bullish by design, mike duda, managing partner, bullish
Mike Duda was the youngest partner in his ad agency's forty year history. Then the financial crisis hit, and he could not shake one bratty question: if we are really this good at building brands, why are we not betting our own money on them?
The partners said no. So he found First Round Capital doing office hours at a dive bar in New York called Live Bait, signed up for a ten minute slot, and pitched Josh Kopelman on Friday the thirteenth. He called his wife afterward and told her he had a chance. Fifteen years later, Bullish is one part early stage consumer venture firm, one part strategic creative agency, and the early check behind Birchbox, Peloton, Harry's, and Warby Parker.
In this episode of There Is No Alternative, Tina Bou-Saba sits down with Mike, managing partner of Bullish, for a conversation that is funny, blunt, and full of hard-won opinions about an asset class he thinks has been badly misjudged. He is honest about the wins and what he calls the ouches, skeptical of almost every piece of received venture wisdom, and genuinely bullish on consumer at a moment when most of Sand Hill Road has walked away from it.
In This Episode:
- How a ten minute slot at a dive bar turned into the firm Mike has been building for fifteen years
- Why Bullish loved Peloton when no other VC would touch it, and how being one of 104 names on that cap table shaped the whole thesis
- The worst business model in the world: no salary, small checks, and a third kid on the way
- Why he answers "should I angel invest" with four or five more questions instead of an answer
- What actually killed the DTC playbook, and the exact month it happened
- How the firm's founders went from 28, 30, and 26 years old to 37, 57, and 54
- Why he hates pattern matching, and what Bullish looks for instead
- The obituary exercise he runs with founders, and the one who refused to do it
- Why Bullish is founder supportive and not founder friendly, and why he thinks there is a real difference
- Where he thinks exits are headed now that strategics, not IPOs, are driving liquidity
Chapters:
[00:00] Only the Paranoid Survive: Meet Mike Duda of Bullish
[02:20] One Part Venture Firm, One Part Creative Agency
[04:18] The Bratty Question That Started It All
[05:52] Ten Minutes at a Dive Bar With Josh Kopelman
[07:53] Seventy-Eight People, and He Got the Hour and a Half
[09:12] Everyone Passed on Peloton. Bullish Did Not.
[10:37] The Worst Business Model in the World
[12:55] Should You Angel Invest? He Answers With More Questions
[15:18] Get Your Popcorn Ready: What Really Killed DTC
[22:03] When a Marquee VC on Your Cap Table Becomes a Liability
[24:58] Write Your Obituary: The Exercise Jeff Raider Refused
[27:27] Our First Three Founders Were 28, 30, and 26
[29:16] Finding Founders in Maine, Minneapolis, and Scottsdale
[37:04] We Are Not Founder Friendly. We Are Founder Supportive.
[42:26] Six Firms Raised Seventy-Two Percent of All Venture Dollars
[46:47] Why Strategics, Not IPOs, Are the Future of Exits
[50:49] Why He Hates Pattern Matching
[53:35] Desert Island Product: Red Wine
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