Micah Rosenbloom on COO to VC at Founder Collective

Michael Koenig: Between Two COOs is a podcast where phenomenal chief operating officers from all sorts of companies come to share their insights, advice, and crazy stories. Hello and welcome to Between Two COOs. I'm your host, Michael Koenig, and I'm excited to welcome our guest, Micah Rosenblum, managing partner at the venture capital firm Founder Collective. Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. Yeah, great to have you on. And, and for those of you that aren't familiar with Founder Collective, they've invested in Uber, ThredUp, Hotels Tonight, Venmo, PillPack. These guys are the real deal. Uh, prior to Founder Collective, Micah, you were the co-founder and COO of Brontës Technology, which is a dental tech company that focuses on real-time 3D scans. Which you actually exited to 3M. So, Micah, like I said, thanks, thanks for being here. Very excited to have you on. Um, it's, it's worth noting that you're the first guest that we've had that is a current venture capitalist, and I wanted to have you on—

Micah Rosenbloom: a dubious distinction, but I'll take it.

Michael Koenig: It's great. I, I wanted to have you on in that respect because It's interesting to hear about your experience in building and exiting Brontës, but also to bring that different perspective to operations as an investor. So I guess to start with, going back, how'd you end up as COO at Brontës and what was your path?

Micah Rosenbloom: Yeah, so it's kind of an interesting path. Um, I'll share that I was a co-founder of a dot-com during the dot-com boom and bust, and I started that business similarly with 4 people, and we had a conversation around my dining table in LA where we started of, okay, who's gonna take what job? And there I took the president role, which basically meant I was number 2 to the CEO. But really what it meant was we weren't very good at delineating titles and there was too much ego and frankly too much overlap in who did what. Fast forward, I went to— that company raised a lot of money and failed. I don't think because I was president, but I certainly made a bunch of mistakes. We all did. And some of it was the craziness of the dot-com era. But after that, I went to business school, and most of my second year at business school, I was working on this startup. And the startup was Brontës Technologies, which you mentioned, which was based on some technology at MIT. And so we met a professor and a postdoc,, and they were working on real-time 3D imaging and trying to figure out how to commercialize. And the professor said to us, I pictured MBAs as aggressive, arrogant but smart business people. You guys fit the bill. So, you know, let's join forces. And so, you know, we weren't sure it was going to turn into a company, but over the next year or so, we kind of winnowed the different market opportunities, focus, focus, focus.. And we ended up striking upon this dental opportunity because we had some connections to Invisalign, which was looking for a way to digitize a dental impression directly from the patient instead of like making, I don't know, Michael, I'm sure you've had this where you put your mouth in a material, highly unpleasant, super uncomfortable. And by the way, it's inaccurate, it's uncomfortable, it takes forever. Our first slide of our pitch deck was a picture of the Egyptians making gold crowns for people in the pyramid days. So it literally is that old of a process. And so we focused on how do we use technology, software, and hardware to solve the problem and just take a scan like you do for so many other things. So anyway, we had the same conversation. This time, my business partner, Eric, and I in a conference room at Harvard Business School and said, okay, we're gonna do this, but we both can't be CEO. We had never had the conversation. And, um, Eric and I, you know, we, we were very transparent about who was good at what. And we— I, if I'm not mistaken, we laid them out on a whiteboard because we usually put everything on a whiteboard. Um, and I think it was pretty clear that Eric should be CEO. He was a way better strategist. He was very good at positioning the company for fundraising and, you know, just had a maturity. And I think, and frankly, a good sense of where the market was in a way that I, I think made him the perfect CEO and, and would ultimately be the right decision. But we also said, we talked about the co-CEO thing, which by the way, I've, I've invested in and I've seen a lot, we were really against it. I think I had to take a slice of humble pie. Eric said to me, I think you're so good with people and you're good at kind of like operating and managing. And I had managed a relatively large company before that. You should be COO. I think I took the weekend to think about it just because it was a little bit of a hit to the ego. And then I think I came back with this sense of like, I think it's a good division of responsibility. And, you know, we agreed that we would consult each other on big decisions, but that ultimately the CEO decisions would— he would make the final decision. And I have to tell you, I think it was the mature and the right approach. And, um, I, from the next bunch of years on, focused on managing, uh, we had a pretty big manufacturing function, engineering, although we had a CTO, um, but, but he would report to me. And really just like hiring and keeping the trains running on time. And Eric really managed the board fundraising and just strategy and actually product. I think we both iterated on product, but I think he was quite product-oriented. And, you know, so I think COO can be a little bit of a catch-all, but I think for us it was, I was the one who had the latest and greatest on how many units would be delivered when. What features did we think would be available when? What were the problems? Usually if there was a real customer issue and it had been elevated, I would take the call. There were a few occasions where we needed the CEO's title, but generally it was like frustrated customer, we're elevating you to MICA. And then I'll fast forward and then you can ask me questions. But we sold the company in 2006.. And, um, in 2008, Eric left and I ended up becoming general manager through 2010. So I— general manager of the division and of— for 3M. So I, I sort of got back to the CEO role, but it wasn't quite, you know, it was within a larger company. And so it was kind of an interesting transition over that, you know, to kind of see that whole life cycle. And then ultimately I left the company in 2010, and then the 3M team, you know, the 3M organization took it over.

