Introducing DayJ: Your Playlist to Wellness

When it comes to health, professional athletes have an advantage over the rest of us. Imagine having a dedicated wellness team coaching your every move - your own licensed nutritionist, personal trainer, and therapist curating your habits throughout the day. How much easier would it be to keep healthy with your very own “LeBron-tourage” reinforcing good behavior?

With today’s beta launch, Day-J is making elite personal wellness teams available to all. Personalized and proactive, Day-J creates daily “playlists” of recommendations for food, fitness, mindset, and recovery from real experts. It’s a novel solution to a huge problem.

Not everyone lives the same life, which is why Day-J’s daily playlists prescribe healthy behaviors tailored to users’ specific situations - fully customized to take into account things like cooking style, family size, taste preferences, dietary restrictions, allergies, and even budget. Since there’s no one-size-fits-all fitness routine, the app adjusts its recommendations to individual goals and preferences. And because travel, family, pandemics and life in general have a way of disrupting our “normal” routines, it calibrates on the fly to make sure every playlist is relevant and achievable.

The super simple UI is fun enough to keep people engaged, and flexible enough to ensure consistent use. I genuinely look forward to opening my personal playlist every day, and invite you all to sign up for the beta [here].

There’s no shortage of diet and exercise apps, but long-term health and wellness is about so much more. Sleep, hydration, fitness, healthy eating, and recovery all play a role in sustained health. Day-J seamlessly integrates all these facets into one beautifully designed experience. It’s a proactive approach to wellness - not a reaction to diagnoses and medical conditions.

It’s easy to follow, easy to stick to, and it was an easy decision for us to invest. For years, I’ve been searching for an investment that takes a holistic approach to personal health - one that flips the current reactive healthcare paradigm on its head and focuses instead on proactive wellness. I’m so excited to support Joe and Jeremy (who perfected the DTC health playbook while at Livestrong and Tastemade) and the Day-J team as they begin this journey to bring a team of wellness experts to anyone’s pocket.

-Chris

Our Investment in Specto

Today, we’re excited to announce the public launch of Specto - the next generation platform for application performance monitoring that’s actually built for the age of mobile. We co-led the $3.25 million seed investment (with Susa Ventures and Bain Ventures, SVAngel and Liquid2 along with a select group of angel investors) in Specto because we were so impressed with the founders’ insights into what’s needed in this space. 

As developers themselves, Specto founders Jernej Strasner and Indragie Karunaratne have utilized their share of performance management tools over the years. They saw the opportunity to go beyond focusing on server performance and deliver functionality that enables developers to stay competitive with user expectations. Starting with the premise that a “working” app isn’t nearly good enough, they’ve created the performance solution they themselves wanted to use as developers. 

Specto collects data at an unprecedented level of granularity and provides insights that are not possible using traditional tools. It runs in production — on real end-user devices so there is no wasted time reproducing the issue or bug. Specto doesn’t just deliver a better mobile solution, it actually scales with its customers. It’s no wonder top mobile apps - including Notion and Rapha - are already on board. 

Making this technology available to the top mobile consumer apps is a massive opportunity - one we’re excited to see Specto launch into. Consumers spend more time on mobile than ever before - accessing essential services like banking, transportation, and now even healthcare through their mobile devices. They expect speed and seamless use from every app they use (every time). In 2021, it’s expected that mobile app downloads will reach 258 billion. Users spend on average 3h 40m per day on mobile, over 90% of that time is spent in a mobile app while just 10% is spent in a web browser (source: App Annie State of Mobile 2020). The days of web-based APMs are numbered. Consumers increasingly have zero patience for apps that aren’t instantly responsive. And the developers building those apps know this - poor performance could translate to millions (or even billions) in lost revenue. 

 As early movers in the app performance space, Jernej and Indragie both helped build application performance monitoring tooling during their time at Facebook. These tools were used across billions of downloads, and across multiple geographies and device types (Android and iOS). This isn’t the first time we’ve invested in founding teams who’ve built developer tools inside larger consumer organizations. Pagerduty, Mesosphere, CoreOS, and other teams in our portfolio put in time as operators - building tools for their own teams desperately needed - before spinning out on their own and making similar tools more broadly available. We believe strongly in the thesis that today’s team members are tomorrow’s founders - and we’re thrilled to see Specto launch broadly after two years of hard work building.

