Episode 06 - From Maine to MasterCard and Back: Building Legacy Through Innovation with Jen Millard
In hindsight, I realized that I got most of the jobs that other people had been fired for, and I just wasn't afraid. I was like, I don't know. I guess I could do that. Sometimes, I think those programs give fresh eyes to existing problems that often get overlooked. Why does a 29 year old have, the agency to manage an $800,000,000 budget?
Ilya Tabakh:Welcome to EIR Live, where we dive into the lives and lessons of entrepreneurs in residence. I'm Ilya Tabakh, together with my co host, Terrance Orr, ready to bring you closer to the heartbeat of the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. Every episode, we explore the real stories behind the ideas, successes, setbacks, and everything in between. For everyone from aspiring EIRs to seasoned pros, EIR Live is your gateway to the depth of the entrepreneurial journey and bringing innovative insights into the broader world. Check out the full details in the episode description.
Ilya Tabakh:Subscribe to stay updated, and join us as we uncover what it takes to transform visions into ventures. Welcome aboard. Let's grow together. Alright. And we're back for another amazing episode.
Ilya Tabakh:We've had a a lot of great, guests, to date. But today, we have, Jen Millard, who I had the pleasure of sitting down with for coffee in Austin probably two and a half or 3 years ago now. And it was funny because that was pretty early in my kinda journey of reaching out and actually sitting down with, entrepreneurs and residents and folks that, you know, have kind of that background generally. And it was amazing because, Jen and I sat down, and it was a really dynamic conversation. I think personality wise, it probably would have been anyway, but it was, you know, every conversation with another EIR is, like, 10 minutes of therapy and, like, pretty common shared stories.
Ilya Tabakh:And I think it was that and then some with Jen. And so I'm really excited that, we're able to have her, join us on the episode and ultimately get to dig in into her kind of amazing and dynamic background. I'm not gonna kind of editorialize yet, on on your background, Jen. I I might just ask you to, tell us a little bit about how you got started, and then ultimately launched into your career, and then we'll kind of walk through that journey, and then Terrance and I will dive in with some questions. So maybe if you can tell us a little bit, what what launched Jen's career.
Jen Millard:Wow. Well, happy to be here, Ilya and Terrance. Thanks so much. And, EIR as a topic and as a a passion is close to my heart. I think it's probably one of the best roles a a founder could ever have the privilege of having.
Jen Millard:Take some time to think of, your next great idea with the guardrails placed around your concepting by others. But starting my career, I always say I I was a first gen college student. I hitched a ride to Colby College with my best friend who happened to also get into Colby College, and, people always always were like, well, did your parents take you to interview? I'm like, I was a poor student from Maine. I just had to figure out how to get to college.
Jen Millard:So I consider Colby to be a foundational part of my, origination, if you will. And, at Colby, quickly realized that I was not likely to get a job in Maine after graduating from Colby. My family were lobstermen, excavators, construction home builders, and, candidly, the women in the family didn't work in those businesses because my uncles claimed there was bad language. Now if they knew I moved to software with a bunch swearing engineers all day, they'd still have a problem with that. But, at the time, that was what was going on.
Jen Millard:So I, I left Maine to join Sears Roebuck in their management training program. I moved to Chicago, and, that was the start of my sort of consumer obsession, I would say. So my career was, really launched in retail, spent a decade at Sears back in the day. I'm I'm dating myself. And if you were good at your job and goal oriented and aggressive, you could have a new job every couple years at Sears.
Jen Millard:Very much a resume building company. And I think this is actually a a big error in today's world for emerging early in career young people as companies don't have these programs anymore. So how do we expect to grow salespeople? So from, from there, I actually left and took Bed Bath and Beyond public. That was my first, like, IPO swing experience and then opening 700 stores in 2 years and the chaos that ensues around all that.
Jen Millard:And then, my last retail job, I worked for Saks. And that was back in the day when Saks had department stores and all kinds of glorious things, and you'd go shopping for the day. And we had cruise wear back in the day. You know? So we just don't have those kind of patterns.
Jen Millard:And so I shifted my career at that point to more software orientation. So I I joined a consulting practice called Macmillan Doolittle. Most of my clients were technology clients, on the West Coast that were trying to sell to retailers, and I kind of, moved into more of a consultatory role for software companies. And that's really what started the journey, Elliot.
Ilya Tabakh:Before we dive into that, actually, you you speaking about Sears and sort of that structured program, I've actually worked with a handful of, you know, kind of older established traditional companies. And it it's sort of striking to me the difference on how they think about talent development. And since you spent, you know, kind of that much time Back in
Jen Millard:the day. Yeah. If you wanted to be an operator when I graduated in college in 1990, I'll date myself. If you wanted to be an operator in retail, you went to the Sears training program, and it was really hard to get into. Very, very cultivated, very curated.
Jen Millard:If you wanted to be a buyer, you went to the Macy's training program. Very well known, very popular, very successful. Most of the, I'd say, best buyers I've ever met in my lifetime went through the Macy's buying program.
Terrance Orr:Mhmm.
Jen Millard:Unfortunately, we don't tend to, you know, grow our own talent these days. Right? We expect talent to arrive pretrained. I think that's a kind of an egregious error in a lot of ways, especially around management, management training, leadership skills. You can't necessarily learn those from a classroom or from a book.
Jen Millard:You actually need to practice those as operators. And I think the reason why I've be I've been a great operator throughout my career is I had to run retail stores when I was 27 years old. I didn't have a choice. I had to learn how to figure it out, and so you couldn't be afraid. And so if you kind of are fearless and, like, I can learn anything and you have the confidence from experiences that put you in those positions to earn that confidence, you can become a better entrepreneur.
Ilya Tabakh:Yeah. And and and what I've seen is sort of the generation or 2 ago in these historic companies, the the folks were kind of rotated, and had kind of more dynamic, you know, end to end experiences. And in many cases, that you know? And and there are some programs still. Like, I was, Yeah.
Ilya Tabakh:A few years ago, I was at Hallmark, like, the card folks.
Jen Millard:Yeah. I love that company.
Ilya Tabakh:And there there's still, like, a lot of kinda work and thinking about how do you educate and digitize and sort of do all these things. And they also have, like, an art center where folks are carving gnomes and doing all kinds of crazy creative art stuff. But but, yeah, it's just like a different it's interesting to sort of think about.
Terrance Orr:No. I I'm gonna add on to that because, you know, I I was fortunate enough to sort of, like, go through a program like this at a company called EMC, which most people knew as a sort of global IT infrastructure sort of company and and provider, and they had a world class sort of sales program for, like, inside sales. And I went through that program, and I never learned more in my entire life and career than going through that program. It was, like, rigorous. You know, a lot of exams, a lot of tests, selling.
Terrance Orr:I mean, it was just a very interesting program, but without that program, I don't know that I'd be I I would have the foundation, right, to do the things that I do today. So hearing Jin talk about her experience going through the management program and how they sort of rotate you through different departments, you just sort of have to learn. You drink from the fire hose.
Jen Millard:You're just showing up and you're like, okay. I'm gonna run non selling payroll for Sears from now on, and, it's $800,000,000. That's
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:Higher revenue than any of my companies since I worked in corporate America.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:So, you know, I you know, you're like, why does a 29 year old have, the agency to manage an $800,000,000 budget?
Terrance Orr:Mhmm.
Jen Millard:In hindsight, I realized that I got most of the jobs that other people had been fired for, and I just wasn't afraid. I was like, I don't know. I guess I could do that. I could I could do that. It's not selling payroll.
Jen Millard:How hard can it be?
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:And I ended up doing amazing things with cost takeout. You know? Sometimes, I think those programs give fresh eyes to existing problems that often get overlooked. So, I think we're missing a lot of opportunities with how we bring young people forward in the workforce today, and trying trying to do my part in making that better. I give back at Colby.
Jen Millard:I, participate in our entrepreneurship program. I'm a trustee at our college. It means a lot to me to do that, give back in 1 generation, to be honest, and, I feel like, I owe my career to the ability to learn how to learn, which I learned at Colby College.
Ilya Tabakh:That's awesome. And, I mean, I I think in some ways, taking an entrepreneur from the wild and putting them in residence is also, you know, kind of a different training program on how to be agile and and running beyond your agency, maybe in some cases or at the very age of it at least. And so that's an interesting I hadn't really thought about sort of the the kind of formal and informal training pathways, but that's a kind of an interesting thing to look into. I mean, I guess in those roles, though, you you almost let's let's move into the kinda consulting software side a little bit more. You learn how to sort of get your bearings, you know, and then ultimately start moving quickly when you're, you know, placed into new roles.
Ilya Tabakh:So maybe a little bit of that was applicable in into kinda your second software chapter and kind of the the consulting side.
Jen Millard:I think so. I mean, because, you know, the ability to, synthesize a lot of information quickly to to generate a point of view, whether it's around a product position, whether it's around an executive organization, manifesting how you're gonna solve a problem. I think that does kind of pull from multifaceted experience. But I do think, and what I share with a lot of young entrepreneurs is, there's always a, you know, I'm gonna fail. I'm going to I'm going to let an investor down.
Jen Millard:I'm going to not succeed in a pilot for a client. All those things are likely true. It's how you manage your emotions and yourself to navigate those things that are likely to be true. And if you find them to be energy generating or energy draining, If they are energy draining, you are likely not an entrepreneurial candidate. If they are energy fulfilling, I can be in a pitch, Ilya, for months at a time.
Jen Millard:If I believe it and I'm in it and I'm in the cycle, you know, lean in harder. Not all people are wired that way. Right? Sometimes the fear of no net is, is true is a real fear of, you know, they didn't grow up in a family. Maybe they had traditional careers.
Jen Millard:Maybe they all, you know, they had, sort of normal 9 to 5 jobs. As a sidebar, my mom has not recognized what I do since I worked at Sears because, she could, like, recognize what Sears was. But when I started to move to software that had names like True Access or made up names for, like, data businesses, you know, she keeps asking if I'm you seem to work so much, honey. Are you sure you're getting overtime? He doesn't understand, right, from a sort of a main mode to a software mode.
Jen Millard:So I often have to remind her that, main is a different world, to the rest of the world.
Ilya Tabakh:And, honestly, two points on that. I I think it's really important to know, you know, it's different being a founder than an early employee at a start up. And and, ultimately, kind of the doing and starting a thing versus joining a thing early are are also different experiences even if it's within kind of corporate experience.
Jen Millard:Risk profiles. Right? Different risk profiles of individuals. Right? Like, you know, I've I've founded 4 companies.
Jen Millard:One not successful, 3 reasonably successful exits, One great exit, 2 reasonable exits, one not so good exit. Probably learned the most at the not so good exit, because you learn more from places that are struggling than places that are doing well in most cases. And so the problems, at at the company, it was a a large digital vending machine company that you see in airports, that say Best Buy or Sprinkles. But the capitalization of that machine became the challenge for that business. And so in, like, 08, 09, when it was easy to get debt, we used to underwrite all those machines on behalf of our customers.
Jen Millard:When that debt line ran up, where does that liability go on whose balance sheet? And that's ultimately what challenged the company. And so the war story that I I had sort of teed up to share with you was I had to choose which vendors would be paid. We were running out of money. We had rent payments.
Jen Millard:We had payroll. And literally sitting down with the controller of, alright, after we pay payroll, who's getting paid? Very, you know, dark times, I would say. You know, very dark times. Nobody wants to feel like they let down their investors, their employees.
Jen Millard:But in the end, it was actually a business model problem. Company still challenges with that same problem today, which is where does the liability sit? So they never solved the problem. They're still wrestling with the problem, but it's 15 years later.
Ilya Tabakh:Well, that's crazy. So so what what's fun there is, a lot of business model problems in the so you just said a couple of things I wanna dig into. 1 Yeah. Is sort of in that war story, you know, it's it's one thing to say it was dark times. It was hard.
Ilya Tabakh:It's another thing to, like, zoom back back there and remember sort of the feelings and
Jen Millard:My heart palpitations already started of sitting there in my, like, sweatshirt and jeans with our controller who's, you know, old enough to be my grandfather at the time, god love him, and, you know, having to make, you know, very difficult decisions, that would affect, you know, who would who who would be paid and and how we would do that and how we were gonna handle the wind down and how you would lay off employees with the most grace possible, and help them transition to other jobs with grace. You know? Very, human lessons, I think, that I've carried through that that experience through all my other companies that, you know, we all we all try to take care of employees during great times. We want people to feel energized and participatory. People actually need more support during hard times.
Terrance Orr:Yeah.
Jen Millard:Like, you as the founder may be in it, but to your point, Ilya, the people that join you are less risk tolerant than you.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:They join you because they believe in you, and they believe in the vision of the company. So it's important for founders to remember that if you get defeated, everyone around you will also quickly get defeated.
Terrance Orr:So, Jen, from your early time at at Sears and all the roles that you've done and consumer leading up to the role you're talking about now before we get to what you did in financial services, what lessons did you learn during that very dark time where if you can give somebody advice today, right, who's potentially going through that similar thing, what would you tell them?
Jen Millard:Give themselves great grace. It's going to be difficult. Every conversation is difficult. Everyone you're talking to is a human being. Everyone has feelings and families and their own concerns, so it's usually around helping the employees.
