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Insights on Fundraising Negotiation with Bruno Lima, Pura Co-Founder and CEO
5 Plays4 years ago
Negotiation. It's a five-syllable word that can instill fear in the heart of even the most adept entrepreneur and yet, it's a fact of everyday life in the startup world. You eat, sleep, and breathe your vision day in and day out, but when it comes time to bring that vision to the negotiation table, there are no guarantees. So, what does it look like to strike that golden balance between standing firm in what you and your company need while also knowing when it's time to meet your partners in the middle? This week we're exploring what it takes to walk this fine line with Pura CEO and co-founder, Bruno Lima, and investor Curt Roberts of Kickstart (a venture capital firm for startups in Utah, Colorado, and the Mountain West) to bring you both sides of a Perfect Pitch. This episode we explore:
Bruno's top tips on negotiating with VCs
Why lying to VCs about your fundraising backup plan is never a good idea
How being humble can improve your negotiation skills
The benefits of separating your professional and personal life
Recommended
Transcript
The Role of Negotiation in Startups
00:00:00
Speaker
Negotiation.
00:00:01
Speaker
It's a five-syllable word that can instill fear in the heart of even the most adept entrepreneur, and yet it's a fact of everyday life in the startup world.
00:00:11
Speaker
You eat, sleep, and breathe your vision day in and day out, but when it comes time to bring that vision to the negotiation table, there are no guarantees.
00:00:21
Speaker
So what does it look like to strike that golden balance between standing firm and what you and your company need while also knowing when it's time to meet your partners in the middle?
Introduction to Perfect Pitch
00:00:31
Speaker
This week, we're exploring what it takes to walk this fine line with Pure CEO and co-founder Bruno Lima and investor Kurt Roberts to bring you both sides of A Perfect Pitch.
00:00:49
Speaker
What is Perfect Pitch?
00:00:51
Speaker
It's a podcast from Kickstart that reveals the minds of both investors and entrepreneurs throughout a startup's journey.
00:00:57
Speaker
So whether that's uncovering what everyone's really thinking during a startup pitch or learning how entrepreneurs like you have managed their first major roadblock, Perfect Pitch offers an honest, quick, and tactical guide to help you on your startup journey.
00:01:12
Speaker
I'm your host, Karen Zelnick.
Bruno Lima's Background and Journey
00:01:14
Speaker
Bruno and Kurt, thank you so much for being here today.
00:01:18
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:01:18
Speaker
Thanks, Karen.
00:01:20
Speaker
Before we jump into the discussion, Bruno, I just want to tell everyone a little bit about you.
00:01:24
Speaker
You're originally from Brazil and moved to Utah when you were nine.
00:01:27
Speaker
I understand that you've always had a passion for understanding how things work.
00:01:31
Speaker
You've got a degree in manufacturing, engineering, technology.
00:01:34
Speaker
What else should we know about you?
00:01:37
Speaker
I am the father of the best seven-year-old boy, bar none, and the best six-year-old daughter and three-year-old daughter.
00:01:44
Speaker
Just fantastic kids in my life.
00:01:47
Speaker
And I'm married to the most amazing woman in the world.
00:01:49
Speaker
That about summons up everything there is to know about me.
00:01:53
Speaker
Cool.
00:01:54
Speaker
Oh, that's amazing.
00:01:55
Speaker
So glad to have you on.
00:01:56
Speaker
And Kurt, it's always great to have you back on the show.
00:02:00
Speaker
As always, the link to Kurt's bio is going to be in our show notes.
00:02:03
Speaker
And you know what I'm going to ask next?
00:02:05
Speaker
Kurt, what can you tell us that return listeners don't yet know about you?
00:02:10
Speaker
Oh, I'm running out of things, but I thought of one this morning.
00:02:12
Speaker
So I collect rare books.
00:02:17
Speaker
I decided a while ago to kind of stray from that a bit, and I found an opportunity to actually pick up the final engineering drawing of Edison's light bulb.
00:02:31
Speaker
So one of the things I love about some of the things I collect is choosing things that have had a significant impact on the course of sort of history.
00:02:41
Speaker
And entrepreneurship is about taking failure in stride.
00:02:46
Speaker
And if you know anything about the story of the development of the light bulb, there were more than a thousand attempts to get the filament to work.
00:02:55
Speaker
And once they figured out how to do it, the lead engineer on the project then wrote the engineering drawing of what the final design was.
