BUILD

SUCCEED

David: [00:00:00] Hi, welcome to Build to Succeed from Very Good Ventures. Today, we're talking with Patricia Roller, founder of Vidlet and former co CEO of story design firm, Frog Design. In this episode, we talk about the role of insights and culture to successful companies and products. I hope you enjoy our discussion.

And if you do, please take a moment to rate us or give us a like on one of your favorite podcast platforms. now we'll get [00:01:00] [00:02:00] into Hi, Patricia, 

Patricia: Hi, David.

David: you.

so 

Patricia: Good seeing you. You just came back from vacation and it shows.

David: Thanks. Thanks. Um, yeah, we had a nice one. It was good. It was a good little trip. Um, always got to take those moments with the family. So, um, well, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate you joining our new podcast. Um, you've been a hero of mine for a long time in terms of what you've done in your career and our paths have interestingly been connected, um, both through our mutual, [00:03:00] well, Different, but mutual experience at Frog.

Um, and then also now by Flutter and work that's happened there. So, it's just an honor to speak with you and thank you for making some time in your day to come chat.

Patricia: Same here. Thank you for having me. Um, I'm always nervous about these things, but, um, I saw the one, uh, episode that you posted on LinkedIn. You're very good at this.

David: Well, it's the, it's the guests that matter. So, let's maybe take that as a transition and do you want to just introduce yourself and maybe start by telling us a little bit of your background?

Patricia: Yes. I'm Patricia Roller. Um, yeah. As you already mentioned, David, um, we share, even though we never worked together directly, right? Share a frog history. I was co CEO and helped, um, to sell the company. And as you know that that was a very special place. Very creative people. So, [00:04:00] this was, F. R. O. G. was my first job.

Helped the company move from, uh, Germany to the US when Steve Jobs decided to hire a design firm in the early eighties, um, then ran the company for about 20 years, sold the business and then became something that probably everyone that has an exit at one point does. I became a startup investor with a group, um, enjoyed it very much.

But then at age 55, I was like, okay, am I going to retire now for good? Um, and I decided to start yet another company that does, um, design research using video, and that's what I do today. And that's why we built a Flutter app, another connection we have, right? Frog and Flutter, FNF, and then you are Very Good Ventures and I'm Witlet.

So I think we. We hang out in the same letters of the alphabet. Um, but yeah, so [00:05:00] we built a mobile app, uh, and we called people in their environment to inform better product decisions.

David: Yeah, so that's VidLit, and so can you maybe expand on VidLit, um, what the company does and what, you know, what a client would come to VidLit for, and maybe also what led you to start VidLit in the first place?

Patricia: So I'll start with the ladder with why I started Witlet. So I fell in love with video as an investor first. Um, the company was actually, or the platform was built by a guy named Karen Farr. Um, Um, who's really an expert in video. And as most people probably don't know, video is a very, very hard medium to manage.

We had the conversation earlier with your Aiden, right? When he set us up here, still very difficult, but, um, I was an investor in VidCast and just fell in love with video because you can express so much more when you see it. Um, there is a saying [00:06:00] that one frame of video says more than three pages of text.

And so I thought that this would be great for us to record people, um, get their insights on a product experience and then take those insights and make changes in innovation. Um, so traditionally at Frog, we would go out and visit people in their home and do these kinds of interviews, design research interviews that inform better product decisions.

But I just think if you leave people alone Without hovering over them, especially when they talk about sensitive subjects. It's just so much richer. And also not just asking people what is an experience like. I think most of us are not trained to criticize a product experience. Even though when you go throughout your day, you probably stumble so many times.

Whenever you interact, especially with [00:07:00] technology, right? It's But we are not trained to express that. We accept technology for what it is. And so that's why we are observing people, um, and then see those pain points. Um, I'll give you an example. We did something with, uh, a ride sharing company. That was probably already like eight years ago.

So very early in RedLit. And whenever as users, we fall in love with a new business model and ride sharing was very new. We love that. And we just love that it exists. So when we ask people, how do you feel about ride sharing? They couldn't express any pain points because it just was so cool and so new.

And I can call the con and you live in New York, you know what it used to be like hailing down the cab, right? Um, and, but we observe people in the, while they were taking a ride, ordering a ride, and it was incredibly painful at the time. You might not even remember that, but you would often find yourself on the wrong side of the street.[00:08:00] 

You couldn't really predict when the car actually arrives. So all these pain points that people would not express, but that you would absolutely see when they were recording themselves,

David: hm,

Patricia: so that's what Wittler does. Um, record partly, you and I worked on something together on, um, a retail app, right, um, and you probably remember that video.

David: mm hm. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. It's the, uh, extension of design research, right? Um, which Frog and companies like IDEO and other early innovators in the design, human, you know, factors, human design, um, space really helped to innovate. And, you know, building on focus groups, right? Which everyone, I think these days, I think is a good understanding of there's a lot of group think that happens there.

