs. Not many people can say that. So tell us about how he was as a leader as well. Yeah, like I said, I was so scared of him because we all passed around these horror stories. But, you know, I was also the go-getter, maybe naive, early 20-something-year-old, that, like, if there was an opportunity at a town hall to ask a question, I wasn't gonna let that chance slip.

And so I raised my hand, there had been all these rumors about an iPhone, and I said, hey, like there's rumors we're making a phone, is this true? And he said, yeah, exactly what he said, he was like, well, let me tell you something. When you put a camera an iPod and a telephone into one device, no way can you keep the quality as high as possible in each one of those three things, like something has to give. So like do you think we would really

do that? And then six months later, it's like literally meet the iPhone. It's like the, you know, keynote presentation that changed the world. Like he would always answer things in a roundabout way where he wasn't saying yes or no, but he was like painting a picture of like why or why not we would do things. I learned a lot. And now actually my partner in the venture firm, I'm working on literally reported to Steve Jobs

for 28 years. So I am getting way more intel on Steve and his life and what he was like as a boss through my new partner, James. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea but you don't know how to move forward with it? Going into debt for a four-year degree isn't the only path to success. Instead, learn everything you need to know about running a business for free by listening to the Millionaire University Podcast. The Millionaire University Podcast

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Really cool. And so you also worked at Google. So you worked at two massive tech giants. Now you have your own company. What are some things that you kind of took from each company? Because now I'm a new entrepreneur. I worked at Ulyt Packard. I worked at Disney Streaming and other places. And I find myself like taking values and kind of culture bits from each company.

What have you brought to Britain Coe from these two companies? Yeah, they both are so different, but I'm so glad I got to see both of them. So at Apple, designers are the gods. Everything hinges on quality and design, right? And it's also a super secretive culture. And marketing is everything.

Like if you are an epic marketer, you know how to write copy, you know, tell a story, you know, the iPod ads that are so infamous, that is everything. At Google, that stuff is the bottom of the pack. Like, engineering is everything at Google. Data driven decisions are the way to go. Design and marketing are fluffy. They won't actually change the user's perception, you know, and of course I'm overstating some of this, but like totally different cultures.

And also at Google, we literally had an internal wiki where you could search what any project is, who's working on it, when it's going to be launched, like, see all the mocks, the screen shut. Like, and no one really leaked it. It was actually like pretty secure. We didn't really have leaks that much. So I think it's interesting how you can build totally different types of cultures, but still create incredible brands that could change the world. The thing about Google that I loved, though,

was really the data-driven decision making. Marissa Meyer was one of my bosses there. She went on to be an investor in my company, as you said. And I remember we would be in user design reviews and she would make us test 100 colors of the shade of blue and a button to see which one converted better. Like we had maybe 10 and she was like, we need more.

Like pick every shade of blue in this part of the spectrum and let's see if there's a difference, like 0.01% difference and click through rate. Because when you're literally dealing with a billion people, a change of 0.01% is really meaningful. And so she really invested in teaching me how to think about numbers, how to think about data, how to pair data and design together because art and science can live congruently and harmoniously together. And at the end of the day, Britonco has really been driven by data as much as possible.

It's one of those things from Google. Like for instance, when we launched Britonco back in the day, 2011, I remember Pinterest was a new social network. They had just released the PINET button that you can embed on your website to save images. We tested 20 or 30 versions of the P, or the save, the PINET, the P, all the variations of the penit button. We found one that blew the rust away. To this day, Britonco, specifically, my account Brit, is one of the top Pinterest accounts in the whole world. I think most recently reached 91 million uniques on Pinterest.

And I totally credit that to the testing of this PINIT button, which became really, really effective for us because so many of our users would say things, and that really blew up our account there. So, you know, if anyone is out there thinking about data, like getting the Google Master's degree and how to make data-driven decisions can totally help you out. Yeah, and I would definitely echo that because I find that that's a skill

that not many people have. Like, people don't understand UX, people haven't had experience with A.B. testing and things like that. Unless you've been in product marketing or in a marketing department that does that kind of stuff, there's a lot of people who don't have experience there. Then they start businesses on their own, they run ad campaigns, they don't know why it's not working and they don't understand that you

need to continually iterate in itery and itery until you get something that's really good. And you got to keep spending time to make it better and better. So I would definitely recommend increasing that skill, your product design skills and things like that. So you mentioned Marissa Mayer, and she was an investor in your company and sounds like she was also one of your boss mentors. And I want to understand, if you could look back