00:03:02
Speaker
And I own that drawing.
00:03:04
Speaker
Bruno, are you geeking out?
00:03:05
Speaker
Because I'm geeking out right now.
00:03:07
Speaker
I didn't know if this was real or if you're just saying this for the podcast.
00:03:10
Speaker
No, it's real.
00:03:10
Speaker
I actually have it.
00:03:12
Speaker
It's on a wall in my house.
00:03:13
Speaker
That was my next question.
00:03:14
Speaker
Is it on display or in a vault?
00:03:17
Speaker
It is on a wall in my house.
00:03:19
Speaker
I guess that gives an idea of how much money Kurt really has.
00:03:22
Speaker
No.
00:03:23
Speaker
The expendable income.
00:03:24
Speaker
Expendable income.
00:03:26
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This thing was surprisingly inexpensive.
00:03:29
Speaker
It came up at auction and I put a lowball bid in and I won it.
00:03:35
Speaker
That's insane.
00:03:35
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Man.
00:03:36
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That is awesome.
00:03:37
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Oh, I'm still geeking out.
00:03:38
Speaker
I will be for the rest of the podcast.
Understanding Pura's Technology
00:03:40
Speaker
Jeez, I don't have anything.
00:03:41
Speaker
Let's just wrap it up.
00:03:43
Speaker
Wait a second.
00:03:43
Speaker
We're about to talk about all the awesome things you've got with the company that you founded.
00:03:47
Speaker
Let's get right into it.
00:03:49
Speaker
Okay, Bruno, you have a remarkable founder story.
00:03:51
Speaker
You're the founder and CEO of Pura.
00:03:54
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about what that is.
00:03:56
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Pura is a technology company in the home fragrance space.
00:04:00
Speaker
So we married IoT, which is Internet of Things, Smart Home, and Home Fragrance.
00:04:04
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And so it's a way for you to control the fragrance in your house, schedule it, adjust it.
00:04:09
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We work with some of the biggest brands in the world, creating fragrances for them.
00:04:13
Speaker
It's been a fun ride so far.
00:04:15
Speaker
It is the air freshener of the future, basically.
00:04:18
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But it's now.
00:04:19
Speaker
The future is now.
00:04:20
Speaker
And it's awesome.
00:04:20
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For everyone who doesn't own one, you need about five.
00:04:23
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So go out and buy them right now.
00:04:26
Speaker
But I want to talk about what got you there.
00:04:29
Speaker
You immigrated to the States when you were a kid.
00:04:31
Speaker
And then your family opened their own office cleaning business, which must have been quite an experience, quite an adjustment for you.
00:04:38
Speaker
Could you walk us through that?
00:04:39
Speaker
When we first moved here, I was nine.
00:04:42
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None of us spoke English.
00:04:44
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My parents, because they didn't speak English, the only job available to them at the time was doing cleaning services.
00:04:49
Speaker
So they actually would go clean during the day.
00:04:52
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And then at nighttime, after we got out of school, they would pick up my brother and me.
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My older sister would stay with my younger sister at home.
00:04:58
Speaker
And then we would go clean.
00:04:59
Speaker
We would clean, I mean, taco time.
00:05:02
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I've cleaned the car dealership schools.
00:05:04
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My father actually couldn't afford to go to school.
00:05:06
Speaker
This is why we came to the U.S. was to get an education.
00:05:08
Speaker
So he convinced the school to allow him to clean the school at night so that he could study for free.
00:05:14
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We'd clean till about midnight.
00:05:16
Speaker
My brother and I would fall asleep in the car.
00:05:18
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My parents would keep cleaning till about four or five in the morning.
00:05:21
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When we got home, they'd lay us in bed.
00:05:23
Speaker
And then I'd have to wake up at 7.30 or something.
00:05:26
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This was, you know, third grade.
00:05:27
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I'd wake up, make my breakfast, and then walk to school.
00:05:30
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I know it sounds like a, oh my gosh, but it's like, we had an amazing, amazing childhood.
00:05:34
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Like my parents, they really sacrificed everything they could to give us this lifestyle.
00:05:39
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We're going to be in the United States.
00:05:40
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It's going to be safe.
00:05:41
Speaker
We don't have to worry about you getting kidnapped.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:43
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I mean, we came from a little more dangerous place in Brazil.
00:05:45
Speaker
So this was heaven, right?
