And when they put together an SPV to invest in a very late stage tech company, it was or early for that company, it was called Group eleven. Dolby Francis, who's now, like, one of the most prolific investors in late stage tech in the world, I was like, I'm doing this. And I scraped together every penny I had to put in on that investment because I just knew that this was the start of something for me. And so took a leap of faith. My husband was like, I believe you. Let's do this.
Let's figure it out. And now that's provided an 8x return. That's pretty great. Amazing. Not complaining about that one. And then just started Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I, Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the minds of the world's most influential institutional investors. In each episode, we sit down with an investor to hear about their journeys and how global markets are driving capital allocation. So join us on this journey as we explore these insights.
How I like to do it. So cool. So we are live here with a new friend, Mintz, who is the general partner at Fabric VC and also the founder of Elevate My Brand. So I've gotten to know her for five, six weeks now. We, you know, we chatted earlier, so thanks for putting up with me and being my new friend. No, thanks for having us and everything you do, Joel. Like the program you're putting together is so valuable and important and the connection points are fantastic.
So I'm the one that should be thanking you. My pleasure. Look, it's all about, you know, relationships as you know, you probably know this thinking about brands and and connecting with people.
But, you know, I think it's really important to understand Laurel's background because there's some parallels with my career as well, where I switched careers a few times and I was a tech person that I worked in software, you know, worked on Wall Street and then ended up becoming, you know, full time investor, but also still a company builder as well.
So I think that's really interesting because, you know, Laurel, she went to law school, became an attorney, you know, ended up becoming, you know, ended up building a large branding agency, you know, working with some of the world's biggest brands. And alongside that also is still actively investing in building a different brand on the investing side. So Laura, welcome to the show. Excited to just kind of unpack all of this.
Maybe we can start by filling in the gaps of anything that I missed in terms of your bio and make sure that I'm capturing everything. Let's start from the beginning. Where'd you go to school? Tell me about your family upbringing and how that navigated your education and career decisions. Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, thank you so much for having me. I am literally Laurel from Laurel Canyon. That's how LA OG I am. So Laurel Canyon, part of that's a forgive me for my lack of the LA industry.
I went to Milken last week, but where is Laurel Canyon? Is that like outside of LA? It's in the heart of LA. It basically connects the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood. So it's the middle point between all of those two areas and it was really the epicenter of the 60s movement, the hippie movement. So my dad was actually a hippie in the 60s, lived in a commune in Laurel Canyon, sex, drugs, rock and roll. Then I came along and and I'm like I'm gonna be a lawyer and he was like oh okay.
So okay so that's really, so you were part of the commune when you were a kid? I didn't live in the commune, no but we have a lot of extended Most of them are in San Francisco now as an extension of that hippie movement. But yeah, still definitely consider myself a flower child. My only knowledge of the communes are like the Netflix documentary. So hopefully hopefully we can go go a little little deeper, but you know, much as you want to share, but okay. So you were part of that.
And then you said, hey, know, I want to get, you know, I want to go to law school. Then and then what happened after that? Did my undergrad at UCSB, which was fantastic. Then I applied to law school when nineeleven happened and applications to law school went up 400%. And so everyone was like, oh shit, everyone needs to go back to school. That's why applications increased so dramatically. So I didn't get into Hastings or Bolt or UCLA. A lot of those schools I thought I was a shoe in for.
I did get into Rutgers and I thought, and everyone had always said, you have very East Coast energy. You do really well out You should really check it out. And so that's where I ended up. I ended up in law school at Rutgers on the East Coast. Nice. I didn't like snow too much so I came back pretty quickly thereafter. But yeah, I had the experience for sure. Sure. Okay. So you're right. Yes. You're kind of not too far from my hood, you know, in Jersey, Jersey girl.
So you so then you just kind of went back to and it's really interesting too, because I mean, the, you know, education is a very interesting space especially when you know you see the economy having a rift you know people go back to education, people go back to liquor and tobacco movies, people want to kind of go back to some of industries and you see those industries still flourishing when there's tough times.
You know, to your point, Ray, a lot of people like, let's go back, maybe do a reset for our education. So tell me about the law career. So, you know, you went to law school, got your JD, and then did you work for a firm for some time on the West Coast? I did. I actually ended up hating law school. So I wanna go back for a hot second. Was Was like, I went to the dean and I was like, I'm done here. I don't wanna do this anymore.
I was never of the mindset if I took a slice of the pie then you couldn't have any pie. And that's very much what law school was about. It was super cutthroat, very combative and that's just not my vibe. I'm very much a team building problem solving creative. And so the dean saw that and said, why don't you try the MBA program? There's marketing focus element. I think that would be a much better fit for you. And she was 100% right. So I ended up doing the JD and the MBA.
But I do come from Jewish parents and you're a doctor or a lawyer. Oh yeah. I'm sure you've had that same Oh yeah, you're talking to an Indian here. Yeah, right. So same, same. So I did take and pass the bar here in California and practiced for a short while. Yeah, I'm still barred and I still do a little bit of work here and there, mostly on the intellectual property side. Because we do some of It definitely helps you with your contracts.
