Walking Away from Venture Capital with Sophie Vo

[Music] Yeah. Yeah. Sophie, you're a you're a pro at podcasting. So, you know, when you said you had a hard stop, I I could talk non-stop, but then but let's start recording. So, let me let me do a nice intro. Can I do a nice intro for you? Yes. All right. Sophie Vo, you've been a studio founder, a podcast host, a startup operator, and a co-orker of mine. And now you run orin retreats which is not a typical business. Yes. It's not a business tied to gaming either and not even a scalable business but by your own words which you posted on LinkedIn. You said it's the most successful and aligned work you've ever done. So I want to start here. What version of success were you chasing before? And what does success mean to you today? H I miss you Mishka asking the hard question from the beginning. I hope we'll get a little softer but uh

I'm I'm I miss also the good how you call it like baring uh decision. Yes. So success before um was when I think of success I was thinking of my parents actually I think of my dad and what he call he I was reading when I was a teenager success story from in a magazine called capital capital in French so basically big businesses so what does that look like making billions big big numbers uh being at the top of a pyramid right so the co somewhere because the cos are celebrated in those magazines and having an exist because uh even like I would say the past five years it was like the celebration where everyone is uploading each other and exiting the company. So that's the ultimate goal and then you reach super rich and then all your problems are gone right yeah 100% 100%. So that was very ingrained program

definition of success and I I I've tried the first stages of that road in different uh flavors right so either being part of a company to just witness what the life of a CEO is in that kind of organization when I was close to the CEOs when I did the part more entrepreneurial part of a venture and then when I was it was last year yeah I was fundraising at GDC if you remember for studio in Vietnam three lifetimes ago. I remember the uh the fit you all three of you wore the uh the very like classical Vietnamese slash like maybe Chinese vibe to me, but it was like Vietnamese vibes of a silk robe, right? Yeah. Yeah, we can talk about that if we if if we need to. I'm not going to put you on a spot on that one. I mean, I have nothing I have nothing to hide, especially not in the conversation with you. But I went through the journey of fundraising and asking myself more and more in the process. Okay, my job as a co and we spent some time together. So I I know all the ugly truth of the the

road and I appreciated a lot how unfiltered you shared everything with me and I asked myself is this how I really want to spend my time and life. So that was a real question when I was at GDC super tired going on a road show of investors meeting sending emails preparing emails and all the CRM and talking to see who've done the fundraising after they were preparing the next fundraising so it never ends you know so it's like 80% of your job uh mostly and the things that I love which are building product being creative working closely with people creative people driven creating something together in a very intense way I would be steps away from this and we had that conversation as well. So it was an honest look into what I really like and then the dream of what I thought I wanted and that's there was a dissonance and back to the question of what is success for me today. I spent time also with a coach to examine that because at some point I felt really stuck and it's

like what am I doing? I have three ventures at the same time I have a podcast. I I feel really overwhelmed and I can't choose what is where is the path I want to go to and I just reexamine questions of my life and back to what I said for me ownership of time. So the moment I feel stressed is then I'm pulled to be somewhere I'm pulled to go to a meeting to an event to do things that deplete me those emails those meetings and so on. I I really don't I hate it. I'll say it frankly I I hate that part and I understand it's necessary but I asked myself to is it something that I need to do ownership of my time was important and um working where my zone I consider my zone of genius is where I energize myself and where I believe I have impact and it's maybe not externally seen as impacting millions directly but it's more impacting individual people who are multipliers ers and so that's when I realized maybe I I should spend more

time there and explore and and forget about that question of success and and status and all that thing those things um and independence you know financial independence was important because it's not maybe something talked so much in in your podcast but I have to bring it up maybe as an entrepreneur because that's what's in the mix. I was looking into my family plan and life and I I want to be a mother. So I I wanted to plan for this and then I was just looking at the craziness I was doing on a road show at JDC and what's next and I just didn't see this kind of life matching. So I was I need to prioritize. So what kind of life do I want? But I could be available as a mother raising a child, be doing what I love, still be an entrepreneur but in my terms. So I had to define basically my own structure, my own ways of working. That's why even when you talk about Orin as unusual business, this is kind of a result of it for something that works for me.

So you kind of realized that the version of success you were chasing wasn't the actual what you wanted was when you got into basically the uh the gaming startup and and fundraising part. Yes. Yes. I like for that that venture kilan. So the role of a CEO and I I saw this is going to be a road of 10 years if I really want to make it work. It's a commitment. It's not I'm going to try and be like a toe in the venture. It's I need to commit. I needed to also be in Vietnam. So it was big decisions and also the co-founders alignment was not there. So it was like okay that's that's what that's not worth you know the sacrifice. I tried also with an AI coaching startup. Right after it, I built Olivia, which was more aligned with what I wanted to explore out of gaming with someone I knew. I worked with Marco, my former colleague when I was building the studio at Voodoo. And it was going really well. We had

interest of investors because we were in a bootstrap road AI. The fear I had at that moment is I'm scared to get an investment because then I need to commit. And so when I realized I had that that moment I was something is off. Why am I afraid to receive investment? So so that that that was an interesting thing. So do you think like venturebacked model is fundamentally broken for most founders or like what's the what's the impetus there? Like why are you afraid of an investment? Yeah. So I I have to comment also on the many private conversation I've had with founders from VC back companies, VC back companies and what they shared in very confidential rooms that I would pro probably not share to investors or other peers because they're you know that it's not always safe to share but I share but it's safe but not smart. Yes. Yeah. I mean you I I I don't know if you can share of course not maybe publicly

