Full Transcript for Plug: Jimmy Douglas & His First Investor

too. 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:53.279 But then my parents split up when I was 14, which was pretty tough. 00:04:53.279 --> 00:04:57.199 And my dad and I stayed in the house in Eagle Creek. 00:04:57.199 --> 00:04:59.120 Tragedy then struck. 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:02.639 Uh, my dad unexpectedly had an aortic aneurysm. 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:05.360 He died in the ICU uh a few weeks after that. 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:23.839 And uh I made the conscious decision to be on my own, which in hindsight was a pretty arrogant move, but it seemed like a better idea for me at the time to hang on to that versus move about 100 miles away where my mom was at the time. 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:31.439 I got a job at Sears selling vacuum cleaners on straight commission right after I got my driver's license. 00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:38.800 And when you're really motivated to make money and you're on a straight commission job with no hourly wage as a 16-year-old, that can take you really far. 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:50.240 And then eventually I bounced around a little bit between friends' homes and uh people affiliated with my school before landing myself in an apartment when I was 17. 00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:55.600 And that's how I finished up high school, but I managed to finish early and actually start college early. 00:05:55.600 --> 00:06:00.079 And that was around the time I got a job at a Volkswagen dealership in the service department. 00:06:00.399 --> 00:06:00.639 Yeah. 00:06:00.639 --> 00:06:01.439 So tell me about that. 00:06:01.439 --> 00:06:05.439 So you're on straight commission, you're motivated, you're making your own way. 00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:08.399 And then how did the job at the Volkswagen dealership come about? 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:16.160 Like many of us that were nerding out on the internet as nine-year-olds, I was uh moonlighting my income through fixing computers for money. 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:20.879 And uh, I found myself doing that at this dealership uh through some friendly connections. 00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:28.879 And then one day when I'm working with the service manager on something, he just looks at me and he says, Do you want a real job? 00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:35.519 And I went from fixing their computers for pocket cash to uh becoming a lot attendant. 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:44.399 And that went on for about six months before they fired the person who I was reporting to and they gave me his job. 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:57.120 So shortly before I turned 18, I was more or less supervising a team of technicians, uh, parts people, receptionists, and operating a full business between the hours of 5 p.m. 00:06:57.120 --> 00:06:58.000 and 1 a.m. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:06:58.959 five days a week. 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:01.920 How did that feel being that age and then having that responsibility? 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:06.319 Like, did it feel like you're doing something that you felt like was right? 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:10.800 Yeah, honestly, I vividly remember the moment that it happened. 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:14.240 And the first thought that came to mind was, hey, my pay just doubled. 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:18.399 That goes a long way when you're a 17-year-old and you're trying to make it. 00:07:18.399 --> 00:07:26.160 Uh, obviously, I had plenty of sales experience under my belt, having sold vacuum cleaners uh in exchange for straight up livelihood. 00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:28.560 And I got to be around cars the whole time. 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:35.680 So for me, it felt like uh the universe was putting a gift in my hands that I needed to capitalize on. 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:42.399 And truth be told, it was a 30 to 40 hour per week job on nights and weekends. 00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:47.360 And that platform enabled me to go to school full time and pay for it while I went. 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:51.040 I literally don't even know how to take out a student loan because I didn't have to. 00:07:51.839 --> 00:07:57.120 So you said during that time, I mean, obviously you were around an environment where there's a lot of cars that were being bought and sold. 00:07:57.120 --> 00:07:59.600 Did you have a lot of cars around growing up? 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.079 Not as many as I think we all would have liked. 00:08:02.079 --> 00:08:04.720 My dad had a Jaguar XKE. 00:08:04.720 --> 00:08:08.399 Uh, he had a Corvette that he bought right after he sold the company. 00:08:08.399 --> 00:08:17.360 When my father and his business partner were entering their semi-retired life, their first entry into it was attempting to build a replica of a 1934 Packard. 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:25.439 And then we went through pretty traditional family SUVs that are really cool in retrospect now, like Bronco, Early Tahoe, and all of that. 00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:32.000 But this dealership, uh, that's what gave me a lot more access to vehicle supply. 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:39.279 And one of the ways that manifested was me having owned 30 different cars before I was 30 years old. 