Matt Cohen:
Welcome to another episode of Tank Talks, your personal Think Tank for all things startups and venture capital. I’m your host Matt Cohen, founder, and managing partner at Ripple Ventures.
On today’s show, we welcome the co-founder and CEO of Hopscotch, Reed Switzer, to discuss how failing at your first startup is the best education for young entrepreneurs. Reed joins us as the youngest founder to hop in the tank and shares his journey starting his first company at age 15 in the clothing business with two friends, and how he quickly realized that startups actually need to make money in order to survive.
Next, we dig into why Reed decided to drop out of college and go full-time on his next venture, Hopscotch, and how he was able to attract amazing investors and advisors, like the former CEO of Morgan Stanley, to support him. We also get Reed to share why he made the conscious decision to hire more seasoned and experienced co-founders and employees for his second startup, and how his vision for Hopscotch was the driving force behind attracting better and older talent.
Lastly, we dig into how Reed is trying to help small businesses and creators solve their payment problems and how he was able to attract top-tier investors – like Shine Capital and Installation Capital – to back his newest startup.
But before we get started today, as our listeners probably know by now, the team at Ripple is always focused on helping our founders in portfolio companies find the best partners to work with. And when it comes to corporate finance and cash management, there’s nobody we recommend more than the team at Jeeves. At Ripple, we manage all our fun expenses and employee credit cards using Jeeves. The team at Jeeves helped me get my team set up with physical and virtual cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies, allowing them to pay for anything anywhere at any time. We weren’t asked for any personal guarantees or to pay any setup or monthly SaaS fees. Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us up to 3% cash back on our purchases, including expenses like Google, Facebook, or AWS every month. The best part is Jeeves puts up the cash and you settle once every 30 days in any currency you want. Unlike some other corporate card companies that make you prepay every month. Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up today with a demo of Jeeves and take advantage of our Tank Talk special with a $250 signup bonus and skip the wait list that already has thousands of companies waiting on it by visiting tryjeeves.com/tanktalks. Use referral code “tank talks” to get set up today.
Now, let’s jump into the tank for this week’s episode with Reed Switzer from Hopscotch. Thanks for joining us in the tank today, Reed.
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, of course. I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Matt Cohen:
You know, Reed, you might be the youngest founder and CEO we’ve ever had on the show, but I’m sure that’s no surprise to you. You know, given your time in technology and startups is at the early part of its stages of building, it would be great if you can give our listeners a brief background on yourself and how you made your way fresh from college into the startup and eventually the technology world as a founder.
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, of course. I’m honored to be the youngest founder in the tank. So I started building companies from a really young age. One of my first companies was an apparel startup called Ville that I founded with a few friends. We did that for about two and a half years. And at the end of that journey, I decided that apparel just, you know, wasn’t for me. And I had a love of tech and wanted to get involved in that space and ultimately joined the former CFO of Combs Enterprises while he was building a music streaming startup. Spent three and a half years there in operations, getting involved in really all of the daily activities of that business. You know, at the end of my tenure there, went off to Wharton and midway through my sophomore year dropped out to focus on building Hopscotch full-time.
Matt Cohen:
That’s awesome! Now, did you have any mentors or advisors that you relied on during your time of building your first startup that helped you along the way? And if so, did you receive any great advice that helped you deal with some of the struggles you faced during that journey that you still rely on today?
Reed Switzer:
Yes and no. I would say our biggest advisor was Google, and that’s probably one of the reasons it didn’t work out too well. We really just sort of dove into it and did a bunch of research and if we had open questions we would just search it online. And I think that was also one of the biggest lessons throughout that whole experience.
You know, today when I look at how we’re building Hopscotch, my job is really to go out there and talk to all of the folks that have built, you know, whether it’s 1, 2, 3, 4 companies in the past and really take note of what they’ve learned throughout their experiences and so on. Didn’t have any advisors at Ville but we have a great advisory board here at Hopscotch.
Matt Cohen:
You know, that’s actually some really good advice. A lot of people think kind of like Dr. Google. There is no doctor Google for kind of startup and customer analysis and buyer personas and all those things we cover here on Tank Talks. But basically, you’re saying as you were just googling anything you could to get some answers, which usually doesn’t result in really good tangible advice. You need to talk with the customers, need to understand what the pain points are that a lot of people are feeling.