I mean, could definitely easily draft the contract for all of your consulting work and stuff. So definitely all of that. It really does. My legal fees are very low annually for my firm. Can I curse on this podcast? Yeah, let's do it. I always say people don't really fuck with me because they know better. Sure. Mean, that's a mentality, sometimes it's a mentality of how you represent yourself as well. Right?
So, like, you know, kind of I think part of it is also, like, respecting yourself and knowing that you're not someone that accepts that. And then, you know, other people feel that vibe too. Right? So Totally. Totally. So yeah, to your point, I practiced for a short while, but just like your kind of journey, the universe had a different plan for me. My dad got sick. He's healthy now. So that was really a fantastic outcome.
Stage four cancer to cancer free now for almost twenty years, which is amazing. That's amazing. But I had to step down and take over his interest in a company called Bassett Furniture, which is a huge national brand. He was the West Coast partner and I had to step in and was interim CEO there for three years, which was really intense. But it's really what taught me that I was an entrepreneur and I kind of never looked back.
Sure. Okay. So you helped take on that brand and then let's talk about elevate my brand and how that came out. Yeah. So he stepped back in and I was like, I don't think I want to be a lawyer. I kept getting those great 6 figure offers that should have made me deliriously happy. And I was like, was like, was kind of a visceral negative reaction every time I would get an offer.
Well, do the math too on like the hours that you got to work, it's probably at some point sometimes like it's close to minimum wage, right? I mean, for sure, for sure. So I was like, you know what? I put my life on hold to make sure my family could survive emotionally and financially during this really challenging time. I'm going to go figure out what I want to do. And I started just losing and schmoozing with other entrepreneurs and all of their pain points were around digital at the time.
This was seventeen years ago almost. So you started going to some of these founder meetups in LA? Yep. Exactly. And just asking my connection points like, hey, do you know anyone that needs any support with marketing or legal, like contract work, anything like that. And so know me, I'm a super schmoozer, I'm a super connector. And so I just started kind of like digging in and planting seeds and the next thing I knew I had like a full book of business I was consulting on, on the marketing side.
So that's really how Elevate was born. I did about a year of consulting and I woke up and I was like, woah, this is my career. This is actually a real gig. And if I wanna do this, I wanna play a bigger game. And that's when the agency itself was born and started hiring and training and doing all that all the bigger bigger vision stuff. We talked about this too.
Mean, so I you know, obviously, as you know, I have a couple other, businesses that I founded and I run, and there really isn't somebody that does everything, right? Like, you need a funnel, there's like one person that has a funnel. If you need traffic, there's like somebody else that does traffic. So I think even, you know, and I'm I'm in I'm in New York City. I go to a lot of these founder meetups and it's the same thing.
It's like, oh, well, do you know I got good I got good traffic, but I'm not, you know, the the sales process is not working. Right. So there hasn't to my knowledge still been kind of like someone that handles the entire life cycle of a business. Like, hey, you need traffic, you need a funnel, you need sales, then you need fulfillment. Those are all different verticals and there's like different people that are experts. But just want to hear your reaction on that or your thoughts on that.
And maybe it should be segmented too, but I don't know. Yeah, I think it should. So what you're talking about is life cycle marketing, right? And so what happens is founders particularly don't understand that the funnel has all these different stages, right? So you're very different a brand. If you're at the top of the funnel and you're a brand new brand or you're breaking into a new market and nobody knows, likes and trusts you yet.
But what happens is, and I speak on this topic a lot to this day, what happens is founders get so obsessed over the sales conversation, as well they should because that's dollars in their pockets, right? Revenue is super, super important. But they forget that it's almost like dating, right? Hopefully you're not gonna just jump into bed with someone. If you are, that's your vibe and that's totally fine, no judgment. But marketing and sales is a long game, right? Sales moment is transactional.
But what happens leading up to that is what marketing is. And so the top of funnel marketing conversation is very, very different than the bottom of funnel conversion or even the middle of that funnel. And now that we are in such a focused digital era, can take anywhere from 16 up to 25 touch points before you can convert. So I think that mentality is a misnomer or a mistake that a lot of operators think. They're like, I have this great product, I should be selling it instantly.
And they're really losing out on building the relationship part, which is what we do best. Yeah. So I'd like to just nerd out a little more on marketing. What what are the biggest leaks that you're seeing in, the founder's business? You know, whether it comes from, marketing to sales to fulfillment. What's kind of like the common thread that you're seeing? That's a big conversation. Or maybe there isn't a common thread. Maybe everyone does. There certainly is.
The common thread is the lack of understanding that conversion from each step on that path. And let's just call it 10 touch points. At 10 touch points, you're only converting ever at a one to 2% conversion rate on each level of that path, of that journey. And so the disconnect on the founder side is, I talk to 100 people, I should convert 100 people.
But if you have 16 touch points, you need to talk to 100,000,000 people to hit that revenue number at the bottom of that funnel based on that one to 2% conversion rate. So you can math it, You can kind of figure out what you need to do in terms of the top of the funnel and each step along the way.
But that's the big misnomer, the big disconnect in my opinion on the operator side for startup founders is they don't understand how to build the right funnel and that the numbers don't instantly convert and that that one to 2% conversion rate is actually pretty standard across the board. It's a shitty number when you think about it, but standards are standards. It is what it is. You know what I mean? Can't fight city hall. Do you have any yeah. No. It's true.