00:05:47
Speaker
We had to work a lot, but it didn't feel like work.
00:05:50
Speaker
It was a great experience growing up, to be honest.
00:05:53
Speaker
So much respect for your parents.
00:05:55
Speaker
The work ethic is just really inspiring.
The Art of Negotiation
00:05:58
Speaker
And because your parents weren't fluent English speakers, the responsibility to negotiating contracts was put into your hands, as I understand it.
00:06:06
Speaker
I mean, at first, none of us spoke English and it was a nightmare.
00:06:09
Speaker
We'd cry and when we go home, when we go home, it's always the question we'd ask.
00:06:13
Speaker
But eventually we learned some English.
00:06:15
Speaker
So we became my parents translators, right, for everything.
00:06:18
Speaker
I mean, if you meet my mom and anyone that has, you know that she's the best negotiator in the world.
00:06:23
Speaker
My mom is ruthless.
00:06:24
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She is incredible.
00:06:25
Speaker
She's amazing.
00:06:27
Speaker
So when we first moved here, we moved to Sandy, Utah, a suburb in Salt Lake City.
00:06:31
Speaker
And Sandy City would have this trash day where everyone would put out larger pieces of furniture.
00:06:38
Speaker
So my mom would wake us up in the morning, we'd get the minivan and we'd go through people's trash essentially in front of their house and we'd pick up all the good articles, the good pieces.
00:06:46
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The dressers.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:47
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Yeah, the items that we thought was worth some value.
00:06:49
Speaker
And then what we would do is we'd take it back to our house and we'd do a garage sale and we'd sell back to the community, right?
00:06:54
Speaker
And so it's my brother and I and my sister at the time, we would be the ones that would be negotiating and selling to the people that would come to buy stuff.
00:07:02
Speaker
How old are you?
00:07:03
Speaker
So at this time, I was probably 10, 10 or so.
00:07:06
Speaker
And you're negotiating the sale of items you've pulled out of the garage.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:12
Speaker
Or out of the trash.
00:07:12
Speaker
Out of the trash, yeah.
00:07:14
Speaker
From your home.
00:07:14
Speaker
Because this would go on for about a week where you could pick it up for a different house.
00:07:17
Speaker
So we would run this week long until one of the neighbors complained to the city that's like, this is a business.
00:07:23
Speaker
They're running it every day.
00:07:23
Speaker
And then so the police had to come be like, you guys can only run garage sales on Saturdays.
00:07:28
Speaker
But it was good money.
00:07:29
Speaker
It was really, really good money.
00:07:30
Speaker
Wow.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:32
Speaker
So how long did it take you to start feeling comfortable negotiating?
00:07:36
Speaker
I don't think I ever noticed I was uncomfortable.
00:07:38
Speaker
So at one point, my mom used to work with telemarketing service.
00:07:41
Speaker
They would give her these little prizes with an Xbox, PlayStation, different things for hitting different awards, different things.
00:07:49
Speaker
It was, I have to go to Walmart and return these things.
00:07:52
Speaker
To this day, my wife jokes, I'm like an expert return guy.
00:07:56
Speaker
So she'll buy something at Sephora or Ulta.
00:07:58
Speaker
And she's like, this is a no return policy.
00:07:59
Speaker
It's like, oh, no.
00:08:01
Speaker
You're like, I'll take that back.
00:08:03
Speaker
I will return.
00:08:04
Speaker
I was like, why did they let you do it?
00:08:05
Speaker
I'm like, baby, it's learned years of returning items.
00:08:08
Speaker
I've returned so many things.
00:08:09
Speaker
It's unbelievable.
00:08:11
Speaker
It is everyday life.
00:08:12
Speaker
You know, it didn't feel like a uncomfortable.
00:08:14
Speaker
It's just like, this is what you got to do.
00:08:15
Speaker
Go do it.
00:08:15
Speaker
You know, it's like, okay.
00:08:18
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:08:18
Speaker
And Kurt, how have you seen Bruno's negotiation skills impact his business?
00:08:24
Speaker
So I met Bruno and his co-founder, Richie, in the Provo area for lunch.
00:08:30
Speaker
And over lunch, we're sort of talking about the business.
00:08:32
Speaker
And I thought, this sounds kind of interesting, interesting enough to spend some more time on it.
00:08:37
Speaker
I thought, these guys are going to have a hard time raising money.
00:08:42
Speaker
there's hardware and there's technology risk and none of them have any experience in home sense.
