Late last week the rates for many social media influencers doubled overnight. Here’s what we think this means and what you should do about it. 

At West, we’ve spent the past two weeks building out a collaborator strategy for a stealth portfolio company that is gearing up to launch. Then, at 5am the morning we were due to speak with the founder and his team, an email hit our inboxes. It was a little unsettling.

The note came from a former West team member, now social media consultant, who we were partnering with to build out the program. The subject was simply, “Coronavirus + Collaborators” and it had been sent after a long night fielding frantic calls from clients and agencies wondering why their contracts with key influencers were being held, canceled, or aggressively renegotiated. 

With retail numbers sliding, and experiential and event sponsorship canceled or indefinitely postponed, brands are scrambling to find ways to keep their user base engaged and revenues buoyed. As recent projections validate, advertising dollars are being shifted aggressively from traditional large scale media channels toward social media influencers and tactical, digital social programming.

In this situation, the market demand creates a Black Friday-like vortex, with influencers rates doubling (or more) and exclusivity requests from big-spending brands effectively locking out key influencers within their vertical for six months or more. Their livelihood, steady income, and the brands that provide it are all in jeopardy. 

A network of nervous, independent contractors compounded with new traffic patterns across social media platforms yields uncertainty and as social always does, a totally different ecosystem. With so many people now working from home, and a global hammer of universally used hashtags, sites are now experiencing frequent and more uniform visits during the day, rather than just during traditional, peak hours. Plus, the world now has a singular focus–COVID-19. So what happens if, as an influencer, you post on a non-COVID related topic? Your engagement rate drops. And when the engagement rates drop so does the rate an influencer can demand. So those with high engagement rates in the crisis allowed their stock to rise. Desperate and/or opportunistic influencers even began leveraging the COVID-19 hashtag to gain impressions and increase levels of engagement. Times of uncertainty incite wild fluctuations in price and volatility––and with it winners and losers. 

The digital media market has been bullish for a long time, offering mainly direct-to-consumer businesses a repeatable way to grow with a mostly predictable CAC (customer acquisition cost). However, this is only one channel for growth and brand building and it is hard to sustain cost-effectively over time. As investors, we are not the only ones who have become deeply cynical when we see growth derived from digital-only means. Our point of view on collaborators or influencers is this: some are valuable, others are not, some are dangerous to a partner, others are vital. Panic separates those segments. It’s why you should collaborate only with those who provide the same strategic value exchange you expect from long term partnerships. It is not transactional, it is relationship-based. 

Amidst the volatility, here’s what we suggest. 

If you are early in the journey or about to launch 

This is a time to reevaluate your mix and how you’re building your brand for the long term. Study your end-to-end customer journey and dissect the multitude of ways consumers will come into contact with your new brand. Incorporate moments of delight that will foster long term brand love from the very beginning. Influencers are a tempting and immediate source of awareness and engagement, but by no means the only one. Consider channels that will build your brand in an emotional and meaningful (dare we say human) way. 

Grassroots field marketing and community management (2.0). Now more than ever it is crucial to build trusted connections with your consumers because a strong brand is one of the most powerful tools to hedge against difficult business conditions (more on that here). We’re seeing small community-led initiatives pop up on numerous platforms from Zoom dinner parties to virtual trivia nights. Don’t discount these as one-offs, see these as a new way to build and sustain community. We undoubtedly are at the start of a period of change about how we think about and value connection and community. Referral and micro-influencers are about to mean entirely new things. 

If you are scale-up

This is where this potentially starts to hurt. We know a key part of the D2C playbook relies on acquisition and influencer marketing to facilitate and pump growth around a well defined CAC. Now, that CAC is in flux and that will significantly impact your growth story. And that’s a problem. Following a range of recent case studies (the Casper IPO bringing that playbook squarely into the light) investors are increasingly wary of growth-by-acquisition stories. They are short term props masquerading as strong brand and product stories. 

While challenging, now might be the time to question your mix and start to think about how small actions now can help you find a leadership position once we are in a post COVID world. (We deliberately didn’t say return to “normal”.) However, at this stage of life, you already have loyal consumers. Your business will no doubt endure structural changes and pivots––our new normal will be fundamentally different than today––so bring your consumers along for the ride with you by building a brand that is flexible and responsive to their sentiment. 

If you are an established brand

You are likely already implementing a range of cash conserving measures across the business. You also hopefully have a larger war chest. But those with the larger war chests are exactly what’s driving the pricing spikes in this market.

While this is probably a good strategy to stay ahead of the competition in the short term, be cognizant that you may be artificially inflating the market (against yourself) in the long run. Are you engaging with influencers who represent your brand in an authentic way or are you land grabbing what is currently available? Continue to make brand decisions that would stand any test in good times. 

Furthermore, on the influencer side, the stakes are now raised. With so much money sloshing around, expect social media to get a whole lot more salesy. And in our experience, this is not a good thing, much less when influencers try to balance the fine line of reporting on COVID-19.

The whole reason we love social media is that it isn’t advertising or reporting, it’s more human, and for the most part, meaningful. That may be about to change.

-Matt Hirst, Managing Partner

The health and safety of our team, our clients, and community is our biggest priority and West has been closely monitoring guidelines from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, CDC, and other government and health officials over the past weeks. Following the city’s most recent ordinance, the West team will be fully remote for the foreseeable future. While it’s certainly a shift from our daily in-office vibe, the team is ready to focus on the work ahead: helping our CEOs, founders and founding teams define and defend their market opportunity with brands people love, brands with impact.

At West, we’re lucky to have the opportunity to invest in and work directly with companies at various inflection points and across a range of industries. Given this vantage point, our team will be digging in as much as possible to share useful insights with our community as we all navigate through the coming days and months. We’ll be updating our blog with notes, learnings and musings as we traverse this journey together. Sending our best for good health and a quick economic recovery to all.

As a founder or CEO, you’re certainly getting inundated with advice, articles, and “how-to” tips for preparing for an economic downturn. You will be asked or required to re-evaluate your business and generate updated financial models and forecasts, to pull back on any future-looking operations and to immediately cut or flatten spending, especially anything deemed “discretionary”. During a recession or economic slowdown––and I have experienced a few––companies turn inward, decrease operational costs, and often start by sending marketing and sales resources out the door.

However, a looming recession is also a non-obvious, massive opportunity to re-evaluate your customer value proposition, customer journey, and brand relevance. Having a resonant and top-of-mind brand is one of the most powerful tools to hedge against difficult business conditions.  Research shows that when a brand is a powerful “short cut” to a consumer’s attention and share of mind, it is easier for those companies to gain market share in a softening market––even more so than in a strong market. When the downward spiral begins, the brand you’ve built––before the market softened––is the most important customer asset. Make sure it counts for something. 

The customer is always right 

The advantages of customer loyalty are also more pronounced in a downturn. Loyal customers cost less to serve. They typically concentrate their spending with companies they trust and their referrals to friends can lay the foundation for growth when the economy rebounds. Human nature tells us that when people are anxious or fearful, they seek safety and value trust. Having a highly trusted brand provides a safe haven and gives customers confidence in times of overwhelming uncertainty.

When companies turn inward and compress spending, they risk severing ties with their most loyal customers and turning off the very channels that spur the product innovation connected with customer needs. During booming times companies can focus on and are rewarded for product innovation and risk. When a recession kicks in, we must shift our orientation towards the customer and how we can best serve them, and product innovation takes a temporary back seat to customer relationships. 

During good times, even the most successful businesses pivot––some multiple times. When the economy shifts, your business should be even more prepared to adapt to structural and customer-driven changes. If you’ve studied a customer lifetime value analysis, you know that your most profitable customers are also the most expensive to replace. Rather than risk losing them, offer more value, continue to spark their loyalty, and make them part of the conversation. Focus on building a brand that is flexible and responsive to the customer’s sentiment, and needs, informed by the nature of the market in real time.

In a recent report by Deloitte that looks at data from the two most recent recessions––periods when the classic cost-reduction playbook was hailed as the gold standard, the firm cites the number 1 action consumer companies should take when faced with a looming recession is to “determine why you matter”. I’d add that this work isn’t only for consumer companies. It’s for every type of company. This is the core work we do with our portfolio companies and in our brand studio at West. Having a clear understanding of your purpose and defining what your company offers your customers is foundational to delivering trusted value.

We should also acknowledge that you should always have a downturn scenario plan and if you can get ahead of it, try to deepen your cash reserves.  When the market has a downturn, if you’ve built a strong balance sheet, you’ll be able to make more intelligent decisions while keeping your team and sanity intact. This is a best practice of the smartest companies in every market segment. 

Invest in smart growth

Driving your brand to “top of mind” should not be conflated with an increase in growth marketing spend or engaging a large scale (i.e. costly) advertising campaign that plasters your brand across the NYC Subway with minimal traceable ROI. This is about doing the foundational work to create a defensible and unique brand and customer value proposition. This work involves understanding the end-to-end customer journey from awareness all the way through to customer advocacy. It is also about understanding and placing a high ROI on your performance marketing spend.

Ultimately, when things get tough, having "vendors" is very different from having "partners." If you are a “partner” to your customers, you demonstrate that you have a shared commitment to their future and well being. Surround yourself with extraordinary people who truly share your vision for the future. If we’re all in a foxhole, I want to be in there with people I trust.

Invest in your customers. Build trusted relationships. Invest in your brand.

- Joanna Rees, Managing Partner at West

As West heads out for the holiday season––wrapping up projects and laying the groundwork for new ones––we’re also pausing to reflect on the last year. This has been one of our most impactful years to date, and while we’ve been heads down in production mode, we’re taking the end of the year to share a few special moments and turbocharge for the one ahead.

On West

West moved! We kicked 2019 off at 50 Pacific and it really feels like home. In addition to a new home, we added five new full-time team members: Stacy Tarver Patterson (Managing Director), Felicia Reyes (Creative Director), Eva Pullano (Communications Director), Brandon Hightower (Strategist), and Andie Hamm (Strategist).

A seasoned marketer, Stacy brings over a decade of experience to West and was most recently a Senior Marketing Director at Nike Inc leading teams across the U.S. and internationally. While at Nike, Stacy covered a myriad of diverse roles in brand strategy, planning, and digital marketing; including stints leading the marketing teams in Beijing and Shanghai, two of Nike's fastest growing markets. Stacy holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Management and Organizational Behavior from NYU Stern along with an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is currently pursuing her MS in Data Science from University of California, Berkeley. 

Felicia is a Creative Director with a passion for design and creating visual stories that bring brands to life. Prior to West, Felicia was Associate Creative Director at John McNeil Studio in Berkeley. At JMS she led a team of designers, photographers, programmers, UX designers, animators, writers and makers to build brands and help tell their stories. A creative leader in developing global branding systems, digital experiences and advertising campaigns, Felicia has led campaigns from concept to execution for technology companies such as Cisco, Google Pixel, and Nest. She is a designer at heart with a strong knowledge of how design meets product, marketing and company strategy. Felicia's endless curiosity of the ever evolving business landscape plus her love for strategy and design thinking led her to pursue an MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Prior to West, Eva managed communications for the investment platform, CircleUp, and served as a resource to portfolio companies on their PR efforts. Eva previously led PR initiatives for early-stage startups at LaunchSquad across industries including fintech, blockchain, adtech and cybersecurity. Eva originally hails from New York and holds dual-degrees in International Studies and French Language & Literature from the University of Michigan. She is captivated by the evolution of story and the dynamic nature of the communications industry. She was drawn to West by the opportunity to support our portfolio companies and shape how our story is told in the wild.

Brandon has a passion for understanding people, analyzing systems, and creating beautiful experiences in order to spot trends and shift culture. Born and raised in Orlando, Florida, Brandon came to California to study at Stanford University, graduating with a B.S. in Product Design. He’s since worked as a UX Designer and Design Researcher for SAP Silicon Valley, and consulted for a number of young companies in user research, product definition, and design strategy, within varied industries from streetwear to consumer electronics. Brandon is excited to join West and expand on his penchant for understanding people and refining products to tell stories that resonate.

A former West intern, Andie has since graduated from the University of Southern California with degrees in Architectural Studies and Communication Design. Andie is interested in all things at the intersection of business and design, strategy and creativity.

...and in case you missed it, West Partner Matt Hirst gave a heartfelt talk on aging at the most recent TEDxBroadway in New York. You can catch Matt’s talk as well as a Q&A on the origins of this passion project here.

On our partners

Our portfolio and studio clients brought their bold ideas to life with companies that will have a lasting impact on their respective industries. We work with founders and founding teams at inflection points. Those who need to define or discover their markets, and those who are ready to lead and own new ones. 

Some of those moments include Inc. Magazine naming Impossible Foods 'Company of the Year' and Prelude Fertility becoming the largest provider of comprehensive fertility services in the U.S. After graduating from Y Combinator’s Winter 2018 cohort, Haiku launched its public beta and was recognized on Product Hunt as Product of the Day. With $8.2 million in seed funding, Veronica Lee and Remrise are tackling the $30 billion sleep-health industry. Torch's Cameron Yarbrough and Keegan Walden are paving the way for upskilling leadership across corporate teams at scale, while full-body electrical muscle stimulation workout, Katalyst, is gearing up to make every workout not only extremely efficient but highly effective. Additionally, Jacky Cohen, VP of People and Culture at Topia, was spotted sharing best practices for approaching Diversity & Inclusion during the holiday season with Forbes. 

Our venture fund selectively invests in a few of our studio partners. It was an active year with 10 new seed to series B investments in companies including Newfront Insurance, Sweeten, Circles, Remrise, and Proxy. 

We consider it a great privilege when we get to apply our unique set of skills and experiences to companies committed to inventing a better, kinder, fairer future. We are honored to have worked with some of the best founders around. 

Onward

This Monday at our last weekly team meeting of 2019, we took a moment to reflect on 2019 and visualize the future. In true West form, we created a proverb, with each Westie contributing one word to the narrative. What transpired was quirky and amusing, energizing yet serious. It was a true reflection of the values we’ve crafted for our team and the companies we partner with. We are Truth Tellers, Uncommon, Relentless, Brave, Optimists [T.U.R.B.O. ;)]. 

We’re committed to partnering with exceptional founders to maximize their opportunity. We build for impact and in 2020 we look forward to doing just that.

“Imagine a world where age didn’t matter. Where we didn’t judge you for being old and you didn’t spend your entire life trying to stay young.” – Matt Hirst

Matt Hirst, a partner here at West, is working to reframe our perspective on aging with AGEIST, a media platform he co-founded to reinvent how life after 50 is lived, experienced and understood.

His recent TEDxBroadway talk builds on this mission, diving into why we’ve pigeon-holed our elders and how we––as marketers, creatives, and innovators––accidentally stopped engaging with the one consumer who might actually have it all. Matt‘s perspective is compelling on why we need to not only broaden our horizons on aging, but also include this valuable group in our customer outreach.

Tell us about the origins of AGEIST? 

AGEIST started as a conversation between my neighbor in LA, (the photographer) David Harry Stewart. I was 36 and he was 56. He had just come off a photoshoot for an AT&T campaign on behalf of Vice in which he had been asked shoot young (~20-year-old) hip, urban AT&T users in the street in NY. After talking to every one of them he found out that none actually paid their phone bills - their parents did. We looked at stats and realized that the 50+ group was the largest, richest generation in history and it was essentially being ignored. This was an opportunity that set us on our course. We couldn’t figure out whether the best business model was a research and insights business or a media business - so we built both.  

What are the biggest insights you took away from your AGEIST research?

Firstly, it is that basic language has become tainted with ageism, meaning that it is very hard to describe an “old” or “older” person without it invoking a sense of pity. That’s a problem and a very hard gravity to escape. 

The second is that age-activism or age-specific brands or services are often part of the problem. While they have the same mission as AGEIST, they can accidentally isolate older people, which actually just re-inforces the problem. The insight is that people are much better segmented if you leave age out of the primary classification. A cool, worldly person has similar values, interests, and habits whether they are 35 or 65. This insight is reinforced when you look at AGEIST’s audience data - we have as many readers and fans under the age of 50 as we do above 50. We just choose to be very deliberate about our focus on people who have truly lived.

Why are marketers getting it so wrong?

Where do you start? Part of the issue is that this generation doesn’t have a strong cultural identity, so the one that we hand them is of a medicalized, slightly helpless individual who is winding down their life - even when stats show that a 50-year-old today may only be halfway done. And if these are the dominant images in society, then people just tend to follow suit. Our job is to essentially create a new visual and verbal identity for this cohort; one that focuses on their ability, skills, their life-learnings, their agency and ambitions for the future. How old they are shouldn’t be a topic.

How do you translate this mission to your work at West? 

Part of our role at West is to ensure that the great ideas and businesses are able to make the leap out of Silicon Valley to a broader population. Age, gender, and ethnic diversity is a key part of this and we are constantly looking at how to build and position brands to take advantage of the largest possible customer base. With our access to the database of AGEIST’s insight and data, we feel like we have a pretty powerful advantage in helping our portfolio companies develop products and speak to a neglected but hugely powerful group in a new way. 

***

Matt is a strategist, researcher, creative thinker, and venture investor who has more than 15 years experience at the intersection of technology, culture and media. Matt joined West after serving as the Global Head of Brand Experience at Google where he worked across a range of core Google product teams to develop strategic initiatives to drive growth, engagement and consumer love. Prior to Google, Matt spent nearly a decade at Red Bull in the London and Los Angeles working alongside athletes and cultural innovators to conceive, roll out and then scale, audacious, disruptive and experiential content platforms. 

Matt is an accomplished researcher and writer and his work has been presented at numerous conferences and featured in a range of publications including the Financial Times and The Economist. Matt holds a Bsc in Psychology from Coventry University, an MA in Transnational Media and Global Communications from Goldsmiths University.

Have you ever wondered how two products can seem so similar, yet one becomes a household name and the other fades to the background? Have you ever found yourself urging a friend to try a product, service or experience because you can’t stop thinking about it?

This is the power of customer-centered design.

Consider Apple, Google and Airbnb. These companies offer vastly different services, but they share a common practice. They place their customers at the center of the product experience, and they use an understanding of customer wants and needs to build beloved brands.

Chances are you first heard about them from a friend or family member who raved about an amazing trip they booked on Airbnb, the ease of “googling” something on an uncluttered site, or how the expert at the Apple Genius Bar not only saved their cracked phone but also taught them hacks for saving storage space.

There’s an endless list of competitors out there who offer similar services. So what is it about these companies who ultimately win your mindshare and the biggest share of the market?

• They’re the ones who put their customer at the center of every single decision.
• They do what is right for the customer first, and let the business model flow from there.
• They understand that no amount of marketing spend can make up for a bad customer experience.
• And they are relentless in making sure their customers know they care.

In return, they win loyalty, brand love and an army of user-promoters more powerful than the most targeted marketing campaigns.

Customer Needs in the Hands of the Decision-Makers

Mapping customer experience and designing for customers is not a new idea. What’s new is that some of the most innovative and forward-thinking companies are elevating the role of customer experience to the C-suite, positioning it alongside CEOs and CMOs with exposure to and engagement with the Board of Directors. The instantiation of this commitment is in the investment in a Chief Experience Officer.

When Magnus Olsson co-founded Careem, a ride-hailing app that serves customers across the Middle East, North Africa, India and Pakistan, he knew that in order to straddle multiple geographies and cultures,  he needed to elevate customer needs to a higher level with more influence and oversight. So he hired a VP of Customer Experience and a VP of Captain Experience, two roles intended to own every step in the customer journey. But even at the VP level, it soon became apparent that this pair of executives did not have enough organizational power and influence to make the impact that was required.

He realized that the potential to build and protect brand value was contingent on recovering loyalty for those clients and drivers who had a negative first experience with Careem. He believed if he could regain their trust, he could convert them to loyal customers and partners. And while call center and customer experience employees could provide fast responses and troubleshooting on the fly, the same problems surfaced again and again.

So Olsson took on the role himself. As Chief Experience Officer, he sits at the executive table and drives decision-making cross-functionally, alongside his team. He brings the customer lens to every strategic and budget decision the company makes. He is the voice and conscience of the target customer. He’s constantly pushing to keep the bar for service high, and ensures that customers remain at the center of company strategy.

For startups, this concept often gets overlooked or pushed aside. There's budget to consider, and culture fit, and a lingering concern over too many leaders at one table. It can feel like it's "too early" or the company is "too small" to worry about this yet. Those are valid concerns, but it is becoming apparent that these considerations are trivial compared to the potentially transformative effect of this role across the entire company.

But there’s also an upside. Reaching customers means gaining loyalty, a metric with direct business impacts, according to Casper’s Chief Experience Officer, Eleanor Morgan. Casper has always prioritized creating a leading customer experience. “Our goal is to create delightful experiences that invite customers to be part of our community and engage more in sleep,” says Morgan.

Casper is on a mission to elevate the science of sleep while inspiring joy and the magic of bedtime. As they expand across new channels, including more than twenty owned retail stores and new retail partners, it's more important than ever to present a cohesive experience. “We approach all channels as if they were one store, eliminating boundaries—because the reality is they are one brand experience to the customer," she says.

In her role, Eleanor is responsible for the design and development of the Casper customer experience across channels—from digital to retail to in-home touchpoints. She leads digital product, UX strategy and design teams to create experiences that make bedtime cool again.

***

It is a compelling argument that in the world in which we now live, a Customer Experience Officer is not a nice to have, it’s an imperative. Good intentions without a clear and empowered organizational owner have a way of slipping through the cracks, especially in the pace and complexity of a startup environment. And your customer's wants and needs should never slip through the cracks. No customer we know, including every one of us personally, wants to feel like an afterthought, especially when it comes to the companies whose exceptional customer experiences inspire our loyalty.

A Chief Executive Officer who understands and cares deeply about customer experience may inject this principle into the DNA of their company, but they’re obligated to a host of other priorities. To translate this intention to results, companies should position an additional CEO, this one a Customer Experience Officer, alongside the normal lineup of C-Suite executives. This new kind of CEO should be granted the same level of responsibility, power, cross-functional access and authority.

Putting resources and intention behind this position is akin to giving every single one of your customers and their needs, wants and pain points, a seat at the decision-makers’ table.

The Business Case for Listening

At West, we work alongside teams with a specific focus on mapping their customer journeys. These journey maps provide the company with a decision dashboard that impacts how to hire, where to spend and how to market a product or service. This process is critical for any company, whether they’re selling directly to individuals or to businesses. We understand that people drive every purchase decision, so people should be central to the way every company operates.

When Topia’s team came to us they were still MoveGuides, a technology solution that helped HR departments manage the logistics of moving talent around the world. So we started by mapping the customer journey on both sides of the marketplace.

By taking this human approach, we realized something that MoveGuides hadn’t accounted for. The “talent” so integral to their business are actual people with fears, goals and desires. And work relocation surfaced many of these emotions. So we evaluated the needs of HR professionals, the ones most connected to the talent themselves. And we learned that the relocation game is won and lost on how quickly the individual feels settled in their new home.

So Topia was born. Where MoveGuides focused on paperwork and logistics, Topia eliminates every pain point of the move—from immigration forms to payroll—and focuses on turning workforce mobility from a headache to an advantage. The Topia brand now serves 50 percent of a global company’s workforce and has made two strategic acquisitions to better serve talent and the HR teams who support them.

Impossible Foods Founder Pat Brown wanted to ensure a magical first impression for his brand-new, plant-based burger. Rather than reaching for what seemed like the logical move to reach the largest market (brightly-lit grocery store shelves in the vegan section), we considered the customer’s very first interaction with a meat-free burger, and we focused on making that moment delightful. So we looked at those already offering special customer experiences around food: high-end chefs. And the Impossible Burger was born.

***

Sometimes we stand in as that Customer Experience Officer, bringing the voice of the customer to key decisions and reframing problems with customer experience solutions. But we believe that hiring for this role is essential.

We can’t all build the next Apple (though we’ll work our hardest to help you get there). But we can employ the same principles as these visionary founders by diving into the customer experience and weighing every decision against what we see and hear.

We just have to give the customer a seat at the table.

Joanna Rees is Managing Partner at West. She spends her days working with founders and their teams to define and expand markets based on the needs, wants and desires of actual people. Get in touch at joanna@west.ventures

What if a top business strategist could also inject a deep design perspective? Or if a visionary designer could toggle between creative out-of-the box thinking and the boardroom?

West Design Strategist Jess Wen believes that the combination can make the world a better place. From leading the design of TEDxSanFrancisco to revolutionizing the way emerging startups show up in the world, Jess Wen brings a deep design foundation and a strong business acumen to her work.

We caught up with Jess to take a look behind the curtain at her work as Chief Design Officer at  TEDxSF.

Tell me something that most people don’t know about you.

JW: Growing up I lived in four countries. I belong to this group often called the third culture kids. It basically means I am not my passport culture or my current geography culture. I don’t identify fully with being Taiwanese even though I was born there, nor the United States, despite the fact that I’ve lived in the US for more than a decade. For me it’s comfortable to be an outsider in an unknown community. I’ve learned to navigate and adapt to new surroundings.  The downside is that I’m always going through an identity crisis. But that’s a separate discussion.

I think because of that I’ve always been fascinated with language and how to be an effective communicator. I’ve always viewed myself as a translator. In work and in life I’m frequently toggling between my business side and design side and trying to strike a balance between the two.

Why work on TEDxSF?

JW:  I have a graphic design background and a business degree but have migrated to a design strategist role at West. Much of my day-to-day work focuses on solving business problems, but I’m constantly working to keep my design and production chops fresh. TEDx gives me a reputable stage and room to play on the creative side.

TEDx has always been at the forefront of pushing boundaries and therefore attracting audiences who are the early adopters of ideas. Because of the audience and because of what the organization stands for, we could take more creative risks. I’m able to bring that perspective back to my daily interactions with startup founders as I work to balance business needs and creative needs.

Tell me more about this year’s TEDxSF theme, ‘Dare to Know.’

JW: In 2018 there’s no lack of new knowledge. However, knowledge is encoded and encrypted and hidden. ‘Dare to Know’ is not only about the willingness to learn but also about having access to that information.

We use the stage and our online and offline channels to really remind us that information and knowledge are out there, they’re everywhere, they’re almost too much. And for us, it’s about decoding that information one question, information session or conversation at a time.

‘Dare to Know’ has actually been the theme for the past three years, but every year we interpret it slightly differently. And of course the different speakers bring a different take. This year there was a focus on AI, design ethics and human interaction with day-to-day information.

As Chief Design Officer, you managed every aspect of the design of the event, from brand identity, web presence and marketing collateral to social media collateral, physical print collateral and all event touchpoints, including everything on screen. How did you make the choices you made?

JW: We started working in April for the October event. Our core team focused on defining how to interpret the theme. Then we had 16 designers spread across four states who we pulled in at different times throughout the process.

We thought through the context, audience and how we would show up in the world. We’re always looking for ways to stretch the theme, just like any branding project we do with any company. So we chose one or two conceptual territories and explored them completely. This year, we had a whole army of designers who created different symbols for each speaker.

What challenges did you face as you and your team worked on the design?

JW:  Design exists to help deliver information. And there is always an audience, a “who” to deliver to. If we push too far out in conceptual territory, it becomes too much art, and the design becomes inaccessible. There’s a balance of conceptual art versus actually doing the job which is to communicate. And communication ties deeply into business.

At the end of the day we’re responsible for selling out. We need to sustain the event. That’s the business need. We can push for design conceptual territory, but it’s all about delivering on our business objective and there are certain principles that we must hit. It’s a push and pull of where to find that balance between creative integrity and business objectives.

And shoutout to my 2018 TEDxSF design team for all the magic and hard work— Henry Becker, Doug Thomas, Bill Chien, Chelsea Lin, Triet Dang, Jacqueline Lau, Mckay Mattingly, Kevin Tomas and Hannah Leishman.

How does your work at TEDx translate to work as a Design Strategist at West?

JW: Everyone at West has a hybrid background. We each have our own core strength plus something else. If at TEDx I do more design as concept art and design as visual storytelling, day to day at West I do more business strategy, but I still view challenges through my design lens.

***

Jess Wen is a design strategist at West where she spends every day drawing rectangles, circles and arrows to visually translate ideas. She has an MBA in Design Strategy from California College of Arts and a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art.

Jess is committed to using her strategic design power to impact those that need it most. Beyond the startups that she engages with at West, her portfolio covers local and international clientele including UNICEF, FWD.us, National Wildlife Federation, The Climate Registry and Overseas Press Club of America.

Watch Jess’ explanation of her design on the TEDx stage here. Get in touch at jess@west.ventures

One of my favorite things about founders is that they are practically required to blithely ignore statistics: barely 80% of startups make it to a Series B. They must convince investors, recruit and galvanize a team and charge towards launch, all while acting as if the “startup death curve” does not exist, or at least does not apply to them.

At West we help alter these statistics by unlocking the market side of product-market fit.

In the early stages, the search for product-market fit is high pressure and precarious. It’s done in the context of investor scrutiny, fluctuating team motivation and a burn rate. Under pressure, many entrepreneurs instinctually double down on engineering and push like crazy on product.

And that instinct makes sense. Product is the part of the equation they can influence directly—it’s under their roof. A more ambiguous and ambitious endeavor is to lean towards and listen to market.

The shift from product to market is a shift from a supply-orientation to a demand-orientation and from profit to value. This requires a massive shift in perspective for many of the startups we encounter. How do you instigate that?

When working with a new portfolio company, we begin by gathering the leadership team to answer a set of simple questions:

• WHAT does your business do?
• WHO does your business service?
• WHY do you exist?

These questions, which begin to constitute a communication platform, are deceptively simple for several reasons.

• First, every member of a team usually answers them differently, uncovering a lack of fundamental alignment. This result is practically universal.
• Secondly, the answers we get are often conflated with one another. When asked WHY they exist, they answer with WHAT their product does (a value proposition); when asked WHAT their product does, they explain what it does for them and their investors (a profit proposition).

So shifting focus to market is a hairy process but extremely rewarding once we untangle things.

After years of practice, we’ve developed a couple of tricks for bringing teams through the process. We usually spend a few dedicated days collaborating with a team to reach a platform that feels right, which includes some homework from the team and relentless preparation on the part of the West team.

So when the Endeavor Investor Network presented us with the opportunity to run this exercise with more than 35 entrepreneurs representing 15 countries across EMEA, all in the same room, in under 90 minutes, we approached it as an experiment.

Here are some of the things we learned:

• Start with what you’re not. When tackling open-ended questions, sometimes it’s easier to define what you are based on what you’re not. Referencing a range of startups at various stages and across industries helped participants circle closer to their true north.
• Differentiated & Specific. Startups can easily turn into echo chambers.
  Doing this exercise internally might yield a platform that feels right, but it’s hard to know whether it’s truly unique until it’s shared externally, either through conversations and prototypes (cheaper) or via launch in-market (expensive). Having a range of companies in the room and sharing ideas with the larger group forced entrepreneurs to consider their uniqueness. If a ride-sharing company from North Africa has the same value proposition as a weather-tracking platform from Dubai, the value proposition is probably too general.
• Healthy Competition. This work requires a major shift in perspective. And it represents a real challenge for deeply product-oriented companies. But working in mixed teams allowed the entrepreneurs to challenge each other on whether they were truly adopting a demand-orientation.

Regarding competition, the context of the workshop within the day’s agenda is important. Directly after the Endeavor workshop, the entrepreneurs had a full day of investor speed dating with West and 25 other investors in the Endeavor Investor Network. It begged the question, does all this market-orientation work matter to investors?

The answer should not surprise you, but it bares explaining.

• WHAT:  The clearer a value proposition is to investors, the clearer it will be for the market. But content matters. This is not an exercise in wordsmithing or crafting an elevator pitch. This is about clear and undeniable delivery of value to buyers.
• WHO: Potential investors like a big TAM. Investors and board members need confidence that you can capture more than that first ring of likely fans or early adopters.
• WHY: A purpose demonstrates to investors that a venture can be bigger than a single product at a single moment in time. Good investors invest in people; they care about founders’ motives.

In addition to relevance to investors, a communication platform is a keystone for employees to make decisions against and rally around. And it’s developed with market in mind. So it’s in service of capital, team and market—the most critical factors in reaching the escape velocity required to beat the odds.

A bulletproof communication platform requires testing, iteration and socialization, plus creativity. It doesn't happen in 90 minutes. But with a solid draft in their back pockets, we think founders have the footing to be “responsibly ignorant” of the death curve as they charge ahead.

Allison Light is Strategy Director at West. Get in touch at al@west.ventures 

Make promises you can keep, collaborate to tackle big problems and remember that taste is king. As we face a future of growing populations, shrinking farmland and suffering oceans, it’s time to consider one big question: What will we eat in 2025? Or 2050?

According to these food innovators, we’ll eat some combination of lab-grown and farm-grown food, more vegetables than meat, and a whole lot of crickets. And dairy isn’t going away, it’s just changing.

Drawing on wisdom from their roles as CEOs, researchers and former-scientists, our six panelists discussed and debated what it takes to change global food systems and why lab-engineered, plant-based foods aren’t just for vegans.

The panelists

Dr. Smita Shankar, Director of Research, Strain & Fermentation Development, Impossible Foods
Mike Selden, Co-founder & CEO, Finless Foods
Megan Miller, Co-founder & CEO, Bitty Foods
Ryan Pandya, Co-founder & CEO, Perfect Day
Alec Lee, Co-founder & CEO, Endless West
Josh Tetrick, Co-founder & CEO, JUST

Over 7.6 billion people live on earth today. The global population is projected to reach 8.6 billion people by 2030 and 9.8 billion by 2050. And over 10 percent of people in the world suffer from chronic undernourishment, according to the United Nations.

Meanwhile mass extinctions, warming oceans and extreme weather events place increased urgency on those trying to help.

So how does an entrepreneur decide where to start?

• The Impossible Foods team wanted to use their technology—a formula for creating plant-based substitutes for meat and dairy—to tackle environmental challenges. Armed with an understanding of the devastating impact of cattle on climate change, and the iconic nature of the hamburger, they set out to serve burger eaters. “It had to be the burger,” said Dr. Smita Shankar, Impossible’s Director of Research, Strain and Fermentation Development. Replacing one beef burger with an Impossible Burger saves the equivalent of 75 square feet of land, one half tub of bathwater and 18 miles of car emissions.