I I I like following Neil Patel a lot. He's got a lot of insight on just, you know, new features that are coming out on TikTok and just new things to think about when it comes to search. So a couple of things that he's been talking about on just using TikTok as a new channel is really thinking about just fresh content and just kind of putting out more organic stuff.
Sometimes like the well, what I've seen too is, you know, when you overproduce it, sometimes you lose a little bit of the authenticity because, you know, but but the intention is, hey, we want to look super polished and look like a really sophisticated brand. But sometimes people resonate with like just a person that's the spokesperson that's just on at home on their their couch.
Do you have any comments or just observations in terms of just, you know, maybe paid paid marketing and the spend and just kind of how brands should think about, you know, distributing their their ad spend across different channels and maybe just highlights on just short form content as well. Yeah. Well, to your point, that's why GEICO hired us because they were seeing that they're really polished produced content wasn't delivering the same way that their more authentic content was.
And so they hired us. We're a small scrappy agency. And to your point, we've worked with a lot of huge brands because of that. They want someone that can be a little more gritty and turn things around faster and deliver more authentic content. And I think that that's what consumers want more so than ever before. They don't need or want that super, super polished content. And that's what the creator economy is all about. Think we're only at the tip of the iceberg on it.
And I think brands are starting to really double click into it and understand the value there. So I think that's number one is really understanding you don't have to be perfect. And I think it holds so many brands back from doing a volume of content. It's the number one question we get, Joel, is like, how do I get more bang for my buck in terms of budget? And my conversation is always around volume of content.
We know it takes a minimum of two pieces of content to organically impact traffic to your site. There's a lot of secret sauce around that that I can share if you want the inside details. But content is king queen and the Duke of York. Get your content shit together. Like, don't know how else to say it. It's challenging too because a lot of times, some people will say, hey, just keep on creating content. Keep creating content.
But sometimes if you don't have is there there I don't know if you have some of these insights in terms of like, should you post on TikTok? I've heard some people say like, you should you should post on TikTok first before you go on Instagram or like, I don't know the cadence in terms of like posting structures, but I don't if you have any insights on that in terms of like like like just a general like content strategy.
If you're like a bigger brand, you know, and you're doing short form content, you know, do you just post everywhere or is there like some type of reason? Because I'm figuring it out as I go, you know, I'm trying to like really think about who I am, Joel, and and what my brand is. I just kind of open source everything, right? Like you and I are chatting. This is live on LinkedIn, and then I have somebody that's maybe chopping up some interesting pieces.
So like this hour that we chat, you know, we're gonna find like this cool thing that Laurel said, the time that Laurel cursed, we're gonna put that on the on LinkedIn. I'm just But but but, you know, so can you would can you help us kind of think about like maybe just like a high level strategy, right? Like for maybe even creators or brands that are trying to do the short form game, like what's the cadence? Like, do you just post everywhere and figure Yeah, there's no perfect answer to that.
The great news is though that like all these native channels have metrics and reporting, right? So it isn't Wild Wild West like it used to be where you were like, I don't know, I'm just kind of posting and figuring out where to do that. For example, like if you're using a scheduling platform like Planoly, for example, for Instagram and any of the meta channels, it will tell you the best times and days to post your content. It will also tell you what kind of hash tags to use.
It will also tell you what kinds of even color theory works best for your channels. So I'd say you need to start with getting really, really good and clear on the top two to three channels. Don't try and be everything to everyone. Yeah. And then it's about developing a content persona for each of those channels. So you don't want to be the same voice on each of those channels because otherwise nobody has the reason to follow you on multiple channels.
So you might be on LinkedIn more polished and business focused whereas on Instagram you might be more playful and funny, right? Just creating those platform personas first and then it's about creating your content matrix or matrices for each of those channels. So we do it often like literally in a matrix, right? So what is on the left hand side, like who, what, where, when, why, how? So just simple starting question points.
And then on this axis, different things about the brand, like manufacturing, if you're doing, let's just say the product, manufacturing, your branding, the founder stories, case studies, things like that. And then you connect the dots between those two metrics to create the volume of content so that it doesn't feel so overwhelming.
The next layer on top of that is using semantic web and Google free keyword planner to make sure that you're building in the content in that matrix with the overarching conversation that Google owns. Right? To build out smart content that's gonna deliver from a keyword perspective. That was a of a long winded answer to that question, but that's how we do it. No. I nerd out on all this too. I've also heard I mean, so Neil Patel, I guess he acquired Answer the Public.
So he he always kinda, know, shills that product. But I I played with it a few times. It's kinda cool because you can look up like a certain topic like you do venture capital. It'll talk it'll talk about like some interesting topics to maybe post about. And I think Google Trends probably does the same thing as well because sometimes too, mean, have I don't really know what to post about. So one thing I posted was like, look, you know, I just think about what I experienced this week.
Maybe I had a difficult conversation with somebody or, maybe there was just a business lesson that I learned and I'll just kind of note that down and say, look, this is like realistically what I actually experienced. So I'm just going to share this and see if anybody else feels the same. So that was the other thing I'll mention to that Joel, because you asked a very specific question about like what channels to post on what times.
