Shark Tank changed my life + a big First Rodeo update + personal career announcement 🌟🧲
REBRAND REVEAL! "Path to profitability" (kill me)! Also, here's my new job!
ANYTHING LOOK DIFFERENT TO YOU? First Rodeo got a long overdue makeover. I worked with brilliant designer Leila Register (duh) who nailed it.1 I have a follow up issue in me all about branding and brand strategy (my opinions may insult you, “brand strategists”), but we have so much to get through today that I am tabling that for an issue coming soon. I ask for your feedback on some upcoming issues at the end of this letter, so don’t click away just yet!
For now, please share in my joy and excitement and follow along over at the Instagram account, which is officially morphing from Goldune’s old IG to a new First Rodeo IG account. 🥹🤍🤝 The times… they’re a-changin’!2 I’ve been ready and waiting for this for a few months, so it feels really good.
I have seen Shark Tank on cable like every other person alive in America. I’d enjoy a Shark Tank marathon when I caught it, usually visiting family and mooching off their cable, or spending the night in a hotel. A month or two ago, a founder I knew was on Shark Tank and I told my boyfriend we had to watch her episode— we are still watching Shark Tank every night (FROM THE BEGINNING) since. Cringe all you want: Shark Tank is a masterclass in what makes a business valuable and investable.
I grew up in a VC dominated Silicon Valley tech bubble that was effectively upside down land compared to the way business is done on Shark Tank. What makes a company “valuable” in the Silicon Valley— until now— wasn’t always about how much money it made. The only kinds of return VCs seemed to care about in the Silicon Valley were liquidity events— IPOs and sales. Royalties and dividends and other forms of getting cash back to investors were somewhat unheard of to me.
I appreciate how bass ackwards this all sounds. I am the exception and not the rule in this case. My formative work experiences in consumer goods reinforced this pattern: