Scott Orn, CFA
Posted on: 02/27/2019
Mary Lemmer of Improv 4 - Podcast Summary
Mary Lemmer of Improv4 shares how Improv improves startup culture and trains leaders. Improv4 uses improv and comedy techniques to train entrepreneurs, and startup teams to work together better and have more fun at work.
Mary Lemmer of Improv 4 - Podcast Transcript
Scott: | Welcome to Founders and Friends podcast with Scott Orn. We have the getting over the flu and cold edition here with Mary Lemmer at Improv4. But before we get to that, let’s talk about Brex our sponsor. Credit cards, virtual and real actual cards you can hold in your hand. No personal guarantee. I was just explaining the fact that there’s no personal guarantee to a founder yesterday. Super important, that way your credit is not on the line if something happens to your startup. There’re also really good rewards, it integrates with QuickBooks really easily. It’s a great service. We’re starting to put tons of companies on it. And go Brex. Now onto a great podcast on Mary Lemmer of Improv4. Thanks. Welcome to Founders and Friends podcast with Scott Orn and Cruise Consulting and my very special guest is Mary Lemmer of Inprov4. Welcome, Mary. |
Mary: | Thank you, Scott. Great to be here. Great to chat with you. |
Scott: | Yeah, so we’ve been friends for a long time and you started a new company, was it last year? |
Mary: | Yeah. It’s kind of … I started it officially last year, but I’ve kind of been doing it informally and for fun for the past gosh, seven years now. |
Scott: | Oh my God. You’re speaking of Improv? |
Mary: | Yeah. |
Scott: | Yes. So you’ve been doing it for a long time, now you have like a bonafide company and all that. So talk about your journey, how’d you have this idea? |
Mary: | Yeah. I was an entrepreneur myself. And from there I ended up working in venture capital. So I was working with tons of entrepreneurs and for fun, and to deal with my own anxieties as an entrepreneur I was doing improv comedy. And taking classes and learning improv. And I found that a lot of the entrepreneurs I worked with in venture could really use some improv skills. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | Things like thinking on your feet, making decisions with limited information, communicating in different ways, verbally and with your body. And I realized that entrepreneurs actually are improv comedians with worse senses of humor. And so I started developing these classes applying improv comedy to train entrepreneurs while I was a VC. And over time it just gained more and more interest. Entrepreneurs were having fun. It was helping them with their stage presence and pitching and then dealing with all the crazy stuff you can’t plan for as an entrepreneur. |
Scott: | It’s such a good idea, that’s why I wanted to have you on because I feel like so much of being … You’ll see like serial CEO’s, they have an easier time raising money and they have … And some of it’s who you know and if you’ve been successful. But oftentimes it’s just their presence. They’ll have a calming or they just know how to present themselves. And this sounds like skills that you actually learn. Like instead of learning, having to go through a whole startup and maybe not making it. Or you can take your class and learn how to do these skills and project the right way. |
Mary: | Yeah, improv is like a safe space to practice life or practice being with other people. Trying new things in this safe and supportive environment because you can play a different character, you can break old patterns. You can practice doing something you’ve never done before. And know that it’s a fake scene, but it’s also mimicking real life. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And so it’s great for business leaders and entrepreneurs alike, whether you’re working for a company that’s been around for decades and you’re managing a team of people, but things get thrown at you all the time that you’re not necessarily able to control. So how do you deal with it? You have to practice it. |
Scott: | Yeah. Yeah. |
Mary: | You can’t just be thrown into a basketball court and never have played basketball. You can’t just be thrown into a yoga studio and be prepared to do a handstand. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | You learn that over time. And these CEO’s that are so comfortable and great at fundraising, they’re learning that over time as well. |
Scott: | Yeah. So let’s start with the improv part of this. I’ve heard some of the rules or some of the … How do you teach this? What are some of the basics, like educating us? |
Mary: | Yeah. So there’s, we call it like our core four principles of improv that apply to business and leadership. And the first is saying yes and. |
Scott: | I’ve heard that yeah. |
Mary: | Like accept the reality of what is happening, and then build on it. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | So if we’re in an improv scene and you’re like, we’re on a rocket ship, and I say no, we’re in an office. |
Scott: | Yeah. It’s such a downer. It stops the momentum. |
Mary: | Then it kills the scene. Yeah. But if I say yeah, and there’s an alien out the window. Then we’re building something together. Now in business, this helps us innovate, right? Because you can’t create something out of anything when you’re saying no. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And it also helps to solve problems because if you acknowledge what’s going on and the challenge, then you can move forward to solve the problem. If you deny it, then you’re never going to solve the problem. |
Scott: | Yeah, that’s really smart. When I lived in Chicago I went to a bunch of the second cities, and I think we may have gone to like a behind the second city. And they talked about to say yes and. And it made so much sense to me. |
Mary: | Yes. |
Scott: | It was for those that don’t know, the second city is like a legendary improv place in Chicago. I never thought about it as accepting your own reality though. That makes perfect sense. |
Mary: | Yeah. You don’t have to agree with it, but you have to accept it and acknowledge it’s happening. |
Scott: | Yeah, you have to play [inaudible], yeah. |
Mary: | Yeah. And then there’s, there are no mistakes. You’re taking everything as a gift and a learning opportunity because there are times in life and business and an improv scene where you do something and you again, that’s the reality. And instead of denying, saying this isn’t going to be a mistake, let’s take this and use it. If you’ve got a business unit that’s losing money, instead of denying that it’s losing money, dive into that. Solve the problem. And that may open up some other opportunities because you have to think creatively to deal with it, that business unit that’s losing money. |
Scott: | Yeah. And so many people want to live in a kind of … And maybe not acknowledge the reality. And so this helps them kind of … It makes it less scary to acknowledge reality. |
Mary: | Yeah. |
Scott: | Yeah, that makes sense. |
Mary: | And then all the difficult conversations, right? And I’m sure you have plenty of stories because you’re working with a spouse. And I’ve dealt with this, this is my family business, is it’s hard to talk about difficult things. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | It’s hard to be like, hey this isn’t working. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And so we do a lot of facilitation where people get to practice those conversations and get used to that dialogue in a safe environment. |
Scott: | Oh interesting. Yeah. |
Mary: | So we can have a difficult conversation, the stakes are very low. But then I feel more comfortable doing that in the real world. |
Scott: | Yeah, do you do that kind of training with like people, managers and subordinates or management classes and things like that? And how do you recreate that? |
Mary: | Yeah, so we do everything from like entire teams of hundreds of people in a room and it’s very much like people getting to know different parts of the company, to like a 12 person executive leadership team that’s dealing with some challenges either amongst themselves or with their subordinates. And practicing and going through those things. Lately, with a lot of the things that have been happening with the MeToo stuff and sexual harassment, we work with companies to make sure that people are practicing different types of communication and building empathy for different types of people in the workplace. |
Scott: | Oh. Yeah. Yeah. The goal being like if someone reports it or something like that, or just not being like a total jerk to women or something like that. |
Mary: | Yeah. Having sensitivity so … And I dealt with this when I worked at an unnamed tech company. One of the many that have been in the news. I was very nice and friendly and some people read that a certain way and think that that’s an invitation to kiss me. |
Scott: | Yeah. Oh, Jesus. |
Mary: | When really it’s just like me being nice and friendly. |
Scott: | Oh God. Yeah. |
Mary: | So then how does someone say, wow, here’s what my feelings are. Let’s communicate about these. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Mary: | So it’s this conversation around consent and empathy, it’s really around communication. And improv is a great way to practice communication so that someone can say, hey I feel really uncomfortable when you make those comments around me. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Mary: | Or I feel really uncomfortable when you give me a hug when I come into the office because everyone’s different. Some people will love that and some people will feel uncomfortable with it. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | So how do we communicate around it? We’ve got to practice that. |
Scott: | Yeah, I was going to say. It’s practice. |
Mary: | Yeah. |
Scott: | That makes so … That’s awesome. And you have like a new service you’re launching, right? Or a new product? |
Mary: | Yeah, so in the past, we would do this one off kind of workshops or training that were great and high energy and helped people. And now we’ve developed a multi-week curriculum and a multi-month curriculum because improv is a practice, just like yoga, you go in, you can’t touch your toes. But over time you’re going to get more and more flexible. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | With improv, you go in once, great. You’re going to have fun, learn a few things. But if you do it over time, it becomes more natural and second nature. So we’ve got a six-week curriculum within companies. And then we do a 12-month leadership program. |
