- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01JD01H29MCW6GV6SEY9JRNCBN (via Ben Ornstein’s account, imported 2026-08-06)
Transcript
Ben Ornstein: Doing well, doing well. Where are you based? Detroit. Alec Lee: What about you? Awesome. Ben Ornstein: I’m in the random state of Delaware. Okay, nice. Alec Lee: Yeah, well, thanks so much for doing this. Ben Ornstein: How much context do you have for the call? UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Little. Alec Lee: I browse your website, have a sense of like this network that you’re building, but really that’s about it. No problem, yeah. Ben Ornstein: So I’ll give you some context. Are you familiar with Michael Hauk or Hauk’s newsletter? Okay, so that’s who reached out to you. His name is Michael Hauk. He’s a former founder of a company called Launch House that raised about $10 million from A16Z. He kind of left that company with an email newsletter that had at peak 100,000 subscribers in the startup space. Aspiring entrepreneurs, VCs, and he has created a bunch of resources for founders and people love his newsletter. Another thing that he wanted to create was a resource for founders specifically related to fundraising. And we kind of figured what better way to do that than by actually speaking with founders themselves. And so that's what this call is today. It is, we've done about 80 to 85 of these maybe, we've done a ton. Foundry of all different stages, all different sizes, industries, regions, each one's unique, it's so fun. And yeah, it's a list of softball questions, things that you either definitely answered before, or if not, you've definitely thought about. And I have the read AI guy in here because I turned this video into a text-based, I turn the transcript into a text-based document that gets put behind a paywall for the premium subscribers to access. One other thing I also want to mention is that you're probably thinking, or you might be thinking, you know, what's in this for me, kind of We do each Saturday that when we add a new one to the case study library, to the entire list of 60,000 plus people, We say which new ones were added. So you'd still get that exposure to her entire list I think that's everything. Do you have any questions? Alec Lee: No, no, oh One other thing you get to look at this before it goes live. Ben Ornstein: So you get Don't worry about that. There's anything you say that you're like, oh wait, I shouldn't have said that the chance that it Okay, sounds good Amazing. Okay All right, ready to get started? Alec Lee: Sure. Let's do it. Ben Ornstein: All right, Alec, could you please briefly introduce yourself and your startup? UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Sure. Alec Lee: So I'm Alec Lee. I'm the CEO, one of the co-founders of Endless West. We are the makers of a technology that we call molecular spirits. So what that means is that we basically deconstruct the molecular profile of wines and spirits out in the market. Figure out what makes them tick, and then we source those same components from other sources in nature, plants, yeast, et cetera, and recombine them to sort of recreate those spirits. What it allows us to do is to make spirits without aging, without sort of the traditional fermentation processes required, and to really use more sustainable and scalable feedstocks. So it dramatically lowers cost tied to production. Let's say we can produce the equivalent of an aged whiskey overnight, a significant cost reduction to traditional and somewhere in the order of about 90% reduction amount of like land required, CO2 emissions, et cetera. So it's a much more effective way to create high quality spirits ultimately. Ben Ornstein: Fascinating. That's really cool. Awesome. What can you share about raising journey, you know, specifically maybe the funding rounds, the amount of rounds that have been done, um, the amounts raised in those rounds, if you're comfortable sharing, but obviously no pressure to the valuations, um, and how long they took to close. Um, yeah, I will share valuations. Alec Lee: I think a lot of that information to the extent that people really need it can find it publicly if they really care. Um, but happy to share the amounts of time. We raised a seed round at the end of 2016. I think it was August of 16. That was $2.7 million. And then we raised a Series A That was $10 million, but I'm blanking on the date. I believe it was early 18. And then we raised a B, or a late 17, early 18. And then we raised a B, which was 20 million. That was April, May of 2020. And then we raised a series C, basically the beginning of 22, end of 21. And that was 60 million. So we raised just about 100 to date. Amazing. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: That's awesome. Ben Ornstein: You know, when you were raising these funds, what did you plan ahead of time to use the funding for? Alec Lee: Well, I mean, I guess the answer is different at each stage, right? In the early days, we really just wanted technology validation. Our entire team was just R&D, really. You know, I think I had a social media person just sort of help us manage some of the press. But at the time, it was effectively all technology. And then once we got to the series A, we wanted to build a small pilot. We were based in San Francisco at the time. And so we built that out. We moved our lab over to there as well. The B was further expansion of that. Launching new products, but it was more operating and really gearing up for what would ultimately turn into our sort of like fully full-scale