at your time at Google and making your impression with Marissa, what do you think it was in terms of your qualities for her to kind of take you on under her wings, for her to have liked you so much to invest in your company, how did you get in her good graces? I think that's a fascinating question because I'm actually still not totally sure. What I do know is she didn't like me at first. totally sure. What I do know is she didn't like me at first. So there was a cross every point. No, I had this manager when I was first at Google. And again, I'm like 23 at this point, right? Like I'm really young. This manager was a gay Spanish man. So you can imagine, like, it's just very outgoing, loud. And I remember, you know, we would do our peer assessments and we would

get sort of our quarterly performance reviews back. And all the managers would have to go to Marissa to sort of validate each person on their team and what their review score was bubble ball. And Marissa kept knocking me down. Like, he would be like, I think Britt, like was an overachiever this quarter, she should get a 4.0 and Marissa was like, mm, I don't know. I think she's probably more like a 3.5. And I remember my manager being like, I don't know Britt, like maybe she feels like

you're competitive, like I don't know why she's, she thinks you're like a div, I don't know what's happening. And I was so sad because I was working my ass off. And I was always trying to be so kind and I just do my work. But then I remember being asked to join a new team by Marissa, which was called Google TV. We were creating the first operating system for television that ever existed.

It was part of the YouTube organization. It's now gone on to be Chromecast. But Marissa called me to her office and was like, I think you need to go to this team. And I was like, really? Why? And she was like, because this is going to be a startup within Google.

And I just really believe that it's gonna be exciting for you, you're gonna learn a lot, you're gonna get a bunch of responsibility. And I was like technically like I'm not actually like experienced enough to be on that team for the role that's open there. And she's like, I'll make it happen for you. And I was just like, what win in this like life cycle

of knowing Marissa, did she suddenly decide she liked me? Because whatever. But I'll take it. And so I just, I went to the team. I like launched Google TV. It was awesome. I managed a $50 million budget when I was 25, which is totally insane.

And ever since then, she's been really supportive of me and everything I've tried to do. And so I don't know, but something. I, that's a good mystery to figure out. Well, you know, if I could from an outside perspective, it sounded like you're always willing to raise your hand, whether you were at the town hall, willing to raise your hand and ask a question, because a lot of people are shy to do that. And that's really how you get intention of like the CEO and people you don't have access to, right? He probably started to recognize you as the girl who

always asked a question. And then with Marissa, you weren't afraid to to, right? He probably started to recognize you as the girl who always asked a question. And then with Marisa, you weren't afraid to say yes when she gave you that opportunity that you weren't quite ready for. So these are all definitely qualities of young employees that I think really stand out in my opinion. Yeah, for sure.

And I think just like being willing to roll up your sleeves, do the work, say yes to your point, really puts your boss bosses mind at ease when they need that whole field right now. So you're right, that's a really great tip for anyone out there. Yeah, so let's talk about Britain Co. At what point did you want, like decide you were going to go off as an entrepreneur, you started really young, how did you get like the motivation to do that, the courage, the confidence to

just go out on your own? How did that come about? Yeah, so here I was, 25. I just launched Google TV. I'd also worked on many other things that Google had been there for four years. And I felt like I was repeating patterns. I was literally nothing felt that challenging anymore. I mean, it's challenging, but I was doing the same thing.

I was launching a new thing. I knew how to launch something. And at Google, also, if you put a link on the Google homepage, you're going to work to get a successful launch. So I was like, how does this work for when you don't have a billion people following you? And I noticed at Google and YouTube how to search queries, like how to blink.

We're always the most popular every year. They actually tend to disqueue female more than male. And as a 20-something year old female, I was not very impressed by the search results behind them. They were pretty boring, not exciting, not informative. So I was like, I love creative stuff. I really want to learn how to do things too, but I wouldn't turn to any of these search results to teach me.

And I was like, oh my God, should I be the teacher? And I remember I was getting ready to get married. I was in the same state. I told you about earlier, which was like, I was thinking of all these creative ideas for my wedding and I wanted to make them all to add a personal twist. And I really wanted other women to learn how to do this too.

Pentress Tedious launched. I was putting everything on my blog and on Pinterest. I was developing a little following for my little creative side projects. And I was just like, oh, I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do. But I didn't feel like it was a real business. I was like, this is just a blog.