Michael Koenig: There's so much to unpack there. First off, you touched on a couple of interesting things that I just want to call out. The first is the learning that you took away from your first dot-com company. And it sounds like this is actually a pretty common mistake, which is around not necessarily delineating the power structure and the roles and responsibilities between the business functions, particularly in the COO and the CEO spot. And I wonder, I've seen this a lot with early-stage startups where it's almost a 50/50 split, right? You each own half of the company, but you haven't necessarily had that tough conversation where you say, okay, here's who's actually going to make the final decision. Was that something that you experienced? And then Do you think that was part of the success in your ability to kind of have that humble pie and be able to be successful in the COO role?

Micah Rosenbloom: Yeah, it's a great question. I think, um, some people punt the hard conversation down the road. I think a lot of founders do, and partially because there's a little bit of the view that like either this thing is going to be worth something and, and we'll, we'll figure it out then, or it's not and it doesn't really matter. So why like get all, you know, emotional or, you know, have the difficult conversations. Now, I've also seen— so that's sort of like version 1. Version 2 I've seen is they make the decision to divide the titles, um, but they haven't really had the hard conversation. Like, the titles are part of it, but there, there actually isn't a true belief that at the end of the day, the CEO is the CEO, that, you know, their CEO and co-founder, or there's two co-founders, um, or there's CEO, co-founder, and president, like at our dot-com. But I didn't really internalize that AJ was like— I think, I think we hadn't really had that hard conversation because we were both a little bit unwilling to do so. And I think we chose the third, and I give Eric a lot of the credit for this, of saying like, no, no, no, it really— if there is a push comes to shove and I disagree, Eric's decision will be the final. And I, I think, um, some of it is personality driven. Like, ultimately, I was okay with that. And I think, like, I, I can be easygoing, I guess, when I need to be. And, and not everybody can. And some people, just the ego gets in the way. But we had the hard conversation. I really slept on it and really got comfortable with it. I'm sure you've seen this too. I would say twice or three times a year of the many companies we deal with, either one founder leaves, there's a founder blow-up, or some other, you know, issue that goes back to not having like properly laid this foundation correctly in the beginning. Happens all the time. And, and frankly, the companies that are, you know, that it should have been handled earlier, and I think have gotten to a point where, um, this really could put their success at risk.

Michael Koenig: It's really interesting. The other part to this that you described, and it sounds like this was part of the success of, of Brontë's, was the partnership and the relationship between you and Eric, particularly from a delegation of work, but also it sounds like you were complementary to one another. Sort of the yin and yang, which is so vital when you see COOs and CEOs working effectively together. How did the two of you sort of reach that point? And how did you think about dividing and conquering? You said Eric was a great strategist. He was great at the fundraising elements. There are the other parts, which is, it's interesting, the hiring. Portion that you took on. And then one thing that you didn't talk about was conveying the vision. So when I tend to think about CEOs or have these conversations, it's like 3 roles: cash in the bank, hiring great people, and communicating the vision. You took on that hiring part. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Micah Rosenbloom: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, I don't want to give myself too much credit because I think Eric and the whole team played a role. I think I was probably the cultural focal point of the company, and I think that's what COO meant. In other words, like running the all-hands meeting. By the way, Eric would obviously chime in with like, where are we heading in a big picture? And all the functional heads might report on, here's what's going on engineering or customer support or whatever. But, you know, kind of like adding, you know, a certain sense of my sense of humor, or, um, you know, the kinds of, um, you know, actually came from our CTO Ed, but we had a golden bowling ball that we would put on someone's desk. I, I forget why it got started. I think guys went bowling one day and, uh, we spray painted a bowling ball, but you got the golden bowling ball for doing something special at the company. We had all sorts of, you know, traditions that I think make a company special. We were very open culture, like anyone could get up and someone in engineering could say, I'm really concerned about sales or vice versa. So I think that's what COO, like the core of what COO— that's not always the case, but that's what, that's how we sort of divided it. And then I think that translated to hiring. I probably spent, at least in the early days, more than half my time hiring, kind of networking within communities of engineers or salespeople to figure out who the good people were, selling the dream over and over again. And, you know, I built rapport with a lot of recruiters, a lot of— in some ways it was a sales function, but I knew if we could get good people, we could get a lot more good people. And so that, I would say, probably my single biggest contribution to that company was, was just recruiting. And ultimately, we even hired actually a guy from not too far from where you are to run marketing just across the border in Canada on an island called Boblo Island, which is in the Detroit River. It— you wouldn't know it if you'd never been there. Um, but Mike, who became our head of marketing, who he, he called himself the OG lab guy, dental guy, because he'd spent his whole career in the dental lab industry. We spent 2 years trying to recruit him away from traditional, and then when he came aboard, it was a real coup. So I think it was like investing a lot in that stuff. And then where it pays off as COO is you have rapport. You know, if you've helped recruit the head of marketing or the head of operations or the head of whatever and some of the team, you just naturally have a bond with those folks. And, you know, they're grateful for you bringing them in. And, and I think likewise, I brought in— ultimately brought in like a VP Ops, uh, when Eric left, he became COO— a guy named Rob, who I had worked with at the dot-com. And he was another guy who I literally spent 2 years trying to recruit.. And I think, you know, that was a good use of time. I think the COO role evolves over time. I, I remember like the first couple years spending tons of time recruiting. The next couple years it was like similar as today, supply chain issues, customer issues. It did morph over time, but a little bit of, you know, kind of the baseball hitter who's got to like go into wherever they need you to slot. Is a little bit of, you know, my experience as COO.

Michael Koenig: If we jump forward to your time as a venture capitalist, how did you end up there, making the switch from entrepreneur and operations to the investor side? What was the path?

Micah Rosenbloom: Yeah, and I should say that in between that transition, so we— I left the company mid-2010, 3M, And it was— and similar experiences today— there were a lot of people coming to me saying, help me start a company, help me spin this out of MIT or Harvard or whatever, because I'd been hanging around Boston for so many years. And, you know, we were a success story when actually there were a lot of failures out of these universities. I mean, you think of these as great universities, and they are— they're not particularly commercial, they're particularly academic, as, as schools would be. And so I helped another company get started, and actually it was a real wake-up call because I didn't have Eric. I think I made some strategic mistakes. I think I went into operating mode before we had product-market fit. And I think ultimately that company, they did okay, but I think, I, I think I realized like the, the, um, the power in the, in the different skill sets. And so ultimately, and then, um, you know, transition that company to a founding team, actually the original founder, so that I helped them get started, and then the technical founders ran with it. And they sold a part of that business, but it was never a big success. Still running. But Eric had started the idea for Founder Collective on the basis that too many VCs didn't have this real-world experience, didn't have this like empathy for what it takes to operate a lot of these VCs we pitched were money guys and they were career investors. They weren't, they weren't bad investors or bad people. They just, they hadn't been in the trenches and didn't appreciate the day-to-day ups and downs, the hour-to-hour ups and downs, sometimes minute to minute. And so the thesis behind Founder Collective was, we're one of you, you know, we're, we're kind of super angels, or we're sort of the angel ethos but, but we have more capital. We wear jeans and t-shirts, and, and, you know, we're not— we're also not going to set up in Sand Hill Road. Now, back then, that basically all the VCs were on one road. They were— funny enough, they were at Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley, and they were in Winter Street in Boston. I mean, they were literally on the same street. And they, you know, um, and it was hard to get a meeting. And even the— and, and Eric, uh, I think Eric drove this decision— the name Collective was to imply a more egalitarian kind of, you're part of something, you're part of a community, which at the time was really a new idea. It really was less of moving away from the PE style of investing, kind of like less of what your brother does and more of what entrepreneur to entrepreneur. We talked a lot about peer-to-peer investing. And in fact, in the early days, a lot of our original LPs were other entrepreneurs, small checks from, you know, other entrepreneurs, which was kind of unique. So that was sort of the transition. And, um, some of it was good timing. Oh, and then the other innovation, if you will, on the model was we, we created these founder partners. So I started as one of these, and the idea was you didn't have to be full-time. One of the— and it's funny, now you see the extreme of this where It almost feels like people have 4 jobs. And Fred Wilson wrote a post about this yesterday that maybe the days of one job, one person are fleeting. And investors kind of always dabbled a little bit, but when we started over a decade ago, we created this founder partner program where you could actually get carry and return from a deal you did, even if you weren't a full-time member of the partnership. So Chris Dixon, who's obviously at Andreessen now, Bill Trenchard, who's at First Round, Scott Belsky, who's Chief Product Officer at Adobe. We had a great group, and, and they're still great. Raj Dada today, James Tamplin of Firebase. These guys were really smart entrepreneurs, many of whom had been successful or running successful companies, wanted to dabble in investing but didn't want to do it as a full-time job. And we created an economic structure and a structure where they could refer deal flow and get compensated for, for deals we did. We learned a lot along the way. It wasn't as straightforward as maybe I'm making it sound, but, um, but it was this idea that venture capital could be changed from investor-founder to like a few different flavors in between.

Michael Koenig: Really interesting. If we hop back, I mean, this is the second time that you and Eric are teaming up on the ground floor. Did you have a similar role and responsibility?

Micah Rosenbloom: Yeah, it's a great question. It's a great observation. And I, you know, Eric and I have now known each other for God knows— it's, uh, I won't, I won't say how many years. And also our third partner in that fund, Dave. So we all met in business school, and including Chris Dixon, in 2001. And Dave was our first angel in Brontes. So, uh, we, you know, I think that connective tissue was really valuable So I think when Eric started with Dave Founder Collective, I think some of the cultural stuff that I brought, you know, frankly, sometimes just a little levity and a little bit of like a softer side, because I think, you know, investing can become very, you know, transactional. And, and, um, I, I think trying to, you know, add that. And then I think In the early days of Founder Collective, I think I brought some operational discipline, at least I tried. So, you know, more metrics reporting, uh, along with one of our early principals, I did OKRs. We kind of organized the Monday meeting. I helped build up some systems. I've even, we, I've helped introduce us to some resources that help our ops team just be more efficient. So we've used a lot of tools. I will say my criticism though is, and, and I give a lot of credit to Andreessen and some others who have invested in this, it's very easy, and I've fallen into this, to go back into just investing and helping the companies. Eric always says, you know, it's very easy to work in the business, not on the business. And I think that's very true of venture capital, where you just end up on this flywheel. And it's like, especially now, the deals, you know, one of my colleagues wants me to meet this company like today or tomorrow And so a lot of those OKRs and operational investments we want to make, I think, have fallen a little to the wayside. Now, I think we've done a lot for a small team. You know, we have a very robust Airtable system, we have a very robust operating. But do we pay attention to the OKRs as much as we probably should? No. If we were an operating company, I think we would. Where I give Andreessen and some of these other guys credit is I think they really are trying to build that stuff now. I think it'll be interesting to see the balance between investing and building and operating, but I, I think that that's kind of what we were trying to espouse 10 years ago in a small way, which is don't just build a bunch of, you know, white guys in fancy wood-paneled conference rooms making investments, but actually try to build an organization that can improve the way entrepreneurs execute on their businesses. And, and I think, I think we're actually moving in that direction. And I believe they have a COO, but I think it's hard because investing, at the end of the day, one check can be the difference between success and failure. Unlike operating, where it's rare that like one move is going to make the difference, it's really chipping away at a problem. Investing, you really can get lucky. It— you can hit the lottery. It's unlikely, but you can. And so it diminishes a little bit of the COO role. Or let me put it another way, diminishes the perception of operating because the person who's the least operational could, could make the best investment and make the fund look great. And, and the team that was working so hard on all these programs for founders and so hard on the tracking system or the databases or whatever, just, you know, never had a great investment in his or her life. And that's the funky challenge of, you know, operating in the investment world.

Michael Koenig: When you're looking at some of the early stage companies that Founder Collective invests in and evaluating those companies, certainly you're looking at the team. I'm basing a, you know, an assumption here along with the product and the vision. Are you looking at those operational processes so early on, or is that sort of a we'll get there.

Micah Rosenbloom: I do. I think I'm sort of unique in this. Like, I think if, um, if two people are on that pitch and one is sort of COO and one is COO and one speaks to the— I think that some of the success Eric and I had ultimately in fundraising was there was a good yin and yang, and people can pick up on it. And so, you know, I look at that. I think a lot of VCs like a really strong founder you know, a little bit of the Steve Jobs, Travis Kalanick— who am I missing? You know, maybe Bill Gates. You know, it sounded like Bill, Bill probably wasn't just operating, but like the person, you know, Elon, who are kind of like all over everything, control everything, and like there's no one else. You know, it's sort of like one and then everybody else. I like the yin and yang. I think that maybe because of Eric and my experience, I like when I see By the way, if it's 90— if there's 2 people on that initial pitch and the CEO is doing 99% of the talking and only one, then, then it— the yin and yang may not be there, and, and then I may get a little more worried about it. But I like when there's a clear, you know, kind of division of responsibilities. In some ways, you're getting 2 for the price of 1, you know, you're getting 2 skill sets. And I think I see a lot of solo founders, we invest in a lot of solo founders, it is harder. It— no matter how good— there aren't that many Elon Musks. And, you know, I like— I think, um, I worry sometimes that solo founders, maybe they haven't found their partner, but sometimes I worry maybe too much ego there, and they're, they're not willing to share in the, um, you know, the responsibility, and they may be more focused on keeping equity of the company as opposed to let me get enough people on the bus to help me make that equity valuable.

Michael Koenig: So in terms of the companies that you're seeing, that you're talking with, again, getting back to early-stage companies, are you seeing— it sounds like you're seeing a decent number of COOs already on board. And my original question was going to be if you do see COOs that early on, or if it's something that tends to happen when companies are a little bit more mature.

Micah Rosenbloom: Yeah, I think 10 years ago people were asking me, what the hell do you do? You know, what, why do you have a COO? You're like a 5-person organization, 10-person organization. Nobody asked that question anymore. You know, I, I think now whether it's a 5-person organization or a 50-person organization, like it's an asset. I think, you know, uh, as an early stage, you know, again, getting back to the evaluation, is the COO doing the right things? And do I feel like the COO is, you know, uh, let me put it another way. Some founders kind of are COOs but maybe weaker on strategy. So the first question is, is the founder self-aware and hiring to his or her weaknesses? So I think COOs can be broadly defined. And if, you know, I can think of— I actually think a lot of our CEOs are very operational but may not be strong in some other area. And so really the question is, do they have the person around them? You know, it may be someone who's more financial oriented or someone who's more product oriented. So I think it's a little bit of getting the right pieces of the puzzle as it is to like a one-size-fits-all kind of early stage program, if that makes sense.

Michael Koenig: Yeah, absolutely. I want to take a step back and get back to Brontë's. You have the unique experience of going through a transaction as a COO. What was that like? And as a co-founder? First going through that transaction and then next doing the integration into a much larger company?

Micah Rosenbloom: It was hard. I think, thank God, we had a COO, a CEO, a pretty big management team, because in some ways the complexity went way up. There were so many touch points to the organization. There were so many— there was a regulatory department and engineering that we had to plug into, and you know, even analysts that had questions. I think it was huge. And the data room and the amount of, um, the amount of scrutiny you've seen transactions that buyers, at least then, and I'm sure now do, you know, I just remember like having to spin up reports and investors, later stage investors, that, you know, what, what's our, you know, show a curve of usage by X, or, you know, all sorts of data that I think it also allowed Eric to stay a little outside of the minutia and allowed— I think this is true even from investment, but a little bit of— it's good if the CEO— and this is the role bankers sometimes play— someone's got to run interference and kind of like deal with the day-to-day stuff, but someone's got to stay focused on selling the the big opportunity. And, you know, because it's very easy in a deal process to get bogged down and, well, I don't know, their customer service scores aren't great, and, you know, uh, you know, the regulatory stuff could come down. Like, there's a million reasons to, to get nervous. And so I think if the CEO can keep the big picture sales motion enthusiasm, you know, often you're selling ahead of corporate dev or ahead of the a business unit or even a CEO. And it's good to let those people stay together, even if you know exactly— everyone knows exactly what's going on. And I think the COO can be kind of feeding the operating team and saying, what do you need, what do you need, and helping move the transaction along. And I think that separation almost of church and state is a very valuable thing in an acquisition. It is largely what the bankers try to do, which is the bankers are keeping But I think it's even better if you can do it internally than just have a banker. I, I think both, but, um, we had hundreds of documents that we had to get together, and I think I spent a lot of time with our head of finance and with our head of engineering and customer, you know, making sure we were really buttoned up on that stuff.

Michael Koenig: What about the day-to-day? If you're the COO and you're working a lot on the transaction, how are you at the same time doing the entirely other job that you have to do from day in and day out to make sure that the, the trains are still running on time. How'd you manage that?

Micah Rosenbloom: Well, it's another one— thank God there was a CEO and COO, because in the early days, almost for the mo— I mean, these transactions can take months. I mean, we had all these suits come in from, you know, 3M and we couldn't tell anybody. You know, we had to kind of disguise the whole process and sort of, you know, make sure nobody was suspicious. And that was tricky. Fortunately, our conference room, the main conference room, was a bit away from the rest of it. But, but, you know, I'm sure people suspected. So I think in the early days of the transaction, Eric focused on, you know, is this a deal that's going to have— like, let's get to some broad strokes understanding what a deal would look like. And then as it got closer, I got more involved. But I think to your point, in the early days, I had to keep the guys focused on running the business. And Eric, you know, worried about the deal and whether a deal was good, because frankly, you don't know. And you, you know, you may end up operating the business for another few years. So you do have to keep the trains running on time. So I think we really benefited from kind of that, you know, two-headed monster. Throughout most of the transaction. I think, you know, another interesting thread on all this is that— this may not be where you want to go, but I'll, I'll say it and then we can put a pin in it— it's very interesting being an operator once a big company comes in, because I think one of the mistakes I made was, in some ways, I think we lost our scrappiness. And, you know, being an operator with tons of resources— and I think I've learned this with startups too— was You know, we built out this massive training center, and I spent tons of time, you know, ordering equipment and building this beautiful thing. And 3M wanted us to do that. They wanted this showpiece. We were in Boston, and they— and, and we had the space for it. But in retrospect, did we need this, you know, 5-chair, beautiful, shiny dental, you know, showpiece with flat screens everywhere? We had a $700,000 3D printer on display. You know, I just think back to like even the time it took to put that together. You wouldn't have done that as a startup. And I can think of other things. We launched an orthodontic product quickly because we could. I think, you know, as COO, um, you're a resource gatherer, and then you get all the resources, and, you know, I think you lose that frugality may have gotten you there. But I suppose that's as much about startups going into big companies as it is the COO journey.

Michael Koenig: We had a saying at Automattic, we ain't Google, so let's be frugal.

Micah Rosenbloom: I love that. And then I might use that.

Michael Koenig: Yeah. And go for it. Go for it. We'll have to give maybe in the show notes some credit to, to the person in our finance department who came up with that. And it's something that Amazon really likes to do as well, doing things without a lot of resources to maintain some of that frugality throughout the business. So it's interesting to hear about, okay, once you do get resources, and the reason I'm kind of going into this a little bit is once you do get those resources, how do you continue to make good decisions? And I think the reason why I'm asking this, particularly on the venture capital side, is these rounds are just enormous at this point and you get that cash. And then how do you help a founder stay focused and disciplined from a financial perspective?

Micah Rosenbloom: It's so hard, right? Like, even thinking your own life where, you know, um, speaking of Amazon, I feel this every day. It's like that, that $10 or $15 purchase just no longer seems like a big deal. And, you know, in the scheme of things, it isn't, but it's the slippery slope of— and, you know, then you extend it to a conglomerate that, you know, I, I forgot what they do, but, you know, $20 billion in sales a year and has 60,000 employees. And they're like, yeah, I just— I mean, you know, it's not frugal, it's not, it's not, um, it's not like without any oversight, but it's like, you know, someone can sign off on a half a million dollar purchase and you're like, all right, I mean, like, it's not going to change anything. So, but, but the mindset shifts, you know. And, um, and so Yeah, I think these heavily funded startups are gonna lose that. 'Cause I do think if you just have the resources, I remember our CFO, well, our head of finance, he was always like, "I'm always the no guy." And I'm like, "I need you to be the no guy." But it's hard to be the no guy. And at some point it's like, "Hey, can I go to that conference for $2,000?" And we haven't been going to a lot of conferences, but we will, and spend the money on travel. And you know, it's like, ah, well, do you really need to go? Yes, it's a really important— okay, fine. Go to the conference. And then the next year, 3 people want to go to that conference. And then the next year, 20 people want to go to the conference. And you know, it's the tyranny of incrementalism, but it happens all the time. And I think it's really hard when you have the resources to stop it.

Michael Koenig: You mentioned something from an operating perspective that you as a venture capitalist are going to start traveling again. So y'all aren't sticking to

Micah Rosenbloom: It keeps you off the road. What you don't get, and I think this is related to the topic, I think you walk into someone's office, even if it's 5 people around laptops, and you get a feel for something. I remember you just get a feel for the vibe. I remember God, I walked into— I mean, I can think of many, many examples. Walked into some guy's apartment, the three founders, and I was like, boy, these guys live together, they eat together, but they are determined to make this thing successful. Like, they're— and then like, I think this woman walked out of the room, and I was like, who's that? And he's like, oh yeah, my wife lives with us too. Like, I was like, they are all in. I mean, they are all in. I also had a colleague who got back from visiting a startup that we were looking at who said I don't even think this was a real office. Like the laptops were barely plugged in. I was like, that's worrisome. He's like, yeah, it just didn't feel right. Didn't feel legit. That's reason enough. So, um, I think visiting— and sometimes it's like, you know, meeting someone in a coffee shop and just looking them eye to eye. I think we're gonna go back to some amount of that, especially at the early stage. Will it go completely back? I think a lot of first meetings will happen over

Michael Koenig: I think Dan Primack missed that in, in Pro Rata, in his newsletter, the, the Transylvanian funding. That certainly would have been a happy—

Micah Rosenbloom: I'm sure once they do their Series A, it will. I mean, um, and we're seeing, you know, obviously engineering teams all over the place, and that, that's, uh, I mean, the world is really flattening now, uh, more so than before.

Michael Koenig: One of the last questions that I, I always ask, which is, as a COO, we've all had those moments where we we experience the problem that pops up each day, and it's kind of the, well, never thought I'd see that. Would it be safe to assume that you as a VC have similar experiences? And if that is true, is there one that comes to mind that you could share?

Micah Rosenbloom: Oh, I mean, we had them all the time. I mean, we were about to hire someone we had been recruiting for a long time. I mean, I could go on and on. He said, you know, he was going to be demoing the product. Constantly. He was sort of a— not customer support, but like customer success leader in the organization and demonstrator of the product and travel a lot. And he said, guys, there's something about the product that whenever I demo it and I look back and forth at the screen and using it, I get nervous and nauseous and, um, and, uh, just uncomfortable. There may have been other life events that were playing into that, but I can't take the job. And that was a relocation. I had a few of those, but that one was specifically. And then, you know, one of the funnier ones was in the early days, we were struggling because we had to test the product on somebody's mouth. We didn't want to take— and we didn't want any liability. I was always the test subject. So for hours on end, nights and weekends, and even during the day, I would be back in a reused eBay-bought chair, dental chair, with my mouth as wide open as a golden retriever. With a device like this big, and it would be dripping and it would be hot, and it was like, you know, very prototype. And we were struggling because a lot of the teeth don't have texture, and the way the algorithms work, they, they would correlate points, recognizable points, and stitch the image together. But on the flats of teeth, it's very, you know, there isn't a lot of texture, not like your cusps. So we sprayed a little something on there to kind of give it some texture And at first we like put this like carbon stuff together and I said, guys, I can't get it off. I'm like scraping my teeth and I'm like, this stuff is, you know, it was like almost nail polish. It was similar. And so for like 20, 15 minutes, I'm sitting there like, you know, grinding. Like, so the things we'll do for our companies.

Michael Koenig: That's a good one for sure. And you must have plenty of, uh, of night guards from all of your—

Micah Rosenbloom: That's true. I have, I have a lot of night guards and whitening trays and so forth. I should use them once in a while.

Michael Koenig: There you go. Last question for COOs going into an early-stage venture-backed company: what advice would you give them in their approach to partnering not only with their early team but also with the investors that they brought on board?

Micah Rosenbloom: I think operational empathy and a real, you know, does this person understand, um, what I'm building and, you know, what it's going to take, I think is, is what entrepreneurs should look for. I think there's this funny thing happening in the market right now, which people are confusing speed with conviction. So if I say to you, Michael, I love what you're doing, I want to write you a check now— and there are people doing that because they're so eager to invest and so eager to get ahead of the next, the next investor— you take it as a signal of, Micah must really believe. But, and then the next investor comes along and says, Michael, show me some of the data on the product. Let's meet again next week. Let's go to a coffee shop. Outdoors and have a conversation. Let's do it. And you're like, I don't know if this person believes. I think people mistake that that second person is a non-believer and therefore an inferior investor, when I would argue the person that's digging in more is more likely to have conviction when they write the check and probably more likely to understand and help the business than the person who so flippantly writes the early check. But I understand why entrepreneurs are attracted to that first investor, and I think that's the struggle. Like, do you want to hear the hard questions? Does the investor ask the hard questions? A good investor, a bad investor? I would suggest good investor, but not everyone wants to hear it.

Michael Koenig: Absolutely. So be wary of those first checks, but, but don't turn them down necessarily.

Micah Rosenbloom: Yeah, well, I think, and not everyone has a choice, and But, but I think, you know, and be wary of the person who's scrutinizing the spreadsheet for numbers that don't matter. But I think there's a fine line between they're making a bet and they're a partner. And I think you want people who are partners, especially the early days. Later on, maybe you can have people making bets. That's the stock market, is essentially that. I have no say about Apple's new computers, but I'm a shareholder and I'm making a bet that they're going to do great things. But in the early days, like, I think the investors matter, and I think the investors can help or harm a company. And I think you want investors who will help. And, and, um, you know, I think sometimes that those, those investors are the harder ones to sell.

Michael Koenig: Makes a lot of sense. Well, there you have it, folks. Michael Rosenblum from Founder Collective. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. What's the best way for people to keep up with you and what Founder Collective are up to?

Micah Rosenbloom: You can find me on Twitter @michajay1, M-I-C-A-H-J-A-Y-1, our website foundercollective.com. And you can always message me on any of those platforms and look forward to hearing from folks.