Ep 79: Celebrity Whisperer&Investor of Lady Gaga, Gwyneth Palthrow, Sophia Amoruso, Tom Brady etc. - a podcast by Ling Yah

Nicole Quinn is a General Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, where she focuses on consumer and FinTech investing. Consumer behaviour, founder insights, and company brand are core in Nicole’s mind. Nicknamed the “Celebrity Whisperer”, she has led the Series A in Cameo and Lady Gaga's Haus Labs and seed rounds in Girlboss, Illumix and Sagely. She also invested in the Series B in Calm and Series C in Goop and sourced Rothy's and Zola.

In this episode, we learn how Nicole went from helping her dad run his online pharmacy chain as a child to spending around 8 years at Morgan Stanley to finally entering the VC space.

Nicole shares what a true brand is, how she measures an engaged followship, what it’s like working with celebrity-led companies, how to separate the celebrity from the company, the due diligence she did prior to investing in Lady Gaga’s company, what make founders like Sophia Amoruso of Girlboss stand out and why she produced a sizable term sheet to Lunchclub in less than 7 days. 

If you’ve been interested in consumer products and wondering what it’s like to spot & invest in future trends, then this is the episode for you. 

Highlights:

• 2:56 Learning the value of money
• 4:04 Working at Morgan Stanley for 8 years
• 5:06 Angel Investing
• 6:04 Joining an European fintech startup
• 7:40 Focus on your strengths & make them stronger (in Stanford)
• 9:46 Meeting members of Lightspeed Venture Partners, including Jeremy Liew
• 12:22 How founders find the thing they were born to do
• 14:40 Working with Lady Gaga to build Haus Laboratories
• 16:13 Doing due diligence on Lady Gaga to measure engagement
• 17:42 Separating the celebrity from the company
• 19:26 Leading indicators of a true brand being built
• 20:23 Why Nicole invests in early stage founders (e.g. Girlboss & Rothy’s)
• 22:03 How Lightspeed spots new trends
• 22:47 Being wrong about future trends
• 24:42 Why Nicole offered Lunchclub a sizable term sheet in less than 7 days
• 26:58 The ICE Influencer policy at Calm
• 29:50 Companies incorporating NFTs well into their business

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/79 

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