You're not going to get that insight and you've taken it a step further, which is I want to get that. That experience alone, right, where I'm not pressured by the interviewer or having someone else there. Um, and I guess that probably wouldn't have been too easy to do technology wise [00:09:00] back when Frog started or even when I was there.

I don't think we had the tools or technology maybe to do some of those things back then.

Patricia: Well, I think, but that bridges what I do now with, with frog, because I did go to frog first. Um, when I started with that, um, because frog in my mind. was always breaking things with new technology. And as you know, now that you run your own company, making those changes is very hard because you have to invest in them.

You have to decide, like, this is something my customers are moving in that direction. I need to do this. For example, my very first experience of frog doing that was in the 80s when product design became more integrated with engineering. And so we as designers had to embrace engineering culturally. That is very, very different people.

You notice in, in the software you develop, right? So we were one of the first design companies buying CAD systems. [00:10:00] Um, big, big computers at the time that filled up a whole room, needed extra air conditioning. So that was a big change that not everyone always embraced. And if you look at Frog's history, that's what Frog always did.

Like, if something works really well, let's break it. And so I think Frog should have honestly done Whitlet for design research because design research was way too expensive. And very highbrow, right? Certain people just riding out there, uh, seeing these experiences and then you had to believe them what they brought back.

And I think we need to be much more transparent. And for me doing design research with video is very democratic. So,

David: you have to break them or you want to break them. That's, that's, uh, I think a really interesting statement. I think a lot of companies don't really focus on the things that they're doing well to break. They're trying to fix the things that are broken. But I think [00:11:00] that's an interesting perspective about how do you stay on the, on the forefront, right?

How do you continue to innovate and evolve as a company to get better and better insight and better, better data and better,

Patricia: yeah, because if something works, um, someone will copy it and commoditize it. And you, it's sometimes shocking how companies don't evolve faster because it's so comfortable to just live with what you're used to. I mean, Frog at one point had this saying, change is fun. I'm not sure if that was still in your days, but people didn't always feel that change is fun.

Um, because you're bringing in new people with new skill sets that challenge your thinking. And this was very obvious when Frog moved from product to what we called a convergent experience at the time, right? The digital experience. I was very uncomfortable because all of a sudden there were the new cool kids on the block.[00:12:00] 

David: Well, that's, that's an interesting part of Frog's story. And I think even your evolution into Vidlet, right? The continuation of that is. Frog and Doord, or as it continues to for 50 years, something, right? And the amount of change that happened in the marketplace and in the world over that period of time, like, yeah, getting into different technologies, the internet, early.

com boom, you know, moving into services and service design, mobile experiences. And what do you think enabled? In the early days, and then as Frog continued to evolve with that, to keep that mentality of fixing the things that work or breaking the things that work well to continue to improve.

Patricia: I would say in the early days were very much driven by Hartmut. Um, who's my husband. Um, and he's just very good at taking risks. Uh, he sleeps well at night when he takes risks, whereas most people don't. Uh, I see this now at [00:13:00] Witlett when, you know, you have a bad month and you need to still invest in new technology. It's, it's very hard to do. You know?

So I think, um, having someone that takes risk and then I think at one point it becomes a muscle and it becomes part of your culture and then it becomes more sustainable. That's why I think Frog is still around. We sold the company almost 20 years ago. It still has a strong brand name. It's now part of Capgemini, so we'll see how well it will do, um, in a big environment like that.

Many design groups that became part of the bigger consultant group Consulting groups are probably regretting it, um, because it is a very, very different culture, but

I personally believe in that. That's what, that's how I try to run Witlet. Witlet is very small, but, um, make it about, I don't know, make mistakes, um, learn from them [00:14:00] 

David: So at Frog, you know, you were A consultant, right? Where consultants were working with other, these brands. And you've, you've kind of done the three, like kind of the, the trinity of different types of work, uh, as an investor, as a consultant, and as a product owner. Um, how is the product owner experience different from those other roles as an investor, as a consultant, when you know, you are focused on this one business, this one technology stack, the tools that you've got, uh, how has that been different for you?

Patricia: Well, and, and I'm not sure if you know this, but frog, at one point in the eighties, uh, build a computer on entertainment computer that was probably one of the best machines in terms of, um, computer power, computing power at the time. Uh, we plugged a lot of, um, the best people out of Apple. Andy, he filtered the user interface and we failed.

Um, we failed at the time because. [00:15:00] The content was not there. So I think as a product owner, you deal with a lot more complexity. Um, you have to drink your own Kool Aid, right? Um, and I mean, you would say looking at our app, that it's probably not that great by your standard. This is what I would argue, but we pay people to use the app.