Introducing Screendoor: A Joint Initiative to Accelerate Diversity in Venture Capital

It’s easy to understand why venture capitalists pattern match. What worked before might work again. Makes sense, right? So the wire transfers go into the accounts of people who look like the successful founders who came before - usually white, male engineers from a handful of cities, who went to (and often dropped out of) specific colleges. 

I get it. I just don’t accept it. Pattern-matching is lazy, and it’s leaving a lot of worthy founders out (and a lot of money on the table). Venture capitalists should be daring, it’s right there in the title. Our job is to spot the revolutionary ideas that come next, the ones that will shape the future. Replaying the things that worked yesterday is not in the job description.

I’m a Latina woman who was born in a small New England town and attended a small women’s college in Virginia. I didn’t match the pattern as a founder, and I don’t match the pattern as an investor. It took another woman of color, Ann Miura-Ko, hearing my pitch to open up opportunities for me within the world of tech. When I later made the transition into venture and joined Fuel as a General Partner, I thought a lot about the chance Ann took on me. 

Having had the experience on both the founder and investor side, one thing is clear to me: venture capitalism is broken for people of color and women. The more GPs we have with a different life experience, the more diversity we’ll see at the founder level. 

That’s why I’m thrilled to share that Chris and I have both joined forces with Screendoor - a collaborative effort to expand diversity within the venture capital ecosystem. 

Screendoor launches today with more than $50 million in commitments from similarly forward-looking investors. The goal? To spark a virtuous cycle of wealth creation for underrepresented fund managers.

Started by a group of impatient early-stage investors who’ve had the experience of building their own firms, Screendoor is designed to identify high-potential emerging managers and then back them up with the capital, access, and network they need to get from start to success. I believe doing this work at the investor level will create a faster impact on diversity and inclusion at the founder level as well. 

Chris and I see our participation in Screendoor as a continuation of the efforts we’ve been making within our own firm. At Fuel, we’ve prioritized getting money into the hands of underrepresented founders. Nearly half of all the dollars invested from our latest fund are in companies with a diverse founder, and more than 1 out of 3 companies in that fund have at least one underrepresented founder. 

Over the coming years, Screendoor will make 12-15 investments in firms that have at least one Partner from an underrepresented segment. All founding Venture Advisors are investors in the fund itself, and none of us will draw fees or take carry. If you’re a founder, operator, or investor who wants to get involved - please reach out. 

Diversity is an issue that has been talked about ad nauseam for years. How do we actually deliver on it? By moving beyond the rhetoric and surfacing investors from everywhere, then giving them the resources and support they need to run.

Leah

Introducing Fuel Up: Our Audio Series focused on Startup Marketing

We are so excited to introduce our audio series, Fuel Up, where we surface the strategic and tactical marketing challenges that young companies face and the techniques and best practices that these early- stage startups use to grow. In this series, we’re inviting the marketers and sales leaders who’ve been in the trenches to share what they’ve learned and by the end of each episode - leave you a little wiser in all aspects of marketing. 

In our very first installment of the Fuel Up audio series, Matt Trifiro, Vapor IO’s Chief Marketing Officer, talks naming, category creation, and the secret power of the future perfect tense. This wide-ranging conversation is a crash course in strategically positioning cutting edge products, and a necessary listen for any early-stage company looking to build a marketing function from scratch.

Matt dropped countless knowledge bombs. Below are some of the highlights:

• Pay attention to the passion: When talking to customers and internal stakeholders, listen for the passion. Where is the energy? What are they most excited about? How do they describe their problem and what type of solution could solve that problem? Follow that because that tells you a lot your target customer and the unique value of your product or service.

• Look for the patterns: You don’t need to conduct a massive customer research study to understand your customers. Patterns and common threads start to appear after speaking with 10 or so objective and knowledgeable customers. These patterns are where the gold lies. 

• Hiring your first marketer: When hiring your first marketer, understand what assets already exist in the organization. Then, hire to fill in the skill gaps. Look for a utility player or generalist who can do a little bit of everything yet is happy to do the grunt work.  

• Marketers need a relentless curiosity - almost a naïveté - to truly understand their customers and ultimately derive the most accurate positioning for their brand. 

You can listen to the full interview below.

Stay tuned for new Fuel Up episodes in the coming weeks and subscribe on Apple Podcast.

Q&A with Brian Luerssen: A new generation of builders is coming online

A wave of no- and low-code tools has transformed retail. Tools like Shopify, Wix, and Square have abstracted away complexity and enabled small businesses to manage operations, handle transactions, and put up storefronts without having to write a single line of code. These tools and the generation they spawned are meeting this moment and they may just be the key to our financial and economic recovery. 