• Bitty Foods Co-founder and CEO Megan Miller wanted to prove that there are viable natural alternatives to lab-produced protein products. Inspired by the potential of underutilized proteins that already existed on our planet, she and her team developed a cricket flour rich in protein, healthy fats and micronutrients which also happens to be gluten-free.
• Mike Selden watched bluefin tuna fall on and off the threatened species list and wanted to make an impact on the popular seafood before it disappeared from the oceans entirely. More people are eating fish than ever before, and a combination of overfishing, pollution and climate change makes it impossible for our oceans to keep up. Meanwhile, attempts to farm fish are expensive, inefficient and often inhumane. So Selden founded Finless Foods to explore a new way of “growing” fish using stem cells from actual bluefin tuna.
• Ryan Pandya saw an opportunity to use technology to make animal products more accessible to people around the world. He chose dairy for its high-protein potential and global popularity. Then he and his team at Perfect Day took a proven technique: fermentation, and used yeast and sugar to create animal-free dairy products that taste like the real thing.
• While there are environmental advantages to their methods (e.g. less water, less land, CO2 reduction etc.), Alec Lee and his team at Endless West never set out to "save the world with alcohol.” Rather they saw an opportunity to create a more accessible, high-end product, first in wine and now whiskey. Their lab-crafted Glyph whiskey uses “note-by-note production” which doesn’t require barrelling or aging to produce a drink that highlights the endless possibilities of science.
• And JUST’s Josh Tetrick started with the goal of building a food system that makes it easy for people to eat well in a sustainable and affordable way. But when he and his team examined the current landscape, they saw a whole lot of chicken eggs. Last year alone, we consumed 1.1 trillion chicken eggs, a scale linked to a production process ripe with environmental concerns like water contamination and climate-change inducing emissions, not to mention animal welfare. So they set out to explore the possibilities of protein-rich plants that could be used to replace egg in products like mayonnaise and cookie dough. Now their team of scientists and chefs has discovered how to get the ancient mung bean to scramble and taste like an egg, the first step to fulfill that goal.

Whether selling to supermarkets or perfecting the formula in the lab, our panelists shared wisdom and learnings from their place at the helm.

Don’t disrupt, improve

Free from the bureaucracy of big government and slow-moving corporations, entrepreneurs have an opportunity to change the status quo. But too often new solutions seem to preclude the survival of existing systems. Will the rise of lab-grown food replace farm-to-table? And should it?

Tetrick doesn’t think so. “It’s not an either-or. It’s going to take all of these different solutions,” he said.

“Instead of becoming a disruptor, you can work with people and make things better,” Selden added, a problem all too real in his pursuit to grow bluefin tuna in labs, a product which could threaten the aquaculture industry, but doesn’t need to. He values the wisdom from aquaculturists and works alongside those with decades of experience as he perfects his process.

And Pandya views his new process for making milk as an opportunity to plug into existing systems, like the resource-intensive cheese production process.

“If you’re going to try to change the way the world is thinking about how dairy is made, you don’t want to go to the dairy industry writ large and say ‘change everything, destroy all your factories,’ you need to make it compatible with what’s already out there,” he said.

Pay attention to your supply chain, and seek creative solutions

Lab-grown foods open endless possibilities, and removing the limitation of animal farming can feel like a silver bullet for feeding the masses. While plant-based proteins leave a lighter footprint on the planet, they still require time and space to grow. And even plants have their limits. To meet the demands of a growing population, food providers must examine every single ingredient that makes up a product, its potential, and its limitations.

Impossible Foods views this challenge as an opportunity. Instead of letting plant growth limit their production, they’re considering ways to replicate qualities found in nature, in the lab.

“Everything else other than the protein we produce needs to be sourced, so we’re always thinking about supply chain and ensuring that as we scale the supply chain does too. Once we know what functionalities we are looking for, we can create that ourselves. We have this big toolbox and we know what we’re trying to achieve, so it’s just a matter of making it happen,” Shankar said.

Miller’s crickets solve this problem in their ability to grow from egg to adult in just six weeks, a sustainable superpower and one reason that the UN predicts edible insects may hold the key to stabilizing the global food supply. If insects become part of the mainstream diet, we will reduce greenhouse gases by 18 percent and lower average food costs globally by a third, according to a recent report.

Education can shift misconceptions, but taste reigns supreme

Education plays a major part in every company’s marketing strategy, but the “better for the world” argument will only inspire the select few. Consumers are unlikely to change lifelong food habits unless faced with catastrophe, or offered something cheaper, tastier and healthier. So don’t judge consumers for their choices, understand your market and provide appealing alternatives that better fit their lives.

Bitty Foods’ Miller knows all too well the battle of overcoming skepticism. She’s trying to convince insect-fearing US consumers to eat crickets. She usually starts by explaining the protein density of the crunchy insects, then she hands over something to taste.

“We give them chocolate chip cookies or banana bread, something they would eat all the time. And say, by the way, this is absolutely full of crickets,” she said. “Nothing else is such a differentiator as making the tastiest product.”

An understanding of the power of taste was what drove Impossible Foods to launch with chefs, rather than in vegan sections of grocery stores. By putting their product in the hands of those who turn food into culinary art forms, they guaranteed that every consumer had a delicious first encounter with the plant-based burger. Over 4,000 restaurants now serve Impossible Burgers, including nationwide presence in the fast-food chain, White Castle.

G.M.O. stands for genetically modified organism, not toxic conspiracy

The modification process is just that, a process that can be used for positive impact. While consumers have been conditioned to seek out “natural” food, replicating nature in a lab doesn’t need to bring up images of bionic corn or space food.

If done responsibly, engineered food may have the power harness natural processes at scale, creating opportunities to feed growing populations with less impact on the planet. Still, two thirds of consumers remain skeptical, as evidenced by July’s New York Times article, Are G.M.O. Foods Safe?

Prove your impact with action, not words

Don’t promise to change the world. Prove the potential of your product, get customers excited to go out and buy it, then build toward impact from there, Lee said. In his pivot from wine to whiskey, he’s seeing the power of serving up whiskey cocktails with a story.