So we can, um, maybe make some shortcuts. And those are decisions that you have to make. Um, for me, it was very challenging working with developers. I, um, like I said, I inherited this company in a way when, um, Vidcast, um, ran out of funding. I bought a platform. All of a sudden I had a team of developers and I will never forget the early days.

We, we had daily standup, um, in San Francisco, an office in San Francisco. And, um, they would tell me like, things are working. And I would say, but customers can't use it. [00:16:00] So technically it was working. So I learned to speak, develop or speak a little bit. Working and working can be two very, very different things.

But you have to make compromises, right? You cannot tinker around forever. You have to launch a product at one point. And I think that's probably the biggest difference of, um, helping companies create new products from a design perspective And building a product.

David: Definitely, I can relate to that. Makes a lot of sense. As a consultant, your job is to give the best, you know, recommendations. The best solutions. You're there to provide the best results that you can. You know, and as a product owner, you're the backstop for everything. You, you're the source of the funding.

You have to make those hard decisions and prioritizations. Um, has your experience as a consultant and as an investor helped you in terms of making some of those prioritizations?

Patricia: Well, as an [00:17:00] investor, I learned that, um, I really don't have decision power. Um, once you have made the investment, you have to trust the team that's building a product. And that's probably also the reason why I wanted to run a company again. Um, but it has definitely helped me the way investors think about it and why.

Ideally now, I don't want to take a lot of money from an investor. We, Whitcaster had funding rounds. We did a small one early on, um, because I think it's a responsibility, um, when you take money in, but it did teach me that, um, the most important thing when you have a company is you need to sell your product.

Um, right. I mean, startups often focus a lot on. What PR do I have? How many clicks do I have? How many likes do I have? And I think what I learned from the investors is none of that matters. Um, at the end of the day, you need to make [00:18:00] money.

David: I totally agree. It's, um, I used to tell, especially startup clients that building it is the easy part. Everyone puts a lot of emphasis on what's the concept, what's our business idea, our MVP, are we building scalable technology? And there's a lot of emphasis on that. And it's the, if you build it, they will come mentality.

And I would always say building is the easy part. You can, you know, Pay me or any number of firms or, or hire people to build the thing. But if you can't sell it, if you can't get an audience, if you can't get a customer base and have people that are really enthusiastic about your product and want to use it, you don't have a business.

Um, and I think there's a, especially in the startup world, there's a lot of emphasis on, on the technology, uh, cool new things that are happening. What is our product? And I think some companies spend a little bit too late in the game. They started thinking they too late to the game. They started thinking about how do we actually sell this, right?

How do we, how do we actually market it and build a customer base? That's really into this. Um, [00:19:00] and, uh, that's the hard part, getting people to use your app in the first place, getting customers.

Patricia: And startups often are founded by people that want to solve a problem that they have experienced. You see this often in healthcare, right? Um, my dad suffered from something, so I want to solve this problem. And then you learn that You need to sell this to a lot of people, not just your dad. Uhm, so you need to change it.

Witlet had to change a couple of times. That we now do Zoom interviews and not just mobile interviews and combine them and build a platform where we can combine them was a change that I resisted for quite some time. And I think that early change is so important. They go like, okay, where is my market?

Actually, it's not just me and my friends. Um, I need to sell this to a lot of people. And that is very, very hard to do. I mean, almost every startup that I have seen had to switch at one point a little bit.

David: Have you [00:20:00] had to, uh, have you had that same experience at VidLit as your, how was your target market changed over the years?

Patricia: So in the beginning we were definitely, so I only knew research out of frog, right? Design research. And then for a while, we actually called ourselves a market research company. So we talked to a lot of insights people and market research people. And I learned that we speak a completely different language.

Um, so what I learned is I need to talk to the right people that have innovation problems and not people that have marketing problems. Completely different. So A. I., who we talked to, and as I already mentioned, that the, the Build a broader platform that can also do deeper interviews on Zoom or maybe we do a follow along, uhm, and go out in the field even though we rarely do that.

So that's something I have to change. Think about who my customer is. integrate more product into the offering. Um, we are now also moving to [00:21:00] like very early concepting because our customers often could not just live with the insight. They would see the pain points. They would see what was wrong, but they couldn't translate that into new ideas.

So more and more, do we have to do that? That's not something I wanted to do. I didn't want to build another frog, right? I didn't want to go into design consulting, but now we Kind of bordering a little bit, just touching on a little bit where we take the insights and help our customers to translate it.

So I've become less of a technology platform and again, a services business, whereas before I, if anyone would have just taken the platform the way it is and used it on their own, I would have been very happy. I wanted a SaaS business and turned out that I need to change that.

David: Yeah, I think SAS businesses inevitably maybe run, depending on what they're doing, of course, but inevitably do run into some need for services of some type. When I think of even in [00:22:00] our ecosystem, all the SAS tools that are out there around a mobile app, whether it's an amplitude or a braise or. Those types of tools you would add to your experience.