And you obviously learned that through the end of the journey, so I appreciate you sharing that with us. But it was during that experience, I’m sure that you ended up realizing there was another way to go out and build a company, and as you said, you dropped out of college midway through your sophomore year at Penn to focus on building a better payments experience for businesses and launch your next startup called Hopscotch. Right?
Reed Switzer:
Exactly. Spot on.
Matt Cohen:
So, can you share what it was like going through that mind journey of understanding what decisions needed to be made for you to eventually realize that you should be dropping out of school to work full-time on Hopscotch?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, you know, initially it wasn’t even something that I considered, frankly. When I first started building Hopscotch, I thought it was something that I could do while still at school. I’d always wanted to go to Penn. I had always wanted to study business at Penn, and I had always wanted to get that degree at the end of the day. So I think the turning point was when I started speaking with experienced operators, executives, small business owners, freelancers, really anyone that I could get to hop on a Zoom call with me, and the consensus of all of these conversations was, “ Hey, why doesn’t this already exist?” You know, everyone thought that we had something in Hopscotch and that this was something that needed to be built.
And it was really a couple of our advisors that pushed me to leave school to focus on Hopscotch full-time. We didn’t have advisors at Ville, but like I said, we have advisors at Hopscotch, and some pretty awesome advisors as well. Stanley O’Neill, who’s the former Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch. Sunil Kappagoda as well. And they were actually the ones that encouraged me to leave school to focus on building the company. And then it was, you know, a few conversations with the parents to get them to approve.
Matt Cohen:
Yeah, those are always the toughest advisors to win over. How did you end up getting such amazing advisors while you were still in school, and were they also investors as, uh, friends and family?
Reed Switzer:
So they weren’t investors. In terms of how I got advisors like those two, it was really just sort of mastering the art of cold outreach. This was also how we locked in our first investors. It was a long, arduous process. Maybe a little bit too persistent with the number of emails I was sending. Uh, but at the end of the day, it worked out.
Matt Cohen:
Come on, give us a number, how many emails?
Reed Switzer:
Uh, it was, it was a lot. I had a system, especially for raising capital. I got a Crunchbase subscription and would search for all of the VCs that are making investments in our space. I’d pick a partner and an analyst or an associate, send them both an email if I could find it, then go to their LinkedIn page. Send them both a DM, and then if the firm listed a phone number, I would actually give that phone number a call, and if they didn’t answer, I’d leave a message and did that over and over again for several months before folks started making introductions on my behalf and before we started really getting inbound.
So the whole process was probably about seven months. And in the end, a lot of the investors that backed us were actually ones that said no early on but followed the journey.
Matt Cohen:
No, I fucking love that. They don’t teach you that at Penn, that’s for sure. That’s pure hustle and grit right there. And that’s exactly what I do when raising capital for our fund at Ripple, or even for our portfolio company. So kudos to you for taking that journey yourself. You must’ve had a lot of doors shut on you, but eventually the doors open their way for you when you jammed your foot in the middle to keep ’em from closing on you in the future, right?
Reed Switzer
Yeah. You gotta, you gotta love the grind, you know? It’s never easy. I think if you look at a lot of the, you know, whether it’s TV shows, movies out there about entrepreneurship, building companies, it’s sort of glorified and everyone thinks it’s an overnight success. But if you look at the companies that are these overnight successes, it’s years in the making and it’s a lot of sleepless nights. A lot of ups and downs, and at the end of the day, it’s just pure persistence and grit that these founders have to really make their dreams a reality. So you gotta love the grind if you want to get into this game.
Matt Cohen:
Amen! No one. Nobody wants to do the least amount of effort for the most amount of gain. Right? So, this time around though, you decided that besides bringing on some seasoned advisors, you’d also bring on some more seasoned co-founders. You brought on your COO, Rick, who also brings over a decade of experience from the advertising software world. In addition to your product leader with Thomas Rain, who’s leading the product at Capital One for over five years. First off, was this a conscious decision to bring on more seasoned partners with over decades of experience, and how did you end up recruiting people that could have been 20 years older than you, or so, to join a founder like yourself at a startup that was still kind of in stealth mode?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And you know, it’s a question I’ve got quite a few times now. Actually, early on, a lot of our investors, or a lot of potential investors, were asking me why I wasn’t recruiting friends from UPenn, right? UPenn’s great. They have awesome talent. Really great engineers, et cetera. And so they were surprised when we’d pull up our deck, and it was a bunch of folks that have done this before. Have been in this space and have been building companies for – like Rick – a decade plus. And the answer to that is, as a founder, you always have blind spots, right? And you want to eliminate the risk of these blind spots being fatal, blind spots for the company.
And I think the best way to do that is to essentially recruit a team and recruit folks to surround yourself with that have been through it before. That know all of the things not to do and know exactly how to build the company and make something that is truly enduring.
So it was conscious, and I think that we’ve been fortunate enough, not just to bring on Rick and Tom, but a whole team from, you know, Sarahdi, our Head of Engineering, Kevin, our Head of Risk, Xavier, VP of Ops, and countless others that are working behind the scenes to make Hopscotch a reality.
Matt Cohen:
So what was the sort of deciding factor to get Rick or Thomas to say yes, besides your persistence?
Reed Switzer:
You know, I think what was really exciting to them was the fact that we’re going into a space that is notoriously and traditionally unsexy, uninteresting and frankly, pretty boring, right?
When you look at B2B payments, you see that somewhere, you’re not immediately like, wow, that’s a really, really cool business, right? Maybe VCs do because they know what the returns could look like in this space, but the average person doesn’t look at that and be like, that’s what I wanna do.
And so I think what was really exciting to both of them was the fact that we’re bringing this twist to B2B payments. We sort of, you know, CashApp has done a really great job at making payments really fun, really sexy, and sort of vibey in the consumer space. So we want to bring that same energy to B2B payments, and we think that the solution we’re building today is certainly valuable and extremely powerful for the small businesses and freelancers that leverage the service.
But we become something that’s truly category-defining with the rise of Gen Z and Millennials in the workforce. These are the individuals that have grown up using platforms like Venmo and like Cash App. And so when they’re the ones in the position to make vendor decisions at their firms, they’re gonna wanna select a platform, a software that mirrors the experience they have in their day-to-day life using these consumer platforms. That future, that vision is something that gets folks fired up every day.
Matt Cohen:
Right. So it was the problem, the vision, and the kind of solution you had in your head that got Rick and Thomas to really say yes, which is awesome for a young founder like yourself to be so persuasive and passionate about the problem and the vision you had for this market. So I appreciate you sharing that. Let’s get into more specifics. Can you describe exactly how Hopscotch is trying to help businesses with their accounts payable and receivables? Like you mentioned Venmo does, but for the consumer side?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, of course! That’s a great question. The underlying thesis for Hopscotch is that businesses shouldn’t have to wait or pay to access money that they’ve already earned. To us, that’s an insane concept. And the fact of the matter is that the majority of B2B software out there, specifically B2B invoicing and bill pay software out there either charges businesses to get access to money they’ve earned, right? Through transaction fees, which we think are predatory. Or they have extended processing times where once a client pays an invoice, you could be waiting anywhere from 24 hours to seven/nine business days to actually get access to that money to make payroll or pay other bills. And so Hopscotch, we wanna bring instant fee-free transactions to the business world, right?
And create this experience and this money movement that matches the experience you’d get on these consumer platforms, like CashApp, and like Venmo, beyond the actual money movement, right?
What we hear from a lot of our users is when they’re using these traditional B2B softwares, they have all of these features, all of these elements to the platform that muddy the user experience. They’re complicated, and these individuals, these businesses, they just want to go in, they want to pay, and they want to get paid with as little friction as possible. Hopscotch enables them to do that, and we integrate with ERP providers, like QuickBooks, et cetera, so that everything is automatically reconciled.
Matt Cohen:
Makes sense! So can you give us an example of the main difference with an existing solution in the B2B payment space when comparing that tool to your tools at Hopscotch?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, of course. So it would be the instant fee-free transactions, right? Not having to deal with processing times or transaction fees. Hopscotch also offers a product called Hopscotch Flow, which is a two-click factoring product. When you send an invoice, and you extend net terms to your clients, you have the option to get paid upfront and maintain full privacy within that transaction. Your client won’t be alerted that you decided to get paid upfront through Hopscotch’s factoring service.
This is something that is fairly unique to the Hopscotch system, and we see that a lot of our freelancers and SMBs love the safety net that this provides.
Beyond that, we have accounts payable and receivable in one place, and that’s made in part possible by the Hopscotch balance. All of that combined gives folks the ability to use Hopscotch as this financial operating system. This control tower runs their business and ensures keeping their finger on the pulse of their financial health.
Matt Cohen:
Got it. Well, I’m glad you brought up the Hopscotch Flow product that you recently launched. I was gonna ask you about it, but can you explain to me who takes on the credit risk in that situation? It is a credit product, obviously, so who’s wearing the risk on the factoring side?