00:08:49
Speaker
I thought this is not going to be easy.
00:08:51
Speaker
So I sort of felt that as we went into the point where we now were going to negotiate that I had all the leverage.
00:09:01
Speaker
And Bruno made it clear.
00:09:05
Speaker
Bruno made it very clear that I had no leverage whatsoever.
00:09:09
Speaker
He was willing with the confidence to step forth and say, my company is worth this.
00:09:16
Speaker
At some point, we hit a number where he was not going to move.
00:09:22
Speaker
And we had a conversation as a team here at Kickstart, and there was not unanimity as a team.
00:09:26
Speaker
I remember that conversation.
00:09:27
Speaker
We should invest in this company, in part because the number was so high.
00:09:32
Speaker
It was like, why would anybody pay this much for this company?
00:09:36
Speaker
And I literally left a conference room where we were discussing as a team whether or not we would even do this.
00:09:43
Speaker
To Bruno waiting in the reception area to a conference room right next door to tell him yes on his number.
00:09:53
Speaker
It was for me not a no-brainer.
00:09:55
Speaker
But I think it was an illustration in part of Bruno's ability to have not just negotiating confidence that's not based in substance, but a willingness to really believe in the opportunity he's presenting to the people on the other side of the table and to not flinch.
Strategic Negotiation Tactics
00:10:17
Speaker
So was it the not flinching that got you over the hurdle of not being fully convicted, but willing to take the leap?
00:10:25
Speaker
To some degree, I think it honestly was, in my view, more of a belief in the size of the opportunity, that these guys were pursuing something really, really interesting, and the product was actually working, that it did what they claimed it would do, and a ton of confidence in Bruno's ability to go out there and strike business deals with partners that, in all probability, most companies would have no right to expect.
00:10:53
Speaker
You could see some early signs he was doing it.
00:10:57
Speaker
And because of that, I thought, this is a team I can believe in.
00:11:02
Speaker
Bruno, what were you thinking on the other side?
00:11:04
Speaker
Literally on the other side of that wall, actually.
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah, it was just right there, just down the hall.
00:11:09
Speaker
Honestly, to me, negotiation's simple.
00:11:13
Speaker
If you truly, truly believe in what you're selling and you find a plan B, which I always do, you can be confident.
00:11:20
Speaker
You can sit down and you say, listen, this isn't my only option.
00:11:24
Speaker
I know what I'm telling you is true.
00:11:25
Speaker
I know this is a win.
00:11:27
Speaker
If you walk away, I'll go with something else.
00:11:29
Speaker
And you sell yourself on that plan B. Most of the time you'll get your plan A. Because it's one thing to fake it and BS it and just lie.
00:11:37
Speaker
which I feel is incredibly unethical and I don't do that, but it's very different when you truly do believe in your business or you do believe in what you're selling.
00:11:45
Speaker
I think that is such an awesome takeaway is the always believe in your plan B. What a great tip for everyone listening.
00:11:53
Speaker
I want to know what other tips do you have on negotiating successfully with VCs?
00:11:59
Speaker
I shopped it.
00:12:00
Speaker
I went to many different VCs before I even came to Kickstart.
00:12:03
Speaker
And even when I came to Kickstart, I shopped with other VCs.
00:12:06
Speaker
And I don't know how truthful this is, but I heard a rumor that Ocean's Eleven, which happens to be my favorite movie, the way it was created is that the director went to Brad Pitt and he's like, hey, look, George Clooney's in and he's in and he's in.
00:12:19
Speaker
He's like, oh, of course I'm going to jump in.
00:12:20
Speaker
And he did the same thing.
00:12:21
Speaker
He jumped to another one.
00:12:22
Speaker
Hey, he's in.
00:12:23
Speaker
And so you basically sell everyone else on the vision.
00:12:27
Speaker
And so...
00:12:28
Speaker
There's a lot of that in the VC world that you can do.
00:12:31
Speaker
You just find one party that's interested in investing enough to give you that leeway that you can go to everyone else and you say, listen, this person's heavily considering it.
00:12:39
Speaker
Do you want to jump in with them?
00:12:41
Speaker
And so the way we did that is we found a strategic partner, which was the fragrance house at the time.
00:12:47
Speaker
And we leveraged that as our strategic partner and leveraged that as a strategic investor.
00:12:52
Speaker
And so we got enough VCs that were kind of interested.
00:12:55
Speaker
And we went back to the Fragrance House who was interested, but hadn't signed yet.
00:12:59
Speaker
And now we're like, now we have all these other VCs.
00:13:02
Speaker
You just kind of do the Ocean's Eleven approach, I think works really well with VCs.
00:13:06
Speaker
So good, everyone.
00:13:07
Speaker
Take notes, the Ocean's Eleven's approach.
00:13:09
Speaker
And Kurt, from your perspective, what are some other lessons they could take away from the way Bruno handled the situation?
00:13:15
Speaker
I think it is very important to reinforce one thing that Bruno said, which is your plan B needs to be a real plan B. We see hundreds of companies every year.
00:13:28
Speaker
We've seen every attempt and approach to negotiation that you can imagine.
00:13:33
Speaker
And I think we have both a good sense in substance and in intuition about whether options are real or being faked.
00:13:45
Speaker
Bruno was specific enough about his alternatives that he would have had to be very bold in asserting a lie in order for that to not be true, right?
00:13:57
Speaker
So he was specific enough with who else was looking at the company that I think I had a sense that there was real substance behind it.
00:14:04
Speaker
But just to reinforce, make sure your plan B is real because if you do try to fake it, an experienced investor will figure that out quickly.
00:14:15
Speaker
There's no faster way to burn your bridge with VCs than mine.
00:14:18
Speaker
No, no.
00:14:19
Speaker
I think that's exactly right.
00:14:21
Speaker
Every entrepreneur will try to create fear of missing out.
00:14:25
Speaker
That's natural because momentum can materialize very, very quickly if there's a sense that, hey, if I don't do something fast, I might lose it.
00:14:35
Speaker
I had the sense, I guess, with Bruno that my own background, having worked in consumer and developed an Internet of Things device in a prior stage of my career, I had a sense that we probably had an advantage.
00:14:50
Speaker
And I also had a sense that the rapport between Bruno and myself was developing pretty positively.
00:14:56
Speaker
And so I didn't have to just...
00:14:58
Speaker
accept a price on the assumption that he was indifferent, but I still had to have a sense that his plan B was legit.
Pura's Growth and Partnership Strategy
00:15:06
Speaker
Otherwise, I could have taken more time on it, really spent more time on diligence, have him and his team prove two or three more months of operating history, but I felt he was being honest with me.
00:15:19
Speaker
And so we needed to take a leap or pass.
00:15:23
Speaker
So what I'm taking away is, Bruno, be fully convicted, have a plan B you really believe in, and the don't of negotiating is just don't lie.
00:15:31
Speaker
Right.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, simple.
00:15:34
Speaker
Right.
00:15:35
Speaker
That's great.
00:15:36
Speaker
You know, Bruno has used this ability to negotiate in every single facet of the business.
00:15:44
Speaker
The round size that Bruno raised from us was pretty typical for a seed round, not particularly large.
00:15:50
Speaker
This is a company that builds a physical product.
00:15:52
Speaker
They have to own inventory.
00:15:54
Speaker
There were a bunch of reasons to believe that this would be a very capital-intensive business to build.
00:16:01
Speaker
But not only did Bruno use the capability of negotiating to get a good seed round done with us and to get these large fragrance houses to put their resources behind the company, but Bruno's negotiated a partnership with a partner for distribution and for warehousing and third-party services that included a line of credit that has made it possible for Bruno to never raise another penny in the history of this company.
00:16:31
Speaker
We like to think about in this business what we call a dragon.
00:16:35
Speaker
A dragon is a company that has the potential to return the value of our entire fund just from that one investment.
00:16:42
Speaker
And we make dozens of investments in each fund.
00:16:46
Speaker
I would have never anticipated at the time that we invested in Pura that it necessarily would have the potential to become a dragon, let alone to become a dragon in 18 months.
00:17:01
Speaker
And it already is.
00:17:04
Speaker
For Bruno to be able to negotiate relationships that's made it possible for him to build the company with no additional capital investment to that level of growth and value is unheard of.
00:17:19
Speaker
It's really phenomenal.
00:17:21
Speaker
It's a testament to
00:17:23
Speaker
to the foresight of using a skill set in every dimension of the business, not just in negotiating financing, but it's in partnerships and debt capital and logistics providers and all of the things that are required for the business
Humility and Leadership in Business
00:17:40
Speaker
to operate.