It's not like, you know, this isn't a business. And so instead I was like, well, I actually really care about health and fitness. There's like a body analytics company I really want to start to and I got a co-founder. It was a female engineer. We were building an alpha. I had left Google, I decided, you know, I had six months of savings in my bank account.

And if I couldn't get something working in six months, I would just go back to Google or get a new job somewhere else. Like I felt confident enough in myself that I could get another nine to five if things fell apart. But I had six months to go prove myself to the world. And I did have this crazy impasse where I was working on this health company. We were about to go raise money, we were building a pitch check, but I was obsessed with this creative part of my life

in like teaching women how to do things. And my husband and one of my best friends sat me down one day and we're like, Britt, you are destined to do this. Like you champion women. This has always been part of you. You've literally been creative since you were a little girl. You light up when you talk about this.

The health and fitness, like analytic stuff. Cool. Maybe that's a billion dollar company. Maybe you can have a really great outcome. But are you really going gonna love doing that every day when you wake up for the next 10 years? And I was like, what? And so much of the decision was actually me

believing enough in myself to do something without a co-founder at first. Like it's really scary to start alone. I had the co-founder at this health startup I was working on. And but I was like, they're right. And I broke up with my co-founder. I was literally like, was working on. And, but, you know, I was like, they're right. And I broke up with my co-founder. I was literally like, it's not you, it's me.

Same excuse you would use in dating. And, and off I went to start Britain Co. And I put my name in it because at the time, social media was just blowing up. And everyone that was a brand was a human. And it felt way more authentic and personable to be a real person behind the brand kind of like back in the day to your point Disney Hershey's Porsche Rockefeller Walmart. They were all real people and that gave you an element of trust in the brand that they built

So you launched Britain Co. I can't believe you didn't start it really as a side hustle that you just went cold Turkey because we have opposite stories I did yeah media as a side hustle that you just went cold turkey because we have opposite stories. I did, yeah, media as a side hustle, did it completely while working full time. And then once it was like totally risk-free, I left the mothership. So we did that totally absolutely. It could also be there's such different markets now. I did it during COVID. You did it a long time ago. Maybe it wasn't that crazy, even market at the time. So different scenarios, you're very successful. So it worked out for you. What was the tipping point with Britain Co? At what point did you feel like, wow, like this is really going to be a thing. This is going to be really successful. At what point did you start realizing that you had created a movement and that you were going to get a lot of notoriety

from this? At what point did you realize that? I think there were a lot of micro moments along the way, you know, even just raising our first round of funding, which was a million dollars, felt like a huge achievement. Like, oh my God, we had enough traffic and enough revenue for huge venture capitalists to invest in us. Like, that was scary, but awesome. And then we did it again with the series A, and we did it again with the series B. And between the series B and series C, which was probably like 2015 to 2017,

was like those years, I just remember, were like so wild and amazing. That those years were probably the time period to answer your question. Like we were launching products and target stores nationwide. We have 15,000 people coming out to our events. We had we picked at 15 million uniques a month on our website. There's press all the time. I was on TV all the time and you know, it was just like so much was going on and it was awesome.

But in many ways, we were scaling so quickly at the time that I do feel like it was equally hard because I was losing touch with. And Disney became an investor, Verizon became an investor. It took me away from my team way more than I imagined. And after the election in 2016 and Facebook started changing all their algorithms and like the media world of digital media started getting crazy if you look at like Buzzfeed and Vox and everybody has had an enormous amount of struggle over the last past few years because all these changing algorithms

just like changed traffic so wildly. And so the last few years have been super difficult just because we live in a social media world now, whereas those years building up from 2011 to 2017, yes, like Facebook was a thing, but like it wasn't so fragmented. It was like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, you know, our three social resources of traffic.

And so it's been more challenging, but also more rewarding because so many publishers have started moving into direct to consumer revenue, rather than relying on advertising as our main revenue source. And that's been so liberating for me because at the end of the day, I get to spend more of my time with our users instead of flying all over the country talking to CMOs. And that stuff's fun, but I want to know what know, on the cusp of the edge for women. And that's what I care about.

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was just a click of a button, even setting up my chat bot was just a click of a button. It was so easy to do. Like I said, just took a couple of days. And so it just allowed me to focus on my actual product and making sure my LinkedIn masterclass was the best it could be, and I was able to focus on my marketing. So Shopify really, really helped me make sure that my masterclass was going to be a success right off the bat and enabled focus.