Jen Millard:What you realize is the finances for the company are a disaster, and that's a whole other level of crazy. But the people that you can touch every day and can help through Right. You know, this happened over a very rapid period, so there was not a lot of advance notice. And so how you treat people ultimately in that experience, I've been fortunate that, a couple of those people have come on to work with me multiple times again, which which I think shows with great grace, you can earn great trust.
Ilya Tabakh:That's right. That's awesome. Yeah. The the other thing I wanted to dive into a a little bit is a lot of folks don't realize the, you know, sort of learnings of broken business model or bearing risk or kind of the financial mechanisms that sort of either accelerate or, slow down scale, are actually pretty, applicable across, you know, multiple sectors. Like, that whole, where do you whose balance sheet do you place the cash flow on in, like, utility and infrastructure is probably gonna be the thing that we're gonna really have to solve if we're gonna unlock institutional capital for the energy transition.
Ilya Tabakh:Right? And and a lot of the startups are, like, coming in. Everything's broken. You're doing everything wrong. Just like, what do you know about finance?
Ilya Tabakh:And, like, you know, I'm like, where are we gonna get a $100,000,000,000,000? And they're like, you know, and so it's, yeah, it's just really interesting to to think about.
Jen Millard:Yeah. It was a critical lesson, I'd say. You know, it was my first startup. You know, I'd come from, consulting. I helped him close a a big I'd helped him close Macy's as a client.
Jen Millard:Mhmm. And, he didn't have anyone to run the project. Right? He's like, 10, now that we closed it, we don't have anyone to run the client. Would you would you move to Bay Area for a couple years?
Jen Millard:And it was 08, 09. You know? It was not a great time to be a retail consultant. What would you know, it didn't seem like a bad idea to move to the Bay Area for a couple years. My kids were in, middle school, so if I was going to do it, that was sort of the window to do it.
Jen Millard:And so I was brave. I didn't know anyone. I moved as a single parent with 2 kids to the Bay Area, and I started working with, Gaur Smith, who's CEO of Zoom Systems, who is that company. And I'm, I I'm humbled by that experience. It was a it was a hard business, both logistically and capital.
Jen Millard:It was capital intensive, logistically heavy, working with airports at night and moving in security and retail, and it was a crazy time to be working in that arena. And then, with sort of that debt, issue that literally sort of happened overnight when the debt lines started to dry up, There was a a beautiful business being incubated at Bessemer, which was actually called bill shrink at the time, Terrance and Ilya. And, a colleague of mine thought I should meet the founder of this business because he thought I'd be a great match to the founder, and I knew a lot of retailers. And this was a Fintech founder who was the founder of Yodlee back in the day, which was kind of the first transaction data software stack that you could build PFM or personal financial management on top of or bank statements. It was a big deal at the time, and he was incubated in the basement of Bessemer to start what we then created, which was the card linked offer business, which was the ability to put an offer attached to your credit card that was specific to you, personalized to you, so that when you went to Home Depot and you swipe that card, you would get a what what we call the cashback or statement credit back on your, credit card statement.
Jen Millard:Sort of a a a war story I would add, it was a brilliant space at the time. It was the it was the start of machine learning and pattern recognition. So this is early days, pattern recognition. So think about in so the thesis of this business was your past consumer spend behavior is the best indicator of your future spend behavior, and then we would personalize offers based on that, you know, whether you were a promiscuous customer. Could I encourage you to try all kinds of different different cuisine, or are you only gonna eat Indian food every week?
Jen Millard:Those are the things we were trying to do. So I had lunch with, Schwartz at Tavolo on Friday, and I showed up for work on Monday at Bessemer, in the basement of, David Cowan's office at Bessemer. Anne Shwork and Samir, Qatar, had done this, initial kind of, POC about reducing your bills. You put in your cell phone bill, your, commodities, your cell, your Wi Fi, or at the time cable bill, and it would actually do the math for you to include switching costs to enable you to see which would be the better carrier. We have to remember this was, you know, in 2012.
Jen Millard:This is a long time ago. Right? Right.
Terrance Orr:And
Jen Millard:then we took that business and ultimately expanded it to be a card linked offer business. My largest competitor in the space gave away their product for free to the largest bank in the US, and I could no longer actually charge any fees. So they burned down the business model in the US by taking warrants, providing it to the largest bank for free, and becoming their sole provider. And so I don't think I'll ever get this choice again in my career, but we had a very hard decision to make because we were approaching a b round. And I was not gonna be able to sell this in the US.
Jen Millard:I could not compete against free. They had already raised triple digits in 1,000,000 100,000,000. So I needed to either raise money, sell the company, or move internationally where US where international consumers could be driven to US retailers. Ultimately, we ended up getting a couple purchase offers and a term sheet, but we chose to sell to Mastercard because they were a global footprint, and I could get to global banks and drive global consumers to US retailers with the same product. So we ultimately had to sell the company to pivot it, Ilya Mhmm.
Jen Millard:To basically go to a Greenfield International fur bank that would pay me for that to drive consumer behavior to international shoppers. It just also happens to be the most profitable transaction for Mastercard. So finding that unique opportunity to, like, make it work was, to your point, a little luck. There's occasionally a little strike of luck, but kind of understanding I could continue to beat the bushes in the US, it was going to be not productive. So where do you go?
Jen Millard:Where do you go when your market has been closed by a competitor?
Terrance Orr:Wow. What what an incredible story, Jen. I I I have so many levers I wanna pull from from from that story. But for for the sake of, like, us thinking about it and moving along in the podcast, I mean, Colby College, 1st generation college student. Right?
Terrance Orr:2 kids, single, moved from Chicago to the Bay Area and probably one of the worst times ever. Right? Got acquired by Mastercard. That's already a story, but let's continue. Let's continue.
Jen Millard:So I stayed at Mastercard for 3 years in one day. That's, you know, the the founder's curse sometimes. A little unusual actually that I was not a technical founder. I was a business cofounder, and I ran the revenue for the company. But because I had all the relationships with the merchants, I was actually more valuable than the code.
Jen Millard:So I actually had to go to Mastercard as part of the arrangement, which I would not have planned for or expected. And then I, worked in the global loyalty practice for Mastercard for 3 years and had, exquisite experience of seeing how money moves around the globe, but was on a plane. Dubai, China, Hong Kong, it's Mastercard. It's a global portfolio. It's a it is a pace that is not sustainable for most.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:So after that 3 year period, I was tired, Terrance.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:And I needed, I needed a place to rest my brain. And I had a friend, Ken Hausman, who, is a venture guy in the valley, who was like, you should meet my friend Mike Spicer at Sutter Hill, and you should go be an EIR at Sutter Hill. I'm really not known what an ER was at this point. It was it was foreign to me. I had always worked with venture capitalists.