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:44.639 I could follow this path of rationalizing the idea of flipping in and out of cars like they were outfits. 00:08:44.639 --> 00:08:52.799 And it helps that it was the state of Oregon where there's no sales tax and therefore no consequences for doing that, which I'm sure is the sign of a diagnosable problem. 00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:54.159 But it was really fun at the time. 00:08:54.399 --> 00:08:56.879 Was this like a big moneymaker buying and selling the cars? 00:08:56.879 --> 00:09:01.200 Or you just started getting super into, you know, all these different cars? 00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:09.120 I did have interest in turning it into a business, but there was too much tension between that and my yearning to have a real technology career. 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:18.399 I was pretty hell bent on getting into a high growth software company and just treating my time in automotive as a springboard into becoming more

independent. 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:24.000 At what point did you become aware of this startup concept and that it's something you might want to do? 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:28.799 I actually always knew that I wanted to be a founder of a startup myself. 00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:32.480 It was definitely just being inspired by my father. 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:48.639 And I certainly wouldn't have admitted it to him at the time, but I always idealized the concept of having an idea, manifesting it into something that's real, building it into a business, creating jobs, creating generational wealth for our family. 00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:52.159 It was really the only aspiration I had. 00:09:52.159 --> 00:10:01.679 So following the graduation of college, I had plenty of ideas that I was ideating on, but I didn't know how to build anything or manifest an idea into something that had been built. 00:10:01.679 --> 00:10:06.399 So I was really looking to join as early stage of startup as I possibly could. 00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:06.799 Yeah. 00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:09.759 Was there a moment you're like, okay, it's time to move on to the next thing? 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:11.279 And what was that next thing? 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:17.120 I found my way into my first software job at a company called Smarsh. 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:20.159 There were about 30 people working there at the time. 00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:22.799 They had just received a round of funding. 00:10:22.799 --> 00:10:28.320 And uh, over the course of an eight-year run there, we grew to many hundreds of people. 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:34.879 So that was the exact type of boot camp into a high growth environment that I was looking for. 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:36.879 And then you moved to Tesla. 00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:38.559 Tell me about that process. 00:10:38.879 --> 00:10:40.320 Yeah, that was wild. 00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:42.559 Tesla happened a little bit on accident. 00:10:42.559 --> 00:10:49.759 I took a little bit of time off and I was searching for inspiration, but it wasn't totally clear what I should do. 00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:59.519 And I ended up speaking with a recruiter merely out of pure curiosity because I saw the company as one that has the intersection between multiple passions of mine. 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:10.799 And she sized up my uh experience and put me in touch with a recruiter that was sourcing people for a non-advertised leadership development program. 00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:20.320 And the idea was that they would bring in people with some relevant experience, rotate them through a few departments, and then if you can make it, you'll land somewhere in an interesting role. 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:27.120 Uh, within a couple of weeks, I had an offer letter in my hand and I started in January of 2018. 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:30.720 And that was peak madness at Tesla. 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:33.440 It was the most shorted company in the world. 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:46.639 Elon was literally sleeping on the floor, and we were ripping our hair out to try and figure out how to manufacture 5,000 model threes per week so that we could hit cash flow positivity. 00:11:46.639 --> 00:11:51.200 And we did everything imaginable to try to make that happen. 00:11:51.519 --> 00:11:52.240 What was that like? 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:53.360 Like those first couple of days. 00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:57.279 Do you have any memory of like walking into the building and being like, this is crazy? 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:01.759 Um, I had never worked at a colossal company like that before. 00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:18.559 And what really struck me when I was put in the first seat on the engineering finance department was just the magnitude of responsibility each person has there, including me, somebody who is brand newly minted at the company in a finance role, having never done a finance job before. 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:22.320 So tell me what you eventually ended up doing at Tesla. 00:12:23.039 --> 00:12:30.720 In the end, I was overseeing sales and delivery operations for the core automotive business across North America. 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:39.120 And most notably for Plug, the used car remarketing PL, which the financials, it's absolutely in the billions. 00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:40.639 Whole nother scale. 00:12:41.039 --> 00:12:46.159 When was the first moment when you sort of looked at that and thought there might be a company to build here? 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:48.080 I made a couple of observations. 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:55.840 And the first observation was that only a small number of dealers participate very meaningfully in the used EV business. 00:12:55.840 --> 00:13:02.879 Today in the US, uh, just 2% of dealers are selling over 50% of all used EVs. 00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:05.919 Most dealers are totally opting out. 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:15.279 And the light bulb moment came on for me when I realized that it's extremely challenging to try to make this asset fit into what already exists. 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:16.879 It just wasn't built for it. 00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:22.559 And we could move faster if we started from ground zero as if nothing had already been built. 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:25.440 But from there it's still a while until you launch your company, right? 00:13:25.600 --> 00:13:25.919 Yeah. 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:32.320 So you wanted us to talk to Anne Miracot because she was the first person who really pushed you to start your own thing. 00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:34.000 So why don't you introduce Anne? 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:35.840 Who is she and how did you meet? 00:13:36.159 --> 00:13:37.039 She's a legend. 00:13:37.039 --> 00:13:40.480 Uh, I'd been following her on Twitter for years. 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:50.399 I met her through a mutual friend, and she had put the beacon out to talk to general managers or operators from companies like Tesla and Uber. 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:53.759 And I was excited to have an excuse to

actually meet her for the first time. 00:13:54.080 --> 00:13:56.399 So she kind of described that first conversation to us. 00:13:56.399 --> 00:13:59.039 And so I want to play that tape and then get your reaction. 00:13:59.279 --> 00:13:59.840 Cool. 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:11.120 I realized he wasn't really a fit for the company that I was looking for, but I could tell that there was sort of an entrepreneurial itch that he had. 00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:17.360 And so I asked him the question, what's keeping you from being a founder? 00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:27.120 And he responded that he had a bunch of ideas and he wanted to figure out if the idea was big enough. 00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:33.039 And he was so busy working at Tesla that he didn't prioritize that. 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:36.639 Tell me about that conversation a little bit more from your side. 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:43.360 It sounds like that was maybe the spark of thinking, you know, I might have this idea that I'll go start a company. 00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:46.559 I think this is probably true for a lot of would-be founders. 00:14:46.559 --> 00:15:00.559 Uh, sometimes what you need to move through your inertia is seeing that uh somebody who very credibly has backed uh world-class founders believes that you can be one of those people too. 00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:14.559 And the experience of Anne uh giving me the impression that she had that belief about me definitely pushed me forward into finding the space to prioritize the ideation into what would become a plug. 00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:24.080 I had heard this kind of similar refrain from a lot of people who are sort of thinking about doing something in the startup world. 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:29.919 And the big question that they always ask is is this actually a venture scale idea? 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:32.240 Like how big is this idea? 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:35.120 And is it worthy of pursuing? 00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:42.559 And so one of our principals at the time, Liore, said, I think I can like run a program. 00:15:42.559 --> 00:15:46.960 And it was, I think, maybe a cohort of five or six individuals. 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:53.840 And Jimmy sort of went through that process tinkering on this idea that he had that eventually turns into plug. 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:58.639 And she said, actually, you were the only person out of that program that they ended up investing in. 00:15:58.879 --> 00:15:59.440 Oh, funny. 00:15:59.440 --> 00:16:00.080 I didn't know that. 00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:02.000 I asked her why you stood out. 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:03.759 And here's one of the examples that she gave. 00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:16.720 So we have this concept within Floodgate, which is when you're at the very earliest stages of starting a company, there's moments where you're just gonna change your idea totally. 00:16:16.720 --> 00:16:28.320 And the best entrepreneurs, what might look like random path, it's a precise way of figuring out what your hypotheses are, testing them. 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:39.360 And when we encountered Jimmy in this context of what we started to see, he was very much a truth seeker. 00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:43.759 He didn't get stuck in a particular form of an idea. 00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:48.720 He had strong convictions, but they were very loosely held. 00:16:49.679 --> 00:17:00.000 I hope some of my team listens to this because they're going to laugh hysterically, because to this day that is a characteristic that we've been carrying around culturally. 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:09.839 I build conviction on ideas really quickly, and I'm just as quick to push them aside if my hypothesis has been disproven. 00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:16.000 And do you do you have anything else that you look for typically in founders? 00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:21.440 So the other thing that we care about is founder market fit. 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:28.720 And the depth of founder market fit actually comes from your own personal lived experience. 00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:32.640 That's something that Jimmy just had in spades. 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:41.839 It's partially because he was in this market building out, you know, for Tesla, the used car market from the ground up. 00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:47.839 And so he knew literally what was required to make this all work. 00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:53.039 Now, another difference though was that Jimmy was a solo founder, right? 00:17:53.039 --> 00:18:01.440 And usually we have a little bit of an allergic reaction to the solo founder because there's a few reasons for that. 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:06.319 One is will this person actually have a longevity? 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:11.680 Will they be able to withstand the loneliness of being an entrepreneur? 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:15.200 I actually had a lot of confidence that he had the grit. 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:24.319 And so those are sort of concerns that we could overcome, given the fact that he was so outstanding and just sort of thinking through this idea. 00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:35.440 Was there any one moment when you kind of helped him see that he might want to start a company or you know, maybe a conversation you had with him around like, hey, I actually think you'd be a good founder? 00:18:35.839 --> 00:18:37.599 I think we were telling him that for a while. 00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:45.279 So part of putting him into this program, we're like, hey, we think you could actually explore something and see if it's big enough. 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:50.799 Even after the program, we were saying, hey, we want to keep knowing what you're what you're working on. 00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:54.720 And then finally, I think um Jimmy went on paternity leave. 00:18:54.720 --> 00:19:14.720 So his son was born, and it was just sort of this moment where we're like, he is now taking a little bit of time off, and his brain is gonna sort of emerge from this fog, and he's gonna have this baby, and it's gonna feel like a new era

for him. 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:17.440 And maybe this is the moment. 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:20.400 So walk us through what that moment was like for you. 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:22.160 Oh, I remember it very vividly. 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:25.440 She said, Hey, I'm ready to write you a term sheet right now. 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:31.359 And uh, we were something like two to three weeks out from my son being born. 00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:37.279 Uh so my response was, let me have this baby and come back to you in 90 days. 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:39.599 More after the break. 00:19:41.279 --> 00:20:18.880 And now, back to the episode. 00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:25.440 So I just want to take a pause here. 00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:27.200 I mean, you just had your first kid. 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:33.359 One of my biggest memories, you know, with both of our kids is just they're so tiny, you know, almost like the size of a burrito. 00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:36.240 They're, you know, those first couple weeks, they're snuggling on your chest. 00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:38.480 You have a lot to do, you're not sleeping very well. 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:43.440 But, you know, between all the tasks and chores and diaper changes, you know, I remember having a lot of time to think. 00:20:43.440 --> 00:20:47.200 So talk me through like what's going through your mind at that point. 00:20:47.599 --> 00:20:49.839 It became very simple. 00:20:49.839 --> 00:21:03.039 In the types of careers that we are in that I was in at the time, no matter what, I would be working long hours, I wouldn't be there, at least for the near term, quite as much as I wish I could be. 00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:21.519 And it dawned on me that there was going to be such a colossal difference between the energy I would bring home as an executive at a mega corporation and the energy I would bring home as somebody that was building something that's ours. 00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:24.960 You know, a lot of people, they have their first kid, they seek stability. 00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:28.720 People might think of this as a bolder but riskier path. 00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:35.920 Like, how how did you think about that kind of stability risk trade-off, you know, jumping into this? 00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:43.359 I thought about it a lot, but ultimately I believe the greatest form of stability is having more control over your own destiny. 00:21:43.359 --> 00:21:46.000 So that's how I looked at it. 00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:58.480 So I want to get into the series A in a second, but um can you just describe sort of where plug is now in terms of, you know, who's using it, what does it do for them, and kind of like a rough sense of scale? 00:21:58.720 --> 00:21:59.599 Yeah, absolutely. 00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:06.960 Uh, plug is a marketplace at its core and it facilitates buying and selling of used electric vehicles. 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:18.240 We got off the ground with the thesis that electric vehicles should be represented in a differentiated way because when a combustion vehicle rolls off the line, its capability is static. 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:23.279 The equipment on it, unless it's physically modified, is not going to change. 00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:30.960 Whereas an electric vehicle can change its capability overnight through over-the-air software updates. 00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:50.640 So factors such as their software-enabled features, their computer hardware, their batteries, their charging network access, all of these factors really matter to buyers and sellers, but this information is not straightforward for anybody to just collect. 00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:58.240 So developing the expertise around what needs to be represented and how was our initial differentiator. 00:22:58.240 --> 00:22:59.920 And it worked. 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:09.599 We have very clear-cut data that shows that most EVs that are sold on plug are either going to sell faster or for more money, or both. 00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:14.240 And it's because of the confidence that we've injected into the transaction. 00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:27.680 Yeah, I think that the piece that I didn't totally appreciate was how different it is to value an EV versus an internal combustion engine car. 00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:30.480 Like I hadn't thought to question that at all. 00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:42.960 But he had seen it viscerally from the fact that the way uh a car actually ages is very different because you don't have as many moving parts. 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:49.680 And so mileage is less relevant than the health of your battery. 00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:57.039 And then these cars, they've become basically, you know, roving batteries on wheels with software. 00:23:57.039 --> 00:24:01.599 And then the software also can be valued in different ways. 00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:14.079 And so when the car actually changes to that degree, how do you value it, especially in a used car market, was not something that I had really thought through. 00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:17.200 And the world hadn't really caught up to that either. 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:20.000 And so that was interesting to me. 00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:29.599 One of the things that I've admired about you is um you seem to be phenomenal at telling your story and doing a good job with fundraising. 00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:30.880 You've now been through that a couple of times. 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:32.640 So I'd like to kind of touch on each of those. 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:34.480 Let's start with this seed round, right? 00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:37.519 So you have a newborn at home, you're pitching investors. 00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:40.960 Anne had said, you know, Floodgate was willing to write a check. 00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:43.519 Um, how was that process? 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:45.279 It was really fortunate. 00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:47.680 Floodgate led the round. 00:24:47.680 --> 00:24:52.480 They filled half of it immediately and made a few introductions,

including to you. 00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:53.200 That's right. 00:24:53.200 --> 00:25:00.720 And I learned really quickly uh about funding aro dynamics that I was naive to before. 00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:17.200 And we were fortunate to be in the, to be honest, stressful situation of being oversubscribed and not being in a position to bring everybody on board that resonated as an investor. 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:25.119 In the end, what would have been a $2.5 million initial close ended at $6.7 million in total seed funding. 00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:28.880 And, you know, Jimmy just seems to be a really talented fundraiser. 00:25:29.359 --> 00:25:29.599 Yeah. 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:33.119 What do you think about him that, you know, makes him good at fundraising? 00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:36.559 He's always thinking through what the objections might be. 00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:50.960 And so he's practicing constantly the stories, how he's gonna tell that story, how he's gonna respond to an objection in a way that I don't think people want to do. 00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:57.680 And then he backs it up, I love, with like facts and like graphs and articles. 00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:00.000 It's not just a story that he's spinning. 00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:02.079 So, yeah, let's move on to the series A. 00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:04.799 So I think, you know, every round of funding is different. 00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:08.799 And, you know, my experience has been that they just get harder and harder over time. 00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:11.519 Tell me the story about how your series A came about. 00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:14.400 Yeah, they had absolutely nothing in common. 00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:24.240 I I would say the the smart thing that I did was met investors with introduction calls very early on, effectively right after closing the seed round. 00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:35.519 By the time I decided to start raising the series A, I had been building relationships and periodically checking in and showcasing our work with over 70 Series A funds. 00:26:35.519 --> 00:26:38.160 And I was transparent about the fact that I was raising. 00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:44.160 Uh, I see a lot of founders out there that try to be coy about it and uh put together materials and pretend that they're not. 00:26:44.160 --> 00:27:03.680 I was very explicit that we were ready to do this now that we had built a repeatable growth model and we were heading directly into 2026, which I believe is the year of the used EV in this country, because of the mountain of lease returns that are about to start coming back from the Inflation Reduction Act's impacts. 00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:07.039 So it was a seven-week process. 00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:16.640 I had over 100 meetings, and ultimately we signed with Lightspeed Venture Partners, specifically their fintech team. 00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:20.640 You said there's a mountain of used EVs coming down the pike. 00:27:20.640 --> 00:27:23.359 You know, tell us more about what that impact's going to be. 00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:23.839 Yeah. 00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:34.640 So what happened was in 2023, the Inflation Reduction Act took effect, and one of the many components of that was a tax credit for newly purchased electric vehicles. 00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:41.200 There was a loophole in the way the law was written that also applied to leasing with uh far fewer restrictions. 00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:49.920 So what happened was basically overnight, over half of new EVs that were sold in this country were leased generally for 36 month terms. 00:27:49.920 --> 00:27:52.559 So three years later is now. 00:27:52.559 --> 00:27:59.039 And there's an estimated 1.1 million EV leases coming back over the next three years. 00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:04.559 So we're going to be looking at very rapid growth of the market overall. 00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:12.559 By my projection, it should 8X between now and 2030, at which point it should be worth north of $100 billion nationwide. 00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:13.519 Wow. 00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:15.200 Back to the series A. 00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:18.960 You know, my experience with a lot of these rounds is that they're they're very manic in a sense. 00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:22.880 You go out there, you have your first meetings, and it's very exciting. 00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:25.119 You know, you always think that first meeting goes well. 00:28:25.119 --> 00:28:29.440 And then you start having some second meetings, and then you start getting the no's. 00:28:29.440 --> 00:28:32.480 And then that is like the most depressive point. 00:28:32.480 --> 00:28:35.680 And you keep getting no's before you finally get your first yes. 00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:40.720 I mean, what you know, talk us through just like what was that process like for you? 00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:43.599 No different from what you just described. 00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:49.759 And in fact, I put together a presentation with a screenshot of every no email that we got. 00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:54.720 And I went through the painful exercise of reading out loud every single one. 00:28:54.720 --> 00:28:56.640 But it actually became funny. 00:28:56.640 --> 00:29:02.640 It was funny because they were basically all the same, how they would articulate the past. 00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:04.640 What was that language they'd use? 00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:09.599 That the easiest one to make fun of is cheering you from the sidelines, sort of just like on repeat. 00:29:09.759 --> 00:29:11.680 Yeah, I mean, that face is so hard, right? 00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:17.680 I remember when we were raising our Series C and kind of like in that moment where all the no' started coming in. 00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:23.039 I remember calling up my co-founder just like in this full-blown panic, and he was able to calm me down. 00:29:23.039 --> 00:29:24.799 You know, you're a solo founder. 00:29:24.799 --> 00:29:28.079 So I'm really curious to who you call in moments like that.

00:29:28.079 --> 00:29:31.039 And I actually talked to Ann and she brought this up too. 00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:33.839 So let me play you one last clip from our conversation. 00:29:34.160 --> 00:29:43.680 I always think about the fact that being a founder and being a CEO is such a lonely job. 00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:49.759 And the stamina required for it is just extraordinary. 00:29:49.759 --> 00:29:57.359 And so I hope, and this is sort of a hope I have for all the CEOs that we work with, is that they have the right support networks. 00:29:57.359 --> 00:29:59.359 Sometimes it's found within your team. 00:29:59.359 --> 00:30:10.079 Like your team is an incredible support network, but sometimes it's like you need other CEOs who understand what it's like to be in that situation and who will tell you that they're not crushing it. 00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:11.680 Well, it definitely resonates. 00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:12.480 Ann's right. 00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:15.839 It's lonely in that it's just an unrelatable career path. 00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:37.039 I have several friends that are founders, and several of them that I actually worked with at Tesla, they were some of the best people to confide in uh because they could relate on multiple vectors, uh, having gone through similar fundraising journeys themselves, let alone having lived through uh the environment we were in prior. 00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:40.720 And I do have a CEO coach as well. 00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:48.160 And she played an absolutely critical role in helping me keep my head in the game all the way through. 00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:52.240 I have a few friendships that are very core to my existence. 00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:54.960 And of course, I have my family. 00:30:55.519 --> 00:31:02.160 You know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs are seen as risk takers, but really the main trait is um is actually being an optimist. 00:31:02.160 --> 00:31:04.640 You know, some people see risk, you see opportunity, right? 00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:06.880 Like, is that something you would identify with? 00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:08.400 Oh, absolutely. 00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:17.759 As you know, every day when you show up to work, when you're at this stage of company, you're growing, you have real customers, real revenue, real competitive pressure. 00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:20.880 Something is on fire every single day. 00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:26.319 And you have to enter it with the mindset that no matter what gets thrown at you, you're going to figure it out. 00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:29.519 Without that, I don't know how anybody could do this. 00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:33.599 And so much of what we are building is aspirational. 00:31:33.599 --> 00:31:39.440 We are trying to rebuild an entire industry with noble cause behind it. 00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:47.440 It's not just about economic impact, it's about the great importance to myself and the whole team around electrifying transportation. 00:31:47.440 --> 00:32:01.200 And then while on leave, thinking through what the future would look like if I did do it versus didn't do it, I wanted to lean all the way into the most optimistic outcome possible. 00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:13.759 And some of that even rooted back to my own origin story of thinking through the office we would have and my son watching it evolve into something small, into something huge. 00:32:17.759 --> 00:32:22.799 This podcast is brought to you by Leap Forward Ventures, an investor in early stage startups. 00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:31.440 If you like the show, the number one thing you'll want to do is sign up to get notified when we release new episodes that includes transcripts and key takeaways from each story. 00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:34.160 Head to leapforward.fm to sign up. 00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:38.720 I'd also love to hear your feedback on the episode and who you want to hear from next. 00:32:38.720 --> 00:32:44.559 Just shoot us a text at 415-915-3050 to get in touch. 00:32:44.559 --> 00:32:49.200 This episode was produced by Theo Balcomb and Kim Nederveen Peterse. 00:32:49.200 --> 00:32:51.039 Craig Ellie is our engineer. 00:32:51.039 --> 00:32:53.119 Reece Laudano made our cover art. 00:32:53.119 --> 00:32:56.640 Music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. 00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:00.000 I'm David Rusenko, and this is the Leaf Forward Podcast. 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:01.839 See you next episode.