The other thing that gets really overwhelming is having multiple channels and the volume of content that needs to be posted to those channels. So if you have a really clear understanding of what your voice is on each of those channels, you can use the same content on different channels. Just make sure you're tweaking it a little bit or changing the color theory or the content just slightly and posting it on different days.
So I think that's the other thing is people used to post same content, same day, different channels. And that's the biggest no no because again, no one has a reason to follow you on every channel. But you can kind of mix and match and kind of game the system a little bit if volume of content is your issue. Yeah. So I got a question that somebody direct DM'd me.
The question for you was, how do we CAC our how do we keep our CAC below our LTV when there are so many touch points required to convert a customer through digital? So I guess maybe just to summarize, like how do we manage our burn and manage our cost to acquire a customer? Yeah, it's a really tough question. Obviously this is the big question. It's loaded question. It's a very loaded question, especially for investors, right?
Because they want to see that if they're going to put in X, Y, and Z dollars, what is the use of those funds? It sounds like Michael, you have a brand that is really marketing focused. So CAC and LTV obviously are the two big stats that you're looking at. I would say that you just need to be tracking over time and figuring out which channel is the best channel for conversion for your particular brand. There's no perfect answer to this. Just like there's no perfect answer to attribution modeling.
Everyone including the biggest brands in the world are trying to figure all this out. It's about testing and iterating really, really quickly. We call it high velocity AB testing. So for you, Michael, I would say what are the five channels that you're playing with? How are you using high velocity AB testing to test the different potential outcomes for each of those channels?
So let's just use social, for example, since that was your Making sure you're iterating and testing high volume AB testing. So you're testing the messaging, the targeting and the visual elements. And the data points should be coming back to you and tell you pretty quickly within like a few days or a few weeks even, this is the image that's delivering, this is the message that's delivering, and this is the audience that's listening to us.
And if you have all of that, start using those metrics on less expensive platforms like the meta platforms. And only after you've tested there, move towards more expensive platforms, even more expensive social platforms like LinkedIn where the ads are much more costly and then move on to Google and then and then and then. Right? So it's a very iterative process but it's test, rinse, repeat. There's no perfect answer to it If I knew that answer Michael, I would be a billionaire one day.
How so so one question I have, like, let's say I've got, you know, a $100,000 ads, you know, ad budget. You know, how much should I allocate to, like, just a organic social posting strategy along with like paid? And I guess, you know, is there like a rule of thumb to kind of think about allocating your ad budget and like kind of the different strategies that you should allocate or it just kind of goes by tell you how we do this and you can I'll do this on your own as well.
There's platforms that help you see what the brands that are best in class or the brands that are we call it a hop skip ahead of you, right? So what are the aspirational brands doing across all these channels? And we use a platform called SEMrush. It's a best in class marketing software. They have a freemium model that anyone can use. We of course use the agency model, which is super robust. And we run a roadmap process where our clients Let me back up.
What happens oftentimes is brands look at themselves in this vacuum and they're like, my cap, my LTV, I need to be really focused on X, Y, and Z. But what actually is the most helpful to answer that question, Joel, is to take a 30,000 foot view perspective and look at all of those channels in comparison to your direct and aspirational competitors. So then you can see what they're spending per channel, how many times they're posting, days and kinds of content, and where the white space is.
What we're still seeing a lot of, especially in consumer, is that brands are not spending enough time on YouTube and YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. So this is like a total missed opportunity for so, so many brands. But that's how I would start to think about allocation because you can use SEM, you can use, oh my gosh, What's the other one?
There's another platform that we use that I'm totally blanking on that can actually tell you what the brands are spending for ads in each of these channels as well. Oh, I didn't know you can pull spend data from competitors. Oh, wow. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah. Okay. I'm totally breaking on the platform. It'll come to me like another ten minutes. I'll be like Yeah. I'll just yell it out. But, yeah, you can actually see the data. SpyFu. That's the one SpyFu. Okay. Thanks, Michael. Yes. Exactly.
Yes. So you look at Spifu and you see like, what are their trends? Are there spikes and dips in their trends over time? So you can see that is there seasonality to their spend? How does that impact where you allocate your budget? Is a good idea for you to spend when they're spending or should you be kind of countering that from a timing perspective?
But yeah, it's about building out that holistic approach, seeing where your channels are, what's working content wise, and then comparative analysis to your direct and aspirational. I mean, I've seen in the past, I mean, some people what they've done is, you you could actually also, I've seen this in the past, like banner ads. I don't use banner ads, but I've seen people like if you look up a page, the banner ads get taken over by your competitor.
So I think if it's like someone so you can actually if you figure that out right, you can kind of take on the space. I've actually it's just crazy. I've seen two competitors that competitor have like ad space. And for some reason, like I saw the page, the competitor had the ad space. That ad was taken over by their competitor. So I thought that was pretty savage, you know, because you're you're, you know, you're trying to advertise and make money, but maybe it got targeted to me.
Have no idea how they did it, but it was definitely probably It's all very focused in targeting. Absolutely. It's wild what can happen. And it's also really a challenging conversation right now because everyone's worried about what's going to happen in a cookie less environment, which has been this giant threat for so long. So the only way you could probably let's say there's no more cookies at all.
