Pray.com Part 2: the Science experiment...

Competition creates innovation

I recently finished speaking to a class at my alma mater, the 美国南加州大学 .

On campus, one student shared with me that one of the saddest aspects of the lives of many kids in school is that they often feel pressured to succeed in pointless endeavors.

The word school, which comes from?schola?(meaning “free time”), reminds us that schools were initially meant to interrupt a busy existence and create some space to learn about the mysteries of life.

At one point in history, we spent much of our time in school thinking, experimenting, and competing against external problems.

Today it seems like school is a comparative arena, a hectic race to accomplish more than your peers so you can advance to the next level of academics.

Previous iterations of school were more productive environments driven by legitimate curiosity. In my opinion, this curiosity created innovation.

I’m a big fan of education. One way to succeed at educating yourself is by following the three I’s:

Imitation

Iteration

Innovation

In a highly competitive industry like consumer tech, the only way to win long-term is through innovation. Educate yourself by practicing the three I's in order, and you will arrive at success.

Feeling insecure? Imitate.

Airbnb, Twitch, Reddit… They all have Y Combinator in common.

Y Combinator is an incubator that helps accelerate the development of startups. With more than a dozen billion-dollar companies, their criteria, curriculum, and coaching have proven invaluable for those building technology businesses.

Incubators are a modernized form of entrepreneurial academia. They can help you succeed in business.

Business teaches us that rewards go to those who produce the most and the best. While this is generally true, there is also another path to those rewards for folks who produce results by being the best at selling the most.

This is where Science caught my eye.

Ryan Beck , Matthew Potter , Michael Lynn , and I did our best to imitate the Silicon Valley success stories by joining an incubator, so we could learn how to create and market software products from scratch.

Never let fear, insecurity, or inexperience stop you from trying new things.

Back to the lab again…

Science is a Los Angeles venture capital firm. Science is known for its incubator program, which is incredible at brand, marketing, and sales.

When I met Mike Jones, founder of Science, he had just started the incubator to help entrepreneurs build and scale their businesses.

At the time, he worked with startup entrepreneur Michael Dubin of Dollar Shave Club , they were having a blast selling razors on YouTube from a garage in Venice Beach, California.

When I saw the news that Dollar Shave Club sold for a billion dollars to Unilever, I knew Science could school me up in business. And I also knew that a partnership with Science would be a ton of fun.

The pressure of competition has pushed me my entire life. Upon starting PRAY, I wanted to build something that had the potential to be #1 in its industry. The four of us needed to refine who we were to make that happen.

What better investment could we make in ourselves and our business than working with Science?

Mike, Ryan, Matt, and I signed a deal with Michael Jones , Tom Dare , Peter Pham , and Greg Gilman , then began our journey as a Science company in September of 2016.

Remember... deals work best when each side gets something it wants from the other... and if it's not fun, what's the point?

Follow the herd…

Overall I think Venture Capitalists get a bad rap.

FTX, Theranos, the list of startup frauds goes on… The reality is that this asset class works on power laws.

Venture Capitalists only need 1 of 10 investments to have a dramatically outsized return in order for their fund to realize gains that beat the market.

Translation – VCs lose *most* of the time, and it still works for the best investors.

Each VC tends to have its own special sauce. It's either in how they operate, how they choose companies, or which categories they invest in. It’s a cottage industry.

Most Venture Capitalists look like followers because they invest in the same categories.

If you believe that social media will be a massive category, then you want to find the best social media company you can invest in and write a check.

Most aren’t called “The Facebook.” However, if you believe in the category, you want to find something that you think can win.

Successful venture capitalists are early, by definition, which requires them to have a true vision for an industry. I think this is the part most people miss.

A lot of VCs are brilliant.

They tend to have a 美国哈佛大学 or 美国斯坦福大学 pedigree, and they also understand how to think through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order effects.

Great VCs are constantly exploring new ideas, researching future trends, and playing with new technologies. These are intelligent people.

PRAY.COM was able to secure various venture investors. I'm glad we did.

Firms like Greylock , Sequoia Capital , Founders Fund , Spark Capital , Foundation Capital , and more supported our Seed round.

Our conversations with people like Josh Elman , Katie Jacobs Stanton , Scott Belsky , Jana Messerschmidt , and Eric Stromberg made it apparent that these people were razor-sharp product minds, business leaders, and asset allocators. Each has added value to our business along the way.

To all of the VCs who have been a blessing to us, thank you.

To entrepreneurs with the opportunity to go to Y Combinator, work with Science, or raise Venture Capital from world-class investors, explore it.

Finding intelligent people who are confident enough to have strong opinions with egos small enough to change their minds is rare.

thank you for reading part 2 of the?Pray.com?journey about our seed stage and how we raised Venture Capital...?stay tuned for part 3, which describes our Series A stage and how we built a social network that secured investment from the world's top growth private equity firm.

Until next time, remember, anything is possible.

-Steve