From an organizational perspective, layoffs across all sectors are causing teams to streamline, and the need for tools that allow them to be more capital efficient has never been greater. A new way of working - remote, from wherever you happen to be - centers the role of collaboration within companies on the cusp of radical change. Putting building power in the hands of every section of an org - from human resources to marketing to customer support - will become a vital component of moving forward. 

At the same time, we’re experiencing record-high unemployment - that’s millions of people who can be empowered to start businesses of their own. It’s possible this recession will produce an unprecedented number of entrepreneurs who are looking to move their ideas online by harnessing the power and reach of the internet. There is a huge opportunity for no- and low-code technologies to enable individuals to offer services, ship products, and operate their own freelance businesses. 

One of the best minds in the no- and low-code world is Brian Luerssen, Co-founder and CEO of Draftbit. Operating in the “messy middle” between developers and non-developers, Brian’s team has a front-row seat to the role these tools have played on multidisciplinary teams - and the role they might have in our recovery. We sat down with Brian to learn more about how no- and low-code tools have evolved and where these technologies are headed. 

Q. We saw early potential in the no- and low-code space, but we’re just now starting to see these terms in a broader conversation about what’s next in technology. What do you think about the recent explosion in interest around these technologies?

A. The no-code and low-code world is exploding because there’s a new generation of builders coming online that have grown up using software and now want to build it themselves, and they have the base level of knowledge to do so. They've been building stuff for a while - websites, blogs, Shopify stores. Now they want to build their own applications. According to recent research, by 2023 there will be something like 900 million global information workers in the world that use software and technology every day, but only about 30 million developers. That leaves more than 800 million people who use software but can’t create it. This scenario looks a lot like a time when only developers could create websites, but now millions of websites are created by non-developers. We believe the creation of applications will follow this same trajectory. 

Q. Low-code tools are certainly on the rise, but they aren’t entirely new. What’s been the role of these types of tools historically? 

A. Traditionally, low-code technology was primarily used by enterprises that wanted to wrap guard rails around what their engineers could do. For example, you might sell an old-school low-code system to the CTO of a state or local government because he tends to hire more junior engineers that turn over quickly. He’s going to find use in a structured system that ensures things keep working even after the team that built them moves on. Outside of that use case, these tools became access points for people learning technology but they frankly weren’t easy to use nor did they allow for a lot of sophistication. So while they produced code, the quality of that code wasn’t something a professional developer would really touch - defeating the purpose in some ways.  

Q.  Beyond developer-heavy startups, what are the specific use cases you’re seeing in the enterprise world?

A. Small businesses and startups are building their MVPs, gathering customer feedback, and doing their own hypothesis testing. They’re using no-code tools to solve everyday problems like workforce management, sales enablement, customer service, and online ordering. Restaurants are automating a lot of processes that used to be manual - building their own simple online ordering apps and developing tools to keep track of inventory. Startups are using no-code platforms to iterate faster, allowing them to build more with fewer resources. Meanwhile, agencies and dev shops are using no-code platforms both for their customers but also during the design and development phase when working with customers to spec new projects. They use tools like Draftbit to build production code much, much faster -  resulting in massive ROI and margin enhancement. Further, they like being able to drop the "build a fake prototype" tools like Invision and Marvel, and just get started building the real thing. 

Q.  Leaner, scrappier businesses can be less wary of adopting new technology. Do you see larger enterprises getting on board with these tools yet?

A.  Absolutely. Larger enterprises of all kinds - even Fortune 1000 companies - are using no- and low-code technology in their innovation groups to test new products and new consumer segments. No- and low-code products have found a home in their internal tools and enterprise technology departments as they experiment with workplace productivity solutions. For example, Walmart has over 25 apps, each dedicated to a specific employee role (warehouse manager, store manager, stock clerk, etc) with the objective of making the team members filling that role better, smarter, and faster at their jobs. Instead of buying multiple enterprise SaaS solutions, many companies are choosing to roll out their own with a small team - customizing to their use cases for a fraction of the cost. We see large companies using Draftbit to build everything from small team dashboards to employee training tools. 

Q. Do you see these tools playing a role at the consumer level?

A. This is potentially the most exciting category - enabling people to build applications just for themselves, their families, their friend groups, and their communities. This is truly the long tail of software applications. There are thousands of potential applications where it will never make sense for a business to operate in the niche, but where people need tools to have more fun, to make memories, to communicate faster and more efficiently, and to spend more time together (even remotely).