Tetrick evaluates every opportunity through one filter: Does this keep us working toward our goal? If not, they pass and wait for something better-aligned.

At the end of the day, you’re making food

When feeding people, consider the culture around cooking and meal-sharing, the implications of healthy diets, and the factors that drive new habits. Build for a market of eaters who vote with their wallets and judge with their taste buds. If you get this right, you’ll open up larger opportunities for impact and you’ll truly drive change.

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About West

West works alongside companies to define and grow new markets in pursuit of category leadership. We work with companies who want to be the future of food, fertility, work, and more. Because we believe that if you can define and grow the category, you can shape the world.

West’s Future of Food event looks to explore the answer to that question, and many like it

Food. It fuels us and sustains us. We build community at our dinner tables and cram snacks in our bags to eat on the go. Sometimes we think about what we eat, other times it’s a subconscious task, an attempt to fuel us through busy lives.

But our food systems are in trouble. The global demand for food will rise by 70 to 100 percent by 2050, according to the United Nations. To meet this need, production in developing countries will need to almost double.

Meanwhile, we live in a time of rapid-fire technological innovations where it truly feels like anything is possible.

What if we could merge the two?

In labs and kitchens around the world, chefs, scientists and entrepreneurs are doing just that.   

Inspired by the ticking time bomb of a global food shortage and the urgency of climate change, they’re creating tasty treats to feed the masses and lessen impact on the planet.

Join us on Wednesday, October 3 for an evening of conversation and tastings. West’s Managing Partner Joanna Rees will moderate a panel discussion with food innovators, chefs and experts focused on the rise of engineered food, the challenge of creating food for our evolving diets and the importance of balancing global demand with environmental sustainability.

The Future of Food
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 | 6PM
West | 682 Schofield Rd, San Francisco, CA

6PM - Introductions & panel
7PM - Taste the Future. Mix and mingle with food futurists and sample their latest bites.

In conversation with…

Mike Selden, Co-founder & CEO, Finless Foods
Megan Miller, Co-founder & CEO, Bitty Foods
Ryan Pandya, Co-founder & CEO, Perfect Day Foods
Alec Lee, Co-Founder & CEO, Endless West
Dominique Barnes, Co-founder & CEO, New Wave Foods
Josh Tetrick, Co-founder & CEO, JUST

and a few surprises...

RSVP here.

Why host a food event?
At West, we work with visionary founders and companies changing the way we live. From our early work with Impossible Foods to an internal focus on eating and buying local, sustainable food, this is an issue near and dear to our hearts. How we eat defines how (and how long) we live, so focusing on this massive challenge allows us to discuss a topic that appeals to everyone: the food on your plate.

We hope to see you there!

You would think that a venture fund CFO would be the last person to provide relationship advice. However, I am often asked, “How would you structure the finance function for an early stage venture?” And my answer is in the context of nurturing a long-term relationship.

A long-term relationship may introduce you to new experiences and products (in my case colorful socks) but it will also force you to evaluate how best to manage your joint finances. Creating a strong financial foundation early mitigates stress in your ‘relationship’ and enables you to establish the right path to grow together. The same applies to managing your company’s finances.

A long-term relationship may extend your ‘friends’ network, but choose wisely – in the case of your company, establish the right partnerships early including your bank and service/technology providers:

• Optimize your banking relationship beyond a deposit account. Find a bank with technology start-up experience, ideally one who has provided short-term financing (line of credit, term loans). The right banks also support the technology ecosystem through events that bring together venture capital firms and entrepreneurs. A strong banking relationship at inception will support your growth needs while saving you the administrative challenge of either moving banks or managing multiple bank accounts.
• Outsource to an accounting service provider and a human resource technology solution. Outsourcing will cost significantly less than hiring a full-time resource and will provide an independent perspective. When selecting an outsourced solution, your provider should go beyond administrative benefits and demonstrate the ability to provide quality reporting that will help drive both business and fundraising decisions. A strong outsourcing partnership will scale with the growth of your business.

A long-term relationship does not rely on luck; it requires focus, planning, and investment – don’t take these for granted:

• Don’t spend money, instead invest it in your business. Base your spending on the value or competitive advantage it creates for your company. Consider an independent advisor who can help guide strategic financial decisions that support your long-term growth. Your demonstrated ability to invest in growing your business will pay dividends when you raise future rounds of capital.
• Manage cash through a quarterly cash flow projection which reasonably projects when you will receive payment on your receivables. Use this projection to maintain cash for payroll and rent, to plan additions to your team, and to negotiate payment terms with your vendors that are consistent with your receivable cycle. An effective cash flow projection will provide the roadmap if you need to raise additional capital.
• Create a simple chart of accounts (15-20 account categories) for your financial statements. Things will only get more complicated with time. Review financial statements monthly and update your cap table when you grant options (and when you raise a new round). Updated financial information and an updated cap table are essential when raising capital and responding to investor diligence requests.

A long-term relationship can benefit from third-party interventions. I’m not suggesting therapy, but an independent review will prepare you for the future:

• Consider a financial statement review by an independent accountant. A review can provide external parties with a basic level of assurance on the accuracy of financial statements and is appropriate as your business grows and seeks larger and more complex levels of financing and credit. A review will also help in transitioning to a financial statement audit which institutional investors will likely require.

A long-term relationship generally requires co-habitation, so plan your ‘home’ wisely:

• Evaluate your space needs strategically as rent will likely be your largest expense after payroll. A lease agreement creates an obligation for the total payments; therefore, if you want flexibility consider a shorter-term lease agreement and retain a tenant option to extend. If considering a new space remember to account for both the cost to move and the cost to return your existing space to its former state.

While these steps require time and energy and may not seem immediately important when launching your business, the right investment in your financial foundation will provide the agility to scale as well as save you from downstream challenges (aka ‘an ugly break up’).

Have questions or interested in (financial) relationship advice? Send me a note at promit@west.ventures