Jen Millard:I had been raising money. I'd not sort of flipped the script to be on the other side. I went and had lunch at, Sutter Hill on a Friday, and, again, I showed up on Monday, to start by, year as me I are with Mike Spicer, who I am incredibly grateful to for to this day, actually.
Terrance Orr:So this is perfect, Jen, because I was gonna ask you about this. When I walked through your background, the trend line you just gave us, one, I wanted to know where did the risk tolerance come from? From someone that comes from your background that you said most people wouldn't wanna jump and take the leap and do the things that you've done. 1, I it's a stack question, so forgive me. Where did the risk tolerance come from?
Terrance Orr:And then walk us through your role as a EIR at at Sutter Hill Ventures.
Jen Millard:Sure. I think it's difficult to to teach risk tolerance. You know, I I've always tried with my kids to make them, agile. You know, there's times to to be conservative around risk. There's times to be aggressive around risk.
Jen Millard:So when I was, arriving at at Sutter Hill, I have a curious mind, Terrance, and I think it comes from, honestly, a liberal arts education and a little bit of a hustle. You know, I've had to create everything for myself to, including my network, my career, my so the drive for risk tolerance, I think, comes from my drive to be curious. I'm always the person who has a side project on their desk. I'm usually the person you call if you need to know someone, if you want me to connect you with someone. I all I consider that sort of community goodwill.
Jen Millard:I believe if you help other people get what they want, you tend to get what you need eventually. And so my, experience at Sutter, arriving at Sutter was sort of an undefined role. Come here, rest your brain, be around smart people, and we'd like you to think of your next great idea here at Sutter Hill. We'll pay you a reasonable nominal salary for in a place to work, and please come here every day. And we'll assign you to a couple of our Portco companies
Terrance Orr:just
Jen Millard:to kinda mix it up a little bit where you can add some value. But my real, my real, job at Sutter Hill consisted of 2 primary roles. 1, I needed to review all the inbound pitch decks that were sent to Sutter Hill and curate them for processing, meaning I rubric them to forward them to the partners if I felt they were is this a product? Is this a feature? Is this a real company?
Jen Millard:Is this a team? Right? Is it a company? I'd probably get a 100 a week, probably 2. Might check 3 out of 4 boxes that might warrant a second pass.
Jen Millard:So you got to be really good at screening deal flow.
Terrance Orr:That's right. Maybe if
Ilya Tabakh:we could pause there if we could pause there for a second. I think every founder at some point needs to take a beat and spend time looking at deals. I think that's actually, like, one of the big differentiators with, sort of experienced or advanced founders as opposed to folks just getting started because I think that experience is so that's my thought. But I'm curious since you actually said
Jen Millard:I would agree because I've gotten so much better. Right? 10000 hours of anything makes you better. Right? The tipping point.
Jen Millard:Right? Yeah. Which I have the revenge of the tipping point to read. I haven't gotten there yet. Yeah.
Jen Millard:So I think I I think you're right, Ilya. It is around that that matter.
Ilya Tabakh:Yeah. It's just like I I I love when a founder comes in, and they always like, this is the best deal, period. And you have to sort believe that if you're building the company. Right? But You
Jen Millard:have to believe it. And I and I also encourage early in career students who believe themselves to have an entrepreneurial spirit and know they're probably gonna get a job and then become an entrepreneur and get some experience to actually put them in positions to see deal flow. Be an adviser on a company. Offer to redex at the capital factory or the start up center or wherever you live. You know?
Jen Millard:Show up for the pitch nights at plug and play. Dig into those communities because the more exposure you have to deal steel constructs, how people even think about financing, the the more educated you become.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:And that enables you to be more educated as you put your own business together.
Terrance Orr:And, Jen, as you were looking at deals at at Sutter Hill, tell us tell tell the people a little bit around us. What what were some of the signals that you were looking for in in this pitch deck around product, around team? What what is Jen looking for in these decks that gives her confidence to forward them on to the to the partner?
Jen Millard:Yeah. So for me, at the time, so we had a ever present growing kind of security infrastructure because they were working on Lacework at the time. They were also working at Snowflake at the time, so that was being incubated as well. And, a lot of DevOps, type of, again, early days machine learning, not quite AI yet, but, you know, sort of workflow of DevOps kind of work. And if you know the history of Sutter Hill, you know, infrastructure heavy, They also, you know, you know, really love data businesses that, like Snowflake, right, are creating new infrastructures for others.
Jen Millard:So, we had a little bend towards those types of companies with a with a nod towards talent because I think, Ilya or Terrance, at the beginning, you said somebody called, a colleague of yours to go get them to be incubated at a current company, etcetera. They have an incredible talent machine. So you're always looking for, perhaps, smart founders that may not have the appropriate team around them that should be maybe highlighted to a partner for a different opportunity, or that this person has an interesting background, and I know we have a couple teams they're looking for this type of skill set or attitude, candidly. You know, this person has a lot of energy, and I feel would be a great match to another team. So kind of people separated from company a little bit.
Jen Millard:And then, actually, more theses than thought out businesses because Sutter tends to be an incubation house. So if it was a thesis they for example, genomic health marketplace, 20 years in the future. The ability, if you have diabetes, to go to into a marketplace and choose a genomic solution is a is a thesis that they play long. Right?
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:So, some of those companies were all around genomics, which I don't really have a background in, Terrance.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:But if it felt like they had their IP relatively solidified, their science grants were in line, their, their team construction, and really what they needed was capital and expansion into those theses, it was really those that probably made it to the partner. It was less about, is this cash flow by year 2? Is this, you know, a bootstrap entity? They're looking for big ideas.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:So it was not don't be limited by the business thinking, you know, on those types of pitches. It was more around the thesis.
Terrance Orr:Okay. No. Thank you for sharing. And you had a second part to your role that you did at Sutter Hill, Ventures that you're gonna tell us about?
Jen Millard:Yeah. The second part was actually the, I would say, the grind part, which actually, I would encourage, EIRs to do this process because it was very disciplined. You know, it's 26 rough weeks a year every 2 weeks, so 22 cycles. Took out Christmas and Thanksgiving. I had to pitch a new company to the partner team every 2 weeks.
Jen Millard:And so if you force yourself to create a company, every 2 weeks with the thesis, with what you would need, what you would build, why it would be differentiated. And I kinda leveled levered off off the, like, design thinking canvas. I'd have them all over the rooms with constant stickies because I'd work on a thesis, but build maybe 5 boards
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:Of concepts.
Terrance Orr:Mhmm.
Jen Millard:And then I would pick the best board and say, well, this week, it's gonna be that board. You know? And, sometimes, you know, great feedback. Keep going. You know?
