Lucy Guo, Chief Executive Officer, Passes; Co-founder, Scale AI 
Daniella Pierson, Founder and CEO, Newsette; Co-founder and Co-CEO, Wondermind
Moderator: Terri Burns, Investor; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

MPW Next Gen 2022 - Founders: Breaking Barriers

Conferences

Lucy Guo, Passes; Scale AI 
Daniella Pierson, Newsette; Wondermind
Terri Burns, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

Lucy Guo, Chief Executive Officer, Passes; Co-founder, Scale AI 
Daniella Pierson, Founder and CEO, Newsette; Co-founder and Co-CEO, Wondermind
Terri Burns, Investor; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

today's event and the M. P. W. Community encourages us to embrace responsibility and opportunity as we realize our power. Our next guest embody this with their professional and personal journeys, lucy grow is chief executive officer of passes. Uh, she became a coder at the right age of seven in middle school, lucy created one of the first twitter bots, but it wasn't until she was at y Combinator that she had the idea of merging machine learning with people. The result was scale ai a multibillion dollar company today. Daniella Pearson is founder and ceo of new Set. She started a newsletter focused on female centric content as a sophomore in college rather than follow the traditional path into publishing. She built new set into a million dollar company. Lucy and Daniella joined us today to talk about how they broke barriers with innovative ideas, personal drive and much more. Please welcome them to the stage together with fortune brainstorm tech. Co chair terry Burns lucy, Daniella. Hello, how are you both doing today? I'm excited to see you again after aspen. Yes, we were at brainstorm tech. Fortune brainstorm tech just a couple months ago. I'm super excited to chat. I know that you guys know each other, our new friends, There's lots to dig into today. So let's just go ahead and jump in the description for today's panel reads, being told they couldn't do something was all it took for these founders to find a different way of achieving their goals. So I want to jump straight into that. Can each of you tell us about a time you were told you couldn't do something and how you use that as motivation maybe Danielle we can start with you. Okay I've been told many times so let me choose one story. Um I was told in college I was a bad student so um I'm actually labeled the dumb twin because I have an identical twin sister who looks exactly like me except she was the best student in her class and she went to U. Penn, I went to bu and while I was at the U. I started my first company, the new set which now is valued at $200 million and I'm really proud of that because we never took any VC funding. And my only other partner is my immigrant mother from Colombia, so I was able to make her a millionaire in the process. Um But while I was building that company, I not only had O. C. D. A. D. H. D. Depression was like a bad student, I was basically a poster child for like someone not to believe in. Uh So all of my professors did not believe in me. Um And I actually failed the entrepreneur project. Yeah and it was because and I had a call with the dean the other day because now they want me to be their commencement speaker which is so funny because I literally got a letter from the previous dean saying if you don't get your ship together you're going to be kicked out one semester before graduation, so I barely passed that stage and now I guess I'm gonna speak on it and in front of all the professor excited me. But anyways, the crazy thing about the entrepreneurship project was we were in a group of eight people where I don't know about you guys, I've never heard of anybody start a company with eight people and then it was peer reviewed and so basically one person had to fail and I got to be that person. Uh so it just shows you how, you know, school isn't everything. So I was a bad student, but I was told by everybody, not only the people in that group, uh by my teachers, by the dean who said that they were going to kick me out of college if I, you know, didn't jump through all these hoops um because I didn't pass, you know what they thought success looked like at the school, and now I'm lucky enough to be going back not only to speak at the commencement, but also to help them um put together a program that is more holistic and more real stick for entrepreneurs because they also told me I'm the most successful entrepreneur that's graduated there in like 20 years. So, okay, what a comeback story that is, we are looking forward to that, that commencement speech for sure. Oh yeah, I'm gonna like turn around and be like, I know what you did lucy, what about you? Yeah, I think I've always just been a really rebellious child and my parents never really believed in me. Um Not because they're like bad parents, but because my little brother was just significantly smarter than me, like you skipped six grades in math, was taking a peek at Bc in sixth grade. Um Total genius. So all kind of started when um I wanted to take an electrical engineering course in high school at Carnegie Mellon Summer classes, and my parents told me you can't be an engineer because you you are a woman. And that blew my mind because my mom actually got her graduate degree in electrical engineering, but her argument was that she was the only person in class, so I secretly switched to e after they forced me to change out of it and they found out like while we were at Carnegie Mellon and started screaming at me in front of the entire dome of students that I was going to fail, kind of embarrassing. Um but I felt the need to prove them wrong, so I ended up doing really well in the course and and then the professor at cmu ended up writing me a recommendation letter and I was just really lazy with college applications, so um I knew I would get in because of that and I did. Um and then the second time was when I dropped out of college, I got the thiel Fellowship and yet again, they're like, hey, you're never going to succeed, you really think you can run a company. Uh And I was like, yeah, like I ran a bunch of online businesses when I was younger in like middle school, high school, elementary school and I made a good amount of money from it And uh they just were not happy. They viewed it as like a sign of disrespect that I was doing that. So I ended up not talking to me for like, I want to say good, like 2-3 years. Um in between I ended up getting a job at like snapping cora and getting paid extremely well for my age. So they start talking to me and then when I decided to quit trying to quit to go start a company, I got into y Combinator, I got VC funding. Uh they again stopped talking to me and they like pulled my cellphone, health insurance, etcetera. So I was like really alone but it was the desire to prove them wrong, but also to be able to make them proud because like even though they stopped talking to me the entire time I realized that uh they immigrated from china and gave up everything they had known to give their kids a better future and I wanted to like return that favor and part of that was like proving them wrong and making myself uber successful. So I'm really happy to say that like, now I can provide for my family and they're proud again and talking to me, That's great. A lot of themes here. Yes, we can definitely clap for that. A lot of familial themes here, educational themes, there's kind of a through line with both of your stories, which I very much appreciate. Exactly, oh my God, this is claire power trip, we literally just like 24 hours ago and we're like, your parents didn't believe in you either. Well, one thing that you guys did do a bit differently lucy, you have previously raised venture funding and as you mentioned, Daniella, you did not raise venture funding for the new set of which I am a subscriber um I'm really curious to know why did you choose to not go to VC route if you did um if that was an intentional decision and what advice would you give to folks who maybe are trying to figure out what Models might make the most sense for their business. Yeah, I would love to say that I turned down every VC and that's the reason why I didn't have VC funding, but it was because basically I like 22 when I moved to New York, it was about three years into my business, I got meetings, you know, with incredible VCS, I had a meeting with one of the most notable VCS, like the guy, you know with his name on the building um and I ended up having a meeting and he, essentially, the entire time I was talking, he was laughing and I was like, what's so funny? And he goes, you remind me of my granddaughter, and I was like, oh, that's great, she must be so successful, whatever. And then his face just dropped and he was like, no, she actually talks way too fast and is not successful, and I was like, I literally was like, am I like, like in a dream right now, like, or a nightmare? Um and I literally got up, I was like, okay, thank you very much, got in the elevator and literally says Vcs, I'm just gonna build it my way. Um and I know a lot of people have had really great experiences with VCS, so that's the reason why I didn't raise because no one would give me any money and I decided I was spending too much time trying to get the money. So instead of, you know, uh you know, a few years ago knew that made a million dollars instead of raising that a million dollars and convincing maybe two or three people, I had to convince thousands of people because I got a million dollars through advertising. And so it actually was a really great lesson and it took longer, it's going to be, you know, eight years in the news that um in january and we did, you know, 40 million last year um with eight figures of profit, which is profit is crazy, you know, in the media world especially uh and we grew an agency out of it during the pandemic. So that's really what catapulted our growth. Um So we were able to fund our growth with money and I didn't even think about taking my own money out of the business, you know, and paying myself until I was like oh wait there's a lot left. Um And now I'm very lucky that I get to invest in other female founded companies and really, you know, be able to empower people who were not empowered like myself but I am a hypocrite because I have a new company called Wonder Mind um with Selena Gomez and Mandy tv and we raised money at $100 million valuation when it was just the three of us in an idea um Serena Williams, her venture funds um led the rays. And so I have now raised money. Okay, so now I'm appreciative that I had time to do both, but truly if I would have had the money, you know what, for the first venture, I probably would have spent it on things that didn't, not, not, you know, in in a way that didn't make sense, but just like there were so many things that I had to do and I failed small, whereas if I had all that money, I would have failed big and it could taken me out. And so because I had 100% control of my company, I was able to continue going even when things like shitty things happened, whatever, I don't think I have that luxury now with wonder mines um so yeah any advice I would really give is I was lucky enough to have three years in college where I didn't have to worry about getting myself food, having a place to live because I love, I was in college and my parents were you know generous enough to pay for that, that's the ultimate gift they gave me and I knew okay these are the only three years in my life because I was a sophomore that I am never going to like I don't have any responsibilities except to be a good student and I guess party and make friends. Second part did not have and I would love to because of business but I just, maybe it was weird, but I but I took all of that time that I knew I didn't have to have a job and I created a job for myself because I knew nobody was gonna hire me to be able to build that business and then again use that revenue to grow it. Yes, but but I was lucky again, I had three years where I didn't have a family to support, I don't have to have a job able to hyper focus and on what it was in the building you see, I want to hear a little bit more um about your perspective. You have raised venture funding. Um And you're also currently working on passes right now. So I'm curious to hear about both your new company. What is it? Um And what are your what's your sort of perspective on raising venture funding and how that can impact the future of your business, yep. So my thing is that if you're a founder and you're able to build a M. V. P. You should do that. And if you can even get traction before the M. V. P. Before you raise funding, that's normal because it is I think it's possible to raise funding. But you're talking about very different valuations like a $3 million valuation. If you don't have an M. V. P. Versus like a $50 million valuation. If you do have an M. V. P. $400 million $100 million valuation. Nothing. So yeah I've been a little scared to raise $100 million valuation salesperson. Yeah. Yeah I am a hypocrite because I ended up raising VC funding for my second venture even though I have told pretty much every single founder not to do so until they have a little bit of traction. Uh My excuse is that I got a very good valuation ended up raising out of $50 million valuation. Um With no deck, no product and I didn't take a meeting that all kind of happened in 48 hours. Um And then my new company, I'm working on the web through creator economy. Um Think of like web three Patreon penthouse only fans. Um But like very focused on on adult content. Um And I'm like very excited to help creators really be able to own their fan because there's such a problem with creators essentially like losing full control. If they accidentally have copyright music playing in the background, they accidentally swear word etcetera and suddenly they lose their account, they lose all their income potential. Um And that's like their whole life being right now and have a lot of friends going through this where they've either lost their social media platforms or they're like one warning away from getting banned and it constantly stresses them out every single day. I also just think overall platforms take away too much. A lot of my friends are twitch streamers and now they've gone from like a 10 20% rev share to 50% and they're not happy about it. Um And then just I think there's like long term income earning potential with royalty fees etcetera. Like one thing I like to say is like art is a really good example where artists art isn't worth that much until they die and then um when they die, their families don't get the benefits of their artwork increasing in value. Whereas now like they get the percentage to their like trust funds or whatever while they're alive. Great. Um I want to take a moment just to see if there are any questions in the audience. You can take this conversation lots of places, but just wanted to see any questions. Looks like we have one question way in the back there. If you want to wait just a second to get a microphone, hey, I'm Danielle. Great Panel girls. This was awesome. And the question I have for you is given the experiences you've had personally and how that's greatly impacted the way you see your businesses. How has that impacted the way you work with other people at your company specifically around core values? Yeah, So one thing I'm doing differently this time around is um I think that in our first company there was definitely like we overworked people significantly and I'm not saying I'm not like overworking people per se, but definitely just being a little more empathetic and making the work environment more fun. I think it's naturally more fun because of instead of enterprise sales now, um we get to work with creators, which um my company loves, like I'll invite creators over to the office and we'll be jamming and working while having conversations on the side, which is actually product feedback. So it's a fun little loop. Um and it's something I've learned also it's just like we talked about this, but I'm very, very bad at building a remote culture. Um I haven't really figured it out yet, I think this could be because of my first company, it was all in person and we were able to communicate efficiently and I was remote for maybe the last 1 to 2 months and I'm forcing everyone to move back in person because I do, I think that like within a small company, it's incredibly important to have that fast communication loop and I like props to people who figure it out, I'm like how to have that mis communication loop without miscommunication remote, but I, like, I met the founder have not figured it out. Um well that's a great question and thank you for asking and you have a great name, uh Danielle, I'm Daniella also an identical twin chatting about, she is, oh, they're also both badasses, uh that's your identical twins name is Alex then that's ultra weird, but anyways, that's my twin, not yours. Uh so when I started off, I like to say that there were three people working at my company, me, myself and I um and we all just did everything from the sucking chief janitor officer to the ceo to the sales person because I had the luxury of hiring people and that was actually a really good thing because I had never had a job before, so how did I know how to manage anyone, I didn't, and so when I finally started making revenue, when we finally launched revenue, I made $25,000 the very first month and I was like Okay I can do this, I'm gonna start hiring like you know paid interns and then assistant whatever. And I slowly learned that because of my age I was 22 at the time I would hire people that were you know a 10 years older than me and not be respected and I because I was almost overly nice um and almost like so grateful that they wanted to work with me even though I was paying them um and not paying myself. And so I really have evolved as a leader as the news that has grown and now it's like you know 50 people and by the end of the year we're gonna have over 100 people between the two organizations. Um What has been very um I guess I opening is that I I always felt bad with my um team members to ever have anyone work after like six six p.m. Just because I I just thought you know if you have a good work life balance, I've never had anybody work during a weekend. I mean maybe some people have like by their themselves but I like get mad at them. And that's very weird because as you said like you know in most high growing companies or fast growing companies like it's like 24 7 I just haven't really had that. Um I guess working style and I think that it's paid off in dividends because people have their weekends, they have time um after, you know, work to do their thing and so they come refreshed and they like just really own the day and really just show up as their best selves. I also have a mental health company now so I don't think I could get away with, you know, working people to the bone and we have mental health days, et cetera. But I think it's more about uh it's it's more about the, I've evolved as a leader knowing that I can say I did something wrong or I was wrong in a meeting or maybe I, you know, uh this morning I was with my C. 00. And my co Ceo. Um for wonder mind, I was just really really stressed out and I like took it out on them and I immediately apologized after and so I think it's being mature enough to take accountability when you're wrong that, that, I mean I just had so much stuff. I have a hp bouncing off of that though. I think that was a really bad micromanager before and now I delegate more and I trust people a lot more, like I trust off the bat and that also makes them happier and get put them in the best place to do their best work empowers teams to do the best that they can Daniella lucy, thank you so much. I really appreciate you guys taking the time today. I wish we could keep chatting. We are at time now, but super excited to see what you both continue to do. Thank you so much.