Q. How does Draftbit’s approach differ from other no-code platforms?

A. Many no-code platforms eschew the need for developers ever again. What makes Draftbit different is that we live in the messy middle between developers and non-developers. We're a no-code platform, but we also allow you to view and export the underlying source code. So it works for the multidisciplinary teams building real products: freelancers, agencies, entrepreneurs, startups, and enterprise builders. Without the underlying source code, you eventually reach the limits of the platform you’re building on. That means starting over somewhere else (or worse, going back to the old way of building without visual tools). Rather than no- and low-code, we think of Draftbit as a visual development tool for makers of all kinds. 

Q. Ultimately, what type of impact do you hope Draftbit will have on the way teams work?

A. We envision a future of true collaboration between teams building applications: both technical and non-technical actually doing work side by side, instead of everyone non-technical just queuing up work for the technical folks. We’re building to the (ever increasing) sophistication of the builders out there. My wish is that all of these tools create more independence, more new businesses, and more economic freedom.

Q. Where else might we see opportunity for these types of tools going forward?

A. I think we’ll see a lot of traction around individual usage - creatives and content producers are already starting to create apps for their followers, their podcasts, their YouTube channels. They use no- and low-code tools to build software that lets them own, monetize, and engage their user base in ways they couldn’t before. There is a lot of untapped potential there. I think the future for tools like these really boils down into a version of freedom. To solve your own problems, to form your own communities and platforms, and to build what makes you happy. Think back to before we had website builders like Wordpress, Wix, and Blogger. Now think through all of the amazing websites, blogs, portfolios, and businesses that have been enabled by them. The same thing will be true with applications.

What comes next?

Getting metrics to move has always been the goal for those of us in the business of building companies. Up and to the right - that’s a rule we live by. But it’s not the most important one. The first rule is to build things that add real value to people’s lives. And as all our lives shift rapidly into something we don’t quite recognize, the opportunity to bring value has never been greater. A few weeks ago, we sent an email to our LPs discussing this remarkable consequence of crises - innovation tends to follow. It’s an idea that’s been reinforced by every conversation I’ve had with an entrepreneur in the past couple of months. Founders are already looking for ways to build for tomorrow. 

Today, it might be impossible to predict what comes next - but it’s clear that this pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis will fundamentally change how people, businesses, and the world operate. Times of immense change have a way of changing human behavior. We can already see this happening around us and to us -- everything, including the ways we work, and communicate, looks nothing like they did a mere month ago. The ways we get around, clean our homes, buy groceries, and exercise have shifted. Socializing with our friends, receiving medical care, and educating our children might never again look like they did in January. And while we don’t yet know which of these new behaviors will endure, it’s hard to ignore the very real opportunities that exist for entrepreneurs to build for a whole new spectrum of human needs. 

We saw a swell of innovation after the 2008 financial crisis and we are seeing it again today. Entrepreneurs are already observing these changes in human behavior and finding new opportunities. These curious minds will sift through the challenges of today to identify the solutions that will be needed tomorrow. Existing companies pivoting their models and new ones starting up. While many industries have been and will continue to be hard hit by the pandemic - travel, oil and gas, restaurants, retail, services, and more - some sectors are emerging as areas of opportunity. 

The pandemic is necessitating rapid change and innovation in the healthcare industry. It’s incredible to see how rapidly telemedicine practices have shifted just in the past few weeks. Insurance codes for telemedicine changed almost overnight to allow for reimbursement. Urgent questions have risen loudly to the fore that beg for entrepreneurial response. How can hospitals scale services faster? Will the cost of care drop dramatically with the rise of telemedicine? Will wearables help in the detection of illness ahead of patients demonstrating symptoms? 

Outside of healthcare, the “future of work” continues to be reinvented. If remote work becomes the new normal, what new tools and behaviors will emerge to make people more productive? How will collaboration evolve? What changes will we see in hiring, training, management, org structure, and every other corner of business? 

Will we see a new generation of entrepreneurs emerge from the 30M+ unemployed workers? In 2008, the on-demand economy emerged and dozens of companies were built upon the 1099 economy. What new set of tools will enable this generation to build businesses. With college students not in the classroom, what new companies will they dream up? How will the nature of higher education change? 