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I mean, we went from like zero to half a million uniques really quickly and then a million and at the time, that was like a really big deal and I remember thinking about how this was just the brink of what couldn't be, because if we can continue to grow traffic like this, we could monetize it through advertising. We could also create a commerce business,

which at the time really hadn't been done before. Like content and commerce businesses were very new. And ultimately, we could build this multifaceted brand. But in order to do that, I needed like significant capital because I needed engineers. I needed people who knew manufacturing. I needed a bunch of people.

And a loan was not gonna get me there. And so I think it's also a fact of like, I've been born in Bretton Silicon Valley and venture capital is just like right outside my door and I know the people who are venture capitalists, I literally did my seed deal in the back of a taxi in New York City because I was like pitching to a VC who I know.

And so I was fortunate to have a network that was literally right outside my door. And I know not everyone has that. But I do think it's part of the halo effect of having got to Silicon Valley at such a young age and starting to get to know people, even at Apple and Google. And like, your network is your network. As my friend Porter Gale says, so it really helped me in that way.

I will say I don't think venture capital is the right approach for most businesses. I, you know, in many ways have thought back like, could I have done this without all the VC money? And I, I think it's totally possible. You might not grow as quickly, but you will grow organically. You can probably grow a solid 20 to 30% year every year instead of 100% year every year, like we've done so many years. But it's totally possible and probably less stressful if you want to do it that way.

Yeah. And I know that now you're an investor yourself. You actually mentioned to me on an offline conversation that you invested in Clubhouse, which I think was a really great one to choose. I agree, thank you. So how do you decide which companies you're gonna invest in? What's that process like?

What do you look for? Yeah, so I'm a seed stage investor, which is sometimes investing in companies before they've even launched. Other times investing in them right after they've launched. It's really hard to paint a picture of success when you barely have metrics to work off of. So, what me and my partners tend to do is, A, look at the team.

And when I say team, I really mean the founder or co-founders. Like, have they done this before? What's their track record? Have they worked this before? What's their track record? Have they worked together before? We reference them with a lot of background diligence on who they are, if they're second time founders or third time founders, as is Paul Davidson, the founder of Clubhouse.

You know, I've known Paul since like 2009, you know, we hung out at South by Southwest back in the day and when he was likelight, his second company. And I know that he has an itch in him to scratch when it comes to building a social network. Like he's tried to do it and failed and he's learned a lot and he just won't give up. And I think in many ways we look for people that will just bulldoze through walls no matter what. They will figure it out. So that's number one.

And number two is truly the idea. Is this an idea that could become a multi-billion dollar business? Is this something that could defend themselves with if competition came out from nowhere? Is this something that can scale quickly rather than taking like 10 or 20 years, you know? And so we look at those things, we look at models and ultimately, you know, we place our butts on companies. We're still 90% plus won't work out. And the beauty of venture capital is that hopefully a small percentage of them do. And when they do work out, it's not just like a 2x return, it's like a thousand x return, which I'm hopeful that this will be one of for us. I'm sure it will. Let's talk about your new venture self-made. Tell us about what this is,

how people can benefit from it, where they can find out more about it. Yeah, so during the peak of the early pandemic in 2020 kind of roughly in the May, June timeframe, I was noticing how women were disproportionately getting furloughed, let go, or forced out of their jobs to care for their kids. And the New York Times had coined at a she session, like women were getting far more displaced for men than men.

And also, the Black Lives Matter movement was happening, talking about how disproportionately people of color have been treated during the pandemic. And I just became angry because frankly, I have learned how to make money through starting a business. I've watched thousands of people do the same. I have seen all the patterns.

I know all the people do the same. I have seen all the patterns. I know all the people in the game. So could I help? Could I do something to enable these women to go off and start their own businesses and live on their own financial terms rather than applying to a hundred jobs and crossing their fingers. They might get hired or hoping the pandemic ends

so they don't have to homeschool their kids anymore. And so self-made was born. It was totally on a whim. I built a square space site in two weeks. It's sort of like my favorite example of just like putting something messy and sloppy out there to see if it sticks. And like 170 women signed up.

And I didn't know what I was doing, but I was like within 10 weeks, I'm gonna teach these women everything they need to know about how to start a business. And I didn't know what I was doing, but I was like within 10 weeks, I'm gonna teach these women everything they need to know about how to start a business. And I did that, and it went really well. And then I did it again in the fall, and it went even better. And now I'm doing it again for the third time.