I mean, the only way that you could really mitigate that is from having more just organic content. First party data or zero party data, really. And that's driven by content, honestly.
How do you drive really smart marketing initiatives by targeting fantastic keyword focused, semantically driven content to a centralized location, whether that's your social channels, to download your apps, your website, wherever that is, then you can own that email address by giving them something we call an irresistible offer in exchange for them gifting you their email so that you can own that email and remarket to them moving forward.
I've always said your database is gold, focus on building that and you'll do great. What are some of the helpful, irresistible offers that you've seen? So I've seen like newsletters or like I've heard ebooks are really good. And then there's like a webinar funnel. So are some of those dated? Like, what's kind of like the more modern irresistible offers to capture somebody, to convince somebody to be interested to even give you their data. And ideally, it's also their phone number, right?
Because you can do SMS campaigns. SMS, yeah. That's big right now too, for sure. I'm not gonna answer it perfectly because it's so specific. But what I would say is what are the big three questions that you get as a brand consistently? If you're a marketing agency, for example, and we rotate our offers every quarter. So make sure you're rotating them and seeing how many conversions do you have to your database for each of those different offers.
But so for us, we did one that was the nine easy steps to marketing and we ended up building that out as a drip campaign that was evergreen. And then it took a lot of the pressure off of us to remarket to those audiences. We also have recently done one that was the best ways to use influencers in your marketing. And that one got really great responses. So we built those out because the questions we get are, how do I use influencer marketing to push my brand? What is the easiest way to market?
Things like that. So I would counter that with saying, anyone listening, what are the top three questions you get from your audience that you're not going to give away the farm on and how can you build a smart piece of content around that? That could be a downloadable PDF in exchange for an email address or or Yeah.
So And so going to influencer marketing, I don't know if this has changed, but a few months ago, people would tell me that there are people that have huge audiences on on TikTok and maybe even on Instagram, and they're not really monetizing it. They're not looking to be sponsors. They just kind of enjoy talking about that topic and being the thought leader. But sometimes you could just DM them and say, hey, you know what?
Can you can you talk about my app and I'll pay you, you know, for a sponsored post? So do you think that's an effective way to, you know, at a low cost, maybe kind of build this influencer network? Or is it better to kind of go through like an agency or one of those influencer matching websites? Yeah, that's exactly right. There's three ways to approach influencer. One is more organic, building out your list. It's a much heavier lift and you have to do all the follow through.
So if you have lots of interns, that's probably the right approach for you because it's a little lower cost. Second approach is hiring a big PR agency. That's going to be more for macro influencers or potentially celebrity influencer, which we see the conversion numbers are not as great there. Even the Kardashians, their conversion numbers suck honestly. Oh, really? Yeah. From the PR campaigns or just from their overall? So you can see their spend pretty much. Right?
So you can look up all their their ad data. Yeah. But the thing with them is even if their conversion numbers are lower than that 1% to 2%, it's a volume game for them. And that's why it works. So their conversion numbers suck, but because they've got hundreds of millions of followers, even if your conversion is half of that one to two typical, you're still doing okay. But that's really costly.
Then the third approach that you alluded to was the third party influencer aggregation platforms, which is what we use as an agency, what our clients want to do influencer campaigns because they're much more trackable. You get all the content uploaded so you can approve it on platform. It aggregates all the data so you can show value long term. You can pull influencers that are meaningful for whatever that campaign is. It's just a better approach that's much more manageable in volume.
Yeah. And the other thing when it comes to PR, like what are your thoughts on people paying to get on to CNBC or or getting on to, like, Forbes magazine or something like that? Do you think that's I I think it may help just from an optic standpoint. Like, if you Google somebody, like, maybe there's like a CNBC interview. I feel like the SEO benefit to that for sure. Yeah. And I feel like that's maybe down the line. Like once you get some revenue, you can kind of do that later.
But yeah, just maybe your recommendations on when you should start thinking about that or press releases. Yeah. It depends on the kind of brand again. That's always my answer. But like, for example, if you're going to spend 5 to 10 k a month for six months on a publicist, I do a lot of talking on this topic, speaking on this topic. And I have two slides I call PR bullshit.
No offense to any publicist listening in, but it's really, really hard to optimize PR if you don't have agency oversight and control over who they're pitching and the tracking on that. So my opinion is if you want media like Forbes, Fortune, MSNBC, whatever that is, you should do advertorial, which is exactly what you were saying to Joel, which is So I don't think anyone thinks a brand new brand is gonna organically get that. But the SEO benefit of having a hit like that can be really bad.
So that's where I would spend my money if I was gonna If I was a new brand and I had $50,000 to spend on PR, I would focus on advertorial and pay to play for the big pubs that are going to have the most impact. Yeah, so I don't know if I told you this, but like when I moved to New York, I worked at Hearst magazines. I was building all the digital content. I'm very yeah. So I'm very familiar with that. And that's a good point.
I mean, you get the brand of like, you know, GQ or some of these big brands that, you know, it does have the ad call out, but it's still Laurel or Joel on Oprah's Magazine or something. Right. So you kind of get that. All about how you spin it. It's all about how you market that press hit, right? Using it across all the right channels, pushing it out through your newsletters, using snippets, imagery, putting it in your press kits. Like, it's about how how you leverage it truly.