00:17:40
Speaker
Okay, so Bruno, is negotiating just like an innate characteristic that we all have to hope we're born with?
00:17:47
Speaker
Or what skills have you practiced in your life that have made you better at it?
00:17:52
Speaker
I think it seems counterintuitive and it may sound stupid, but I think a really, really good negotiator is a humble person.
00:17:59
Speaker
I'm often, often one of the dumbest people in the room and I'm okay with that.
00:18:05
Speaker
I don't buy that, but okay.
00:18:07
Speaker
Well, I think it's true.
00:18:09
Speaker
And I think as long as you go in with a humility and understanding, like, look, I may not be the smartest person here.
00:18:14
Speaker
And oftentimes when you go negotiate with someone, they tend to think that they are the smartest person in the room.
00:18:19
Speaker
And if you're just asking questions and let them kind of spill it out, you can usually put together an idea that's like, look, this is going to make you this.
00:18:26
Speaker
I mean, when I sat down with Kurt, Kurt's actually a pretty humble dude.
00:18:29
Speaker
And it makes it very, very... Most people would not say that about me.
00:18:32
Speaker
Really?
00:18:33
Speaker
Well, I feel like I know you're on a different level.
00:18:35
Speaker
I appreciate that comment.
00:18:37
Speaker
That's...
00:18:37
Speaker
No, I actually think that.
00:18:39
Speaker
And with you, right, it was the whole concept.
00:18:41
Speaker
And I sat down with you and I said, look, I know what you want to get out of this.
00:18:44
Speaker
And trust me, this is going to be bigger than you realize.
00:18:48
Speaker
I promise you what I'm going to bring you.
00:18:50
Speaker
You did say that.
00:18:50
Speaker
I literally said that.
00:18:51
Speaker
You literally promised me.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:53
Speaker
That's right.
00:18:54
Speaker
I really knew it.
00:18:54
Speaker
And I was like, I'm not afraid to promise that to you.
00:18:56
Speaker
You could look in my eyes and you could say, this guy's telling the truth because I believed it.
00:19:00
Speaker
I knew you believed it.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:01
Speaker
And so.
00:19:02
Speaker
How did you know it, though?
00:19:04
Speaker
Honestly, maybe it's just that I've taken enough laps around the sun at this point that I can sense whether they are trying to use a tactic versus really believing what they're saying.
00:19:17
Speaker
And I really believed that Bruno believed it.
00:19:22
Speaker
I believe that.
00:19:24
Speaker
I always say that a good compromise is when we both leave unhappy.
00:19:28
Speaker
I leave unhappy that I didn't get a $300 billion valuation from Kurt, and he leaves unhappy that he didn't get me for a dollar, right?
00:19:37
Speaker
It wasn't quite that extreme.
00:19:38
Speaker
It wasn't that extreme, but we almost doubled the valuation, right?
00:19:42
Speaker
It was pretty freaking close.
00:19:43
Speaker
From what we were expecting?
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think certainly based upon any metrics that would make sense for what the company should be worth,
00:19:53
Speaker
I think I thought I overpaid by 2x.
00:19:56
Speaker
That's about right.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:57
Speaker
Hey, what do you think now?
00:19:59
Speaker
I did not overpay.
00:20:00
Speaker
You got a good deal.
00:20:01
Speaker
Bruno, would you like some more money on those same terms?
00:20:04
Speaker
No, thank you.
00:20:04
Speaker
How many times do I have to turn down money this year?
00:20:07
Speaker
And as the person that invested in you first, having a founder that doesn't have to waste his time raising money is worth its weight in gold.
00:20:17
Speaker
That's perhaps the wrong metaphor to use because we are talking about investing and earning returns.
00:20:23
Speaker
But I really mean that.
00:20:25
Speaker
Value gets created by running a great company.
00:20:27
Speaker
It doesn't get created by negotiating financing rounds.
00:20:31
Speaker
We've seen over the past couple of years, some of what people would have thought would have been the greatest tech companies ever built go down in flames, primarily because those founders were really successful at negotiating financing, but not so great at actually
Family Values in Company Culture
00:20:48
Speaker
running a great company.
00:20:48
Speaker
Right.
00:20:50
Speaker
And having the luxury of spending all your time on running a great company and not negotiating financing deals, it's a fantastic place for a founder to be.
00:21:00
Speaker
I couldn't agree with more, honestly.
00:21:01
Speaker
And I hated fundraising.