Jen Millard:Have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? Or sometimes, yeah, we don't think there's a there there. Let's have a good debate about that. Tear that up.
Jen Millard:Start again for the next 2 weeks. Right? So it first of all, it makes you sort of bulletproof on feedback. Like, you gotta be able to take it to to make it. So you gotta be able to really dig in critically and accept critical feedback with grace, and attention, not be dismissive.
Jen Millard:And then take that feedback and put it to work, and then recycle it. Recycle it, recycle it. No bad ideas, maybe just bad, components.
Terrance Orr:And how do they know when to kill an idea when they're going through
Jen Millard:this process? It's interesting. I I think, I think at the beginning, it was a little bit of a hazing event, Terrance, to be honest, but all with the all with the best of intentions. Right? They're trying to get you to be better as fast as possible.
Jen Millard:Because really what they're they hope is that you come up with a a great idea that you could be incubated. Tina Wang, who is an EIR at the same time, Ilya, I'd encourage you to have her on your show. She's a a DevOps phenom, you know, graduated MIT at 16 and helped Twitter and Google and Apple. She's been around the world and back. She, she actually just, exited that business that she was incubating at Sutter while I was there.
Jen Millard:So it's been amazing to see you know, I would also encourage people, and, Ilya, one of the things for you would be, why don't people have more than one EIR? Because we were better together. There were 3 of us in the basement. Right? So we didn't know each other.
Jen Millard:We had no common backgrounds, but, it was epic to have 3 other people that were doing the same motions at the same time.
Ilya Tabakh:Well and I think just generally, one of the things that I've noticed in sort of my EIR time generally and just working with larger companies is the difference between kinda focus on people and team, in sort of the earlier venture, kind of early risk. Nobody knows what anything is. Yeah. You know, kind of the the team really is a lot of things. And so that point about, you know, multiple EIRs pacing each other, but, ultimately, even thinking about, you know, who is the right person, the right team composition to make this thing go.
Ilya Tabakh:And it's it's shocking to me sometimes when folks are like, well, anybody can run with this. I'm like,
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Ilya Tabakh:Let's talk about that a little bit, because rarely have I found that that to be the case.
Jen Millard:Look. I think I'm a big believer that a teams can make c products a products. C teams cannot make a products. It just doesn't happen. So I'm very much a personal team first investor.
Jen Millard:I build I feel like one of my superpowers is to build great teams. I'm honored that I've had people work for me multiple times Yep. And salespeople. That means a lot to me. I think the culture and how you carry the company is equally as important as the tech because underneath the people who are writing the tech are people.
Jen Millard:They need to be fed. They have families. They need sleep. They need all the things that we need. And sometimes we tend to think of engineers as as engineers.
Jen Millard:They're humans. They have the same needs as everybody else.
Ilya Tabakh:I violently agree with you. But but it but it's very hard for me to sort of explain that to folks that haven't been there. I haven't found an effective way to to to make that land.
Jen Millard:If you've not seen a high functioning team
Ilya Tabakh:Yeah.
Jen Millard:Compared to and I think it's harder in corporate, Elliot, because you got matrix and all kinds of crazy, you know, infrastructure and silos. You know, hopefully, in startups, you're not starting with any of that. But, but it's easily created, and that's what you have to worry about, right, is is that. So for me, starting new companies, especially especially that initial that initial founding team, they gotta be able to finish theirs their each other's sentences.
Terrance Orr:Mhmm.
Jen Millard:You spend more time with them than you do your spouse the 1st year. So you better you better learn to love them, you know, and, figure out how to work together quickly. And if you cannot quickly, everybody should agree that it's not working. No hard feelings. You know?
Jen Millard:Let's actually fix what's not working, which may be wrong personality, wrong skill set, wrong time in the business. You know, may not be anything wrong with the individual. It just not be might it might not be the right time in the company for their superpower.
Terrance Orr:And, Jen, on this topic of of team, right, I think all great teams go through this process of of forming, storming, and norming, if if you will. Right?
Jen Millard:Great words.
Terrance Orr:Yeah. And and in my mind, how do you think about building great teams? Right? You've built a lot of great teams. You've been on early stage teams.
Terrance Orr:What do you look for? And and when you're building a good team versus, like, you know, you're joining a early stage team, like, what are you looking for?
Jen Millard:Trust. My number one my number one, ask is, you know, so whether I was joining a team, you know, I joined as a founder, which is a unique position, 2 technical founders. I'm the only liberal arts degree, you know That's right. Sort of thing that used to make fun of me, you know, sort of like American studies. What do you think over there?
Jen Millard:You know? But, I learned to love them like brothers, and I would still call them brothers to this day. You know, my cofounder from, True Access called me at 10 o'clock, 2 weeks ago on a Friday night. I instantly picked up because I thought something was wrong. You know?
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:So Right. Right? So these are people you sort of go to the trenches with. So for me, I definitely have a bias towards founders that I or people I have worked with before. I'm a big believer in known commodities, so I like people that have worked with me because they know how crazy I am, and they can work with my crazy.
Jen Millard:And they cannot and I also, you know, believe that you must enable people to feel free to disagree and have great trust that you can disagree and still have a role at a 4 person company. Like, all voices are welcome here.
Terrance Orr:That's right. And you talked about being sort of in a pod almost, right, with other EIRs, which I think is a way better experience than doing it as a lone wolf like how I did it at SAP versus when I did it in other roles. Right? It was like, woah. I have 8 other EIRs now.
Terrance Orr:I can learn every single day at a rapid rate. You know, if you could do it over, right, would you change anything about your EIR experience at Sutter Hill? What would you add or subtract if if you had to do it over?
Jen Millard:I would have been a little more promiscuous on thesis because I had just come out of Mastercard. Right? And I was, you know, I was in the belly of the beast for 3 years. You get a little dated. People don't realize, like robotics, other things had been happening in the world, and I had my head down at Mastercard.
Jen Millard:So I think, probably being a little more promiscuous around thesis and not being afraid of exploring areas I didn't know, like robotics, even though I ended up doing a robotics company, to get robotics experience. I did a gaming company to work with gaming engines. But I think, recognizing that if you're coming off of a transaction where you were required to go in house, that coming out to become, I don't know, a a new animal again, takes a little bit of work to catch up to what you've left behind. So I'd say try to keep up. Don't don't get sucked into the don't get sucked into the beast once you're acquired, and then I'd also be more mindful about looking beyond my time at Mastercard.
Jen Millard:I knew I was not going to stay at Mastercard. It was well understood that this was a a 3 year engagement. I could have not given Mastercard as much of my time. So I went into it like I had founded my company, and I'd sold my company, and I wanted my company to be the most successful inside Mastercard. But what you realize when you get into a large organization, Ilya, and I think this was our first conversation, I actually thought I was doing it wrong at Mastercard because innovation in large organizations is very difficult.
Terrance Orr:Yes, sir.
Jen Millard:The founder, I felt like I couldn't get any traction. And then I took a innovation for large organizations class at Stanford and then realized it was not me. Right. It was not me. It was, in fact, the institutional kind of dystopia around me.
Jen Millard:And so, my, my guidance for founders that are in that process is don't give away all your soul in the transaction. Keep a little of that back because you're gonna wanna leave and come out and do something else. And I was really, burned out, I would say, at the point I left Mastercard. So it's also a founder lesson of, you know, oxygen mask on first. If you don't take care of yourself, you cannot be there for others, So you must put your personal health as a priority.
Ilya Tabakh:And I think actually just that intentionality, because I think on the flip side, if you know sort of what you're getting into I think one of the things that I missed for a while in a lot of conversations with EIRs is that the entrepreneur really has to reskill. Right? If you're gonna be in a large organization or in another context, generally, it's probably not gonna be the thing you were great at and the thing you really enjoy before. And so there's all kinds of organizational dynamic stuff. But but I think as long as you're walking into that intentionally, there's also a lot of learning and a lot of exposure to sort of places that you may not have exposure to.
Ilya Tabakh:Right? And so, I I think it's just important to be intentional in that situation, which,
Jen Millard:you
Ilya Tabakh:know, a lot of folks just don't have that, insight. So, may maybe that's the thing I would add to, your your kinda comments there.
Jen Millard:Yeah. It's a great one.
Ilya Tabakh:I think the other thing I wanna dig into a little bit, when we chatted a couple years ago, I kinda asked you what it was it like being a EIR, you know, at a top VC firm in the Valley in the mid 20 tens. And you sort of, you know, just told me a little bit about how that was a little bit different than kinda how the term is getting used today. So I'd love to have you talk about that for a couple minutes, and then we'll move on to kind of what took you to Austin.
Jen Millard:No. That's true. In those days, it was, I I was sharing with Terrance before, you joined, Neliya, that, you know, during that era, there was a dinner every month that was hosted by a VC that had an EIR. So, you know, 1 month, it'd be Sutter, 1 month, it might be Bessemer, 1 month, it would it'd be so they one might might be Trinity. They'd host the dinner typically at their office, and there's probably 20 to 30 EIRs with the ever rotating kind of table of people.
Jen Millard:But, it did it did make that time at Sutter Hill feel very, precious when you realize that all these people are also trying to just think of incredible ideas with incredible resources, with incredible backgrounds. And it was also a great place to also pick up other cofounders, other people who had ideas. Your idea might not be the one that gets picked. That person's working on something that's really interesting, and I think I could add value there. So it made it a very agile kind of group.
Jen Millard:I think if you fast forward to today, there aren't as many EIRs at venture funds. They tend to be more, corporate, EIRs in my experience or strategic kind of positioned EIRs. But what you do tend to have more now are operating rosters for venture capitalists. So as the EIR programs for VCs maybe have been trimmed off, operating rosters of professionals similar to, like, how private equity rosters with executives, you're starting to see that become pretty standard practice, you know, around different theses, whether you're a Fintech executive, whether you're a consumer executive. And so a lot of those people that might have been EIR ed in the past
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:Are now sort of sitting on a on a bench in some ways waiting to be called.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:When an operating company has an issue or a matter that, you know, they need some expertise in, I think there's a lot of anxiety around that operator model actually, right now because there's a lot of great people that sit on rosters that would like to be working. And so they expected that to be sort of an on ramp to working with great companies, and oftentimes, it kinda becomes a patience exercise of, you know, and if you're not top of mind, you know, those types of things. So, I think I'd like to think that the smarter VCs that are now or have always focused on incubation, EIR will always continue to be a thesis because they they feel like it's talent first.
Ilya Tabakh:No. That makes sense. And I'm glad that we got to dive into that a little bit because I think, you know, kinda having that perspective and and, you know, that's sounds like a little bit more of an organic community building, exercise as well.
Jen Millard:At the time. Yeah. Well, you know, it was 2016, I think, at the time. Right? So, probably the height of, you know, that era of the VC swing, to be honest.
Jen Millard:Yeah. You know? So that was sort of the pit I'd say the peak of, money 2020 and all the Fintech euphoria, during that time.
Terrance Orr:That's right. So, Jin, you cut your teeth at at at Shelley Hill Ventures, and then you went back to operating again, doing what you do best. Right? And you became a CRO, chief revenue officer for those who are listening. Yeah.
Terrance Orr:Tell us about
Jen Millard:my traditional role, as a founder. So even at the company I sold to Mastercard, I was the CRO there. I like being CRO because marketing and sales report into one executive, becomes less siloed, and in early days, it's typically all about your sales expression regardless. So I like that, organizational construct and feel like it is the most productive in early stage. And, this is sort of why, I I think, my my wisdom word would be to always be networking.
Jen Millard:So I happen to know, the venture guys at PayPal, Jeremy Jonker and Jay Gupta, and they were investors in a company called Dosh, which was very similar to the company I had sold to Mastercard, only a direct to consumer expression instead of a bank expression. Essentially, long story short, they needed to, package that company up for a transaction. It was time. And so, lots of work to be done there. Balance sheet cleanup, reorganization, merchant alignment, rev ops, engineering, a lot of cleanup work to get that to be a packageable company.
Jen Millard:And, I think we did a fantastic job, and we sold that in a private transaction to Cardlytics, which is the company that edged me out originally by selling their giving away their software for free. I ended up selling that company to, to Cardlytics, in 20, to sorry, 2021 2020, January 2020. Wow. For a $275,000,000 price. It was a great exit for all shareholders.
Terrance Orr:Mhmm.
Jen Millard:It was a wonderful experience. And then I've done, you know, interim fractional CRO roles for, episodically, over the last few years. That's been my primary work with entrepreneurs is really go to market and revenue acceleration.
Ilya Tabakh:And that sounds like, you know, we've seen a lot of the EIRs we've talked to are sort of in their portfolio phase, if you will. You know, and it sounds like you were kind of entering that phase, and and sort of delivering a lot of the the the value and and skills that you develop, pretty intentionally. What's cool with you is you you've sort of gone back, and sort of jumped back into, you know, product, and and going into Maine. So I'd love to talk a little bit about how does that take us to to Maine Love and and ultimately into the packaged good business.
Terrance Orr:Full circle moment.
Jen Millard:Yeah. Full circle moment. You know, I was, the CEO of a glass container company called Life Factory back in the 15, 60 in that same era. We sold that to Thermos and, still exist today, and it was to get plastic out of your family's life. So it was baby bottles to glass food storage to beverage containers, glass with a silicone wrapper, learned way more about supply chain sourcing of glass than I ever imagined I would ever need to be.
Jen Millard:But sort of fast forward, I've been blessed with an amazing career with amazing people and a grazing amazing companies, and I don't plan on retiring. You know? I I you know, both my children have graduated from college, and I had a callback to Maine by being asked to serve at Colby as a trustee. And, so in 1 generation to send my daughter to Colby and then to be asked to come back to serve as a trustee, I can't ex I can't express how wonderful that feels. I I it's just an honor.
Jen Millard:And so, to make a long story short, my cousin bought a brewery a year ago. And in helping him to understand, how to size his facility, I stumbled on a problem that, brewers' lines of infrastructure sit idle roughly 5 days a week because it takes 2 days to make beer and that Maine has the most brewers per capita. But more importantly, Maine has the second, purest lake in the nation, in Sebago Lake. It is actually has an EPA waiver, of all things, for solids. It's so clean that it is not required to be filtered like other, you know, municipal water.
Jen Millard:It's a a special class municipal water. It is considered infinitely replenishable, and the common denominator of beer is water. And the gold standard of water for beer is from Sebago Lake, Maine, which is where this water comes from. So coming back to Maine with an intention to be impactful in Maine and to drive jobs to Maine, I had a brain drain when I had to leave Maine. It is my intention with great passion to come back to Maine and build a product, that brewers can participate in.
Jen Millard:So what we're enabling is brewers to become participants in the water economy when they're not making beer. So they need to become a GMP or GS 1 rated facility because brewers are not regulated by the FDA, if everyone can believe that. Brewers are regulated by alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, so none of the floors of brewers are sealed, which is a fascinating experience.
Terrance Orr:Yes.
Jen Millard:But to get to the, to, manage the, federal requirements for drinking water, etcetera, we will be upgrading those facilities. And then I ship them the can. They fill it with water. I pay them to put water in the can, and then I do the retail expression on the other side. So it is intended to be foundational revenue for brewers so that they do not have to lay people off.
Jen Millard:And, alcohol consumption is down 40% year over year across the board, and Gen z is not drinking as much as we did. So they're more health conscious. And water increasingly is, more of a precious commodity. So there's an argument in Maine that we are overabundant in water as long as it rains.
Ilya Tabakh:Nice. Well and and I I I love, you know, that it it really Terrance said that bringing it full circle, but I think it's, you know, bringing it full tapestry because it that has sort of the, kinda impact view, the taking advantage of underutilized infrastructure and sort of understanding the supply chain view, sort of interesting business
Jen Millard:model that you're trying to able to do this company if I hadn't done all my other companies. And I've walked 32 breweries this summer, have my own outfit, got my own boots, like, the whole situation. It's a sexy outfit, I might add, with a hat and the whole thing. But walking those 32 breweries, I can say with confidence, every small brewer likely in the United States has capacity because they're craftsmen. They're not really utilizing it as, infrastructure.
Jen Millard:So it's, it's been a very interesting exploration. I've, gotten the 3 largest brewers in Maine to, join the band, so to speak, Because up here in Maine, you have to say what you do, do what you say. So, I'm proving it out this winter with, actually produced this water yesterday at, literally the 13th brewery in the nation, Gary's 1803.
Terrance Orr:Mhmm.
Jen Millard:Very famous brewer. Still making the same beer in brick vats, old school with yeast at 60
Terrance Orr:years old.
Jen Millard:So these are craftsmen. Right? Mhmm. So this gives them a way to run, to continue their focus on great beer, but yield water when you're not making beer to pay off your infrastructure.
Terrance Orr:Wow. I mean, when I think about leaving a legacy, right, I talked to Illyen and, you know, some of our guests on the show about legacy building and leaving an impact. They're gonna to use the analogy of water, watching your legacy flow through through sort of Thank you. And and I think, you know, it's a wonderful way to to come back full circle to the place that groomed you, and to try to leave a legacy that's not just some jump, but healthy for for people from a sustainable source, and that you can leverage to build a business around because you thought you found a problem.
Jen Millard:Well, and Maine has a history, Terrance, of self regulating natural resources. We have lobster co ops. We have Oster co ops. Essentially, I'm building a water co op. I give you a vote price to put water in a can if you meet a certain water standard.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Jen Millard:It we've done it for generations. It's very natural for people in Maine to do this. I don't believe I could do this business in any other state because it's taken great collaboration in the brewing community to come forward with their chemist to get interesting problems solved, to get to where we are, and, I just don't I just don't experience that collaboration in other states. So it's it's a joy to be doing this in Maine, and it is the rest of my life's work to be impactful in Maine.
Terrance Orr:Absolutely. And and, Jen, I'm gonna ask you a question. I'm gonna let Ilya take us home. Okay? Sure.
Terrance Orr:But but it's gonna be a fun one, and and we we love to ask people sort of if, you know, what's something that's not on your resume, not on your LinkedIn that people don't know about you. Right. That's that's a hobby of yours or something that you enjoy, doing or helps you pass the time? You know, what what would you will be willing to share with us in our in our audience?
Jen Millard:I'm a big reader. I still read fiction books. I read a lot of nonfiction as well, but I I consume an incredible amount of content, I would say. So, just because you leave college, don't put down those fiction books. Keep reading because it's a different part of your brain that needs exercise, and it's a way to kinda balance off your brain.
Jen Millard:I also, participate in an oyster farm that is, off my family's property. So one of the first oyster farms that came to Maine is off my family's riparian rights off of some land we own in Casco Bay. And so being adjacent and part of learning the oyster farm culture that is emerging in the aquaculture community in Maine has been an incredible, thing to watch and to, encourage and participate.
Terrance Orr:Wow. Thank you for sharing.
Ilya Tabakh:That that's awesome. And just to double click on the re the reading thing, it's funny because, you know, all of a sudden today, we're talking about AI. Where does it lead? You know? And a lot of folks haven't read a lot of the science fiction that has sort of imagined all the various
Terrance Orr:Absolutely.
Ilya Tabakh:You know, sort of pathways where we go from here, to dystopian, utopian, and everything in between. And it's just it it's amazing kinda how both that allows you to sort of tap into other folks' thinking as well as to have sort of frameworks and vocabulary and, you know, kinda other things. So, yeah, love double clicking on that.
Jen Millard:And I think in our culture today, Ilya, is, you know, also read controversial things.
Ilya Tabakh:Yep.
Jen Millard:Right? Like, fact check yourself.
Terrance Orr:Mhmm.
Jen Millard:Like, read something controversial because it might make you uncomfortable. It's okay. Right? You'll you'll end up being smarter in the end.
Ilya Tabakh:Well and and that skill, I think, you know, that's actually my my best test. You know, you mentioned a couple, properties of an entrepreneur and team that you look for. For me, it's, you know, coachability. And, also, if you see that your map and the terrain differ, what do you follow? You know?
Ilya Tabakh:And I think that ultimately is, a good identification that somebody's gonna follow the terrain. Right? It's sort of strongly, holding idea you know, kinda having strong statements but weakly held on on ideas is really important. So I think that's actually a really good place to to kinda cut us off for now because I think we've we've done a really good pass through your background, had an opportunity to sort of jump in and highlight, I think, a couple things that are really critical, honestly, to our, audience of entrepreneurs and residents and folks that are really thinking about it. And, ultimately, I love the fact that we ended up on, you know, doing the sort of your life's work for the rest of your life in a place where you're, excited about being impactful.
Ilya Tabakh:And I think that, in many ways, speaks to kinda who I know you to be, in the in our kind of short interaction to date. And so I think that's a great place to leave it, and, hopefully, we'll kind of dig in a little bit more on LinkedIn Live in the future.
Jen Millard:Happy to help, and thanks for having me.
Terrance Orr:Absolutely. And but but, Ilya, I I I can't let Jen go without asking her what the EIR network can do for her.
Ilya Tabakh:Oh, absolutely.
Terrance Orr:And and supporting a main love. So what can the EIR network do for you?
Jen Millard:You know, you can't be an expert at everything. Right? So, and I'm a little rusty on my retail distribution, so I'm actually, looking for some supply chain, assistance. Okay. Honestly, more, current supply chain.
Jen Millard:I'm a little dated. Right? So more, a little, little supply chain education never hurts. I've been taking a lot of meetings with a lot of people who know more than I do about that matter, and, I'd welcome any EIR in the network. If, you're interested in water and the water economy and how you start a water economy in a state with a lot of natural resources and a lot of bureaucracy, I'm happy to help.
Terrance Orr:Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing. I just happen to be a EIR focused on supply chain at SAP, so I'm glad you shared.
Jen Millard:Might be needing you, Terrance. Yeah.
Terrance Orr:But I know a lot of other, folks in supply chain. So I
Jen Millard:appreciate it. Appreciate it.
Terrance Orr:We will find them. Thank you so much, Jen. It's been an honor and privilege.
Jen Millard:Thank you. Oh, honor and privilege for you both as well, and let me know how I can help in the future.
Ilya Tabakh:Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
Terrance Orr:My goodness. I am still, you know, taking notes from this episode, my friend, because Jen had so many gems to drop on this episode about early stage company building and formation, learning her chops in the early days at at Sears and bringing that along with her in her her later roles in Silicon Valley and, you know, taking the leap from different things. Right? From consumer financial services to looking at infrastructure deals inside of, Sutter Hill Ventures. But what I took away the most was that the muscle that she built around early stage company formation and assessing deals at Sutter Hill Venture and looking at signal, right, and doing that alongside a team of, you know, business athletes is what I'm gonna call them right now that are other EIRs who are also doing company building in parallel and doing the same thing you're doing and sharing those learnings, you know, priceless.
Terrance Orr:And was there during the early days of Snowflake and a bunch of other prominent companies. The other thing is trust as the cornerstone for for building great teams, right, and managing those teams and retaining that talent to build everlasting companies and growing revenue. And and lastly, leaving a legacy, worth bragging about. And and that legacy is the impact that she's doing now with with her her next company, called Main Love. And just so many gems, so much wisdom, in this episode, and I just really enjoyed it.
Terrance Orr:And you could've talked to Jen for another 2 hours. But what do you think, Yo yo?
Ilya Tabakh:Yeah. No. Absolutely. I I think, really, we we just scratched the surface. I think we started getting into a little bit of the inside football of, you know, what do you actually gain when you see so many deals and are working with really top tier, both kind of strategic thinkers from the investment side as well as, you know, very high caliber operators, and and sort of what does that actually arm you with, in order to be able to do this quickly?
Ilya Tabakh:You know, we we kinda touched on high performance team, high level of trust, but, you know, in the conversation, those are words. I think it's, you know, every founder and every really innovation professional should seek out the opportunity to really spend time in that environment. Because it's, like, you know, you hear stories of, you know, the Super Bowl teams and and and the dynasties that were built and everybody always talks about, you know, there was a culture, there was a winning culture, there was a, you know, sort of an atmosphere of excellence and things like that. Right. And and those are really, you know, I've never played on a Super Bowl team, but I've definitely participated in some really high caliber, you know, fast moving teams before.
Ilya Tabakh:And and as I was telling Jen in the in the show, in the discussion, right, I agree that that's, like, a really, really critical piece of it, but it's really hard to explain to somebody that, you know, hasn't experienced that yet. And and I love really digging into those kind of things because you start to, you know, really talk about the trade craft, if you will, of what it means to be, you know, in residence as an entrepreneur or whatever.
Terrance Orr:That's right.
Ilya Tabakh:And I'm really looking forward to to digging into and I really do think we just scratched the surface. But, like, yes, and, and and, you know, a 1000 times to where I I really felt like we were we were touching on some really interesting concepts and ideas that I wish folks that are EIRs and especially, like, the folks that they interface with could could sort of beam to that place and and build some of that muscle through through contact, which unfortunately is impossible, but that was the thing that was kind of exciting to me. I think we we touched on that, and I think also maybe to kind of double click on on another thing you said. I think that that formal training process and being able to compare, you know, what skills and capabilities do you need to be sort of world class and being able to sort of level set against that. And her kinda having a different experience on that was interesting.
Ilya Tabakh:I think it was it was sort of an opportunity to compare and contrast how are people, you know, training up and and really getting prepared for these things today versus how, you know, it's happened, in in in other periods of time. So super exciting. You know, we we've only scratched the surface, but, it was an it was an awesome discussion because even in that little bit of a scratch, it was, you know, a bunch of insights. So so it was great.
Terrance Orr:100%, man. As we know, entrepreneurship is a team sport, and it's a contact sport. And, that's how you get the the battle tested warwolves. And, the people are gonna learn it on this episode. So please go like, follow, subscribe.
Terrance Orr:You don't wanna miss this episode, and send us recommendations for for future, people who could take you to be on the podcast. Thanks for joining us on EIR Live. We hope today's episode offered you valuable insights into the entrepreneurial journey. Remember to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes and check out the description for more details. Do you have questions or suggestions?
Terrance Orr:Please reach out to us. Connect with us on social media. We really value your input. Catch us next time for more inspiring stories and strategies. Keep pushing boundaries and making your mark on the world.
Terrance Orr:I'm Tiran Soer with my goal is Ilya Sabacc, signing off. Let's keep building.
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