Startups don’t just need cash to be successful. Like many of us, they also thrive on attention.
Lindsay Kaplan, a former marketing executive and cofounder of Chief, a networking company for women, wants to coach startup founders on what it takes to build culture-driving brands.
“You can have as much money as you want to pour into the algorithm and buy ads,” Kaplan told Business Insider. “But if you don’t have the right founder who’s able to build a community and the attention that you need to build a real product that people want, all of that money … is meaningless.”
After stepping away from her role as chief brand officer at Chief last year, Kaplan is pivoting her career to focus on working with startup founders. She’s taking her own lessons as a founder, marketing exec, and investor in startups over to Bullish, a consumer-focused venture capital fund. She’s joining the firm as a venture partner, the company exclusively told Business Insider.
Bullish has invested in several consumer hits, including Warby Parker, Harry’s, Peloton, and Casper, Kaplan’s former employer.
Bullish invests in early-stage startups, typically from pre-seed to Series A, Kaplan said. The categories she’s most interested in span loneliness, dating, parenting, health, and identity and belonging.
“AI can be a tool to help those problems,” Kaplan said, but she’s acutely aware that not all AI is going to be a hit with real-life people.
What does it take to get people to care about your product?
Cracking how to “break through the noise” helps, Kaplan said.
How startups can ‘break through the noise’
“What a consumer cares about is what is in it for them. What do we get out of it?” Kaplan said. “Founders are so used to pitching VCs that it’s really hard to switch gears and start thinking about: Why should a customer care?”
When it comes to consumer-facing AI startups, brands need to think outside the box.
Kaplan said that “contrarian” plays can be useful when marketing a startup in a crowded space.
For instance, while so many tech companies are shouting AI from rooftops, some are strategically letting AI take a back seat.
“The best brands emerging are using AI, they’re not necessarily making their startup fully based in AI,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan pointed to Rocco, a smart fridge brand she angel invested in, as an example.
“It’s a smart fridge, but the brand doesn’t lead with ‘AI-powered appliance,’ it leads with design and functionality,” Kaplan said. “The AI makes the product better without becoming its identity, which is how they’ve managed to generate incredible buzz and traction in one of the most commoditized categories in consumer hardware.”
Marketing AI has been a tricky battlefield for brands.
Look no further than the Friend AI ads across New York City. The ads promoting the startup’s AI companion pendant were defaced by locals.
Other marketing and advertising agencies, such as Day Job, are being tapped by AI companies specifically to help translate their brands to everyday people — in other words, potential customers.
Startups and the creator economy
Kaplan said startups trying to reach consumers have a unique tool at their disposal: creators.
Kaplan said the creator economy “rewrote who controls distribution” on social media by shifting who stirs buzz about brands and how people learn about them.
“Early adopters have really become the creators,” she said.
While startups previously toiled over customer acquisition cost (CAC), Kaplan said the big question now is: “Who will carry the story out into the world and why will anybody listen?”
“Distribution is no longer something you can buy,” she said. “You have to earn it.”
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