There’s fertile ground to be found in our newly restructured personal lives as well. The transition from “in real life” to online has led to gyms, schools, and even churches leveraging digital solutions to engage with their communities. Kids and teachers are stress-testing online classrooms - will we see a boom in new learning platforms? What tools will emerge for the fitness industry to manage classes and customers virtually? Will VR/AR see a resurgence as people look for new forms of entertainment and ways to engage with a community virtually? An increase in idle time has changed the nature of social media engagement and led to increases in UGC - what will that mean for content producers? Will mass migration to Zoom unseat Facebook as the platform people use for personal connection? How will social networks and applications evolve to bring people closer together? Will consumers demand more privacy or closed networks to better communicate and stay in touch? 

Every question indicates a potential market opportunity - a chance to build something that brings real value to people's lives.

Our world has changed indelibly. And that change will continue through this crisis and beyond. If previous crises are any indication, the best entrepreneurs will rise to meet this moment. They’ll embrace the shift in human behavior, ask the right questions, identify an opportunity, and then start building for a world that looks different than the one we knew before. If you are one of those founders, I’d love to hear from you (chris@fuelcapital.com). 

Introducing Ikaria - a new social wellness app!

We are excited to announce the launch of Ikaria - a new social wellness app, co-founded by Chrys Bader and Sean Dadashi. 

Chrys was the co-founder of Secret, an app on a mission to connect people in a more substantive way using anonymity as a means for unlocking expression.

We were seed investors in Secret. I was particularly excited about it because of the early community we saw forming. For example, in the early days, I was able to help someone anonymously in my network who was struggling with multiple miscarriages - something that my wife and I knew all too well. But the community and conversation devolved, as often happens with anonymous social networks, and despite hitting the top of the App Store repeatedly, ultimately the company shut down.

Fast forward nearly seven years, it’s clear that social networks are becoming more and more impersonal. Posts to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are most often surface-level interactions.  And, it’s eroding our offline interactions too. Just look at any table the next time you are out to dinner. How many people are on their phones? Are they talking to each other? Is anyone smiling or laughing?

Path promised years ago to keep your network smaller and more intimate, but it was early -  before people were ready to move away from status badging and endless empty scrolling through your ‘friends’ perfect lives. 

Most of the studies you read that examine social networks and people’s happiness today would suggest that despite having more access to connected apps, people have never felt lonelier. “Bowling Alone,” written in 2000, foreshadowed the erosion of our spaces to connect with family, friends, and our neighbors and since then it has become even lonelier online. 

That’s why we are so excited to invest in Ikaria, a social wellness application that promises to bring people closer together through technology. It’s more than an app, it’s a movement. Chrys and Sean are dedicated to creating a new category of application and bringing social wellness to the forefront. And to create a space where users can connect with the people closest to them and learn what they are really thinking and feeling - what they are most passionate about, what makes them laugh, and what makes them cry - and to help lift each other up.

We are already extremely proud of this team, this company, and this mission — it is deeply aligned with Fuel’s core values - to always put founders first and create a space for vulnerability, compassion, and support. 

If you would like to sign up for early access, please follow the link here. You can read more in the company’s blog post or check out the article in TechCrunch here.

USAA Insurance for the Masses - Our Investment in Goodcover

We’re excited to announce today that we led a $2M seed investment in Goodcover, a new insurance company that is truly putting customers first. I’ve known Dan DiSpaltro, the co-founder of Goodcover, for close to ten years. He worked with a friend of mine at IBM and then co-founded Cloudkick with Alex Polvi (whose company, CoreOS, we invested in). 

Dan reached out to me about a year ago to get feedback on the company and my initial email response was something along the lines of: “We don’t love the insurance space but happy to meet with you and be a sounding board.”  

Since starting FUEL, we’ve spent time with a dozen or more insurance startups. Many of these companies have gone on to raise large sums of capital. We’ve looked at new consumer insurance companies as well as commercial insurance companies either sold directly or through brokers. But we kept getting stuck on the model. All these companies promised to use technology to lower cost by removing people on the opex side or develop better underwriting models, and then funnel those savings back into customer acquisition. 

But there wasn’t anything truly innovative about the customer experience that would get someone excited to tell their friends about it and radically change the market for insurance. Margins and lifetime values are very good in insurance and many of the incumbent and legacy players have high fixed costs, but the category is very, very efficient at acquiring customers, which gave us pause. 