but what I got as pattern is a lot of founders came very naively on what was the journey they it's like even a shock for me it's although you can do a bit of research and understand what what you're getting yourself into but it was for some reason the myth and belief I can run the company the way I want fully like no that's not I know that's not true I can get out when I want No, you can choose who you work with. No, because when you are tied to co-founders and usually I also hear the stories of co-founders where I hear the story from one co-founder side like how how do I get out of this? You can't. So there's there's a there's a mismatch in the expectation of founders who maybe there was less due diligence. I don't know in the wave of 2020 capital was there and it's like a career ladder. I think what I see is like people who are employees doing well in some places and my next career later stage is to build a company but they're not necessarily entrepreneur and we talked about that a bit offline

before the recording. So they didn't really integrated internalize what it means to really build a business and especially on the VC route where the ultimate goal is to multiply the return in a very uh you know big way. It's not like 2 3x it's like 10x minimum and even beyond. So you are going on that route and the question is on which part of the journey will you be and on which part of the journey will you not be then don't think about that how do you feel about scaling your company to thousand people if you need to you know suddenly um all those questions and so when they start to go there they hate their job so that's that's where I see the mismatches it's like a bad dating you know a bad dating that happened web Of course, you've seen what good looks like, but have you seen great? Appch charge is the direct to consumer platform backed by the likes of Supercell and built by monetization pros

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Labs is doing the same for back-end game tech. Our open-source platform, Lama, has nearly 10 million downloads and powers thousands of games worldwide. Heroic Labs proven for 10 years, built for the next 10 and beyond. [Music] I I would say you've talked to a bunch of people who went who got VC funding and who got into the VC game without understanding what venture capital even is. And it happened during the boom of gaming especially 2020 to up to 2022 where everybody got funded even I got funded. So it was uh it was very easy to get funding and that meant that a lot of people got funding who should never have been funded in the first place. And what people don't understand about venture capital, it's called in Finnish it's called risk capital which is much better understood and that means that you

accept a incredibly high level of risk and that's why you expect a very high level of return as well and for a ver venture capital the way they are responsible for their LPs limited partners which means their investors. So people and entities and companies who put money into that fund are the clients of a venture capital, not the startups. The startups are the input into that fund. And it's perfectly normal that majority of those startups will amount to nothing. And what venture capitalists are looking for is just like startups. They're looking to raise more and more capital. And in order for them to raise capital, they need to show progress. And the way they show progress is they show markups. Not even always exits. exits would be nice but usually you show markup. Meaning that a startup raises 1 million and then in the next round at 5 million valuation and then the next round they raise 5 million at let's say 25 million valuation. And so the the size of the investment of that capital

has increased by a lot in that case like depends on what the post money valuation is but we're talking about like you know 5 to 10 to 12x already without the exit. And those are the numbers as they amount throughout your portfolio is you're able to show the in the the LPS that hey investments are going well even though we haven't returned money yet but we're now looking at being you know 4.2 over the the size of investment. So it looks like they're going to be a positive thing and that leads to the cycle like once you start understanding is of course they need you to scale faster so that you can raise more capital. So for them you diluting yourself is the goal like you taking more capital and growing even faster is the goal of a venture capital and and many company so many people who took money from VC don't understand that venture capital is not about creating good business it's about creating hyperscaling business that's it private equity that is about you know

creating a well not not really in theory it's about creating a very profitable and good business but venture capitalist don't don't care if you're profitable. If you're, you know, 10 people studio making, you know, two to3 million Ebida every year, but running a small company, that that's a fail for them. So, that's an important part. And then the second one you mentioned about the the co-founder misalignment. This is the number one reason why startups fail. Like I, you know, I've been open about our journey as well. We lost two co-founders from initial like between four to five all the time just due to that misalignment. And I think it's based on it's based on often times when people get together and they have a startup idea and it's so energizing, it's so exciting. You're dreaming together and you're starting it for the loop. Like imagine we we're going to exit at some we're going to build this awesome thing then we're going to sell it. We're going to be rich. We're going to be happy. We're going to be independent. All these things. But the thing is that's the start. That's the dating. That's the dream. And if you get

together with the goal of these things independent, the loot, you know, the the yeah, those those two are the biggest thing. Then when the hard time hit and you haven't gone through the hard times with the people together, that group breaks. And that happens to most of these studios. And that's also part of my investment thesis. Like I always want to know how long have you been together? If you just built this dream team to make this one thing happen, I'm out. I get it. You're all superstars. It's going to be a show. Chances are you'll die in the middle of it. Just eat each other alive. You could survive, but I'm just not interested in that. I've seen it. I'm not going to I'm going to do that. So, so um and then the final part is because because people raising fund don't understand these simple principles of what is a good founding team, what is the goal of a venture capital or um it's or you know the goal is not to build uh a good business but a hyperscaling business. they miss the point of actually evaluating what kind

of venture capitalists they take and so they take whatever has a good name let's say a big fund uh with a with a sexy accelerator program there's a certain demands the bigger the fund the bigger the return they expect and so the whole thing of like I can exit at any point yes you can if your fund is small if it's you know m few tens of millions it will be good for them but if your if the fund that has invested to you is and hundreds of millions. You exiting so early is waste of their time. Like literally the signing of all these papers and doing two board meetings meant they wasted time and it will make them look bad for their investors. So no, rather you die than they get 2 million back, you know, and so it's it's it's really about not understanding the venture capital model. That's really why I've done so many episode with different VCs really allowing them to explain how their model work and I still see the same thing where where founders like, oh, I just want to build this cool