00:21:04
Speaker
I remember I went to one of the trainings that we did executives and we were talking to other CEOs and they were like, I love fundraising.
00:21:10
Speaker
This is one of our events.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:11
Speaker
And I remember saying, I was like, I absolutely hate fundraising.
00:21:14
Speaker
It feels like I'm giving away my children.
00:21:15
Speaker
And they're like, well, you know, if your company is doing really good, then, you know, it's great to go around.
00:21:19
Speaker
I'm like, no, I hate everything that's to do about fundraising because my job is to be running the ship back at home.
00:21:25
Speaker
And rather I'm out and about trying to convince people that my baby's cuter than others.
00:21:30
Speaker
I hate it.
00:21:32
Speaker
And Bruno, it sounds like humility is one of the most important things that's helped you be so successful.
00:21:37
Speaker
And this is a question we like to ask at the end.
00:21:39
Speaker
And I'd love to know, in addition to humility, what's another thing that you've implemented in your work or personal life that's had a great impact on your success?
00:21:49
Speaker
So about five years ago, an individual sat down with my co-founder, Richie, and myself and their advice was, you need to give the company your all, which I agree with.
00:21:58
Speaker
But the concept was, if your wife sees you at home before I think it was 9pm, he said, then he's like, you're probably failing as a CEO.
00:22:06
Speaker
And I took that and I threw it away right away.
00:22:10
Speaker
The thing that I think really makes Pura so successful is that I live by the concept that it's like your family comes first, your home comes first.
00:22:20
Speaker
Five o'clock on the dot almost every single day, everybody's out.
00:22:25
Speaker
I take my three-year-old daughter on a daddy date multiple times a week in the morning.
00:22:30
Speaker
And so I show up to work at 10 a.m.
00:22:32
Speaker
And it's not because I'm the CEO and the CEO shows up late.
00:22:35
Speaker
I want people to know that the most important thing in my life is my family and that the company comes second.
00:22:41
Speaker
which seems really counterintuitive for a business.
00:22:43
Speaker
But as we've implemented that, it's really changed the culture where everyone there gives everything they have when they're there.
00:22:50
Speaker
But then the moment they leave, they refresh.
00:22:53
Speaker
And it allows us to focus on what's most important in life.
00:22:57
Speaker
And that is your family, your well-being, your health.
00:23:00
Speaker
I mean, we focus on all those things well before we focus on the company.
00:23:04
Speaker
And it just works out.
00:23:07
Speaker
Kurt, I'd love your thoughts on that.
00:23:10
Speaker
I know Bruno's being modest here.
Leadership and Company Values
00:23:13
Speaker
He and I will have phone calls at times on the weekend and we're exchanging emails and texts at 10 o'clock at night.
00:23:20
Speaker
That's reality.
00:23:21
Speaker
But I think making sure that your employees know what your values are and what you expect them to be able to prioritize and that you model that yourself, I think makes the difference between a company that can sustain itself versus one that
00:23:39
Speaker
has moments of glory, and then ultimately the potential to flame out.
00:23:44
Speaker
Thank you.
00:23:45
Speaker
I remember growing up and having daddy-daughter dates, and we'd go get root beer floats.
00:23:49
Speaker
That was our thing.
00:23:49
Speaker
And then his assistant was always told that if my kids call, no matter what I'm doing, come get me.
00:23:57
Speaker
I just think that set a really good standard, and I really appreciated it.
Where to Learn More About Pura and Perfect Pitch
00:24:01
Speaker
Thank you both so much for being here.
00:24:03
Speaker
I think this has been an amazing discussion.
00:24:05
Speaker
So many takeaways.
00:24:06
Speaker
And of course, thank you for listening as we dive deep into what it takes to create the perfect pitch.
00:24:11
Speaker
If you want to learn more about our investor, Kurt Roberts from Kickstart or our founder, Bruno Lima and his team at Pura, we'll have a link to the company and a longer bio in our show notes at kickstartfund.com.
00:24:22
Speaker
And I might even put in some of my favorite Pura scents in there.
00:24:25
Speaker
So be sure to check it out.
00:24:27
Speaker
You can listen to more episodes of Perfect Pitch wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:24:31
Speaker
And if you like what you're learning, leave us a reviewer rating.
00:24:34
Speaker
We'll be back next time with more insights from entrepreneurs and the investors who fund them.
00:24:38
Speaker
So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing.