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🤝Automating creative operations at any scale - Shane Hegde, Co-Founder & CEO @ Air

Who are the leading Founders and how do they think about early-stage investing in startups, SPVs, and growing their businesses?

Today, we are excited to present an awesome interview with Shane Hegde, Co-Founder & CEO @ Air. Shane might have the most stacked angels on his cap table from any founder I've ever come across. It was also really cool to hear more of his appreciation for SPV’s.

Founder Profile:

Shane Hegde is the CEO & co-Founder of Air. He is the former Chief Digital Strategist of REVOLT, where he helped build a global, multi-platform media company. Previously, he was the CEO & co-Founder of Swap, a venture-backed fintech startup. Shane started his career as a TMT private equity investor at HPS Partners. He grew up in Toledo, Ohio and has split time between California and New York over the last decade. Shane earned a B.S. in Engineering from Stanford in 2013.

Air is a tool for managing creative assets at any scale. They automate creative operations — the way teams collect, approve, and share creative content.

The company has raised $38M and is backed by Tiger Global, Lerer Hippeau, Headline, Ben Lerer (Group Nine Media), Jack Altman (co-founder & CEO of Lattice), Brian Lee (Founder & Former CEO of the Honest Company), Jenny Fleiss (co-founder at Rent the Runway), Jeff Raider (Co-founder & co-CEO of Harry’s), Joe Thomas (CEO at Loom), Dave Gilboa (Co-founder & Co-CEO of Warby Parker), Joey Zwillinger (Co-founder of Allbirds), Neil Blumenthal (Co-founder & Co-CEO of Warby Parker), Nicolas Jammet (Co-founder of Sweetgreen), Nick Greenfield (CEO at Candid) among other.

Our interview with Shane below:

1) What was your favorite part of attending Stanford for undergrad?

My family immigrated to this country from India and I grew up in Toledo, Ohio. When I was young, I felt like I had a pretty unique worldview being from somewhere different. What I loved about Stanford was that everyone was from somewhere different. There was this incredible melting pot of cultures, ethnicities, political views, religious backgrounds - this is true at many colleges but Stanford really exemplified it. The university did a fantastic job widening the aperture of that, and that forces you - in a really elegant way - to confront your thoughts and beliefs. I loved that.

2) What triggered the switch from the investment side to operating?

There was never a doubt in my mind that I wanted to build a business that could scale and grow. I had dozens of failures from my early childhood and part of the reason I went to the investment side was to learn from people who had done it the right way. I thought working at a private equity firm would be a great way to learn from people who were successful at what I wanted to do. It was incredibly helpful.

3) Why did you start Air & what does the company do?

Air is a creative ops system that automates how you create, version, track, and collaborate on images and videos. We started Air for three reasons: 1) I love the market opportunity. It’s massive. The customer is really interesting and what they’re facing is a real problem that we can solve for them, 2) The economic model is fascinating and the business moves really quickly. It’s product-led with a sales motion. Every six months, everything breaks and you have to rebuild it. I love that. 3) I get to work with one of my best friends [co-founder, Tyler Strand] every day. How special is that?

4) What’s been the most exciting thing 5 years into the founder journey at Air?

The most exciting thing is that Tyler still calls me on the weekend to hang out.

5) Tell us about your video series called “Out to Lunch”?

I can’t stand thought leadership. We hired a head of content who manically tried to get me to do everything under the sun to evangelize the brand. It made me realize that if I wasn't out there doing that, how could I expect anyone else to? So we began looking for an interesting story to tell and an interesting way to do it. We arrived at this concept which I love and do regularly: grab a bite or a drink with people who are trying to build impactful brands. These are our customers. I don’t have the luxury of being the previous customer of my product. It takes a sharp understanding of their paint points and how they think about them to build a world class Creative Ops system. ‘Out to Lunch’ is us having genuine conversations with entrepreneurs and learning about how they think about launching, growing and scaling those brands - and the reality of the problems along the way.

6) Which Out to Lunch interview was the most inspiring and why?

Andrew Robertson. You cannot sit in front of someone like him and not be impressed. He’s been CEO and president of the largest and most awarded agency [BBDO] in the world for over 20 years. The longevity of that alone is inspiring. He has a way of storytelling that I’ll never forget.

7) Air might have some of the best angel investors of all time on the cap table. Who are they and how did you get them as investors? (see here: https://air.inc/operators)

To go back to Out to Lunch, I talk to a bunch of people. My co-founder and I have never built a business to the level of scale that Air is at now. In order to know what our customer needs, we can’t just read medium articles and watch Youtube videos. We have to pursue advisors and mentors like the group we’ve amassed. I view these people as friends and mentors and they’ve been gracious to introduce us to some of their friends along the way. It’s sort of naturally compounded from there. Our operator group can be divided into segments: our customers who are helping us understand how to build the product, and advisors who have built similar endeavors and our teaching us how to build the product.

Shane’s angel investors include:

• Ben Lerer (Group Nine Media)

• Jack Altman (co-founder & CEO of Lattice)

• Brian Lee (Founder & Former CEO of the Honest Company)

• Jenny Fleis (co-founder at Rent the Runway)

• Jeff Raider (Co-founder & co-CEO of Harry’s)

• Joe Thomas (CEO at Loom)

• Dan Porter (CEO of Overtime)

• Dave Gilboa (Co-founder & Co-CEO of Warby Parker)

• Joey Zwillinger (Co-founder of Allbirds)

• Liz Wessel (Co-founder & CEO at WayUp)

• David Goldweitz (co-founder of Glamsquad)

• Neil blumenthal (Co-founder & Co-CEO of Warby Parker)

• Nick Green (Co-founder & CEO at thrive Market)

• Nicolas Jammet (Co-founder of Sweetgreen)

• Nick Greenfield (CEO at Candid)

8) Tell us about the value & thinking in raising capital for Air via SPV’s?

I like the story of it. It allows retail investors - average investors like you and I - the opportunity to get involved and reap the same returns that previously were only available to a select few. I love how SPVs can democratize this space and level the playing field.

The other reason I like SPVs is they allow you to structure individuals who want to be partners in your business: that could be mentors, advisors, people who can help you sell your product - it allows you to bring them into the business in a way that they have a real sense of ownership. Why don't you invest 5k and own a piece of this company and then you’re more incentivized to turn that 5,10, or 50k into real value? I’ve found the larger the check size doesn’t necessarily mean more value they’re going to bring to your company.

One of my favorite investors on our cap table is Joe Thomas, the founder of Loom. He invested in our business, at a point in his career when Loom was two years ahead of us - and Loom continues to pace two years ahead of us. Joe is unbelievably thoughtful in giving me advice because he just lived through what we’re living through at Air. Once a month we have an advisory call where we talk about what’s happening now. It’s super tactical and unbelievably impactful for our business.

After our series A, we found that SPVs were super impactful. We created an operator round to raise predominantly from SPVs. Priced through an institutional investor, but a majority came through existing investors and new SPVs. Through that round, we brought 100 CMOs, marketing and brand leaders to help us market, grow and build the business. It has been massively accretive for our business. Post that round, we 3x’d our growth. There was a built-in community of people who were invested and wanted to see the solution come to market and were telling all their friends about it. It’s been massive for us.

9) Do you actively invest in startups? Why or why not?

I’m a part of a little syndicate group with 14 of my close friends from college called Deckpoint Capital. We all went to Stanford together and we use it as a way of staying in touch. I‘m one of - if not the - least active participants in the group. That’s because I’m focused on building right now. We’re at a critical juncture in our business but I know I want to be more involved because of how much I’ve benefited from fantastic operators who have given me their time. As soon as I have more time, it’s something I look forward to doing more often.

10) If you could get anyone in the world to join you for the next Out to Lunch interview, who would it be?

Pharell. Someone once told me that most people stand at a window and it’s totally opaque and being able to see on the other side is the ability to develop a creative idea. Some people have the ability to have that window to just be less opaque: their ability to create is higher. For Pharell the window is crystal clear. The man is able to see things that others do not. He can sense what’s happening in culture and commercialize and execute on that better than almost anyone else on the planet. If we are really trying to be the platform where creativity happens then I could think of no person more compelling to go out to lunch with than him.

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✍️ Written by Alex and Zachary