facility. And that's what took the Series C to get over the line. So the Series C was primarily used to build a facility, to grow the team a little bit some more. And so that's how we ended up in Detroit. Uh, but we've since sort of moved everything over. So the San Francisco offices and lab are all just here now. Ben Ornstein: Awesome. And when you were, uh, when you were raising the funds, how did you decide which investors would be a good fit? Alec Lee: Uh, look, I think the reality is that very few, um, entrepreneurs have the luxury to turn down investors. For the most part, it's kind of like the old adage of like, why are things usually in the last place that you look for them? And it's because you stop looking for them after you find them, right? It was like, I gave everyone a spot on my cap table because I stopped looking for new investors once the round was complete. That's not necessarily literally true, right? There were many times that we did turn away investors, but for the most part, if someone was willing to write a large enough check, we made a spot for them. So for the most part, the investors that we were actually courting. So I guess the screening happened more on the front end of like, where are the conversations that actually want to happen, rather than like, who's willing to write me a check and I want to say no. That screening, I think, is largely like, probably the biggest factor is who has enough firepower to both like check in the current round, but then also to follow on in future rounds. I think there's a lot of times where, like, people are operating out of very small funds, they can't write subsequent checks, and you know that you could be shooting yourself in the foot when you go to raise your next round and you need insider support. That, I'd say, is probably the largest factor. But, of course, a very close second is like, how much does this investor look like they're going to be good to work with? And, you know, obviously that's a combination of like, how helpful can you be to how difficult are you going to make my life through opposite ends of the same of the same coin? But I think I think most founders acknowledge I should say, most founders know, even if they won't acknowledge it, that your investors are only so helpful. They're really not there to do anything for you, to recruit for you, to help you sell product, market, and stuff like that. There's all kinds of founder resources that many VCs have, and those are great, but they don't make or break the difference. In your business. So, you know, as much as I think a lot of founders want to screen for, like, who's going to help me take my business to the next level? Like, I think most of that is really just a fantasy. And so, you know, if I had to pick one or the other, I would absolutely screen for who's going to make my life least difficult. Then who is going to, you know, who do I naively think is going to, like, make my business better. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, that's an awesome way of kind of screening like that. And how did you get in touch with investors? Alec Lee: Well, it was a mix of things. I mean, early on, there was a lot of press that was kind of serendipitous. And so that brought a lot of investor inbound interest. We were also part of an accelerator called IndieBio, and they were super helpful in, you know, establishing some of our network in the early days. That network grew to, you know, advisors who helped us sort of along the startup journey. They made intros. And eventually, you know, you kind of like build your own network. Right. And, you know, one investor makes an intro to another investor and sort of you, you sort of your, your rule of decks that way. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Thanks. Ben Ornstein: Ton of sense. How do you spell the, the accelerator? Alec Lee: Just so I, um, um, Indie, I N D I E bio. I think it's all one word. Awesome. Ben Ornstein: Thank you. Appreciate that. Alec Lee: Did you do any cold outreach in the beginning? Yes, probably I'd have to I'd have to think about that Well, I'll tell you why I ask it's it's the precursor to like the question of if you actually know what I'm gonna let you talk, what were you about to say? I consider there to be two levels of cold outreach. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah. Alec Lee: One is like I go on the VCs website and almost all of them without fail have like a reach out to us form or email. I'd say I've probably never used that. Okay. The other is like, I guess it's not technically cold, but where I specifically ask for an intro. But the reason why I would differentiate that between Other forms that people might consider warm intros is like, there are many cases where investors had either gotten an intro to us, but had already heard about us naturally. And so they're like, oh, I've heard about you, really glad you guys reached out, would love to talk. Or they hear about us, and then reach out to us. And those were always the most productive ones. In cases where they had never heard of us, there was no context other than my request. That I consider to be a lot colder. That was a lot less effective. So in that sense, to me, the warm, successful ones were you're already on their radar. They're just waiting for you. Or they're actively seeing you out. Ben Ornstein: That's helpful context. In terms of, if you think about, you know, the process as a sort of funnel, the initial outreach slash introductions, you know, of those, what subset led to second, third meetings, first, second, third meetings, and then ultimately into kind of in actual investment, you know, numbers obviously. Alec Lee: Like in terms of the percentage? Sure, sure, yeah. The yields. Well, I'd say from an initial conversation, I'd say probably like 80% Yeah, it was relatively rare that people would just decline outright to at least talk. But the drop-off is very quick after that. So, I think a lot of VCs just, they'll take a meeting just to get smarter about a space, if for no other reason, even if they have no interest. So like, it just wasn't that hard to get soft. Some conversation going, especially because we were the first in our space. We're still the only ones. And we're also the benefactors of like a really hot food tech space at the time. So there's just a lot of interest, generally speaking. And what we were doing was quite novel. But yeah, the drop off was big after that. I'd say of the first conversations, maybe only 10 to 30% got to a second conversation. And then, look, this is also really around specific right like the job at a series the series C had almost no new investors and the new investors were wrote very large checks yeah so there were actually very few conversations that were involved for the largest amount of money the most conversations happen to seed. And they're like, ultimately only a few people came in. I probably had, I wouldn't be surprised if I had a hundred conversations. Um, maybe 50 is more realistic, but it's, it's generally on that order of magnitude. And so, you know, you end up with five, 10 people on the cap table, some of whom are angels and like, you know, they're, they're writing much smaller checks. Like it was really, led by two. Most of capital came from two VCs out of 50 to 100 initial conversations. So that's the rough math. But the number of conversations goes down dramatically as the check size goes up, as your reputation goes up. And in the early days also, you don't know. You're testing your pitch. You're Whereas by the time you get later, you know what it is that you're saying, you're not trialing anything with anyone. And most importantly, you already know who or what types of people are ready to hear what you have to say. And so you end up just like pre-screening a lot of the no's just because you know it's not gonna be the right fit. So at the A, I'd say I probably talked to half that number and still only brought that same number of new people in. But again, it's just because I pre-screened a whole bunch of others who like, you know, if someone's only a software investor, like I'm not gonna talk to them. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense. And it being round specific makes a lot of sense as well. And you made a point in that last answer about perfecting the pitch and you kind of learned over time. Alec Lee: What did you emphasize in your pitch? Well, I think for us, most of the stuff that we really cared about was, or that we really cared to communicate was that we have, a proprietary technology that dramatically changes the course of the future for a very stodgy industry. So that's part A, and part Part B is this technology is one that will not require significant amounts of capital in order to come to fruition. Now, obviously we've raised a hundred million dollars. So, you know, it's in retrospect, naive of me to say, like, we don't need a lot of money. If you compare our commercial progress against, and I'm not necessarily just talking sales, but even as simple as building a facility with X capacity and validating the technology, showing that we can actually make a profitable product. To be able to show very strong gross margins and have a full-scale facility that is competitive with the large scale manufacturers or competitors, right? To have everything regulatory and like all of that fully validated. Most of our peers who've checked all those boxes and even the best funded ones haven't checked all of those boxes. Most of our peers have had to raise hundreds of millions to do that. You know, five to 10X what we have. And so like us, it was really important to communicate ratio of like, these are the results we can produce per unit per like dollar invested. That, that I think was probably more important than the first part. You know, but the first part obviously was sort of like lays the groundwork. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Right? Ben Ornstein: Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense. Pretty compelling pitch. What did you you to drive urgency among investors to close the round? Any FOMO tactics or anything like that? Alec Lee: No, I'd say if anything, I got feedback from my investors being like, hey, you're not aggressive enough. They didn't necessarily phrase it that way, but they're like, hey, you're telling me stuff that's have been too realistic like sell me the dream and you know the context for me is like I bootstrapped my first company to an exit and you know a lot of your mentality really gets galvanized in those very early days of entrepreneurship when you know it's not about, like, you don't have anyone else's money, and whether or not you're successful makes a difference to whether or not you pay rent. So, like, we had always approached the world far more conservatively, I think, than a lot of our counterparts. And that meant that, frankly, I think we survived a lot longer with the amount of capital that we've raised than we otherwise would have. But it also made the pitch a lot harder in many ways because I wasn't willing to just make shit up just because some investor thought that the numbers weren't optimistic enough. And to be clear, Even then, in a startup world, you still end up with optimism in schedule or optimism in cost, all kinds of optimism, but certainly better to have scaled back an order of magnitude and then been closer to bid right than just have been completely, completely off. Yeah. I think that there is a cohort of investors who want to invest in the dreamer because they know that some of the dreamers are just going to make it really, really big and that's the game that they're playing. You don't get there if you're not a dreamer. I don't think that's actually true. That's sort of like the whole mentality. And the other investors who are like, no, I want to invest. I don't want to work with someone who's down to earth. It was like, has their feet planted on the ground and is like kind of for real. So in that sense, like, our investor base also selected itself. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yep. Ben Ornstein: That's an interesting, unique perspective. I like that a lot. You get these founders that do bullshit and do convince investors that way, but you took the other complete other side of the spectrum because you understand as a bootstrapped founder that like, look, I'm not going to bullshit you. This is the truth. Here's where we are. Here's where we're going. I like that a lot. As an investor, I would have appreciated that. But yeah, you're right. You know, certain investors have their different cups of tea. Alec Lee: But so, you know, what were, what was the biggest challenge that came up during fundraising? Oh, it's almost always like the time to close. It's just the herding of the cats. I tell this particular story relatively often, um, but I think, like, the best illustration for us, although obviously it's been many flavors, each round has its own, like, unique flavor of, like, why is it dragging out? But for the seed round, we got that term sheet signed, I wanna say, June. And we didn't do the full close until, let's say the end of August, early September. In retrospect, that was quick. Yeah, but I remember just losing so much sleep agonizing over it. And the big thing was, I had one big investor in Hong Kong. I had The same thing happened for the A too. I had a big investor in Europe. And then I was on Pacific time and my attorneys were on Eastern time. And so what it meant was that every Monday is basically someone else's Sunday. And every Friday is someone's Saturday. And every loop takes 24 hours to just get one answer to one question. So if you have three successful questions, That takes one week. Ben Ornstein: So it was that stupid. Alec Lee: It was that just like, are you okay with this? Well, I have to see if they're okay with it. Well, then they have to respond. Like someone gives comments and now you have to do it all over again. So that was the worst part is just like everyone agrees, but then the moment you start drafting documents and like, all those little stupid details that the lawyers charge their fees for, that's the worst part of it. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, that's frustrating. I could imagine that just like, oh my God, can this process just end, please? Yeah, that's rough. Alec Lee: I mean, like obviously we've dealt with real horror stories. Like for the B, I had a lead with a side term sheet back out because it was February of 2020 and COVID hit and like my wife had just given birth and so like we were in the hospital when These investors are saying like hey, you know, we're only gonna invest in COVID stuff for the rest of the year So we're out and I'm like we have a couple months of cash left. So like what the hell are we gonna do like, but like that is almost an acute problem and so it like feels like Okay, this is a really, really big problem that's existential. And I'm going to fix it. And within a few days or a few weeks, it's fixed. Whereas the other stuff is just like, and you can even kind of understand it. It's like, well, this is how the world is. So I just have to like live with it. Whereas with the bullshit slog, it's like, there's no reason that it needs to take this long. It's just annoying. And it's just taking too long, and that's it. You have to suck it up anyway. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, that's a wild story. Are there any other crazy, unique stories that you'd like to bring up that you haven't mentioned? Ben Ornstein: Related to fundraising. Alec Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I would say this, I wouldn't say this is a crazy story, and I'm gonna gloss over a little bit of it, because it's more about the lesson than about the specific story. I had an investor in one of my rounds who offered to lead a term sheet at a pretty aggressively low valuation. What I what I found when you when you ask about FOMO I think it's really interesting like what I found was I had other investors who were sitting on the sidelines but the moment they saw this term sheet come through and realized like uh-oh if this happens this way under values what I think this company is worth and therefore what my shares are worth. Like I don't want this other person coming in and basically doing this, taking this predatory position in my company. So I'm going to write a term sheet instead that evaluation that I think is fair. And so those investors weren't willing to step up initially, but only when things started to like look the way it looked that like they were going to go down that they're like, okay, fine, fine, we got this. So like, I think that there's an angle to be played obviously under the right circumstances where, you know, it's not really FOMO, right? But there's still something to be said about this perspective of like, you can, Get investors on board Or to be more aggressive when like they sense If they get scared about it now, obviously this will never happen with Well, I know other stories of where it has happened But it's much rarer to happen where like you have a term sheet from an outsider And then a different outsider sees that and I was like, no, okay I'm willing to do it for an even better deal. I mean, I've heard of those. But I think that there's a really interesting dynamic to play with insider investors, where like they're all, they all have their incentives at play. And if you understand what those are, and you can properly, you know, triage what conversations you're having, who's coming in first to write a term sheet, whose incentives might not be aligned with that and getting them to play off of each other, then you can end up in a better position. And I wouldn't say that any of this was, like, sneaky. The reality is that first term sheet was too low. It wasn't fair. And that round came in at what I thought was an actually fair valuation. We've raised more money at only increasing valuations since then. So, like, Clearly, you know, no one's sitting here now saying that round was not good. So, like, I think that founders have a much harder time employing those tactics because it's very situation specific. But insider investors, obviously, like there's an angle, there's an extra leverage there that founders have. They obviously don't when it's not an insider investor. Ben Ornstein: A hundred percent. That's a crazy story. And how did it work? Did you kind of tell the insider, the existing investors, you're like, Hey, there's this term sheet, I'm considering it. Is that how you kind of framed it to the investors, the existing ones? Alec Lee: I was in the middle of a fundraising, so I was soliciting term sheets. And so I got this term Here's some terms, let's take a look at it. And that's when they came back and were like, no, that doesn't work. They're like, no way, no shot. That's right. For those investors, you got to put your money where your mouth is. They could have said no shot, but if they didn't put up their own term sheet, it would have gotten done. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, no, that's a crazy story. Wow. Yeah. Had a ton over this whole journey. That's awesome. Alec Lee: Yeah, the worst was definitely the COVID spike. How did you solve that one, by the way? I had another inside investor who had actually made the referral to this group. And they mostly just wanted someone else to headline it, even if they were going to write the biggest check. And so when that headline was out there, like, well, look, we're still excited about the deal. So I guess like, we'll just do it on the same terms and just call it a day and move on. Um, you know, I think they knew at that point, like it either gets done or we pack up and they didn't want, they didn't want us to back up. So, um, they, they, they got it done. The rest of the investor base was still very excited. I actually didn't have that much of a hard time closing the rest of the round. It got a little dicey at the end, again, like just the stupid last day dynamics. But the vast majority of that round, despite the fact that it was like peak COVID was perfectly fine with all those changes. I literally just needed someone to write the term sheet. Ben Ornstein: No, it makes sense. And man, your wife, completely unrelated, your wife had a kid like right before COVID? Alec Lee: Yeah, so she was born February 2nd. And like, lockdown in San Francisco happened, you know, that month. So like within a couple of weeks. But obviously, timing with that. Yeah, like it was already falling apart in Asia. Yeah, investors who backed out were in in Asia. And so they were like, everything was already shutting down in January. And so it was really end of January, beginning of February that they gave us this, this notice. Um, and so that was more like a bunch of complications. She's fine now, but there was a bunch of complications. So it was just like a really bad time for me personally to be in the hospital for two weeks with them. And it was just like, this is not what I want to be in my laptop. Um, right. But... Yeah, that's right. I think like when people who aren't founders talk about like how great it, how much fun it must be and like all the luxuries that come with it, like this is what founders are talking about when they say blood, sweat and tears. So, yeah, you know, like, I don't know what an employee is, who would go, who would be willing to do that. But it's what it takes. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah, yeah. Ben Ornstein: Well, and that leads really well into the next question of, you know, what's one piece of fundraising that you would give to other founders? Alec Lee: I think my answer would have changed a lot or has changed a lot. Over time. I think, you know, if you had asked me this a few years ago, it would be, my answer would be a lot more focused on like how to triage investors and like get warm intros and, you know, like build FOMO you know, all those standard cliche stories that you get. I think only after 2022, like the big run up and the big fall in startups have I like changed my tune on this. And now I'd say, You know, your startup has to meet a moment. Because now I've seen three, like, crashes, if you will. There was one, there was a time in 2017 where things started to look like they were going to get overheated. It ended up not coming to fruition. But there was like a whole quarter, at least, where investors were like, yeah, Noah's deploying capital right now. And then it happened again, I wanna say at the end of 19. And that one was when WeWork happened. Everyone wrote down that investment and a lot of people were just reevaluating. Obviously then there was COVID and now this, So I guess that's the fourth one. And I've seen the industry rise and fall because no one was talking about food tech in 2016 when we started this. Impossible Foods was still a stealth company. So people were, the investor, the community was just starting to pay attention to the space. And now it's like borderline radioactive. And so like, as I look at the trajectory of those two things together, like you see specific magical intersections of like when the time is really right for a fundraise, like things are going well in the market and things are going well in your industry. And you're just starting to ride the wave, but it's not yet too big or too bubbly. And there aren't too many competitors, but there are enough where people like are, there's enough conversations that are happening. And so like, so much of that is extrinsic to you that I think like a lot of founders just, I think a lot of founders live in a world where like you have full agency. It's your startup and you get to write your own destiny. And if you didn't believe those things, you wouldn't be a founder anyway. So like there requires some, there requires sufficient level of hubris to believe all those things about what you can do. And I think inside of that, many founders miss that like timing and these extrinsic factors matter are so much more than what you were gonna do. And the best founders over a long stretch of time are gonna time those things well. That's what I mean by like, your startup has to meet the moment. Yeah. I love that. Ben Ornstein: That's so true. And like, if those magical moments are happening, you're likely just timing it correctly. I like the long-term piece, because over the long-term, you can retrospectively look back and see, oh, I actually did time it right for this reason. And so, yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense. Alec Lee: Yeah. I think, like, I've seen, being able to watch this cadence has meant that, like, you've seen startups fail to raise, who seem like they're good startups, but are going at the wrong time. And it also means that you've seen startups who have raised very successfully, if not too well, at the exact right time to raise. But because, you know, meeting the moment isn't just about when you can fundraise. It's about, like, building a long-term business. If you raise too much money at the end of 2021, without all this pressure, just spend it really, really fast, knowing that in 2022, you'd have to raise again, you'd have to raise again, you were setting yourself up for failure. So obviously we've all seen startups like that too, raise way too much money, burn it all, and then they're screwed, right? And so you see both sides of that when you look at it over long-term, but in a short-term it's like, oh shit, how did they raise $400 million? And why am I over here looking like the only asshole who like, I just raised 60 like an idiot, right? And, you know, then you see, you know, a down round where everyone gets wiped out or shut down entirely. And then you’re sort of like more thankful for being the tortoise. Yeah. Yeah. No, you’re so right. Ben Ornstein: There’s both sides of the spectrum. Some right way too much. Oh my God. We have a podcast as well, and we interviewed the Cameo founder, literally a billion dollar company. And they just raised, I think publicly it was 90 million. I don’t remember the valuation, but 90% contraction, I believe. So yeah, both sides of the spectrum, 100%. Who’s an investor that you would recommend other founders work with? Alec Lee: I think IndieBio is excellent. It depends on what stage you’re at, right? Like they’re going to catch people super early. So if you’re already at like an A, B, like it’s too late for them, right? They’re an accelerator. But for a first time founder or someone who’s like just getting their feet wet again after a transition, I think they’re excellent. I’ve had a really great experience working with Collaborative Fund. Horizons Ventures, they’ve all been super great, very supportive over the years. And then, you know, a sort of like bit off the radar, but I think hopefully a rising star. There’s a fund called Level One Fund, a small group of guys. They call that our last round, and you know, I’ve gotten to know them very, very well. You know, they’re like multi-sector, effectively an evergreen fund. And they just like, they’re one of very few investors who like get really close with their founders. And I think that like building those deeper relationships is actually super, super valuable in like making sure that everyone’s like the long-term and then no one’s gonna like burn you to the ground just to sort of like both burn you out, right? But also just like the moment things look rough, just be like, all right, well, you’re done, get out, right? So, you know, as much as I said at the beginning, like your investors don’t really matter, obviously matter a lot, especially when they matter when things are going well, very, very well. And they matter when things are going very, very badly. And so, yeah, I’d say like those are the