Episode 07: Ellie Buckingham & Miri Buckland

Ellie Buckingham and Miri Buckland are the Co-Founders of The Landing, a digital space for visual curation. They have pivoted significantly since inception and have built a fantastically loyal user base in an entirely different arena than their original vision. In this episode, Ellie and Miri talk with us about knowing when to pivot, overcoming impostor syndrome, and preserving the “Quest Mentality” past the initial turbulence of getting a start-up off the ground.

Stronger Together with Ellie and Miri

Episode 7: Show Notes [TRANSCRIPT below]

The combination of an ideas woman and a get-stuff-done woman makes for a powerful duo which is shaking things up in the design space. Their creation, The Landing 2.0., is a social design platform that allows everyone to create together. When Ellie and Miri met at the GSB, their connection was almost instant, and since that day, their relationship, and their business has grown from strength to strength. They’ve adopted a “quest” mindset, and aren’t yet sure where they want to be, but they’re so excited about the journey they’re on, and after listening to what they’ve been working on, you will be too! In today’s episode Ellie and Miri delve into the idea behind the Design Council they created, what its function is, and how it has evolved over time. We also discuss imposter syndrome, advice for dealing with it, the superpowers that Ellie and Miri feel that they have as women in the start-up space, and some of the major realizations they have had through the process of building their business.

Key Points From This Episode:

•   Ellie’s number one priority in the morning.

•   Examples of things that fuel Miri’s creativity.

•   How Miri and Ellie become aware that they are having idea problems.

•   Why Ellie and Miri think it is beneficial that they have such different ways of thinking.

•   Ways that Miri and Ellie’s skills complement one another's in a business setting.

•   The value of a project roadmap.

•   Where Ellie and Miri had their biggest learnings.

•   Realizations that Miri and Ellie had during the COVID-19 pandemic.

•   An explanation of the quest mindset that informs how Ellie and Miri run their business.

•   The Design Council; what it is, how it was formed, and how it has evolved over time.

•   What drew Ellie and Miri to one another, and the closeness of their bond now.

•   Superpowers that Miri and Ellie feel that they have as women in the start-up space.

•   Advice for dealing with impostor syndrome.

•   When Ellie and Miri realized they could be entrepreneurs.

Tweetables:

“That switch of when we go from ideas into tactical is largely informed by how well we've uncovered the hypothesis around what that specific thing is doing or aiming for.” — Ellie [0:11:05]

“A lot of our mindset, thanks to everything we learned at LaunchPad, has been really about really fast experimentation. We never really focused on building something in silo and not getting feedback on it.” — Miri [0:14:13]

“Acknowledging it as a kind of quest and a journey that just requires like constant testing, learning, small iterations to get closer, and closer to product market fit is what allows our team to move really quickly and to feel like we’re going after a common shared goal, even if we don’t really know what product market fit looks like right now.”— Miri [0:17:21]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

The Landing 2.0

Launchpad

EPISODE 07 [TRANSCRIPT]

[00:00:00] EB: Well, we have a lot of exciting things to brainstorm around, because we have our first week of like real user data in our new product.

[00:00:06] MH: Oh my gosh! So exciting.

[00:00:08] MB: It’s so exciting.

[00:00:09] EB: It’s so cool. People are making stuff that is whack, and really exciting and fun, so there’s a million ideas trying to kind of corral them all.

[00:00:19] MB: My [inaudible 00:00:20] you can see here.

[00:00:22] JU: I love that. Yeah, it’s an amazing document. Is that user-generated content or did you make that?                                          

[00:00:28] EB: This is me-generated content. I have been – since we launched, on a mission to do a daily morning mood check in.

[00:00:36] MH: I love that. I’m going to go and do one.

[00:00:39] MB: Yeah. Please do.

[00:00:39] EB: Go check it out. But it’s kind of for multiple purposes. One is like trying to make Fetch happen for people, modeling, sharing of something from The Landing every day, but also just like really, really like actively using the tool every day. The best part about it is the realization that it’s actually like really positively contributing to my mental health.

[00:01:00] MH: I bet.

[00:01:02] EB: Like it’s time in the morning when it’s like all I have to do is drink my coffee and make something weird.

[00:01:07] JU: Do you actually block it on your calendar? I mean, is it like legitimately a priority? Or how do you prioritize I guess is my question?

[00:01:15] EB: It’s like my number one – it’s the thing I can do before anything else every morning.

[00:01:20] MH: I love it.

[00:01:20] MB: She doesn’t open WhatsApp or Slack until she’s done it, which is actually a great forcing function.

[00:01:27] MH: Like a digital journal or something.

[00:01:28] EB: Yeah. I mean, I can share my screen and show you guys. My collection now is, after a week, so fun. It’s like this visual, like what I have been doing and thinking each, like they’re all different, they’re just whatever kind of catches. This was for Miri’s birthday. Hold on.

[00:01:48] MB: Oh my gosh! They will recognize me in a story [inaudible 00:01:52].

[00:01:54] JU: That’s awesome.

[00:01:56] EB: This is like [inaudible 00:01:57]. I’m really digging it.

[00:02:00] JU: That is super cool.

[00:02:01] MH: I love it. I know who’s going to like it, my daughter. She’s really going to like this.

[00:02:05] JU: Well, you know. Interestingly enough, it’s totally on point for part of the conversation, so just backing up a level. Mar and I were talking – I was kind of sharing with Mar, “Hey! I’m a father of four daughter who I want to have limitless – I see as having limitless potential. I want them to have limitless opportunity to realize that potential. I know that there’s many things I don’t know.” I just told her, I’d like to set out on a journey of learning what I don’t know at least, so that I can be a better father, and a better encourager of their creativity and their entrepreneurial visions and things like that.

She said, “Well, let’s talk to some founders. That’d be fun.” One of the things I’m really curious about is, how does one attend to their creative practice on a regular basis? You just kind of served up this gem, which is, “Before I open up anything else, I prioritize it.” Miri, I’d be curious for you. Do you have a similar or different practice or how do you think about attending to that part of yourself in your professional and personal life?

[00:03:05] MB: Yeah. I think it’s so interesting, because for me it looks different month to month. I feel like I go through real like different tends almost of like what it means for me to be creative. Like during the beginning of quarantine, I started playing the piano again. I played when I was younger and I was like, “Okay, this is just a great thing for me to get off the screen and not be able to use Netflix, or my computer or whatever it is when I’m trying to relax.”

More recently, I’ve been just making sure that the last thing I do before bed is something that isn’t on my screen, like reading a book or talking to somebody on the phone. It really goes in waves and I actually think that like, work plays a big part in my creativity at the moment. I think partly because part of my job is like creating new boards for one, but also seeing what other people create and watching them create things. All of [inaudible 00:04:00] that we do. To me, actually, like it really does fulfill quite a lot of my creative needs in a way, because we get to have so much fun while we’re like whacking on the product and researching it.

[00:04:13] JU: That’s great. One of the founders we were talking with, actually Mar, it was right after you dropped off the line last time, but I was asking, “How do you know when you have an idea problem?” The founder we were speaking with said, “What do you mean an idea problem?” I said, “Well, there’s problems where we need to execute and the problem is refining, iterating, implementing. But then there’s other times where I don’t know what the answer is, and that’s what I call an idea problem. I actually need a totally different mindset and draw on a different set of tools.” She’s a very successful founder and a very accomplished woman and I thought she’s going to have a very – put together an answer.

You know what she said? She goes, “Whoa! There’s like five problems I’m struggling with that I didn’t realize were idea problems.” To me, it’s kind of an interesting topic that we kind of stumbled onto last time. How do you become aware of when you have an idea problem? Is there a moment where a flip gets switched, where you go, “We actually need to be in a different mindset right now.”

[00:05:13] MB: I was just going to say like often don’t think it’s actually myself, like I don’t think I notice it myself that I have an idea problem, because I think sometimes we can be so in like execution mode, than we think this is the thing we need to do and we’re just going to like go, go, go. I think it’s often we have like either external conversations with people we’re updating on something we’re talking about or when we’re bringing in someone else on our team to a problem or a project we’re working on. They can be like, see the forest from the trees and say like, “Is this actually the right avenue even do be going down? Like step back to the idea phase and like discuss at that level first.” I think sometimes, it takes just like a different person in that conversation if we haven’t noticed it ourselves.

[00:05:58] MH: I’m curious at how the two of you, it’s so interesting, because the two of you, I consider both fairly creative people. But how do you guys complement each other and help, I guess, solve some of these idea problems, or come up with them?

[00:06:11] EB: I think we both – it’s actually really funny anecdote and it ties in. One of the classes we took together when we were at the GSB during our second year with the meditation class, which of course, only at the GSB. But the first prompt in the class was super open-ended and it was literally, “Draw your brain.” That was it.

[00:06:30] MH: Oh my God!

[00:06:31] EB: [Inaudible 00:06:31] draw your brain, and like the actual imagery of my drawing versus Miri’s drawing is the perfect encapsulation of the way that we work really well together. Which is like, Miri’s was the most beautiful structured like series of squares, series of circles and then straight lines across both of them. Mine was like an absolute – it looked like slime with like energy things coming off of it and weird –

[00:06:58] EB: Yeah, just kind all of over the place. I think that we think differently but we’ve worked now long enough together where we kind of know that we think differently and so can like almost sometimes play the like extreme role in our lane to then like surface as many, like as wide of a range of answers as possible. Because like, we definitely have a pretty shared vocabulary from shared experience and like shared problem solving at this point, but I think it helps us push out on the bounds of the ways that we think differently.

[00:07:31] MH: Yeah, it’s interesting. I have also a “cofounder” and I feel we’re very different like you guys. We haven’t done the exercise of the brain drawing, but –

[00:07:41] MB: You should.

[00:07:42] MH: I should, yeah. That’s going to be a surprise for him. But I started to feel that having somebody opposite, different, makes you stretch yourself a lot. That sounds like it the same to you guys.

[00:07:57] JU: I would love to hear. Is there a time where the difference has been a particular point of amplification or you remember, “Wow! I’m so glad we’re seeing this so differently.” Ellie, you’re already laughing.

[00:08:12] EB: So I’m just laughing because like every day. It’s not like it’s just – it comes up in like in like creative problem solving, but I also just think it comes up in like being able to really delineate like lanes and the types of decisions where it’s like, “Miri, you’re the best person to make this type of decision,” versus like where the, like more suited person to have like more of a say on it. I don’t know. I’m struggling with specific examples, but I’m laughing because it feels like every day.

[00:08:43] MB: It does. It feels like every day but I think like the example I’ll give is that I feel like, sometimes Ellie’s mode of thinking or the way she draws her brain can really help me stay in like ideation phase for longer. I think like one thing that I’ve noticed, I tend to see myself as it will go straight into like, “This is how we’re going to do it. This is how we’re going to structure it. This is how we’re going to get from A to B,” and I think Ellie and other members in our team have helped me really like stay, get more comfortable staying in ideation. I think you have all the possible options before we actually start moving.

[00:09:17] EB: Miri helps me make sure that we actually get stuff done.

[00:09:20] JU: I’m a book nerd. I’m a history nerd. You may not have known that about me. It’s a confession. I feel like we’re in a safe place. I can tell you that. But I think about Bell Labs, which is a very nerdy thing to do. But where they’re literally inventing the transistor, and the bit of information, and satellite. One of the characteristics of that environment was, there were experimental physicists and there were theoretical physicists. There’s a lot of examples there where a theoretical physicist is on the blackboard and they’re saying, “Here’s what the formula says should happen.”

Then the experimental physicists were at the bread board and they’re running the experiment going, “Ugh! That said 1,500 amperes, I’m getting a hundred amperes right here.” Then the theoretical physicist is going, “Wait! Okay. Hang on.” There’s this interplay, which is, I find it to be an incredible example of how innovation really happens. I’m just kind of hearing that in you guys, that “Ellie keeps me in the safe place of ideation longer.” Then Ellie is saying, “Yeah, but Miri keeps me in the place of getting things done.”

How does the commissioning happen, or how do you know when to go into which? Are we in theory here? Are we ideating? Are we experimenting and executing? What are the cues that let you all know which is the proper mode to be in?

[00:10:41] EB: I think a, kind of, specific example of this is, even just structuring a product roadmap and thinking about what the kind of like big picture, huge ideas, what we’re going towards, but then the actual like meaty, gritty of what we like have to prove each week. I think in some ways, like that sort of switch of when we go from ideas into tactical is like largely informed by how like well we’ve like uncovered the hypothesis around what that specific thing is doing or aiming for. So like an example of this would be, we’re thinking about discovery. Like how does a user on The Landing discover, or what does it mean to discover? Where does discovery happen? Like what actually is discovery? Is it a board? Is it items? Is it other people? Is it a community? Like, huge questions. We’re still pretty ideation phase there and definitely not ready to move into the hyper-tactical.

[00:11:52] MB: I think that’s a really interesting one because I think one way, we kind of – I’m just reflecting on how we actually do that in practice, is a lot of what I do is like talking to our users, looking at how they’re using the tool, looking at the data, like bringing a lot of the like, “What can we find and what can we learn?” facts to Ellie and the rest of the product team, who are in a kind of like, “Okay. How do we take what we know and translate that into design?” It’s like that kind of flow of information and creation almost, that like feels like we’ve naturally fallen into that pattern, rather than it being something that we thought about as like theory versus experimentation.

[00:12:31] JU: It’s not codified you’re saying.

[00:12:32] MB: Yeah.

[00:12:32] JU: But what are the mechanisms, like when you hear something from a user, how does it hit the level – how does it surpass the threshold where you say, “I gotta tell Ellie this,” versus some stuff you probably go, “I don’t want to waste your time,” how do you distinguish between the two?

[00:12:46] MB: Yeah. A lot of it is a judgement call because it’s a small user base of users right now, but it’s like, how passionately, how often am I hearing this happen again, and again? How passionately do do people really care about it and how much of a difference do I think it’s going to make to the end user experience? Then Ellie and product team are thinking much more about, “Okay. How do we prioritize that within the roadmap? What would the solution actually look like and what do we think it should be?” Rather than just doing exactly what users says that they need, which isn’t often exactly what we actually want to build.

[00:13:21] MH: I’ve got a question related to that, because I work with people like you guys that are so early and they go through the company story, the product, everything changes and they — it’s called pivots by some people, but I think it’s just transitions on the way. I’d love to hear – I mean, for you guys, I’ve known your company for a while. I think I’ve missed a couple of steps, but I know the product has changed. How have you decided on those major transitions and what sort of – I know it’s a very emotional, not completely rational decision in some way. That would be super helpful I think to hear from you guys on that.

[00:14:00] MB: Yeah. I mean, gosh, talk about pivots. I feel like transition is a much better word because there have been so many pivots at this point that I don’t know which way round we’ll be facing. But I think it’s like just that. A lot of our mindset, thanks to everything we learned at LaunchPad has been really about really fast experimentation. We never really focused on building something in silo and not getting feedback on it. We launched our original product, which was much more focused on furnishing, last June. Before that, we’d been testing it. As soon as we launched it, we were testing it, and calling up users and trying to understand what they really thought about it.

A lot of what we learned was really through just speaking to people and then watching videos of them using the tool. That’s how we really built a lot of conviction around what people wanted versus what we have created. That was really around the social aspect that Ellie was talking about. People wanted a tool that was much more flexible than just home furnishing, but they also wanted something that was social and where they could share designs and see other people’s designs. We were told that time, and time, and again and we also felt it ourselves. Like we’re the users of this product too and we knew that like we would have so much more fun and be able to create so much more if we could share and see what other people were doing.

[00:15:19] EB: I think in some ways too, this year was like the perfect jump start to embedding an attitude of like, “Nothing is sacred,” into the company culture, because nothing [inaudible 00:15:30], nothing went like you planned, everything changed. I think for us, so many of the forcing functions of COVID and things that didn’t work were the building blocks for then what we learned to pull the strings on what was seeming to work, or what could work. In some ways, I think it’s the quest mentality of the team continues today. Like we’re so excited about the product we have in the world, but it’s just like the start. It’s nowhere near – it’s not the fully magic thing yet, but we’re like, we feel a little bit closer. We’re like, we’re getting there.

I think in some ways, the forcing function of a wild year just put into perspective like how quickly the world can change and how flexible we –

[00:16:16] MH: It gave you permission.

[00:16:17] EB: Yeah.

[00:16:18] MB: Yeah.

[00:16:18] EB: Like, “Okay. Well, we’re not moving people in.”

[00:16:24] MH: I like that.

[00:16:25] JU: Okay. You said the quest. I don’t know if that was just like an offhand characterization. It felt to me like that’s something you’ve thought about. I would love to hear more about, what does the quest mean? How do you know if you’re getting – you said, “We’re getting closer.” How do you know? That’s the word actually I haven’t heard anyone use before in the same way, and it’s like – it really struck me.

[00:16:48] MB: Okay. Well, shout out to one of our former teammates, Allison, who came up with the quest mentality and it has really stuck with our team. Yeah, we love it. In a way it has been the ultimate phrasing and terminology for us to apply to not just what we’re doing as a company as a whole, but like anything we run into. People like framing it as a quest, makes it so much more fun. At this really early stage, we are still searching for product market fit. That is what we’re going after and I think that acknowledging it as a kind of quest and like this journey that just requires like constant testing, learning, small iterations to get closer, and closer to product market fit is what allows our team to move really quickly and to feel like we’re going after a common shared goal, even if we don’t really know what product market fit looks like right now.

For us, it’s really just like, I think it’s really embedded in the culture of the team as a way we approach everything from product road mapping, to solving bugs, to where we see ourselves in years’ time.

[00:17:53] JU: It sounds like that was a former employee and I feel like somebody like that, you can let leave. You need to reach back out to Allison.

[00:18:00] MH: Where is Allison?

[00:18:03] MB: She’s pursuing actually building her own furniture, which is awesome.

[00:18:07] MH: I love that.

[00:18:09] MB: Yeah. We’re very supportive of that.

[00:18:13] JU: Probably last time we spoke, maybe it was two months ago or maybe longer, we spoke recently and one of the things that you mentioned to me which I thought was a really great practice and I’d love for you to share, whether it’s just for my daughters or for other entrepreneurs or whatever. I don’t know. But I’d love to hear more about your – I can’t remember the title you give it, but something like a user board of directors or advisory board. Would you tell more about that practice and what they do and how you structure it and why you’ve done that?