There's still work to understand how to make sense of those tools, how to set them up, how to get insights out of them and act on it. And I think all the tools still require that strategic thinking, that alignment. Um, so that's interesting that the progression kind of getting back to that early, early, uh, experience of helping the client section make sense of the insights. That's, that's very interesting. And does Vidlet, do you guys focus on sort of all stages of the product development life cycle? So early concepting, I want to test an idea as well as all the, when I have a product, I'm looking for feedback, sort of UX improvements. Are you still at this stage kind of doing the full range?

Patricia: Yeah, pretty much anything that needs some customer feedback. Um, I mean, most of our clients probably evolve a product and don't create a new product or a service. Um, and that can be [00:23:00] across any sector, right? Um, we have interviewed people on the roof, um, to understand solar installation. Um, we do. That is a business that exists.

You just want to improve it. Um, rarely do we actually, we might do product extensions if someone already has a product and now they say, Hey, under this brand, we want to do something else. Um, but it almost doesn't matter. Um, throughout the product life cycle, you need insights on custom. It's not, you do this once and then you know it.

The biggest impact for consumer insights is at the front end, or when you make the biggest investment in a product. There's a chart by DARPA that really shows this, where if you make an investment and you already have defined a product, it just becomes very expensive to change it. And so ideally you want to be at the front end.

David: But it's like, I like that [00:24:00] insight though, that you have to continue to invest in the insights. I think some companies might build the thing and then want to validate it. And by like what you're saying, by that point, it's maybe too late. If you've already invested heavily in the product, now you're validating it.

Uh, do you have the wherewithal to make the changes of what you find? If you only do it in the beginning, maybe you uncover the insight, but maybe you don't execute it correctly. So, you know, make sure that you're continuing to generate those insights throughout the entire life cycle of a product is something that I think is really important for, for product owners to keep in mind.

Uh,

Patricia: little bit into concepting early concepts so we can go back. To our research participants and say, is this what you actually meant? Did we understand you correctly? And oftentimes it's still changes at that phase. Um, because we interpret it the one way. Um, so yeah, so in my mind it's around the product life cycle.

It's, and that's why I think when we see a bad experience out there, people [00:25:00] have forgotten to tap back into who their customer is, um, you know, And they need a refresh. And technology changes so fast, right? I mean, now, I was wondering how long it will take us until we talk about A. I. But,

um, Well, 

David: um, you know, four or five years have been pretty crazy in terms of all the different changes going from COVID and the pandemic all the way up through now A. I. and things along those lines and for what Vidlet's doing, both in terms of like switching to the more mobile context where Things like focus groups and design research in home, ethnographic research and stuff probably put on a pretty hefty hiatus for a while there.

And so I would imagine that would have, um, helped you maybe in certain ways. Um, and then now you've got AI and people are like, Oh, just ask chat GPT, what your customer would do. How have you seen those changes influence your company? [00:26:00] And what's your perspective on, on some of these market shifts?

Patricia: I think you already said it. Every tool needs an intelligent person to use it. A. I. is a tool, uh, and I think we are in the very, very early phases to figuring out what it actually can do. Um, I'm not sure if you saw the Google ad during the Olympics that they later pulled, um, where a dad instructs his daughter to write a letter to, um, to an Olympian that she admires using Gemini.

And when I saw that ad, I was like, that's the dumbest ad. Because in my mind, so of course you could argue a young girl needs to learn how to write a letter, but that wasn't even my, my first thought. My first thought was like, does that mean we all get the same letter now? Uhm, So I think that was just a [00:27:00] bad use case.

Um, so I think we still need to figure out where it has a place and where not. And, and I think this is, goes back to what we said earlier, that just because the technology exists, doesn't mean it's always working for users. For me, the best example are chatbots. I have not once, not once had an experience with a chatbot, Ultimately gets me the solution.

I'm not sure about you. Not once.

So the technology is there, but

David: Yeah, they're clearly very powerful technologies and have a, there's a number of incredible use cases for these things. I think we as a society recently, I feel like especially over the last five years, maybe I just have, you know, uh, just some degree of time dilation where I feel like it's more, more severe recently, but.

We get like obsessed with these technologies for a moment, like Metaverse and, um, blockchain and now it's A. [00:28:00] I. And of course, A. I. and machine learning have been around for a very long time, but suddenly chat GPD comes out and everyone's freaking out and needs a, some sort of A. I. enabled chat bot. But I think for me, the interesting aspect of it is the really useful tools to, I think, get the consensus. I joke that, um, there should just be like a CEO GPT that has just read every business book ever. And you can just ask this CEO GPT, um, what to do in a business situation. But I feel like what that would give you is sort of the exact opposite outcome of what you were describing, what Frog was like in the early days and Hartmut's, for example, his, his comfort with risk.

Is the bot, the GPT, going to give you the risky answer or is it going to give you the consensus answer? And so to your point of getting the same letter, if we start making more and more decisions, if we're using these tools for customer, for research of our customer, and we're getting the consensus answers, what is that going to do to innovation?

What is it going to do for that risky, harebrained idea that is [00:29:00] new, novel, that no one's written about, that isn't trained into the model? Are we going to get those kind of outcomes? And that's, I think, the scary thing for me is if we abuse these tools too much and we don't, we just use, if we, if we use them for input to get the consensus, then that's great.

Patricia: they're good, good springboard. I mean, Harman and I are playing a lot with design and AI, and we are having a lot of fun, right? Um, and you always get a kernel of an idea where you go, this is interesting, but it is a little bit like food that was already eaten before. Um, Like, if you really think about it, you could come up with that too.

Um, but it is inspiring and someone will figure out how to use it better and better. I mean, you mentioned the early internet days, right? Um, if you look back at how we thought the internet would shape what we do, we got it so wrong. That's why we went through a bust. A. I. will go through some [00:30:00] correction and already is, but at the same time, I admire companies that invest a lot in it, right?

Especially the ones that can. Some startups and some investors will definitely lose money. Um, but.

David: no, I totally agree. Um, you got to stay on top of the technology and it's gonna, it's something not to be shunned or avoided. Um, but I think it's important to keep it in the context. Like what, what Vidlet's doing. I see it as a continuation of, uh, what Frog did early on, and then what, even my experience when, when I was there, uhm, which was, I think, after you, it had been sold, uhm, and we did a lot of design research, and we were doing a lot of, uhm, trends analysis, and doing a lot of exploration, and the goal was to generate the insights.

You know, those, those customer stories, those interesting insights that you could build on, that would become this seed, this kernel, that you could scaffold a bunch of ideas and design executions. And I think when sometimes when people think about design, they just assume it's a A designer who's just really good at [00:31:00] making art essentially, right?

But if you had an army of designers that didn't have good insights to influence that design execution, what are they going to get? You're going to maybe get something like a, an A. I. would spit out potentially. So getting to those insights is super important. And I think it's, it's interesting to see your progression through your career.

Um, and that I think at the core still VidLit is about generating those insights and helping product owners know how to act more, um, More purposefully in terms of what they're doing with their product.

Patricia: Yeah, that's why we are asking a lot of why questions. Why do you do something a certain way? Why, why, why, why, why? Almost like a toddler, because that's where the best insights come. And then also project a little bit, uhm, what problem it actually solves. Can something else already solve that problem? I give you an example.

A couple of years ago, we worked on Fresh dog food delivered to your home as a subscription model. And these [00:32:00] companies are still out there, right? So not, not necessarily a bad business. But then we also projected what would happen if your grocery store had that too. Right? Because at the time, you could only buy, uhm, dry food at the pet store.

Now when I walk down to my grocery store, they have a refrigerator. So why would I get a box from FedEx with all this packaging and freezing stuff and all that if I can get it down the street? So, at the time, the, the company did not project that incumbents can also make changes.

And that might maybe not wipe out your business, but definitely slow your growth.

David: Yep. They need to be thinking about the, how to break the things that are working and what will break those things. That's, that's really cool. Uh, I wanted to ask you, um, obviously the last couple of years have been challenging for the professional services [00:33:00] design agency world. Um, you know, I know, uh, companies like Frog and IDEO and pretty much anybody doing any sort of services business over the last couple of years has been really hit hard.

Um, I was just curious, sort of like based on your career and your perspective on that ecosystem. Um, How have you observed what's been going on in that space? And what do you think the implications are going forward for companies that are maybe like ratcheting back some of their investment in design thinking and insight generation and good design?

Um, what are you observing?

Patricia: Well, and I know you have heard this before. I think the industry, um, is responsible for that demise in some ways. I think design thinking in its traditional sense, um, was a good idea, but we overdid it. Um, but everyone now could be a designer if you just have a workshop with me, right? You can all be creative.

And then a lot of people just didn't have the skill set to be a designer. They would take, um, [00:34:00] a four week, six week design thinking course, and then would be a designer. And so I think in some ways we caused that. Um, I think salaries were extremely high. Um, companies were just hiring designers, not even knowing what to do with them.

And so I think there will definitely be a salary correction. But I also see some of the good people. So the sad thing is that, uh, people that we often let go from companies who were maybe the higher paid, really good people, and I'm convinced that they'll figure out something new. I, I'm already talking to a couple that have like left Microsoft, left Google, left Frog, and, um, and are figuring out what the industry needs next.

Um, because you, you. All this design thinking hasn't really improved products

David: Hmm.