Mhmm. Yeah. Well, this was a good, nerd out session on marketing. Maybe we should talk a little bit about investing too. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the marketing stuff is a little interesting because everybody doesn't talk about it. So that's why I wanted to dive a little deeper. But, you know, so let's okay. So let's talk about fabric now. And, you know, what what prompted you to be interested? What I'm assuming is, you know, there's a there's the concept of being an owner, right?
So you can be a service based business, you can add a lot of value. But, you know, true wealth really comes from having equity in businesses and having some type of ownership and also the, you know, the growth with the company, the financial upside, that's kind of my instincts. And I've seen I've seen a large slew of operators that are building, attachments to their operating business or their operating business kind of complements their investing activities.
So that's kind of what's going on in my mind. But maybe you can tell us about Fabric and just your career as an investor as well. Yeah, for sure. So I started investing about eight years ago, maybe almost nine years ago. And I always try and be the dumbest person in the room. I'm sure everyone's heard that statement, right? So I got involved with some women's investment groups because money was never a conversation in my family. In fact, it was the anti conversation.
It was tacky to talk about money. We couldn't have those conversations. It was very much feast or famine. So I had a lot of personal trauma and personal work that I had to do around money for myself. And I knew that I needed to do that work by getting in rooms with women and men who knew way more about the investment world than I did. So I joined a women's investment group called The Lab. I was the youngest person in the room by probably a decade. And I just listened.
I just paid attention and I listened and I learned. And when they put together an SPV to invest in a very late stage tech company, was early for that company, it was called Group eleven. Dolby Francis, who's now one of the most prolific investors in late stage tech in the world, I was like, I'm doing this. And I scraped together every penny I had to put in on that investment because I just knew that this was the start of something for me. And so took a leap of faith.
My husband was like, I believe you, let's do this, let's figure it out. And now that's provided an 8X return. That's pretty great. Not complaining about that one. And then just started That's really good for a late stage deal. We've some really good wins on that one. And then kept investing a little bit here and there ended up in Jesse Draper's fund too with Halogen because I realized then that I wanted to make sure my focus in terms of investing was on diversity.
So women, queer founders and BIPOC founders. I still at that point didn't think that I was going to launch my own fund. But I don't even know if I told you this, Joel, but a lot of the private equity and venture firms have been coming to us for years to market them because of my legal background, which just seems like a natural fit, right? You have the perfect two It's like, damn, you got a lawyer and got growth as well. Mean, that's like the perfect investor. That's what we're betting on.
And that's what we hope our LPs are betting on. So one day Well, I'm just looking at the cost savings, you know, I mean Yeah, right. There you go. Exactly. So one day I was on a call with one of our private equity firms and the managing director, managing partner was on and he said, Laurel, I need to talk to you. Let's stay on the call. And I was like, oh shit, I'm getting fired. It's never a good thing when the boss is the boss of the boss.
But actually Joel what he wanted to tell me or say to me was, you need to go raise a fund. I've never seen anyone more connected, more mission aligned. You see these deals nine months before we ever see them and you know how to make these companies winners. On the marketing side. You should really go raise a fund. And I like, yeah, yeah, whatever. But it totally earwormed me and I could not get it out of my head. And so I called Jesse. I called Jesse Jaybird.
I said, Jesse, I'm thinking about raising a fund. Her actual response was, fuck yeah, I'm in. I'll be your first check and I want to sit on your board. And that's how Fabric was born. That's amazing. Yeah. So, yeah, so I think that's a really amazing story. Think just kind of how the dots connect and how you're able to kind of stitch those all those things on those stories kind of together. Know, what would you recommend for somebody else to to just get started? You know, it's a blank slate.
I have the dream of starting a fund. What would you advise? Like, don't know if you're in a sorority, but you're little, right? Like someone that's just kind of like you're mentoring. What would you advise them to kind of just get started? I would say do as many informationals as you possibly can. I say the same thing on the agency side because people come to me all the time.
And just like in marketing, there are so many different avenues in the financial world that you could get involved in, whether it's VC, private equity, debt funds. I mean, there's so many different types of categories within this world. I'm still learning, right? I'm still pretty new in this. So I would say take as many informational interviews as humanly so you can narrow your focus and understand really where you want to be. Do you want to be early stage? Do you want to be late stage?
Do you want to be a banker? Maybe investment banking is where you actually should be because that's a better learning starting point for you. That's where most VCs traditionally, I think, usually start. Right? That's really the only pushback I've gotten is like, oh, you're an operator. You're not a traditional VC. And I'm like, yeah, that's why we're going to kick ass. So yeah, I would say informational is the starting point for sure. Yeah. And then kind of building a track record.
Most people probably if they don't have the capital to actually do syndicates, they could try like Wefunder or some of those crowdfunding sites and kind of stitch together like a synthetic track record pretty much, right? Yeah. And that was the only pushback I got. So, I mean, I'm an operator and I'm so used to pushing and getting it done and this is a very different conversation. So I started out there pitching and people were like, you're not a traditional VC. I just don't know.
You don't have a track record. And so the operator in me is like, okay, you're telling me that this is the only problem that you see. I'm going to go solve for that. So the way that I did that, which is what I would recommend for anyone starting a new fund if they have a similar alignment, is to go do SPVs. I got three deals done and then I came back, I was like, what you got now? What are you gonna push back on me now on? Let's do this.
So I think the SPV process, it was challenging, but it was really Mhmm. It was also very, like, enlightening. Was like, I can do this. I am doing this. This is happening. You know? Yeah. I'd say in this industry, part of it, which you can do is really just do the work even before you get the job. Right? So even, you know, maybe you can kind of do this in in the the trading space where you do a paper trading, but you can also do kind of like paper VC memos. Right?
If you find an interesting deal, you can write the memo. If you're trying to, you know, break into break into a role or, you know, start your own fund. A lot of times fund managers, they have warehouse deals, right? So they don't have the capital yet to deploy into, but they have a huge pipeline because of their network or their unique unique access.
So you could kind of like do some type of paper trading or like warehouse deals to to showcase the potential deal flow that you had if you had capital. I've had some people also showcase like the you know, like the potential upside that was missed because they didn't deploy in those deals as well because they follow those companies are like, look, you know what?
Like, I tracked this company like eighteen months ago and, you know, obviously I didn't invest or I didn't have the means to, but wow, they've already gotten to their series B. So that would have been a huge, huge markup. So I think that's something that I've seen too. And those numbers are really important.
That was of the things that now is part of our narrative was like, okay, how did they We understand how marketing supports these companies, but how has your history in marketing supported where you are planning on going within the VC world? And it was really, really hard for me to quantify but I finally figured it out that of the over 300 brands we've worked with, over 200 were diverse led and over almost 40 of those raised capital.
So that is to understand and have worked through that arc of startup to exit for the last almost fifteen years. And once I had that narrative in my head and could voice that in a quantitative way, people were like, oh, I get that. Like that makes sense. Like obviously this is the right path. Yeah. What you might appreciate too is kinda like just seeing so many parallels. Right? So, like, if you're in marketing, there's multiple touch points. If you're an investor, there's multiple touch points.
Right? And there's a there's a pipeline, then there's a conversion process, then there's a close. So I just I think kind of seeing the same things that rhyme and the same patterns in different industries, I think is really cool, especially if they if there's so many similarities. Think if you're I don't think you can be a salesman only.
So like if you did enterprise sales, I don't know if you would be the best person at fundraising, but maybe you will, you know, but because I think if you can kind of think about like pipeline building and like kind of nurturing instead of just going in for the hard close and if you can combine those things, I think that could be really interesting. It's so true. It's so true. It's so funny. I had this moment, Joel, where I was like, oh, I'm just not creating scarcity.
This is a messaging issue that I need to solve for. And as soon as I started changing that narrative, I was getting LP clothes. I wasn't putting any pressure. I was nervous to put too much pressure. But really in this world you need to have, there needs to be some sort of end goal, right?
Like my first close is going to be this quarter or I only have three LP slots left in this tranche or like whatever that needs to be to make it tasty enough for someone to say, I have to pull the trigger on this. Know? Once I figured that out, which was just marketing. It's just marketing. It's all marketing. Yeah. Was so funny. It was so funny funny to me.
It's also like, you know, another framework that I've been thinking about is, you know, it's it's not it used to be kind of valuable to be a jack of all trades, right? So it's like, hey, I can do everything. I can do marketing. I can do sales. But what I've been seeing now really is it's kind of crazy when somebody has like three killer skills. So like as a founder, if you're a developer, but you can also share what you're building in like twenty seconds very quickly.
You're kind of like a marketer as well. So I feel like there's like killer combos, right? So if you're good at storytelling and you're also good at, you know, relationship building, you know, that's essentially being an investor, right? Because you're you're telling the story of who you are, what your brand is, but you're also able to kind of connect people and get people to come in to that journey with you. That's that's important. So and then I know we're I'm on for sure.
Yeah. And I know we're only nine minutes away and we can cut off earlier because I know you gotta run. But one more thing that, you know, selfishly I'm thinking about is just kind of like identity and brand. And I'm actually going to be thinking about like a branding exercise. So I know you have a lot of insight into this, like if somebody is thinking about a rebrand. So, you know, when I think about the recent one that I can think about is Uber, right?
So Uber went through like an entire design refresh and a rebrand a couple couple of years ago, and now it just kind of seems normal, but it did look different when they went through that. So any thoughts or just comments on what you've observed when companies have gone through a rebrand and how they should be thinking about that? Yeah, we have a very detailed operational process that we take all our clients through on that creative journey.
And it starts with answering a couple of questions and I'll give I'll get over listening a couple of the exercises that we actually implement with our teams. And as I said earlier, the first thing we do is we answer the questions who, what, where, when, why, and how. Right? So you answer those five questions, who, what, where, when, why, have six questions with a real focus on the why. Right? So making sure that your mission and vision and values are aligned with the current brand.
Then the next exercise we would typically do is we call it our word vomit exercise. So you write down all of the yes words, all of the emotions, all of the things that you want associated with your brand. And then similarly, you do all of your no words. Your no words are going to be a lot harder and you're probably going to do those pretty quickly.