[00:18:43] EB: Yeah. It has actually ballooned into even more in the forefront of what we’re doing. Originally, I think last time we spoke, we had just stood up what we were calling at the time, our design council. There was a group of five like super, super users who are sort of newly minted target demographic of like an aesthetically inclined individual who has a multifaceted interest set and is really excited about visually articulating their ideas, and has been like hacking together different ways to do so in the past.

We had one woman who is like a real-estate agent and a design influencer. We had another guy who was a set designer, and an architect and plant parent, but we basically brought this group into our team Slack channel. We sent them questions, and ideas, and got product feedback from them and hop on the phone with them. The idea was basically like cultivating this smaller group of like kind of an extension arm of our team for all things kind of product feedback and the like.

We have since really sort of like ballooned our community efforts. When we launched this new version of the product last week, we launched our Landing founding community, which is actually a separate Slack. It’s 40 members now, so like a much broader group of this kind of target demographic. It’s kind of like a multipurpose vehicle both to jump start our community and social – like socialization around our visual product before we have that built in our actual product, like the social features built. But it’s really also to like from here on out, co-create like every part of the product with our users.

It’s been amazing so far. Actually, it’s like super fun. People are sharing designs and asking questions, and like posting tips and we’re already seeing individual members of this community, rise to the top and answer other people’s questions. It’s only been live for a week. Honestly, shout out to our teammate, Liz, who’s been kind of an all-around player for us over the last year. She’s done everything. She’s like taking on this full community hat and has stood up this like amazing program. We’re just, the amount of like qualitative and quantitative data that we now have from this group, it’s like, the volume is almost – it’s like almost more than we can really handle, which is amazing. I’ll stop there. We’re all really excited about it.

[00:21:19] MH: I love the word co-create designs. Co-create actually is a great way to describe a relationship with a customer or user. It’s awesome. I know it’s really hard to build this community, so the fact that we have it acted – I’ll have to join and see what people are talking about. I wonder what you owe the success. Maybe the fact that it’s so authentic and you really believed in it from day one. Because everything wants to have a community but it sounds like yours truly comes from the founders.

[00:21:51] JU: If you had to speculate or hypothesize as to what are the – say somebody wants to launch a design council, what are the elements they must include? If you want a vibrant comm – design council, as not only place to share new ideas, but a vibrant community that is inspired by and pushing your ideas. What are the key ingredients there? Is it setting up Slack? They have direct access to the team? What made it special?

[00:22:23] MB: That's such a good question. I think we put a lot of thought into who the right people were for that group to begin with. We had spoken to a lot of these people before, had many conversations with them before just because they were like super users on our regional website or we’ve been connected to them through other people and they were already giving us a ton of really, really helpful feedback. It was quite an organic transition for those people to then become part of the design counsel to begin with.

I think the second thing that we did that went well was that we introduced them to each other. Those are people who wanted to meet each other and had many shared interests. It was really fun for them to kind of vibe off each other and off the team to share ideas. We also realized very quickly that there’s a lot of interest in just like what is going on at a really early-stage startup. Just being as parent as we could with them about the challenges we were facing, things we were working on behind the scenes. All of that side of things. Because the people we were talking to are creators and entrepreneurs in their own right. They were really interested in seeing how we are running the team, and funding and everything else that we are kind of doing as a company. That was something that we really felt like we could offer back to them as well as co-creating a tool that hopefully would be a really great fit for what they were doing.

[00:23:40] JU: That’s really cool. I love that transparency. Actually making people feel like they are part of the team. Truly. You aren’t putting on a front. They’re coming in the back door so to speak. They see the messy kitchen, all that.

[00:23:53] MB: The company Slack.

[00:23:55] MH: Yeah.

[00:23:56] EB: I think a big part is that we’ve made some mistakes for sure in the beginning of standing up the Slack. I think the biggest one was a mismatch of like give versus take. We had a really structured approach in the beginning, asking for feedback. We would send these like weekly asks that had a loom video, with a whole set of questions and it was like really structured. It was just too much. It was like too long of an assignment. It felt like homework. I think what we realized is that the quick hit, more consistent conversation of like, “What do you think of this?” Or like, “I just made this. Tell me what you think,” or, “This or that?” Like the really kind of quick and more consistent interaction started to feel way more natural and also just like engaging, like our ability to get feedback increase substantially when we went away from this like longer format, like once-a-week situation and into a more sort of like, “Come as you are, there’s going to be a bunch of this so just like hop in whenever you feel like contributing.”

[00:25:01] JU: To my take, as a give, one of the things I observed in my own life and practice interacting with people is typically, the shorter I make the ask, the higher the likelihood of a yes. It’s exactly opposite my instinct because, “This thing is so important. I need to explain why it’s important and I need to reinforce it with arguments.” But then if I look at my own, how I interact with email, the longer the thing is, the less like I am to read it. But then two, the more of a burden it seems like because I got to learn all this stuff, right? But somebody is like –

I noticed the other day as another give. A friend of mine who teaches with me at the d.school texted me one line. “Experiment: I’m hosting a ClubHouse discussion right now. Want to join?” For me, whatever, I don’t know why but the framing of it as experiment, it’s like, I just hit the link. Whereas, if he had emailed me and said, “Hey, man. I’m thinking about hosting a clubhouse conversation.” It’s like, “You can’t get on my calendar.” But for whatever reason, he just texted me, “Experiment. Want to join?” I’m like, I was literally – I just finished my workout. I’m making a protein shake and now I’m in this ClubHouse room that I would have like debated, whatever. But to me, like what really spoke to me was, the tactic of reducing the perceived commitment is a spectacular way to draw people in.

[00:26:30] MH: I know how to reach you, Jeremy.

[00:26:31] JU: Yeah, exactly. One line text, I’m yours.

[00:26:35] MH: One line.

[00:26:37] MB: Yeah. I think the other thing we found, especially in the Slack, is like engaging people at the right moment. When they’re in the right headspace for it. A lot of what we’ve seen, even – this is so early. But you know, when you’re commenting soon after someone has posted a mood board, then there’s kind of like a back and forth that happens because they’ve just posted it and you’ve kind of caught them at the time when they're thinking about it and in that kind of creative state. It’s like, it is actually a bit of an art to find when you even want to engage with them, when is the kind of like best moment.

[00:27:09] JU: That’s great. That’s huge.

[00:27:11] MH: Totally.

[00:27:13] JU: Can I ask maybe, take it a different direction? Mar and I, just before you all joined the call, we were just talking about siblings, and the trust, and the aligned values that siblings share and how important that is to founder teams. You all aren’t technically siblings, I know, but there’s clear value being alignment between the two of you. I’d love to hear, how did you find each other and how did you know you wanted to undertake an entrepreneurial life together?

[00:27:46] EB: It’s like we’re basically married.

[00:27:49] MB: Pretty much are siblings by now.

[00:27:52] EB: We’re like some weird combination of siblings, married, parents.

[00:27:59] MB: Co-parents.

[00:28:01] EB: I feel like it also was really a slow roll where we just didn't stop. We met at the GSB. Our first real interaction together was actually a super long car drive, because we are too cheap to buy plane tickets [inaudible 00:28:17] in Southern California. There was just the two of us and Miri had her first In-N-Out Burger, which is huge, but we talked and got along really well for an extremely extended period of time, which is like a good first sign. But I think more than that, we started working on a bunch of different ideas, saw both of you all through that like period of time.

I think we had just like a share respect and appreciation for what the other person brought to the table, but also just like a super core, very, very simple shared sort of like best intent and like just being a good person type of attitude. It was like not something we necessarily articulated in the beginning, but I think it was probably the core reason why we just neve really stopped working together. There was like a point I think in the spring we’re like, “I guess we’re doing this. We’d rather do this than something else.”

[00:29:15] MB: Yeah. The only thing I would say is that like, to Ellie’s point about like we just never really stopped, I think that was one of the biggest proof points for both of us, was that we were so committed to it. Like Ellie’s resilience and grit was just proven to me time and time and time and time and time again without her having to say it. It’s not like we had a conversation about that and we were like, “Great! You’ve got grit, me too. Like, let’s go.” It was just like compounded over time and like still is to really build that trust between us.

[00:29:45] MH: It’s a very special relationship when these cofounders work, right? It’s hard to describe because you’re quite not married. It’s not a friendship. It’s a different type of relationship. Yeah. It’s great. Been fortunate to have one and it’s really what you just described, never stops. I don’t know if you would say this, but I think I heard it. You still have this trust, this high trust that you know that if Miri is doing something, she’s going to do it and Ellie is doing something, she’s going to get it done and that goes a long way. I don’t know if there’s a better way you would explain it.

[00:30:26] MB: No. I think that’s exactly it. It’s like, you can trust not just the tasks or the things that someone is going to execute on, but it’s like you trust somebody to take that emotional weight off you. To bear that like together and kind of protect each other from things. Because there’s so much always being thrown at you, and so much – so many ups and downs that you really have to have that trust that the other person is going to be operating with best intent and like really have your back and just take as much as they can and kind of like an equal partnership in both the emotional side of things and the executions.

[00:31:06] MH: I agree with you. I always say that trust is the number one ingredient for speed, and success in startups. It’s great. Maybe we can – I know you’ve probably been asked this 50 times, but since we’re talking to women leaders, I think it’d be great – I think Jeremy knows – I am not even sure where these conversations are going, but I read somewhere in one of a medium article that somebody interviewed you. That you felt that being a woman also gave you super powers. I’d love – maybe you can elaborate on what superpowers do you have that this has taken advantage of?

[00:31:45] EB: I think one of the things that I have seen over the last few months that has actually felt like a superpower is this like gravitation towards amazing investors, who are just really good people. Like I think there’s actually an interesting – there’s an interesting sort of funnel or weeding out of people who, on the investing side, like really are passionate about supporting female led companies and they themselves are building their firms and the way that they operate around that, that I think it was not necessarily like an outright goal, but it has proven out I think that it was like in some ways an interesting forcing function.

I think the other thing that’s been cool is that it's allowed us to resonate with a pretty diverse group of potential teammates and hires. We have the benefit of having different types of people already on the team. Whether it’s a female-led company, or a BIPOC-led company or some like amazing mix of those things, I think it honestly gives us a leg up on the hiring side.

[00:33:03] MB: Both of those things, I completely agree. I think like, I don’t know if this is necessarily a gender thing, but I think it’s like the intuition on both the people, and the product side of things and also the empathy of just being able to put yourselves in the shoes of so many different users, or teammates, or partners or anybody. I don’t know whether even six months ago, I would have said that that was a super power that I had or we had necessarily as a team, but it’s something that I’ve definitely learned to recognize over the last few months especially.

[00:33:36] MH: I read that you said a woman disruptor was different from a male disruptor. I wonder how they’re different. I don’t know if you recall yourself saying that, but if there are different ways to disrupt or execute the disruption?

[00:33:50] MB: I don’t even remember which one of us said it. I’m like, “What?”

[00:33:56] MH: Tough questions, nobody told you you are coming to get tested.

[00:33:59] MB: Yeah.

[00:34:03] MH: I’m just kidding. I mean, maybe I’ll make it simple. I mean, I do think that men disrupt differently or act differently, but I don’t want to say what I think.

[00:34:18] EB: I think I can answer from the perspective of an anecdote from one of our investors. Because it’s really hard for me to really be as much in the mindset of a male disruptor. It’s like, complete speculation based on – because I have like a high level of experience, my own experience, and below level of experience on others. But I think this is like a really actually interesting anecdote and one that stuck with me, one of our investors, she’s amazing. She always had this joke, where she’s like, “I literally love investing in women, because,” she’s like, “Obviously the impostor syndrome is something we all need to work. Like we’re consistently working on it.”

I have like a high degree of faith that when I have a meeting with the woman who’s telling me X, Y, Z that it’s like – that’s actually probably the less impressive start than what’s actually happening versus like on net, there is like a level I think of confidence that is like maybe not always as present on the female presentation side of things. But under the surface, boy, it’s actually like really interesting information. I think it’s like obviously – any of these conversations or comparisons are just gross generalizations.

[00:35:31] MH: Yeah, of course.

[00:35:31] EB: Also, you know, 2021, gender is a construct. But like, I think that – I do think that there is something – there is like a nugget of truth there that I think, on the flipside, Miri and I have thought a lot about how we can like improve our confidence and get over our impostor syndrome of being first-time founders and like showing up in a room and never having done this before. I think it goes both ways, but that’s my total like slithery answer out of actually answering you.

[00:36:00] MH: Yeah. [Inaudible 00:36:00]

[00:36:02] EB: [Inaudible] Experience.

[00:36:04] MH: What’s that? If somebody wants to work on impostor syndrome, what do you think they – what works for you? I actually have given some advice to folks that worked for me, but I think that’s different, different tactics for getting over it.

[00:36:18] MB: Yeah, it’s a tough one. It’s something that we’re always working on. I think for me, it comes down to ripping the Band-Aid off the first time I have to do something and then doing it again, and again, and again until I feel like, “Oh! I’ve actually done this ten times. I’m not an impostor.” Just tell yourself you’ve done it 10 times, it’s been great.

I think the other thing, to Ellie’s point is like, we’ve surrounded ourselves with, purposefully, with people who we really, really trust and people who have seen these things a hundred times before, and who’s input we get before we’re trying to do something that’s like absolutely brand new to us. That always gives me a little bit more confidence of like, I’m not going into this completely alone. I’m going into this as someone who has consulted experts and I feel like we’re going in together. That always helps me personally.

[00:37:07] JU: I would just say I also wrestle with  impostor syndrome. I mean, I’ve been teaching at the D school for the last 11 years. I’m just waiting for somebody to be like, “Give us back our spring line [inaudible 00:37:19],” kind of a situation. I don’t know if it ever goes away, but I’ve kind of made peace with it in a way. But I really actually appreciate, Miri, what you said about, do it ten times, you’re not an impostor anymore. I think that’s profoundly wise. What distinguishes an impostor from a doer is just, it cycles. You’re just saying, undertake the cycles necessary to eliminate it, “I’m no longer an impostor,” which I think is great.

[00:37:47] MH: Instructions to follow.

[00:37:48] JU: Right. Exactly. Repeat, rinse, repeat. One thing that I wanted to cover before we wrap up the conversation is, how did you know you wanted to set out on an entrepreneurial journey to begin with? I feel like one of the things that you guys talked about was, you’re in the car together, you start talking on ideas and on ideas. That kind of got to the partnership part of it, but what we haven’t really touched on is the entrepreneurship part, which is, it seems a little bit like it was a foregone conclusion for both of you that you wanted to do something, not take a job maybe, but actually build something. How did you come by that desire, interest for yourself?

[00:38:28] EB: I think this is actually so interestingly connected to the impostor syndrome conversation. Because I think for both of us and I can very much speak for myself, but kind of for Miri. I think for both of us, it was like always the pipe dream. It was like, “That would be so sick. That sounds amazing. That is like the life I would love to lead.” The exploration and just doing something sounds amazing. If I’m being completely honest when I came to business school, I was like, “I’m not smart enough. I’m not creative enough. I don’t know enough. I’ve never done this. I’ve never actually worked at a startup. I don’t really know what I’d be working on.”

I think the combination of like (a) finding someone really to work on something with, but (b) kind of this like rip the Band-Aid ten times, rinse and repeat situation of like, we just – we saw so many people come in to speak at the GSB that were founders and they were amazing in their own right. They had super interesting stories, but with the exception of a few true geniuses, like they were just normal people. The only difference between us and them was that they just did it and they didn’t stop. They just kept going. It was almost like seeing these really normal people get up who’ve done crazy stuff and they’re just because they kept doing it in some ways that was like the permission or like the flip from this idea that like we couldn’t do it, to like, “Wow! Who’s going to do it if we’re not going to do it? We might as well try.”

[00:39:58] MB: It reframed what I would call a real job. Seeing people come in again, and again, I was like, “Oh! This could be my real job, this thing I’ve been working on all year.”

[00:40:11] JU: You’re saying it wasn’t actually until business school and hearing from entrepreneurs that it became a legitimate possibility or legitimate track of exploration even for you?

[00:40:21] EB: Yeah. I mean, it was like the dream track, but it wasn’t necessarily the foregone conclusion. I think for me as well, from a personal perspective, I had a really tough summer between my two years of business school, my dad passed away and there was like this whole sort of like, “What am I even doing with life?” That was also I think a really big like forcing function of like really reframe on risk tolerance. It was like, in some ways, it made me really define the risk of not trying, because like, a life cut short is like – think of all the things that weren’t tried. I think in some ways, that was like a very – that was a formative, I think addition to the reframe and I think the combination of those at least for me was the kind of pushing factor.

[00:41:17] MH: Almost it’s like keep on going and permission to do and fail is part of it.

[00:41:23] MB: The only thing I’d add is that from my perspective, I haven’t really articulated this before, but similarly, I felt like I was on my British passport, I’m an immigrant technically to the US. I was like, “I have a year. I have a year on this Visa. Let’s try it. Let’s see what happens. What else am I going to do with that year that would be as exciting, and give me as much growth as doing this? If it works, then I’ll figure out a way to extend that Visa and it will all be fine.” But to me, that was actually in a weird way a helpful kind of time construct to think about and a forcing function for me to like take the risk and feel brave enough to do that.

[00:42:02] JU: It’s incredible. I feel like you all just kind of teed us up for conversation number two to be held at some point in the future, because there’s so much more that we could dive into. I’m truly appreciative for your honesty, for your vulnerability, for your willingness to share to educate me and hopefully others as well. Thank you.

[00:42:19] MH: There’s so much great information in this conversation, I feel. Actually, not just philosophical but really actionable that somebody can take and go do.

[00:42:31] JU: Maybe just to give you one last opportunity to plug The Landing. If somebody who doesn’t know where to find you, how to find you, why to find you, what would you say?

[00:42:41] EB: The Landing 2.0. It is a social design platform that allows everyone to create together. You can find us at thelanding.app. On Landing, you can create mood boards, you can remix designs, you can express yourself visually and share it with your friends. Come check us out 

[00:42:59] JU: Awesome.

[END]