Patricia: that much, right? So I think we need to figure out something else, but [00:35:00] smart people always figure something out. So I'm, I think it's a good thing.

David: Yeah, that makes sense. And I remember when I was there, this was, I was there 2006 to 2011. Um, especially in the early part of my time there, we, a lot of what we were doing was convincing people or explaining about design thinking about human centered design, about why design matters. And another factor I think of like, Being too successful was, I think we like were right there was, there's a lot of value to the design process and design thinking and that design does matter and you see more and more companies embracing that, right?

Like I think every, and tools like mobile apps and things where user experience really. Shined, like people know you, if you want to be serious and build a high performing products, that's especially consumer, consumer products, you know, you have to have good user experience. It has to be usable. It has to be something your, your customers can use.

And, um, I think a lot of companies took that in house as well. Right. Um, so I think that was another aspect where I think design and design thinking and some of that stuff, um, [00:36:00] just became ingrained in the fabric of how business got done, but at the same time, yeah, maybe a little bit, you Too highfalutin, with how we approached it.

Uhm, But you're right, there's so many good people, there's so much good talent. We at VGV have been, um, uh, beneficiaries of some of the contractions of some of the other firms because we've been able to attract some really great talent and I think there are a lot of really amazing people out there who, you're right, they're going to find something because they're really smart, creative, interesting people, uh, and they're going to, you know, Find a way to be successful, um, and make an impact.

In fact, I wanted to ask you about that specifically, um, culture and team, you and I, I think I've talked about this in the past, cause one of the things I really admire about frog and frankly, I aspire for VGV is when I look at, there's some alumni groups, there's like a frog Slack channel. And when you look at where people who went through frog, like what they went on to do, where they've ended up, the types of companies they've worked with and the roles they've accomplished.

Frog became this amazing feeder, uh, creator of talent, right? [00:37:00] Um, and how, how did you do that? You know, how did you set that up as a culture and a team? And what do you think, like, if you could give advice to other companies and other teams, how do you set up a culture to be this, like, talent factory where you just are spitting out incredible people who go on to make impacts all over the place?

Patricia: Yes, I think that started even before my time. Um, so first of all, I think about culture when I now invest in startups, I always tell them culture before everything else. Uh, and culture comes often from the CEO first, right? Um, that you are part of the team, that you drive ideas, that you allow mistakes to happen, that you are flexible.

Um, but frog. And this was, as I said, before I joined, um, did something that at the time was absolutely revolutionary. And I was buying all the back pages of major design magazines. And people always said, why [00:38:00] ads on design magazines? Like, you cannot get customers that way. But the goal was not to necessarily get customers.

The goal was to tell designers. This matters. You matter. We want you to come to us. It had this certain attitude. Now you can do everything on TikTok much faster and whatever. But back then, that costs money. Invest in who we want to hire. Um, and then pay people well. Designers compared to today were not paid that well.

And demanding that from a customer. And I think once you do that consistently, it's like a muscle that's ingrained, and then everyone behaves that way, and everyone walks a little bit taller, uh, and I think that matters.

David: Totally agree. Um, I think culture is super important and getting people to be believe in the vision and support the people, especially in consulting. I mean, I think that's something that that frog was great at. And I think, you know, [00:39:00] the successful firms out there try to do too, is it's all about the empowerment of your people and their belief in themselves and what you're doing.

And that comes from great culture. 

Patricia: That's why these acquisitions, I think, are backfiring a little bit, right? Because you're putting two cultures together, and if they don't match, then you have pain on both sides. 

David: hmm. Yeah, I think, totally. Um, I think there's a number of examples we can point to, in those situations, at least from people that I know and various companies, of where those don't work. But, I mean, that's also one of the hard things about our modern world. That's tricky too, is, you know, as founders, um, as companies, you want to grow, you want to be successful and it's, you know, Kind of, kind of sad in some ways that like the outcome of a successful firm is you got to just keep grinding it out and take all the risk or you get gobbled up by a big giant conglomerate, you know, and that's the nature of our world, but you know, there's, there's pros and cons to all of that.

And I will say one of the things that I remember Hartmut came to visit us and he said something that really stuck with [00:40:00] me over the years. Someone asked him in a, um, He came back to visit when I asked him, like, one of the motivations to, to move on from frog. And it was like the ability to like achieve better scale, to make impact on a bigger level.

And that's always stuck with me. Like making sure that you kind of keep in mind where you are and what you're trying to accomplish at any stage of your business. And that to really impact things on a global scale, you are going to have global scale problems. Right. Um, so that's just a thing you have to be able to embrace.

Patricia: you now have, right? Um, and you have to learn to deal with that. Um, so yeah, you need to have a certain sizing that's even more important now. Like Hartwood will often tell you the stories how he just got Sony as a client, um, very early on. And you probably noticed nowadays to get on board with a client, um, It almost feels like you are giving away your firstborn.

We just got, got on boarded with a client yesterday. Relatively small project. The paperwork alone, digital paperwork, uhm, [00:41:00] takes someone three days. Uhm, that is very hard to, for a small business.

David: Oh yeah,

Patricia: We are working with, uhm, NASA right now, one of my favorite projects, to help them understand how to embrace small businesses and private businesses.

David: Hm.

Patricia: It's very hard to do, um, because they have the traditional government contracts and things like that. Um, so I don't know why, how did we digress in that direction? Um, oh, scale. Yeah. So you need to have a certain size so you can handle these things. That's unfortunately the truth, right? Um,

David: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you gotta do it. I mean, I think that you can be a young challenger brand and have a different offer, and maybe that's a way to shoehorn in and get something started. But ultimately, to really make an impact on that scale, you have to play their game, and that's kind of what it comes down to.

You're right. Long legal and procurement cycles and the ability to work through that, navigate it, and support it, and know how to [00:42:00] shoulder that risk effectively. That's just the price you have to pay these days to work on big problems. So one other thing I wanted to ask you, I remember in one of our very first conversations, which was many years ago now, Uh, we got connected through some mutual friends and I was, uh, early on growing VGV and I wanted to ask you, I was like, how, how did, like, what, what, what did you learn from growing frog and how did that make you a better entrepreneur and leader and growth?

And I remember you said, well, you know, yes, we grew frog and we were successful and we did it, but now you're doing vidlet and it's like a new thing all over again and it's a totally different set of problems. And so I was wondering if you could kind of expand on that. That insight a little bit about what it is to be an entrepreneur and how do you like kind of leverage your past experience knowing that the new thing is different.

And just cause you're successful there, it doesn't make it magically easy. Um, I would imagine people like me come to you often and say, wow, look at this company, you helped start and build that frog. And it was such a successful company. Like you must have the secret recipe. [00:43:00] Um, what has been your experience, uh, as moving on in your career?

Patricia: Well, so I learned that as a startup investor where I was part of a group that has all, they have all done well and now they thought they had a recipe and could advise startups on what to do. And I learned very quickly that does not work. You can have an opinion, um, but every business is different. And for me, for Witlet, the hardest thing was selling.

We talked about selling already before. At Frogger, I never had to do that. Now I had to go out and it's a fresh start and you see this often with people coming out of big companies like, let's say, Google here and they want to start their own company and they're used to being catered to by the outside world and now you're really hustling, uhm, And different rules.

Um, you don't have an I. T. department on day one. You don't, um, [00:44:00] no one knows what you do. Uh, it takes you a long time to even explain what you do and really nail that. So, but I think it's the best thing anyone can ever do. Um, I think anyone should start a business at one point. Um, when I hear people say, oh, it's so great what you do, you know, you have your own business, you can do what you want.

Um, I often tell them, why don't you first embrace small companies and the decision making power you have, um, and take some risks in who you work with and then take that step at one point.

David: Yeah, makes sense. Once you take that entrepreneurial leap, it is a whole new ballgame, for sure. Totally different set of, uh, challenges, stresses.

Patricia: And I was lucky, you know, I, um, already had money in the bank, already had an exit. Um, I was not putting that on my credit card. [00:45:00] I have such admiration for people that do it, if they do it the right way and dumb ideas that people invest into. But anyone that goes out and says, I'll take that risk. And I put my wellbeing at stake, my family's wellbeing.

I take a mortgage out, um, on my house to start a company. It's an amazing step.

David: Mm hmm. Big step. A lot of risk. So, um, just to, as we, uh, thank you for the time, I think, as we think about, kind of, wrapping up, I wanted to ask you, um, given your The career you've had and the experiences you've had. How has your definition of success changed over the years when you think about success personally, but also success of a company and maybe as you're doing your work with the success of a product?

Patricia: So, I mean, I've been around the block for a while. So success for me in, um, I mean, I was put in a position at F. R. O. G. very quickly to be a [00:46:00] decision maker. And in hindsight, I don't think I was always very kind. It was a lot, and this also had to do with women at the time. I think we still had to fight very hard to have a seat at the table.

Um, so I was probably a lot more aggressive, a lot more power hungry in some ways. Um, Whereas today I see the young people at WIDLET, I think they are a lot more collaborative. And for me, it is now important, um, that they have a good career, but that's a luxury I have, right? Um, we just said goodbye to a WIDLET person that's going back to school.

And, um, she said to me, she had been there for three years, um, that I, that WIDLET had given her confidence. Talking to clients, big, big clients, you know, having big projects on her shoulder and that gave her confidence. And for me, that's probably the biggest success. Like when, or like you said, former frogs [00:47:00] going out, building companies and being successful.

That is much more fun to watch than being the CEO, you 

David: And potentially far more impactful because that's where the exponential impact comes. You know, people come through companies, they're a step in their career, even people that are there for 10 years or more, you know, it's, um, It's not the only thing they spend their life on. And so thinking about how do you empower those people to move on and take what they've learned and take that positive experience and influence.

Um, and even if the company continues on, those people maybe become customers one day or clients, you know, by moving on. 

Patricia: mean, there's some companies that do that very well, right? But that's why I would recommend everyone, this is something I didn't do at Frock. Network, network, network. And not only when you need something from someone, but also when they need something from you. Uhm, I, uhm, my godson just graduated from college, and I said to him, like, go out and network.

You know already a lot of people. It will be very important for your [00:48:00] career. So, I think that's different. Nowadays, we can use LinkedIn, right? And all these things, uhm.

David: it's still a rare skill though, I think. And these days we're so inundated with spam, you know, and people are reaching out all this outbound automation tools and stuff like that. But I think establishing and just maintaining relationships for the sake of just maintaining a relationship, not having an agenda, just to stay in touch, you know, even people that you only just casually, lightly know, um, just to check in and see how they're doing.

Thank you. And doesn't have to have an ulterior motive because those positive outcomes just happen. And even if it's just a, Hey, there's an event, do you want to come? Or. I heard about so and so and it might be a good opportunity to connect them. Like these are the things that, and it really happens. And I wonder if these days of business schools are focusing on sale, things like sales and networking.

I mean, I went to Wharton, but this was a long time ago, over 20 years ago, there was no sales 101 or networking 101. You had marketing, finance, accounting. Um, but it's kind of like being able to be a good [00:49:00] salesperson and being able to be a good networker and relationship builder are so fundamental. Um, It's, uh, it's something that anybody who's starting a product or an entrepreneur or even, even within a big company, you know, being able to sell your ideas internally and being able to build the relationships politically.

These are super important

Patricia: I think very important. I, uh, was supporting an entrepreneurship class at one point. And these were mostly engineers coming out of big companies. And they had to write a business plan. And when I looked at the business plan, I suggested they sell this to their respective companies. And they all told me, I can't do that.

I was like, how do you think you're going to start a business if you cannot first sell it internally? If they fire you, you want to start a company anyway, so take the risk.

David: Well, Patricia, this has been really fabulous. I can't thank you enough for taking the time out of your day to, to speak with, with me and, and be on the show here. Um, I guess to, to wrap up, I wanted to just throw like a, [00:50:00] another just random thing, which is, um, cause I'd like to kind of get a sense for beyond the work, um, and beyond all the things that we're doing in, in our professional lives, what a little insight.

So is there a book recently?

recently you've read that's kind of caught your attention or, or has been insightful to you? Like what's, what's kind of interesting outside of the, the day to day?

Patricia: Yeah, so one, and we talked a lot about these things in this conversation already, but one that I really recently adjoined, and also knowing that you are New York and I'm in California, is Early True Believers. It's an audiobook. About Silicon Alley and the early days of the Internet. Uh, I think the author is Vanessa.

I forgot the last name with a G. Uhm, but what I really enjoyed, I enjoyed the book for two reasons. And much of that we already talked about. One, I did not remember some of those stories. And how we perceived the Internet. Uhm, and especially in New York [00:51:00] that a lot of that was driven by artists. I always thought, uhm.

You know, the Silicon Valley perspective where it was probably driven much more by technology. Um, and then as we already talked about A. I., like I think A. I. is at that stage now, right? So I just enjoy the stories. They were very human, not condescending, even though the internet bubble burst. So I can only recommend it.

David: That's great. We'll have to put that on the reading list for sure. Um, well, thank you again. Um, it's been great to chat with you and it's been great to get to know you over the years and I thank you for, um, You know, being, uh, uh, somebody that I can talk to and reach out to from time to time. And, um, you've always been, had fantastic insights and, um, and Vidlet's a great tool and we've used it and hope to use it even more.

Um, and I hope that a lot of people, um, who are building products or, um, you know, building a company or a business understand the importance of insights and to continually [00:52:00] check in with what's going on with your customers and your users. Um, so I'll be excited to watch how Vidlet continues to grow, 

Patricia: Same with you. I mean, you are, um, you are where innovation almost matters the most these days, right? I mean, you said earlier apps need to get someone's attention and need to be usable, but you first need to, um, get real estate. You want to come to my home. You need to show value. And I think that's what you're working on.

That's why we had a really good time working with your team and doing some research on an app that needs help.

David: I appreciate that very much and totally, totally aligned. So, um, thank you so much. Um, appreciate you joining us. Um, hope to maybe do it again sometime. Okay. So we'll

Patricia: So we are still hanging on. So did you get what you wanted?

David: That was great.

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