I was skeptical too because I am lucky to be a USAA member. Before I was born, my father was an officer in the military, and for a period of time was stationed in Okinawa. When I turned 16, I was able to secure auto insurance. Since then, I’ve received my health, renters, home and life insurance through USAA, which only sells to current and former military service members and their families. 

USAA is known for having the best rates -- every time I’ve asked about switching I hear the same thing: “Don’t bother. USAA is the best.” They have incredible customer service, their agents don’t work on commission so they aren’t pushing me into products I don’t need. And every year whatever surplus they have is returned to their members via a dividend. 

And this was the pitch that Chris and Dan laid out for Goodcover - “building USAA for everyone else” - starting with renters insurance and then expanding from there. Chris worked for 8 years at AIG and together with Dan’s experience at Cloudkick, Rackspace and IBM, they have the right combination of skills. They’ve spent the past two years putting the infrastructure in place to launch the product. Out of the gates, the product saves customers 45% on their premiums, auto cancels members’ existing policies, and rewards members with a dividend for unused premiums. Given all the goodness, it is not surprising that members are organically telling their friends, which is an acquisition strategy we love.  

Goodcover launched today to help renters in the state of California and we couldn’t be more excited to partner with the team to create a member-based insurance carrier for everyone!  To learn more about Goodcover, check out their website or this TechCrunch feature. 

2019 ReFUEL Retreat

At FUEL, we invest in people, not companies.

That’s not a talking point, it’s a real commitment to putting founders first and supporting the kind of sustainable habits that will produce successful outcomes over the long term. We’ve seen and experienced firsthand how Silicon Valley's culture of hustle runs people into the ground, and we’re here to punch back by truly investing in the well-being of those building the companies that will change the future.

Conferring with the master.

Two Days on the Ranch.

Earlier this month, we invited the founders within the FUEL Capital family to the stunning Skywalker Ranch for our very first ReFUEL Retreat. The idea for this retreat, which we plan to host annually, was born out of our genuine belief that founders who care for themselves can better care for their businesses.

We asked attendees to slow down, be present, and focus on their own health and wellness during this unique summit. We invited today’s leading minds in movement, meditation, nutrition, and mental conditioning to join us and share their knowledge. We carved out plenty of time for movement, plenty of time outdoors, and plenty of time away from our devices. George Lucas envisioned Skywalker Ranch as a place where creators could come to do deep work. Since shaping a company is an act of creation, we thought the ranch was the ideal place for ReFUEL.

Day 1

Trevor Moawad

After the founders got settled into their private suites and mingled over breakfast, we gathered for our first session with renowned mental conditioning expert Trevor Moawad.

On a mission to “motivate the motivated,” Trevor serves as a strategic advisor to some of today’s top athletes. He reminded us about the power of neutral thinking, that saying negative thoughts out loud can have a severe impact on one’s performance (and on the performance of those around us). He reminded us that pressure is a privilege, and that we shouldn’t take the difficult moments for granted because we’ve worked hard to get to them.

Kelly McGonigal

Our first day also included a talk from Kelly McGonigal, who helped us understand how to boost the psychological benefits we get from movement. Armed with heaps of research and scientific evidence, Kelly showed us how to use movement to boost mood, resist stress, forge stronger social connections, and even expand joy. We then put her ideas to the test by going out for a hike led by the Skywalker Ranch fire team and testing our balance with Paddle Board Tabata (spoiler: a lot of us fell into the pool).

As soon as you do a movement that has any quality to it - like grace or power - your brain doesn’t experience that as a fleeting feeling. Your brain thinks “I’m graceful! I’m powerful!” You can choose a movement based on the qualities you want to develop.

We wrapped up the day with a tour of the winery, a big family meal, a private tour of George Lucas’ art collection, and a screening of (what else?) Return of the Jedi.

The biology of belonging: Our neurochemistry has evolved not just to help us do difficult things, but to help us connect with other people. Movement puts us in a better state for connecting with family, employees, or friends.

Just remodeling our rewards systems at the ranch's highest point (cows not pictured).

Day 2

Some opted to start day two with an energizing yoga session led by Shelby Clark (founder of Turo), some headed out for a vigorous morning hike and run with Skywalker’s fire team, and others joined Anthony Sneed for his sweat-inducing ASCEND cardio class.

Will Kabat-Zinn

By mid-morning, we reassembled in the ranch’s expansive living room for a mindfulness workshop with Will Kabat-Zinn. Will guided us through several meditations while relaying lessons about our psychological relationship with time, the power of just sitting with tension and stress, and the fact that presence is palpable. The three hours flew by.

The more we observe, the deeper we get, the more we will realize that our whole reality - everything we experience - is being shaped by the stories in our head.

Kelly LeVeque

That afternoon, our very own Jamie Viggiano interviewed wellness expert and celebrity health coach Kelly LeVeque about her actionable, sustainable approach to nutrition. Kelly showed us how to “put the positive on the plate” and explained how consistency will outpace any fad diet or food hack. The remainder of the afternoon was filled with opportunities for founders to share their own experiences with wellness, from a fiery poolside panel discussion about the culture of hustle in the startup world to a candid fireside chat with former Pinterest President and Moment Founder Tim Kendall on being present.

What’s next?

There were a number of themes that bubbled up over the two days, and one of the most persistent was the importance of balance. When you let yourself consider things over a longer time horizon, the truth is plain as day: a model that burns out founders and early employees is not a sustainable one. Startups are only as healthy as their people.

If we can give founders permission to put their wellness first, that behavior can carry through the company cultures they build. We believe that healthier founders build healthier companies. This translates directly to better returns for our investors in the long run. It’s smart business. 

After seeing how the attendees have already started to take the ReFUEL experience back to their teams, we’re more committed than ever to spearheading this change. One attendee likened the ReFUEL experience to the Wright Brothers’ use of wind tunnels while developing the airplane. This resonates with us. A two-day retreat at a gorgeous full-service ranch isn’t reality; it’s a vacuum. It’s easier to unplug and be present while there. It’s the learnings, the muscle memory, the small pieces of this experience that founders take back to their teams that will help grow this movement. To our founders we make this promise: Keep taking those bits and pieces back to your companies, and we'll keep building you wind tunnels.

We believe in supporting the wellness of every founder. Even if you aren’t in the FUEL portfolio yet, feel free to reach out. We'd love to hear your story, learn more about what you're building, and share our learnings from ReFUEL with you. 

- Leah & Chris

FUEL Closes $75M Fund III

Since the launch of FUEL back in 2013, our mission has always been to stand in our founders’ corners, not their kitchens while doing everything in our power to ensure that great founders and ideas succeed. The past 5 years have been incredibly gratifying - from starting the firm while crashing on a friend’s couch to bringing on Leah as my fellow GP back in 2017. We’ve met and supported some amazing companies along the way - Katerra, Flexport, Convoy, Mesosphere, Clearbit, CTRL-Labs, Figma, Lattice, Nervana (acquired by Intel) and CoreOS (acquired by RedHat).

Fast forward to today, we are excited to announce that we have closed FUEL Fund III to continue this mission. Our oversubscribed fund secures $75M of investable capital. This brings our total assets under management to $146M (growing from $25M in Fund I to $46M in Fund II to $75M in Fund III).

The focus of the firm will remain the same; we will continue to invest at the seed stage in our core areas, including developer tools and business software as well as consumer companies, specifically consumer marketplaces. The new fund size keeps us small enough to continue partnering with the funds we have long worked alongside. Yet excitingly, the new fund is large enough to allow us to start leading investments.

With this new fund, we will focus on two key initiatives. First, we will go deeper in an area where we believe we can further earn our seat on the cap table - that is, by expanding the marketing and branding services we offer to our portfolio. We will leverage Chris’ decade-long career in marketing and branding and Leah’s journey building TaskRabbit into a globally-recognized consumer brand to build a practical and actionable marketing platform to support our founders. This skill set is unique at the seed stage and often very complementary to the skill sets of the other investors around the table.

Over the past several years, marketing and branding support has been a recurring request from our portfolio companies. We are so excited to be doubling down on resources to be able to meet that need. We’ve recently hired Jamie Viggiano as FUEL’s Chief Marketing Officer. Jamie has more than a decade of experience leading marketing organizations at the earliest stages. We are thrilled to have her on the team to help our companies define and share their unique story right out of the gates.

Second, we will remain completely dedicated to our founders and their professional - but also and importantly - their personal success. We want to be trusted confidantes always — but particularly during the challenging times. We will continue to stay focused on the founder, making their companies’ challenges our own and doing everything in our power to help them succeed.

There has been a great deal of discussion about the mental and physical toll that starting a company can have on entrepreneurs. Founding a company is not for the faint of heart. In fact, Leah has experienced the havoc startup life can have on your mind and body. We are dedicated to addressing this issue directly and building a platform to support our founders. We recently launched our ReFUEL series because we fundamentally believe that we need to go beyond the money and invest in our founders’ health and well-being, giving them the time and space to recharge — to “fuel up” so to speak — for what’s bound to come their way. We believe this is fundamental to not only sustaining our founders but also creating sustainable companies and cultures.  

We couldn’t be more excited to continue our mission with Fund III. We couldn’t do so without our incredible founders and our LPs. THANK YOU for helping us get here -- you make FUEL happen every day. You inspire us and push us to be better. We will continue to stand in your corner and do everything we can to help you succeed.

This new milestone gives us FUEL. We can’t wait for what’s ahead.

Chris

It's time to ReFUEL.

Startup life is often portrayed as a fast-paced and thrilling adventure. But there is a darker side that’s not often talked about. Startup life can wreak havoc on your mind and body. The red-eyes, the late nights, the non-stop mind-racing, the isolation - it’s an utterly exhausting journey that often doesn’t let up even as the company scales.

FUEL General Partner Leah Busque recently shared her story about the mental and physical toll that she endured as a founder in the hope that it helps other founders in similar situations. Here’s an excerpt:

————————-

The last round of financing I raised for TaskRabbit (our Series D) was by far the most difficult and stressful experience I had while leading the company. It was mid-2015 and we were about 2 weeks away from being completely cash out (read: We were 2 weeks away from not making payroll.). While the company was healthy and growing, I made a bad call in the previous fundraise; I simply did not raise enough in our Series C because I got distracted by things like dilution and speed to close. That raise was far too easy and now I was facing quite the opposite scenario - traveling non-stop and meeting with countless investors to get a deal done. (This was a huge lesson learned and probably a story for another day.)

On a particularly stressful day, I went for a walk with a fellow founder and was venting to him about the raise. While it was cathartic to lament, my stomach started to hurt later that afternoon and by bedtime the pain was so bad I could hardly move. I went to the hospital and after a few tests was admitted for five days. The diagnosis: stress-induced colitis. My friend later tells me that I looked a little green that afternoon. I bet I did.

The stress of the fundraise was so intense that my body literally crashed. At the time, I remember thinking, my company is going to fail because my body has given out on me. Yet, the frenetic pace didn’t slow and even from my hospital bed I was on calls with investors trying to secure financing. The first meeting I took after getting out of the hospital was a pitch with a debt financing firm. I could barely walk into the meeting on my own. Thankfully, I pushed through because this was the round that ultimately led to a deal with IKEA and got us to profitability.

Luckily, my story has a happy ending both from a company and health standpoint. Yet, it’s difficult to reflect on even 4 years later.  Stress and anxiety are an inevitable part of being a founder and CEO (it’s kinda what you signed up for). So is the urge to push yourself to the limit. But, I’ve come to two important realizations over the years. The first is that constantly doing more doesn’t always result in improved performance. The second is that while there are many things outside of your control as a founder, there is one thing you can control -  that is, how well you prepare your mind and your body for the stressful moments. How do you take care of yourself and recharge so you are physically and mentally prepared for what comes at you - not just in startup life but in life in general?

—————————-

We appreciate Leah sharing her story as this is something that we at FUEL are deeply committed to. Our guiding principle has always been that we stand in our founders’ corners, not their kitchen and we want to be trusted confidantes always - but particularly during the difficult times. We believe that we need to go beyond the money and invest in our founders' health and well-being, giving them the time and space to recharge - to “fuel up” so to speak - for what’s bound to come their way.  We believe this is fundamental to not only sustaining our founders but also creating sustainable companies and cultures.

So today, we are excited to announce the launch of ReFUEL. ReFUEL is a series of events focused on the physical and mental well-being of founders. The event series will focus on diet, fitness, recovery, meditation and improved sleep. We held our first ReFUEL event in the Bay Area in mid March where we were joined by a great group of over 50 founders and friends for a SoulCycle class and a Joe & the Juice smoothie bar. The energy, inspiration, and support in the room was palatable. A 4-minute rolling hill was the perfect analogy for building a company - grinding to the top with peaks and valleys along the way.

We have several ReFUEL events planned in the next few weeks in cities across the country, including:  

LA (Downtown): April 17th at SoulCycle

SF (SOMA): April 19th at SoulCycle

NYC (Grand Central): May 3rd at SoulCycle

If you are an entrepreneur in need of a ReFUEL, please complete this short google form to attend one of our events.