three groups that have been, four groups that have been really, really great with us over the years. Ben Ornstein: Awesome. Just a couple of questions left. You know, are there any resources you would recommend to other founders? Alec Lee: This could be, you know, books, podcasts, newsletters, really anything. Alec Lee: I don’t think I have any recommendations that haven’t already been made a hundred times by others. Ben Ornstein: Sometimes reiterating is valuable though. Like we do like seeing if there’s multiple on the same boundaries. Alec Lee: I’d say most of the stuff that I’ve paid attention to lately has been around like food in particular. Alec Lee: I’m a little under the weather right now. So I’m just, I feel like I’m just blanking on this, but let me, if I think of anything that I, that I think is worth recommending, I will, I’ll send it to you. Ben Ornstein: Sounds good. I’ll leave that question blank. So when you get the, um, the thing you can add, no worries. Alec Lee: Yeah. I love listening to how I built this. Oh, one of my favorites. At the same time, I always feel like, I don’t want to say there’s like homogeneity of the answers, but like some of the people who have been interviewed, like I know personally, and I’ve had, I’ve like heard their stories the way that they would tell them off of a podcast. And I think a lot of the questions are like oriented around success and the standard survey thing was a tire fire. A lot of the negatives are still very PR friendly. And so that’s the trouble that I have with a lot of media is Like even when I was getting interviewed, like there was a lot of press in the first couple of years, like almost no one ever answered, asked an interesting or hard question. I think that like, they’re not, they’re trying to not rock the boat. And I think a lot of people react very negatively when you ask them really hard hitting questions. And so like, everything’s a softball. But when everything’s a softball, that means nothing is interesting. And so I always take a lot of those things with a grain of salt. It’s like, yeah, they do talk about their struggles. We’re in the wine industry, right? And he did one recently with founders of Barefoot Wine, which got bought by Gallo, a huge success story. They put a few decades into it, so it’s like, overnight success. But I think you still get a lot of the same lessons out of it. It’s like perseverance, and you just got to believe in yourself. And like, you can run through that list. And it’s like, okay, well, tell me something that’ll be like uniquely valuable to me. And like that, I think that’s just a lot harder a because like, you’re always looking for something different than like what the next person is listening to it for. And your situation is very, very unique. And I think those formats, I think people are just a lot more candid when it’s private. And so it’s just really hard to get people to say the things you really need to hear if it’s public format. Ben Ornstein: That’s a really good point. And we have a podcast and we, I do the research for, I’m not the host. I’ve been a host of podcasts before. And so I know the space extremely well. I completely agree with what you’re saying. Would you be open to featuring on the show? And we would dive into a lot of that stuff, like being like the real founder stuff. Is that something you’d be open to? UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yes. Alec Lee: I’m only hesitating because I wonder if it’s like, if I’ll be more valuable to you after we either exit or like at the end of the life, right? Part of the challenge of like being super Now in the middle of it is, I just don’t want to say anything that could come back and bite me in the ass. Ben Ornstein: Off record, is that anywhere near in the future or are you guys not there yet? Alec Lee: We’ll have one outcome or the other, probably in the next 24 months, almost certainly. More likely within the next 12. Okay. But yes a positive outcome is definitely in the cards But it’s gonna require a lot more cards well played and then that’s part of why I wonder like if If you catch me in 12 months, you’ll either get you’ll get the end of the story almost certainly one way or another But you’ll get very different stories right now There’s just a ton of ambiguity that I’m trying to navigate through no worries that makes a lot And I think Ben Ornstein: it would, I agree with you. I think it would be a better story and you could be more candid, you know, after everything kind of happens. So let’s hold on that. I love your transparency. And if I was the host of this show, I think we’d have, I mean, Hauk, who I work with, he’s the host. He’s an incredible host as well. I think it’s gonna be a great episode. Let’s just keep that in the back of the mind. We’ll follow up. You know, on that kind of stuff. Alec Lee: Awesome. Ben Ornstein: I appreciate that. Thank you. One last question. Do you have any hot takes regarding the fundraising process? Alec Lee: I think I know what you mean by that question, but why don’t you just tell me what you mean by that question? Ben Ornstein: Sure. Maybe things that maybe not everyone would agree with you. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: regarding fundraising. Alec Lee: There have been several times that I’ve like actively disagreed with either investor about what we should be doing for our fundraise, or just generally how to approach. But it’s been a minute now, and so I’m trying to recall. It’s never, they don’t stick in my memory when it’s an investor who’s very small, they don’t hear from often. It’s hardest when It’s the investors that I really care about, that I really respect, or who are very actively involved. Do you have an example of something you’ve heard, I feel like there are very few things where we are so contrarian that it would be super controversial. But if you give me an example of something that you’ve heard that you thought was really interesting, it might spark something. Ben Ornstein: Some people have said that VCs are not as I agree with you, by the way. There are a few things that are unbelievably contrarian for this specific topic. Some have said that VCs aren’t as important as people think they are, which is not an interesting one. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: I’m blanking right now. Ben Ornstein: Again, we’ve done like 80 of these and I can’t think of one. Alec Lee: Some people might say like, oh, don’t raise too much money. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, yeah. Alec Lee: I mean, that’s one that people will say, raise as much as you possibly can. Yeah, I think. Well, look. This may not be the best answer to your question, but I think it’s probably still for a lot of founders to hear. I think a lot of us are navigating startups with this idea that I have a sea of wrong answers in front of me and I’m trying to catch the right answer with my fishing pole and eventually it’ll come and then once I catch that right answer I can roll a little bit further and then like throw my bait back in and try to catch the next right answer. And if I catch enough right answers then I get to the finish line. And I think the reality is more that like there’s a sea of right answers and a sea of wrong answers and as long as you get enough right answers among the wrong answers that you’ve also caught, you’re going to Ben Ornstein: be okay. Alec Lee: The difficulty isn’t that you know whether or not the answer you’ve caught in real time is right or not. It’s that in many cases, whether it’s the right answer or not will be written after the fact. You’re only going to leave the story when it’s half over. And then realize like, oh, this is the narrative of the company. Like this is, this is the pitch we’ve been trying to make. Like this is the paper we should have made the whole time. This is how we should or shouldn’t have spent the money. These are the people we should or shouldn’t have hired. And it will be obvious in real time. So to that, like that’s, that to me, when people say that like startups is storytelling, that’s what it means to me is that you’re, you’re literally writing the story in real, you’re writing the story in real time, but you don’t know what any of it means. Until you look back at it a year later. And so in that sense, I think everyone’s hot take about what you should or shouldn’t do in fundraising is only moderately useful in the sense that your story’s correct answer is either raise too much or don’t raise It’s one of those two, right? But you get to be the one who translates the gibberish three years from now. So it almost doesn’t even matter. Yeah, like to me, those best founders are the ones who know how to tell the story after it’s been written. Because when they’re telling it in writing, time, a lot of it is just sort of nonsense. And I think that we like tend to have this survival, like survivor’s bias, where, you know, like, these are the people who are super, super smart. But, you know, stupid example that’s like super cliche, right, is like, Elon Musk makes all these promises all the time, like constantly making promises that he doesn’t deliver But the thing is, when he tells a story in retrospect, it always makes sense, right? And so in that sense, the storytelling isn’t actually in real time, it’s all in past tense. And that’s when people actually start to understand what it is that you’re trying to do. I had an investor who was very early in Tesla. My pitch was for a time, actually still is we have a net dividend from this they were saying we were saying we want to do b2b we basically want to produce so that we can rely on other people’s brands so that we don’t have to build brand and it’s a lot safer and you know this investor was like yeah that was tesla series b pitch before they realized they could build brand they were like we’re gonna launch the roadster everyone’s gonna get super hyper about electric vehicles, and then we’re going to license the technology to GM and Toyota, because then we’re going to have to build brand. And, you know, it’s basically going to be an IP company, right? It’s only in retrospect that you get to say, like, no, no, we want to do brand the whole time. Like, because look at how well it worked, right? And everyone loved him on Twitter. And like, we just don’t, you don’t know in advance. So you’re just kind of like, say all the best way you can and don’t lose too much sleep over those decisions. I think that like, yeah. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: That’s awesome. Ben Ornstein: I love that. Yeah, no, Alec, this has been a ton of fun. I really, truly enjoyed this one. I love your perspective. I love the way you look at things. I’m very aligned with a lot of it. So yeah, I’m gonna take I don’t know Up to a week could be only a couple days really depends on how much work I have And I’ll get a draft over to you to review and then when you give Alec Lee: me the go-ahead, we’ll we’ll push this live Okay, sounds good. Thanks Ben. Ben Ornstein: Appreciate the conversation and I’ll talk soon Amazing looking forward to it. Thanks again