studio and cool little game. It's like, yeah, so you're not a VC business. It's not scalable. I I talk to all the time and I tell them that sounds like a good business. I'm not investing because that is not a scalable business. Yeah. And there's nothing bad. Good and scalable, two different things. Yes. So, I wanted to comment on that point, the scalable and the money part. there's a confusion maybe I don't know for some reason if you don't build a scalable business it's a failure I think founders should really ask themselves like just own what they build you know so not all the business are meant to scale and if they're not this is definitely not a case for VC and the attitude I see because I'm more on the side of bootstrapping when you start you don't even know what you're doing at the beginning so why should that risk be taken by anyone external so for me it's more discipline I feel responsible when I I start to receive money from others and then you are forced to do something because you receive that money and you receive commitment but when it's your own mess then you know you can close it do it again and change that's why I

think in the mentality of I see that's why founders who are employees turning to founders and haven't embraced yet the entrepreneurial mindset that's the transition I see sometimes missing because it's like well I had a salary and I want to continue to have a salary so I'm going to build a company with some money coming in and instead of me as a founder holding the risk of what I'm building. So I believe in it. I put myself first in the line and I until I really believe and I can stand by it and then I will raise money. I'll do it. But what I see the attitude so I'm happy we have this conversation to more create awareness. It's the automatic thinking. I'm starting a company. I'm going to raise money and it's like why? Who you know why can you do you put your did you put your own money? No. It's like well if you don't put your own money why would somebody else put their money into your business. So it's just like the mindset of it for me it's is broken as well how you start a company. Yeah I think you're absolutely right. Um I you know in those type of cases where I

discuss I like when company has bootstrapped because that means that they believe in what they're doing and they have bootstrapped not tried to raise couldn't raise and hence they were bootstrapping that's a different thing and they just call it a bootstrap you know like somebody's a consultant because they're unemployed not because they want to be an independent consultant. Yeah. So, so when when you do the uh the bootstrapping, what I like about that is is that you're trying to find the product market fit before taking external money. So, you believe a lot in yourself and you have the full ownership and you're not selling a big portion of your company before it finds it value because you actually believe that this is going to be valuable. So, I'm not going to sell on discount. And also the the part about bootstrapping that is key is that it gives you speed because you're not getting money anywhere and now you're doing this thing. There's no salary coming in. How long are you going to stay in this phase? 3 months? Four? Are you going to stay 5 months in this phase? How about six? And no, it's like

these people are just hitting off like in a month they have a prototype ready and running. It's like yeah because it's your own money that you're spending by bootstrapping and you want to get all the numbers in. uh you're going to do all the smart things as fast as possible. And the most important thing about bootstrapping rather than running to a VC right away is you if you start off with with preede funding from a VC. So preede is meaning like the first check in usually given as soon as you get the team together and and ready to sign papers. Now you're going to give a pretty sizable portion away from your company could be 20% for 500k easily. That's a That's like a one of those like a dragon's den numbers where you're like, "Oh my god, this is so bad." I saw 20% for 100k. Yeah. Yeah. So So obnoxious amount of because the VCs are taking such a major risk. The thing is is that once you now you get into the VC business, which as we discussed is all about markups. It's all

about getting the next round of funding. In about two rounds after you get that big portion out, you are going to be unfundable pretty much if you haven't already found a product market fit because venture capitalists are going to own over 50% of your company. That's fine. Eventually, they will if you're getting into that hundreds of millions of billions of scale. Yes, you will end up owning like 7% of your company, but that 7% is going to be worth 700 million. That's fine. But but if you are still looking to get that little extra investment for you to go to soft launch and venture capitalists own 48% of your company and with the next round they're going to be owning 62, they're just not going to pay for it. Like like you become unfundable by taking money to earn money. So I've seen also those mistakes. I've I've tried to help startups who who reach out and you know we work with them and and then when you see their cap table it's like guys uh game over like the way your cap table so meaning the ownerships is looking at

this point where you don't have a scalable product means you cannot raise and then there's going to be different things where we start clearing out the cap tables removing the early angels and so forth so forth uh that's a different type of a problem to fix but yeah taking bootstrapping is the smartest way to start. It's a good test if it's for you. That's what also I'm advising. Talk to me about your Olivia. Oliv was it Olivia the coach the AI coach company. So you bootstrapped that. What happened? Because that sounded like when you were doing the Vietnam gaming startup, you know, I I of course had the the calls with your founders and I told everybody in my own blunt way that I think you guys are crazy. You shouldn't be doing this and you're taking advantage of Sophie. Like I was I was going all in. Uh and they're like, "This guy is an asshole." It's like, "No, I'm just right." But but with Olivia, I thought that that would go really well. Like it was not

for the uh the Vietnamese gaming startup, but I was very much for I thought that was a perfect fit. What happened with that? It was a fit in terms of market. I was doing my research and applying all the product and uh we had an angle with Marco coming with our gaming background to apply really the the coaching interaction in a playful way. It was more a personal choice, right? So for me it was am I the one to ride that that ride because when I wanted to bootstrap I understood also very quickly. I can't afford to be slow in that market. I'm working with AI. So it's it's a race you part of whether you want it or not. And that means you need to be fast in the market and and take the share of the market the community build and all of that. And so we needed a bit of capital to begin with. It's it's not like just the two of us doing in the garage development. We created the product but community building. So when I had a possibility to have just a few hundredk already

investment I was I don't know there was something really weird that happened because I had investor coming to me like booking a lunch in Berlin sitting like keep us posted in the loop he's like wow that's a very different dynamic from the Vietnam venture. Yeah. Um and so we sat down with my co-founder because also my co-founder was in a transition and we we we asked ourself the hard question. Do we see ourself doing this for the next 10 years? Because if we start to take money that's that's the commitment. I mean I wish that it would be earlier. They okay maybe we can have this out in five years you know who knows but it could be 10 years. You never know. It's two or 10 that's what it is. Yes. Anywhere in between is really bad. Yeah. And two, it's it's it's a hyper race, right? And then I saw so his heart was not full into it. My heart was not full into it. And so so we we we needed to have a hard look. And so sometimes that's the that's the re hard truth for

co-founders. Your heart is not full into it, but you went for it anyway. And I can tell you it's still there a few years after it's and then it's like and when they want to exit, they can't because they don't have the options. So it was more a personal question for me. Do I want to get in the race? that means fundraising and all those crazy things and then spending my time you know when I thought already mobile games was on steroid because I remember as a product leader tabs opens at the same times watching the market inside playing I don't know it was crazy when I stopped I was on a hangover to realize my god that was insane as a rhythm the amount of input and AI is just hyper steroid so I like do I need this more in my life because you follow all the companies that are creating AI companion therapist I see just one new every month you know so every day yeah so yeah if if you look deeper yeah so I was

looking and is this the race I want to be in and maybe there's something to say with age and phase of life it's like it's I I don't want this in my life right now maybe in my early 20s I would have totally like I can move to the bay and do and all those things it's just like I I don't want to do this. I really don't want to do this. You would have been good in the Bay Area and you'd be walking around and on stage doing keynotes. We wanted power. Yeah. It's kind of like doing all those I I did it in Berlin and it had it had a good so yes I was I was on that path but uh it it's a very personal dialogue in the end although we want to you know there are some many business you can create today in this world and they are not not all the business have to be created by you you just need to find the one that you know you're meant to create or you want to create yeah it's it it's interesting because like with an age of AI I feel like distribution is much more important than even before because

building is easier. So it's all about distribution and and um yeah it's so and you kind of had it. So that that's what that's why I was like do this this is you cuz you you have the distribution so just you know do it. I wanted to share my insights for everyone who think of doing games to app because it's it's not like a golden road and then you know it's easy. So distribution remains still a challenge and I was going deeper into the B2C route or the B2B. So B2B when you go B2B it's a sales game. So then I knew okay that means I need to build a sales team and have people just bashing bashing creating relationship with whoever is the company client finding your ICP which is not my expertise. So I I knew okay I would need to develop the network there and B2C is what I know from gaming and then B2C you have the same challenges with the CPI the cost the marketing and in that case for whoever

is thinking going that way I found a route that is a workar around to paid marketing which is SEO building on community engagement and where people can find you through the movement you create and again that was also Another question for me, do I want to go in that race of content marketing? Because that's what it is about where you create that platform, that blog and all those channels and Instagram and LinkedIn and I don't to to just create start to create the mass. Um, so it's not a shortcut. It's not an easy road. Like you said, execution is I think pretty pretty straightforward. But maybe this is a VC case, right? where you deploy quickly to just create a lot of attention attention and something at last why I chose not to go it's an interesting one because it was not like I don't want to run that business but it was more I get a lot of insights through the private conversation with Olivia so I had 100 beta testers who were starting to use the product engage on a regular basis

and what they were sharing there was really interesting so it was not so much about help fix that problem but it was a feeling of loneliness uh needing connection what they wanted behind a coach was more to be seen you know to feel have self-esteem self-worth again and I asked myself do I believe AI should do that can do that and where is my you know personal physes and that's when what led to create orin actually when I knew I don't want to actually contribute more to the AI to replace human connection and I asked myself from a business point of view, what is it that I could create that actually bridge the gap of the lack of human connection. So I did an experiment and I say what does that look like for me to run a non-digital business like go completely the opposite way just for fun you know non-digital non-scalable

to to go really in the depth instead of the volume because AI this is what is going to provide you have your one minute quick fix conversation anywhere anytime everything you can fix within a minute but when it comes to depth and high quality this is where the gap will be more creative. So I started to identify a gap where nobody was doing so much in that space and I thought I will use technology to um facilitate um human connection and where do I fit technology in that instead of being at the center to replace them. And so this this part of being not scalable by design that was important for you because of your learnings from Olivia just seeing how lonely people are how much they value that human connection and instead of kind of following the truth which is everything has to be hypers scale which is the truth of a VC you start following the truth of what would make a good business and good

business and good business in a means like it's a valuable business but it's also a business that you find longevity into the type of business that you can be working with for decades from now on and that was where you began the idea for for or came right yes so I saw I looked at it really from a business point of view there's a gap in the market for what people need because right now you can get quantity but when you get quality how do I make friends a simple dumb question you can't go out there and I don't know get a technology app to find to make a friend and I have worked enough with people in real life real interaction to know at least from a system point of view how friendships are created by being together by bonding together going through hard times together being real together and it's human to human you know so question for example you can talk to an AI and solve your problems

but it's not the same value and I get those insights from Olivia when a human reciprocates to you and say I see you I understand you and the AI tells you I understand you you know that is uh you know a machine and even when we had in Olivia coaching appointments that was actually quite an interesting anecdot showing up to the coaching appointment set by Olivia in the calendar because they know it's an AI exactly yeah it's like and then and they will share them but if it was a human coach I would show up because I feel bad. I feel guilty. I let somebody stand there and I realized we I think we it's very powerful the human human motivation because we know it's real. Did I give you this feedback because I think I remember giving this feedback to somebody who was in a like I think it was a it was in the training space like fitness space and people were talking about these fitness AIs. I'm like I have like me you nobody has any respect for

an AI fitness trainer like anybody can do a program. It could be better a program that your you know regular juice head or juice head did this I don't know what's the female version of a yoga head or whatever but but the thing is like I have a respect towards that trainer. I follow their social media. I know them as a person or know their personality and through that I respect them and I follow what they've done and they ask me to send you know progress through numbers through photos and so forth. So, so there's that uh uh that accountability that is not with AI. And that's why I don't believe in any of these AI tools having longevity because again, no accountability to a computer. You could just, as you said, just not come to a meeting, not do those things versus it's Sophie and Sophie has set up a call at 10:00 a.m. this morning. You set that call up and what? You're going to just bail, not do it? Like, you better have a good reason. Yeah. Yeah. And there will be human consequences, right? So you have to deal

with that. So I think that was a moment of insight that I was like exactly asking myself that question. If that's really the mission I'm on to is that through AI and I AI I use AI to amplify my work but not this way. So I believe there's a gap still in human and there's some physicisting physics in the space of AI and where is the you know work value going. I believe there will be more creation around communities network because that's the gap that people will feel like they can answer all their problems with a computer and software most of them these days if you have internet you know not even money because if you have internet and mobile phone but then making friends this is going to be a tough one is brought to you by apps flyier in today's digital world understanding your app's journey from discovery to download is more than just insight ful. It's essential. Enter Appslier, the leader in mobile attribution and marketing

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action with intuitive tools and expert analysis. It's everything you need to make smarter, faster decisions. Thousands of app and game studios, from indie creators to global giants, trust Sensor Tower to help them win. So why not you? Start your free trial today. at sensortowwer.com. That is sensortowwer.com. Yeah. And and even as a skill set for kids, like this is something that I'm always thinking about just being like how to teach interpersonal skills. Take away the phones. Yeah. That's it. Put them together and take away the tool and suddenly they are playing together. Done. I remember at some point you mentioned in your post that you were feeling depleted and uninspired. Was that between Orin and Olivia or?

Yeah. So not when I was by myself but I had some moments of when I decided to build Rise and play. So it was 5 years ago. You know you also started way way back ago the constructor of fun where I felt my energy was not used properly in an organization right. So you put a lot of you think that this is your own bucket, the only bucket and you put all the energy and sometimes the company didn't have the environment, the space or even the will to create the outlet I needed. So that's what I meant by uninspired and so I remember I was at voodoo at that time. I wanted to have a voice on leadership and there was a lot of negotiation what you can say what you can't say you know those things and I said you know what I'm going to create my own platform where I have my voice. So that was u the moment where I I found a way to re-energize myself. But I had some moments in organization being limited and and being you know shrinking. That's what I meant by depleted. And I know this is the story also of the women

I company who are in corporate and and they just at the end of sometimes their life because it's like nothing is inspiring. They're also you know that reality. We work for women in teams where most of the time it's just us and not to say that we don't it's not about okay men's are problems and so on. I want to be very clear about that. But you know sometimes when you with your buddies it's like you know fish in the pond is energizing. We don't have that kind of energy refill sometimes being not with other women for example other people like us and so being like the few ones in an organization doing the work that maybe is not the work you want to do creatively is the part that is depleting. Hm. I have two daughters and especially my my eldest one, she's now in school been a couple of years and she's with among other girls and she hangs out mostly with boys nowadays because girls are nasty. Like the way

you do psychological warfare is much worse than the boys. Boys would just fight and it'll be over but girls to each other and that seems to start early. Is is that only me? personal view and I talked to my wife, she's like that was exactly me as well. I I had mainly boyfriends like boys as friends just because it was hard to get along with women. Is is this anecdotal? No, it's not anecdotal. And I I'm glad you bring it up because there's much more complexity behind this. It starts early in school to even for women to start to be distrusting of other women from excluding excluding women from like from that high school. Yeah. School experience. They are eight and they're doing this. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but also I I read a lot about that and talk also to other leader psychologists in the space to understand even in the work I do with women in leadership. There's a lot of insecurity right when

we are young and it it just translates in different ways. So of course in a group of women when it's women it's girls here in the case of the school it can be very nasty like you said because there's there's a lot of insecurity when you are young girl uh maybe with boys I was also hanging out more with boys when I was younger u because it was just you what you see is what you get right there there's not much going on there's no depth there's no depth so you know it was it was safe in that Okay. Uh so I understand it and and then what it creates in adult this is more where the problem is. Then you have women not helping so much each other being kind of distrusting because there's still that school trauma and we believe that this is how we still operate today. And of course all of us go on the journey we become more mature. For me it has never been about gender but it's more about self-aware you know a bit more conscious. So when women are together in a space and they are

self-aware, it's a very different experience than just women together just because they are women. And that's not what I promote and actually want to encourage because it's not enough just being together and claim that we are women. For me, it's more how do we help each other when we create a power network. We talked about that. But we as humans, we just start to gather around us people who are like us. This is just very human. But for women sometimes we are looking to get that help with in men's spaces and we find it very difficult to get that seat at the table because it's not always possible in the sense that we are not the first one who comes to mind when you know you create an event you think about your friends and you think about the buddies in your life. So for women sometime the conversation I have when it's about being part of a network we are enough also when we come together and we can help each other create network opportunities advising each other on the thing we both experience as well in the

same way. So that's more my position around you know the women and we can talk a lot about childhood and all but it's very sociotone how you know that plays out and it's goes really deep into how cultural you know how we raised how our mothers are raised how the parents are raising daughters boys so I'm not going to spend too much time there but what I want to say it's we playing high school just kind of dynamic when we in a business environment and as adults and that's what needs to be updated just looking at my do my daughter and I've been like it's gone to a point where I had to go to school and and talk to you know like the the adults and like dealing it's it's pretty bad like and already at that level like yeah I'm not saying that there's not like boys are somehow better no boys fight and that's a physical violence but now I've seen what this sort of uh psychological violence is equally bad it's

It's like a long torment that they can outlast for like years that they can just do this. It's rather than punch you once in the face. So, it's like what do you want to take? None of them are are good. But yeah, so so it's good to hear because you're clearly trying to avoid that sort of a female click, but I it's totally understandable that that you're bringing women together because like it's you are a woman, so it's a it's um it makes sense. Yeah. It's a network, you know, it's just a network where we share more intimate spaces and we had that conversation in the past and you know, you have also your own clubs and circles and they just happen very organically. Um, and where the disappointment is, at least I can say for women growing in power is when they want to belong to those clubs, but you you know that deep down you never fully belong because it's it's not how it started. So you always are welcome, but it's different to be at the center of a group and be a guest, you know. So that's what I realized when I created those groups of women coming together.

They are leaders. They are high achievers. They have a lot in common. Everyone is is on at the center of a group equal and not like here as a guest, you know, on on the table. And I know it's hard for you maybe to understand that in those words, but maybe I invite you in some spaces with women and you know how it feels like some events we had in Barcelona when men showed up. Although the topic was women in gaming, we never said it's just for women only. But the men who came, they they felt a little funny because they're, you know, they have to squeeze in some groups where women are chatting and so on and it's uncomfortable and some came and say, "I understand how you feel now." Yeah, I I guess that Yeah, makes sense. I'm always like like I'm happy to join. I wouldn't be uncomfortable at all. I'm like, "Well, this is great." But uh but I'm always like weary about like men who try to get to women in gaming events. I'm like, "What are you doing?" like it's their event. Like why are you like it's fine if you're invited, but like why are you pushing yourself to to a group that

clearly is not, you know, designed for you? It's like I'm I'm like I get I get spider sense like what's going on with that guy? It's an interesting one because there are different views about it where I think it's a welcome space where men could come to learn more. You know, it's it's it's open in that sense. But yeah, it could have different intention as well where you're just here to hang out for the wrong reasons. Yeah, there there are many where the mainly one I'm thinking about like why would you try to virtue signaling by going to women and games group like this is clearly their not like it's for them it's for women it's it literally says in the title this is their get together like find your own dude like stop and then posting it on LinkedIn or other like using it as a not like going there and learning and but if you come out and saying like oh I was there and like I'm such a good person it's like no you're not just you made it all about yourself and not not about like you went there and learned something and and just shut up and just keep it to yourself. Don't don't use it.

That's it's you know it's like donating and talking about how much you donated and where do you know donated that's it's it's not it's not a charity even when we come together as women. I know but it's like it's like making something about you that is not about you and that always is like the wary thing and then there's other reasons why men would go to all women events that we should not touch about here. So that's why I'm I'm I'm not inviting to you or I don't want to come off as as wrong. I can come in, do my stand up and and leave. And I can see that, you know, as a father of two daughters, uh it is a way of thinking about it to be protective of that. Yeah. Yeah. Be cautious about men. That's my point. Keep them away from your events. [Music] So So I mean you work with with fast-paced game teams. You run now these intimate retreats. What has the running of these and I've seen them on Instagram like what has running of those in retreats taught to you about human motivation and what you wish that the

game teams would understand from from those learnings. So in my coaching especially uh business leadership people come with a surface problem business problem. My team is not working my product is not working. the market sucks, you know, all the external reasons. At the very root, always is you. And nobody likes to hear that, but it's you. You hired that team, you chose that market direction, you chose to get that money, you know. So that's what we work on at at retreat is just to go get to the bottom of it straight because I the retreat for me and Orin came together more as I got deeper in the work because I I was repeating myself. is like okay here we are we go to maybe a question of self-love confidence self-nowledge and so the retreats and it's not just the retreats that I organize it's what I call the mastermind so it's a group power group that comes together for six

months and they talk to each other almost every week I have we have a WhatsApp and I can tell you there's a lot going on on many things business life money or whatever is helping each this morning. Trump and Musk uh uh kind of a drama. Love it. I love it. It's a It's a It's like a ongoing show. Sometimes it feels like it's not real. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you're living in a in a Netflix show. It's like if somebody would write this, it would No. Like this is not this is Like who would believe this? Yeah. So we we cover anywhere all the topics on on business and life for six months. And the retreat is where we go really deep to take a step back which is you wrote also about or I think I saw it on your Instagram as a joke but where back founders go on retreats coaching therapy and all those thing then you have a bootstrap founders like just hustling and with whatever but especially when you have a bigger business you always the heads down on in

the trenches and sometimes you completely miss the point of what's happening about you about your leadership team and where the market so that allow supposed to take a step back and that's what we also cover together. But usually it's not the tactical thing. It's more how am I these days? And some people are burnt out and they they don't even realize they are and completely um sucked by the company and they are not even they're more like a ghost running or being in the company than leading. So that's the work we do. we go deep and especially with women there are so many layers of it which is how you lead you know so finding your way of leading because maybe this is not something of course not something you might know but it's like do I have to shout to lead do I have to assert and you know put my fist on the table and it's like how can I it's real question you know to exist as one in environment that is very masculine by by nature

is it when I say mascul the more men in leadership. So that's a fact. And then business is has been run for very long time with more men. So it has a certain way of leading and archetype and representation, you know, because those are those are like from movies like if you'd go to let's say the most masculine organization which would be the military. Yes. If you assert, if a military officer asserts their dominance or power, they talk slowly or they don't talk at all. And on the contrary, they lower their tone of voice and and they create this silence around them where people like, "Oh things are serious because people are not talking." And so this sort of approach of like a fist on a table and scream like like you're watching some sergeant going nuts. Like that's not true dominance. like these, you know, these majors and major lieutenants and generals. They're they're serious people that that actually command the silence in the

room. I'm happy you bring it up because in the end it's about leadership, right? Mhm. But that the leadership you describe, I've seen it rarely honestly in business. So it's very unconscious. It's it's very ego unchecked, toxic. I'm not talking about gender here but that's the questions that come up in all my coaching whether it's through the retreats you know how you get to that place where you can be confident in silence because you know you know yeah others I like I like that example but it's not the leadership I see I have to tell you in most companies well I get it like I had the same problems and and have now in my own coaching or I don't do coaching I do advisory let's be clear I'm not a coach. I work with CEOs. Be a coach. No, I don't want to be a coach, but in my advisories and and I often am in the events with them and what I always tell is like speak last, let everybody else let's go along and then at some point people will kind of

turn to you. That's when they know who's the leader. Like who's the last one? If you assert and jump in into every conversation, then you're part of this group that is shouting. just take your time, listen, take notes and speak last and that will create that sort of a dynamic in the room that that it's encouraged to argue which is good and you should encourage them but in the end you are the one who's making decision good wisdom and I also have a wiser I also had a quote for you because you were saying like about ownership and something I had a quote here from the Roosevelt which who was president of the US I don't remember which one but in the in the early 1900 he that if you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month. So, that's uh that's that's part of the uh the ownership stuff being mentioned. Um I got a couple of questions. I know we're running out of time. I have so many that I wrote for you. This one, this is what you mentioned in your LinkedIn post. So, how did investing in

coaching help you shift your mindset? Because you mentioned that you were stuck before in something and then that that working with a coach unlocked. Can you talk more about that? Yeah. Um it's a funny one because as I was coaching um so I know very well also how people receiving I thought you know coaching is for the weak ones you know until now. But I mean but you we all have um you know that that somewhere like I don't need help. I'm okay. So I was in that space where I'm doing coaching and I like what what is my support network right now? I don't have any. So I need to invest. is like so it was a very humble moment where what am I doing I I need help. So that was first the point. I want to really set my life in the next 10 years in the right way and instead of like sping a company every six months and when I found a coach in Berlin it's funny I I hired him this is actually quite funny to uh craft my marketing message for Olivia and

that's how I started like help me with my marketing and as a good coach he started to ask me the hard question and like why do you want to do this? What is Olivia? Okay let's take a step back. what is it really that you want to do? So I I started to share I don't know if I want to do this company. I'm afraid to get in this month. Okay, that's interesting. Let's examine that. And yes asked me a very powerful question. We went for a walk. So that's also inspired a lot my coaching. Not like being on a call and very brainy but being a bit more free do the walking talk in nature. and he said, "Okay, you're trying to raise." I wanted to build Olivia to exit the company so I would have millions so I could build the business I wanted loot. And I was he was looking at me. He's like, "Okay, interesting." And then I was talking about that. I was like, "This is absurd. The odds of it happening are very low and making my life very hard." And he's like, "What is that business that you want to create once you exit?" What do you see? Like I imagine doing retreats.

I think I love I like to work very much with women in leadership on the podcast rise and play. This is already where I've spent time. This is where I'm energized. And I started to describe tell me more. I described describe the whole business plan basically. And it's like okay and what stop you from starting now this? And I did not have any answer except the fact that uh I think I'm just scared to do what I really want to do. So I it was it was so weird to put yourself over blockers to not do the thing you actually want to do making my life difficult and I realized I'm just finding excuses to not do what I really want to do maybe a non-scalable business starting from this point and I I'll share at last I think that can scale actually the business that I'm building doing something where I'm really with the people instead of going all digital so it required a lot of deprogramming and reprogramming but that was the powerful question on going deeper. Why do I want to exit a company? And I lost

my I thought I I was about to share something with you. Yeah. What did I say? Uh something about So you you mentioned that hiring the coach and he helped you to understand that what you want to do, you can do it right now. You don't have to go through the hell to get there possibly, but you should start doing it from that point on. And yeah. Yeah. I lost I lost one anecdote that I wanted to share related to that. But yeah, that's when when I started with um smart with the coaching. So basically coach helped you see what's already in front of you. But it's it's normal just like a therapist helps you to understand what is already there and it seems obvious just because it's because it is obvious but you're unable to see it and then that's why you need external point of view. I wanted to ask you two two other questions before I run out of time. One like there essentially they're the same. What is the worst advice you've been given and what's the best advice? Either or. just start from from either during this time uh this

this time of of searching you know of searching what you want to do and what you need to be doing like what cuz you know you've been going through multiple startups and and trying to find out trying to please the values that were said to you by the society your parents and what you thought was the right until you found that you're doing something that you believe in and that becomes the successful part so in between this searching phase which was intensive what year, year and a half, best and worst advices. So the worst I'll start with the worst. I like to start with negative. So people who work with me know that that's how I'm wired. You like to end with a positive. Yes. That's also another way of looking at it. It was actually from other women building companies. So interestingly, so I I spent quite a lot of time in the women female founders, female NVC. And that's what I meant by unconscious. They were just on the train of let's let's create our own ego and status. Let's be female founders exit and so on. And so they

were giving advice to push me you can build this and you can scale this and be and it was just replaying kind of the same playbook and unconscious patterns you see you know whatever gender. So I felt that was just not sitting right with me although the confusion is here. you listen to another woman, she's probably having good advice for you, you know, because we relate to each other as women in power. But that was not very helpful for me. And I understood, okay, I need to find my own voice on best advice. I don't have a particular it was from different conversation with entrepreneurs. I mean some also that I had with you. I have to say I was just following their path and just like don't care, you know. So what was very inspiring for me is like from the moment you accept yourself and you're okay with yourself and you know you everything is okay you know so that that was very inspiring to just care less about what others think and just yes I mean that's the journey and do the thing that you want to do you're you're good to do

because it's not just what you want but you're really good at doing owning it and having a voice out there and that's the path I've been happier on and I've been more vocal about taking position on certain things. So I think that's the best advice to just challenge the way business are built and not be stuck in just one version of it. Meeting interesting different people building different things. H that's good. Well, thank you Sophie. Yeah, I wanted to share ahead about the last Yeah, I I speak in French now about the Don't don't I'm really bad in French. the the scalable part. I didn't want to build a scalable business. So as I build retreats, I saw I'm limited by myself because as I build retreat, I build those cords. It's just limited by me. But what started to emerge is the women graduating through the program or in started to build businesses together. And there are businesses that create networks of women. And so what the

conversation we started to have is how can they bring orin as a a brand a philosophy to their own geography in Asia in the US and creating their version of retreats power network with their own flavor. So I don't know if it's exactly the model of franchise and ambassador but I'm creating a movement that is scaling through the graduates. That's awesome. And that happened earlier than I thought. So I see a path forward where I could scale this but one step at a time where right now I'm perfecting the core product. Sounds like you're building a religion. Those are what do you call them? Apostils or like what's the what's a you sit at a big dinner table with with 12 pupils. Just be aware that nobody betrays you. A religion has uh one one uh big uh I call it guru. I'm here to decentralize. Maybe it's closer to Buddhism in that sense. This is more philosophy. Jesus had also other people decentralize his his words. Yeah. Well, anyways, your

retreats look fun. Definitely not my cup of tea. I like the ones with gyms and highintensity workouts. You're more of a breathing and and inner work, which I could use, but uh but I'm too toxic masculine to to do it. I mean, Sophie, I love how you reframed success through your journey. Uh, just in a in a year, year and a half of intensive try and fail. You found what success means to you. And it's not a vanity metric. It's not a pitch deck. It's not a headline. Uh, it's something that is very personal for you. It's something very sustainable and something very deeply human as as you put in in in your post. So, appreciate you always coming on the pod. You're still uh actually on the the most listened deconstructive fun podcast ever. Really? Yes, you are. Wow. I'll take I'll take that metric. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's a one vanity metric you could you can walk with.

But thanks for for coming on and um really love to follow your journey as always. Yeah, Mishka, I I I was looking forward to our conversation today because I, you know, I appreciated a lot of our sparring talks and I appreciate also, you know, the space you create. I I also function this way where again like you get what you see and I like to work this way. We talk about deep straight to the topics. Yeah. I just wanted to say again thank you and I hope we do this again and swap the seats in some way. Maybe you come on the podcast this time because I want to ask about your journey. This is usually how we've done things. I come and you come. I don't have a journey. I just do things. Yeah. And I by the way I try so many things and fail on so many things all the time. So it's it's also not linear. You know we just launched a product yesterday and uh let's see how that goes. An AI tool. So wow. Let's see how it goes. Anyways, I may ask more about

that in the future than if it works it works. If it doesn't, there's going to be five new products we're going to launch. Exactly. So, without further ado, follow Rise and Play, follow Sophie. If you're a woman, go on or retreats. If you're a man, don't go to Women and Games events unless you're invited. So, Sophie, thank you for for coming on the podcast. Yeah. Thank you, Mishka. Byebye, everybody. Have a great day. You did it. You made it to the end of the episode. As a fan of the show, it would help us out if you'd subscribe and leave us a review on the podcast service of your choice. Those stars and likes, while a small action on your part, mean a lot to us and help to grow the show. More importantly, are you a member of the Deconstructor of Fund Slack group? If you have 5 years or more of games industry experience, go to deconstructorofund.com/slack and apply to join. Join the games industry best professional community filled with peers always willing to lend

a hand or subscribe to our newsletter to get all the latest insights from the deconstructor of fun content creators. Thanks for listening. [Music]