But making sure that just from a alignment perspective, everyone who has buy in in the room, so it's usually the C suite or the full marketing teams or whoever, that everyone starts from the same centralized place. And then you can start talking about color theory and font choices and comparative analysis to other brands within your market. And there's a lot of work that obviously goes into a branding project. It has to start with who are we and why do we do what we do? Why is it important?
Why should people give a shit? Why do we matter? And then how do we want to be represented? Know branding is half of what you say you are and half of a reflection of how your audience sees you. The goal in building a smart brand is becoming aligned between those two. Yeah that's really helpful. And then when they think and so once they when they think about all of that stuff, then is that where you would come in to say, look, you know what?
This is the this is like the color that represents that brand. I guess that's that sounds like a very difficult commitment to, you know, to to be responsible for. But I guess you just take all that and just kind of use your judgment and just try to figure out like, hey, here's your colors and your because I mean, even like thinking about I'm going to your website fabric and like it's a beautiful website, right? So yeah, you have oranges and grays.
I mean, all of those are like big decisions, right? To think about how that represents your brand. Yeah. So when you're starting out from a new brand, it's actually a little harder because you are like everything, sky's the limit. You have every color of the world, doesn't really matter. But we use a platform called Miro, which I'm sure you're familiar with. It's a whiteboard platform. And so we built out all of these exercises to help educate.
I think that's a really big piece of it as well as educating our clients on what these different brands, marks, tags, etc. What these all mean, what the right approach is for your particular audience. Really understanding who you're talking to also is a big part of that. Because if you're talking an audience of mothers who just recently had newborns, maybe neon isn't the right thing because you want it to be calming.
That's how using those word exercises can help you understand how to align the color theory and palettes. But there's a really long process. We do a bunch of kind of color theory conversations and then we'll present three or four options and we'll have the teams vote on them so that there's again that collective. Because to your point, Joel, this is a very creative, squishy, touchy feely conversation.
Getting consensus on touchy feely, the I thinks and I feels is the most challenging part of any marketing conversation. Yeah. No, that's really helpful. Well, this insight was amazing. I mean, you don't mind that I went heavier on branded marketing. I love it. It's our differentiator. That's how we're going to differentiate ourselves on the fabric side. So I'm about it. Interwoven. Yeah. Well, you know, anybody have any questions? I guess we got a couple of minutes and then we can wrap up.
So if you do shoot it out, I would you know, what I'll do is I'll I'll at least have one question. Kind of looking back, you know, maybe in the last quarter, what's something that you learned, Floral? Something that I learned Mhmm. In this conversation? Well, no. Not in this conversation. I mean, like, maybe in the last quarter.
So, you know, the last couple of months, maybe is there something that was like maybe a business lesson, you know, or just something in general in terms of like running, you know, running a fund or running the running the company or scaling? Is there just kind of a big takeaway that, you know, you want to share with us or maybe a lesson? Yeah. I think the conversation we're just talking about that, all I'm doing is marketing. So this is just marketing by a different name.
And once I figured that out, I was able to get closing happening a lot faster. So that was a really big for me. The other thing is really, it's more of a personal thing, which is that this is a totally different journey than building an operating business on an agency side. And so I have to give myself grace and space. When I first came into this conversation, was like, oh, I'm going to get this 10,000,000 done in six months. No big deal. Done and done.
And then six months came and I was like, shit. And then eight months came and I was like, shit. And then all the bank stuff happened and now we're going into a recession, blah, blah, blah, blah. So the truth is that this is a very different journey for me than being an operator. And I know that we're going make it happen. For me personally, it's about knowing that building something new takes a different timeline and that's very challenging.
Yeah, and just to piggyback on that too, just kind of going through this journey and seeing so many people that are smarter than me kind of being on this journey with me. Mean, my biggest takeaway is sometimes if you have the perfect pedigree and you've got the perfect track record, that's kind of boring, to be honest. And, you know, many of many LPs have told me that. But what and there's so many, you know, so many different funds that have different managers are all smart.
Some have amazing under underdog stories. There's like 10 health care funds, right? And they're all great. They all have great track records. They all have all the table stakes. So the only thing that's left is really that story and that personal brand that resonates.
So I think if you can do that and kind of, you know, merge kind of the skills that you have that really puts you at an advantage, you know, that's kind of what really helps you stand out because there's a lot of competition and there's a lot of qualified people that do fit the criteria to get an allocation.
So I think having, you know, something that's differentiated, but even not even the strategy, the strategy, I would say at the end of the day, the operational workflow of the strategy sourcing, screening and deal execution, that is pretty consistent. But I think what's different is really kind of how how you're getting the top of the funnel differently based on who you are, I would say. Totally.
Yeah. It's always the narrative that makes people the most interested in continuing the conversation with us for sure. Yeah. Well, hey, Laura, we're right at the buzzer. Hopefully you get to your meeting and thanks for thanks for making time for me and really appreciate the friendship. I wish I remember that you were in LA last week because I was there. I was in Cabo so it wouldn't have happened. Oh okay cool. Wedding anniversary so it's fine but next time for sure. Next time.
Next next time we'll be on one of the each of each each other's coasts and we'll catch up. I love it. Thank you so much, Joel. And thanks to everyone who tuned in. Bye, guys. See you. Have fun.