Reed Switzer:
So initially that’s on Hopscotch, right? We’ve built this really awesome cash flow-based underwriting model we call the “Hopscotch Risk Score”. That’s what we use to underwrite these invoices essentially. Now, if this model determines that, hey, this invoice is qualified for Flow, we’ll then present the user with a dynamic rate that’s based off of, again, their risk score. And if they accept the terms, we’ll be able to provide that capital through that facility that we locked in with SVB.
Matt Cohen:
Got it. Okay. So how do you guys monetize, given that a majority of your main product is free?
Reed Switzer:
Yes. So the credit offerings like Hopscotch Flow are the main revenue streams currently. In the long run we have a bunch of features that we plan on adding to help businesses better manage their cash flow. And so there’s a SaaS play there in the coming quarters.
Matt Cohen:
Yeah, I’ve read that your vision is to kind of extend beyond the payments platform, and to have basically a destination for small businesses to connect and transact and grow together. Can you give us a little bit more insight on what that looks like, and maybe how data will play a role in your product vision?
Reed Switzer:
That’s a great question! I won’t touch too much on sort of that very future state of the product. One of the things that we’re really excited about at Hopscotch is this notion of business profiles. And these are profiles that actually look good, right?
So as a user, when you create an account on Hopscotch, you’ll have a business profile with a banner image, a profile image, About information, and ultimately you’ll be able to showcase past work, et cetera. This creates this really interesting community dynamic around the payments themselves. And this is something that freelancers, and really SMBs with only a couple employees, really love to leverage to help brand the experience for their clients and for their vendors.
Now, in terms of how data plays a role, right? If we’re managing accounts receivable, accounts payable, you’re linking to your ERP software, to your bank account, et cetera. There’s obviously a lot of data at play that Hopscotch can leverage to offer our users a better experience.
And so to date, the data is extremely important in offering products like Hopscotch Flow in the future. The data will help us create better connections between our users. So beyond just transacting on Hopscotch, we will give you the ability, essentially, to connect with potential clients and lock down new business.
The vision is extremely grand. There’s a lot to build, but our focus right now is to get the accounts payable, the accounts receivable, and the cash flow management products, right? And once we do that, that unlocks the next phase of the platform
Matt Cohen:
Yeah, I’m sure your data teams are swimming in mountains of data, but maybe give us some insight in how you’re leveraging it in your underwriting process.
Reed Switzer:
There’s a few ways that we leverage it, right? So currently the Hopscotch Risk Score is essentially a mashup of a Moody’s and FICO score, right? We’re taking into account how many employees that business may have, how many years have they been in business. Then we’re also taking into account the average transaction size in their linked bank account, which we get from Plaid – how frequently are they adding funds to their bank account or withdrawing funds from their bank account? Their balance volatility. All of this data helps us build a really awesome picture of that business’s financial health and overall security.
Once we have that picture, we’re able to determine whether or not we’re comfortable financing an invoice of a certain size. And again, depending on that history, we’ll be able to provide a dynamic rate. All of this changes as the Hopscotch user uses Hopscotch more frequently. So when you first sign up for the platform, you may have a certain risk score, right? But then the more you use our system, and the more history you have on the platform, you can improve your risk score. And with that, get better rates and get better terms.
Matt Cohen:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense – for especially a lot of small businesses, mom-and-pop shops out there. We’ve seen a ton of fintechs spin up in the last several years, and even B2B software platforms, like traditional B2B SaaS platforms, also getting into the embedded FinTech and financing and cash advanced businesses to help other small businesses grow on their platforms. We’ve seen Shopify launch Shopify Capital in 2016, which apparently is doing extremely well. Or other platforms like Toast and Mind Body, and even DoorDash, offer these like cash advances for small businesses. How do you think about competing against these larger players taking over the FinTech side of their existing SaaS businesses?
Reed Switzer:
It’s a hot space and I think there’s. It’s not a winner-takes-all space, right? Like the market is absolutely massive.
There’s 70 million freelancers out there today. There’s 30/32 million small businesses. I think there’s been a lot of innovation around, extending capital to brick-and-mortar stores, e-comm sites, et cetera. But the digital freelancer still is extremely underserved, right?
These are folks that are, frankly, they’re using Google Docs to create invoices, and they’re getting paid via bank transfers, or they’re using free invoice generator apps to get paid via bank transfers or platforms like PayPal, CashApp, Venmo, et cetera. Hopscotch has the opportunity to come in here and offer a better, more comprehensive experience for the invoicing and accounts payable side of their business and layering on top these cash flow management tools, like Flow, to give them this safety net and the ability to better manage their cash flow. We think there’s been a lot of innovation in this space. It’s still early days, there’s a lot more to do and Hopscotch has positioned itself as one of the front runners in invoice factoring.
Matt Cohen:
So do you have an easy definition for your ICP or your buyer persona that you can share with us? Like what does your perfect customer look like?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, the perfect customer today is gonna be a freelance marketer, freelance designer. We bucket them as freelance creatives. Not creators! Creatives. These are folks that are essentially providing online services. So again, freelance web developers, marketers, writers, animators, et cetera. We’ve also seen some pickup from smaller agencies, specifically artist management agencies, small brand agencies. And by small I mean around two to five employees, business services. These are entities that are typically the suppliers in their B2B transactions.
Matt Cohen:
Got it. And you mentioned earlier that you’re, you do have sort of this plan to focus on the Gen Z and Millennial markets. When those people are in the decision-making space at their professional companies, given that they’ve grown up with CashApp and Venmo in their personal lives. Do you see this as something that you need to wait a little bit longer for? Or are you already seeing people in that sort of market take on those roles and having that responsibility at some of the larger potentially mid-market or enterprise customer base?
Reed Switzer:
I wouldn’t say Hopscotch is built purely to serve the Gen Z and Millennial market. When we say that we mean that we’re building experiences that are extremely simple, extremely fast, and user-friendly, right? And so we think that the Millennial and Gen Z market is the market that’s most accustomed to these, you know, simplistic experiences that pack a lot of power and a lot of utility. We’ve seen a bunch of pickup, not only from folks that are that younger audience – so think around 20 to 35 years old – but then also from folks that are a lot older – 50 to 65 plus.
And the consensus across the board is, at the end of the day, people just want a fast experience that’s easy to use. The reason we always point to the Gen Z/Millennial audience as being a big driver down the line is because these are the folks that are specifically looking for an experience that matches their experience on a Venmo or a CashApp, right? If you put that up against a Bill.com or a QuickBooks Invoicing, that Millennial, that Gen Z is 10 out of 10 times going to pick the experience that more closely matches those consumer platforms.
Matt Cohen:
Yeah, no. I mean, I’m not even a Gen Z, and I think when I log into my QuickBooks account for my holding company, my head explodes. It is definitely something I don’t enjoy doing, but I kind of have to do it because that’s what my accounting firm uses. But I digress.
You know, you’re still in your early twenties, obviously. You haven’t really been, uh, grown-up or building or operating a company during a recession. So this is kind of your first sort of like exposure to a high-interest rate environment and high inflation environment. What are you being told by your advisors, and how are you trying to protect and insulate the business as we go through these choppy waters with rates on the rise?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah. The most important thing for us is to not look at this environment, and be fearful, and cut costs across the board, and not grow the business. What we’ve done is we’ve taken a holistic, sort of review of all of our expenses over the course of the past few quarters and picked the areas in which we think are sound investments as we continue to scale.
And so that for us is continuing to invest in the product and find product market fit, right? We need to continue to iterate quickly and meet the needs and expectations of our customers. And then on the acquisition side, we need to make sure that we’re picking the best channels that are efficient, scalable and have an extremely low cost of acquisition. If we do those two things right and we generate results, the fact of the matter is that the best companies will continue to get funded. It’s important that we do things to position Hopscotch to continue to attract funding from top-tier investors.
Matt Cohen:
So what has been the best medium for attracting customers? Like through your customer acquisition channels? What have you seen work the best for you in this market that you’re selling to?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, so we’ve invested heavily in content, right? We did a lot of experimentation early on with different paid media channels, different types of partnerships. And what we found is that the art of the soft sell is extremely important in B2B sales, right? What I mean by that is we’ve generated a lot of interest around blog posts. How to blog posts, so, you know, “How do you Build a Small Business Budget?” We’ve also built out these robust e-books and resources for our users and the greater SMB community at large. One of our most popular ones over the summer was an ebook that covered different pricing strategies for freelancers. This is a problem that a ton of freelancers face where when they’re just starting out. They’re not sure how to price their services, et cetera.
Hopscotch wants to be a resource to help them build their business and a resource that provides value beyond just its core offering. We’ve seen all of that content do extremely well. The engagement is high, folks are sharing the eBooks with their friends, and we’re building trust in the market, not only as a leading payment provider for our target segment but as just a genuinely helpful brand. That goes a long way in the short term as well as the long term when you’re trying to build a business.
Matt Cohen:
That’s awesome! Yeah, we’ve seen a lot of success with eBooks, webinars, and blog posts from a lot of our B2B SaaS startups as well. Have you seen your CAC go down from some of the content that you’ve been able to get out there and spread the word to?
Reed Switzer:
A hundred percent. Yeah. I won’t throw out numbers, but the CAC is looking really, really great right now.
Matt Cohen:
That’s awesome! Well, great to hear. And also, you know, you’ve raised some capital to get you guys onto the road to success. Earlier this year, Hopscotch emerged from stealth in March and announced the 6.1 million round of funding, on top of the 3.6 million in seed funding you announced in October of 2021, from amazing investors like our good friend, Mo Koyfman from Shine Capital, as well as Installation Capital and Nomas Ventures among some others. Can you share a little bit more about your plans with all this funding and how you ended up working with amazing investors like Shine, who were co-investors at Ripple as well?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, of course. The answer in terms of how we got in front of these amazing investors is really the cold outreach. That’s the answer there in terms of what we plan on doing with all of the capital. I think the most important investment that any early-stage startup can make is their team, right? At the end of the day, you want to reduce the execution risk of the business. And I think the best way to do that is by bringing on experienced, gritty folks that can get the job done. And so we’ve invested in bringing on top-tier, world-class talent from companies like Google, Capital One, Citibank, Better.com, et cetera. We’ll continue to invest in talent as the company grows. Close second there is always gonna be the product itself and ensuring that you have the necessary engineering resources and software to get the job done.
Matt Cohen:
Fantastic. And can I ask if Mo was one of the ones who said “no” initially, but then came back later on?
Reed Switzer:
Mo was not. Mo saw the vision like that, which was great!
Matt Cohen:
Well, given his background investing in companies like Plaid, I could only see why he jumped at the opportunity to back you with such a great vision and product founder. So thank you very much for sharing that. Before we wrap things up, we always ask our guests for their fast favorites. So first off, your favorite podcast?
Reed Switzer:
I listened to the David Goggins podcast, and that guy is an absolute animal. Apparently, he ran eight 100-mile marathons in a matter of eight weeks. Insane, insane story! Insane grit. If you haven’t given that podcast a listen, definitely do so.
Matt Cohen:
Yeah, that guy is crazy. Nice one. Next, is your favorite newsletter or blog?
Reed Switzer:
Uh, Lenny’s newsletter.
Matt Cohen:
It’s a go-to for definitely first-time founders and obviously people in SaaS, so that’s a great one as well. Next is your favorite tech gadget?
Reed Switzer:
Apple Watch. Gotta make sure you’re staying on top of your health.
Matt Cohen:
What’s your favorite feature?
Reed Switzer:
Uh, it would just be calories burnt.
Matt Cohen:
Mine is the “Where’s my iPhone?” But they changed it now to like a Breaking News ping, which I love. So every time I send it now, my wife goes, “What is that?” “Breaking news. I just found my iPhone.” So that’s my favorite feature. Uh, favorite new trend?
Reed Switzer:
Yeah, I guess my favorite new trend would be, or at least in my friend groups would be going out and hiking.
Matt Cohen:
Nice! Yes, I was just in Arizona hiking. And it’s such an amazing thing to do with friends. You get to spend a couple hours out there. You’re not looking at any of your devices. You’re just talking, shooting the shit, and also getting some great exercise in the sun, hopefully. So I couldn’t agree more with that. Next, is your favorite book?
Reed Switzer:
I would say, um, I was actually just recently reading Ryan Breslow’s Guide to Fundraising, and this might be a little bit of a hot take, but I think there are a bunch of learnings in there that are pretty awesome for first-time founders.
Matt Cohen:
Hey, for all the shit the guys stirred up on Twitter, you gotta give him credit. He raised a ton of money after being beaten up by a lot of other competitors in the market, and so what? He’s got a bit of a Twitter ego, but he did some good stuff for his company, so good for him. And last but not least, your favorite life lesson?
Reed Switzer:
“Everything happens for a reason.” So important when building companies
Matt Cohen:
Love that and love all the insight you shared with us today, Reed! Really appreciate you joining us in the tank today with Co-founder and CEO of Hopscotch, Reed Switzer.
Reed Switzer:
Thanks for having me. It was awesome.