And the key of this whole thing is, not only is it live interaction with me, but it's also live interaction with like 25 other people I'm bringing in that are experts in all kinds of topics from like pitch checks to PNLs, to social media, to sales. There's also women who have just like done it. There's, you know, women like the CEO and founder of ClassPass, Pyle Kadakia, Rebecca Minkoff, the fashion designer, Gwyneth Paltrow, the CEO of Goop, Bozema St. John, the CMO of Netflix.

You know, there's women that have taken companies public, there's women that have bootstrapped and like everyone is here to tell their story and accelerate the path that these new entrepreneurs have in front of them so that they can just start making money sooner. And so it's been really, really, really rewarding for me, and I'm really excited that we're about to start the next one on March 1st, and I'm hopeful that at the end of the day, we can create over 10,000 new female founded companies through self-made.

That's amazing. So have any success stories come about since you launched it? I know it's so new, so. But anything come to mind? Oh yeah, I mean, most women are launching their businesses during the class. And so they're literally starting to create real revenue. I mean, one woman freaked out because she launched her company

one day, the next day, she had like $4,000 in sales overnight. Like she just like put up a couple Facebook posts, sent it to some friends, went to bed, woke up, and was like, holy shit. I get like $4,000 of orders. Like I've never made that much money in a week in my life. Like, and that's the feeling, that feeling that I had when I saw that happen.

And that's not as singular incident. Like this has happened many different times to so many of the women in the course. Like, how cool. How cool that they took a chance on themselves, put something out there, didn't really know what they were doing, and saw massive success. And so the next step is how do we sustain that success? And so we have an alumni program and coaching and all kinds of things that go into it. But it's been incredible.

And it's been amazing. We've had women invent new products, medical devices, all kinds of really crazy B2B services. And then we've had people create jewelry and face masks. So it really runs the gamut. That's really cool. And so it's a 10 week program and it takes you from zero to launching a business. If you already have a business or a new business,

is it still relevant for you or is it really for someone who just has an idea? No, it's definitely relevant for both. We have some separate tracks and breakout sessions for those who already have a business. We also have dedicated coaching where you can go one-on-one with coaches to get really specific personal advice on your business. I am there 24-7 to message with and talk to as well. Again, super custom and personalized to you.

So it really can be for anyone. And the best part is at the end of it, we have like a pitch day where everyone, not everyone, but like a selection of the students get to pitch. And we are literally giving out grants. My dream is also to have a venture track for like a venture style company where we can literally invest on the spot, Shark Tank style. And I can rope in all my favorite female VCs to join.

And so ultimately, we want to be in the business of helping women create businesses. And that's what Self Made is all about. It's also the irony of the name, because even though we want you to take full credit for what you're doing, there's like a total girl gang here to help push you forward.

Yeah, I love the mission. I see beaming when you're talking about it. Like you seem so passionate about it. And honestly, for everybody out there listening, I think going through a reputable coaching program like this can replace the need to like go get an MBA. Like literally, I really do feel like this is the future of that type of education. For sure. It's also like a quarter million dollars

to get an NBA. No, I'm not for Matt to go through self-made. Yeah, exactly. It's a great other option. Okay, so you're very, very accomplished, as we said. You're just 35 years old. You have an incredible company now. You're launching a new venture called Self Made.

The last question I ask all my guests on the show is what is your secret to profiting in life? My secret to profiting in life is to become incredibly aware of what fills me with energy rather than takes it from me. And I think this is a pattern that a lot of people get into where they're habitually doing the same thing every day, and that could be in work or in your home life. And if you critical all of the things that you're doing, I bet you more than 50% of them are energy draining,

not energy giving. And so the question becomes, how do you either delegate the energy draining stuff or, you know, make that sub 10% and fill your days and fill your life with the things that are energy giving to you because life is short and we don't have time to spend wasting our energy. We should be filling our energy, and therefore it becomes contagious to others. And if we're all doing that, how much better of a world could we create? I love that, that's beautiful. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do?

Oh my gosh, well, I'm at Brit on basically every social network. At Brit and Co is the company and my new venture is self made try self made dot com. Awesome. And I'll definitely put the links for all of that in my show notes. Brit, it was so lovely to talk to you. It was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me. Thanks, everyone. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the happier with Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project, and every week we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Ruben Podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture,

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