When Tristan Walker pitched @bevel, a razor for men with curly or coarse hair, investors didn’t see an innovative way to reach an untapped market. They saw a bad idea. “I don't know, it's niche, I don't think it's scalable,” Walker recalls VCs saying on Masters of Scale, a 10-episode series hosted by Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner, exploring unconventional theories for growing businesses. In fact, even after three rounds and raising more than $33 million, Walker says his pitch still gets rejected 99 percent of time by investors. But what investors see as red flags, Walker sees as advantages. In fact they’re often the very things that drove him to found @walkerandcompany, a family of beauty and skincare products targeting people of color, with the first product being the Bevel. “’Usually what looks like bad ideas are good ideas, and usually what looks like good ideas are bad ideas." Walker remembers mega-investor Ben Horowitz telling him. ‘"All too often, people try and chase the good ideas, and there's not much value to be created there."’ Hoffman couldn’t agree more. “I have a theory that the best business ideas often appear laughable at first glance,” he says in the podcast. “You should expect to take ‘no’ for an answer. If you’re laughed out of the room, it might actually be a good sign.” And yet Walker’s “bad idea” seems to be doing just fine. The company is readying its second product line for release and has just landed a partnership with Target – all after continued rejection from investors. It wasn’t the first time Walker has gone against the grain. In his conversation with Hoffman, Walker shared other times he didn’t follow the pack -- and the two discuss what those experiences can teach any entrepreneur. _ Visit the link in our bio for excerpts from Walker's conversation with Hoffman during the latest episode of #MastersofScale. (📝: Andrea Huspeni 📷: Jacqui Ipp)