Scott: | Wow. |
Mary: | Where we do a monthly course with leadership teams and over that time, they really hone these skills. |
Scott: | That’s amazing. |
Mary: | Get to know each other, and kind of come away with a lot of ways to incorporate this into their own practices at their company. |
Scott: | That’s really cool. You’re helping them build a habit. |
Mary: | Yes. |
Scott: | Yeah. That’s really cool. |
Mary: | Yes. |
Scott: | How did you know that you could turn this into a business or start it? Did you just start charging … One day I’m just going to hold a workshop and charge people, and people came? |
Mary: | Yeah. It totally happened by mistake. Not a mistake, because there are no mistakes, right? But it was just like I wasn’t trying to. I was doing it for accelerators because part of my job as a VC was to go be a mentor and hold office hours and I thought office hours were boring. So I did these sessions. And then when I left VC these accelerators kept asking me to come back. And I was like, this isn’t my job anymore. |
Scott: | I can’t just go do it for free. |
Mary: | Yeah. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | You can pay me for it. And a couple of them were like, no we’ve got someone, a professor or a local improv person that will come do it for free. And I was like, that’s fine. And then they came back to me the next year and they’re like you were so much better. We want you back. And so I realized okay, people will pay for this. The world needs this, I think especially now with people more connected with their phones and not connecting with each other. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah. |
Mary: | And I enjoy doing it. It’s kind of this sweet spot of my background as an entrepreneur, and in VC, and my love of improv comedy. |
Scott: | Yeah. Yeah. Are you a professional comedian? Or you just got into improv for fun and it’s like a … And now you’ve been able to turn it into a business? Or how do you think about yourself as an improv comedian? |
Mary: | I still think of myself first and foremost as an entrepreneur. I don’t make money doing improv comedy. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | I do in the sense that I do these sessions for companies. But I do that for fun and it helps me and informs the curriculum we do and the training we do. And it helps me as a human learn to communicate and see the humor in things. But ultimately I’m in the business of leadership training, and it so happens to use improv comedy, yeah. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, and you just have a different angle. That’s awesome. So let’s talk about, there’s something … I had this weird epiphany in business school and Vanessa and I have talked about this a lot because she had an epiphany in a different way. But I think maybe also one of the powerful things about doing stand up comedy or improv is learning that failure isn’t the end of the world. |
Mary: | Yes. |
Scott: | And I remember having some just horrible job interviews when I was at Kellogg because I was trying to figure out what I want to do. And at the interviews of companies that I didn’t really actually probably wasn’t qualified for, but I would practice. And sometimes it would be, I felt so bad for the interviewer because they knew I was failing the interview. And so they would get stressed out. And I got comfortable with it. Do you teach that in your class or talk about that a little bit. |
Mary: | Yeah. We do that especially with a lot of the stuff we do with entrepreneurs around pitching and communication. |
Scott: | Yeah, that makes sense. |
Mary: | Because and maybe you experienced this when you were an investor where entrepreneurs would be so on their scripted pitch. And as an investor, I would ask a question and when the entrepreneurs would say, I’ll get to that later in the presentation, they didn’t raise money. They continue this descriptive pitch, but they lost a connection with the audience, in this case, the investors. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And so we practice and that resiliency of being able to take that at the moment, say yes to that question and then be able to go back on course. Because when you’re not able to veer off script, you do lose your connection with the audience. And for an improv show, you get less applause. But in a pitch meeting, you won’t close the deal. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also you’re not satisfying that emotional need that the audience or the investor wants to hear, yeah. |
Mary: | Yeah. Imagine if you went in … Maybe you’ve been to these comedy shows where the comedian keeps doing material that no one’s laughing at. And they’re on a topic that no one can relate to because they want to talk about it. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Mary: | But it doesn’t matter. Yeah, they can through all of the material, but the audience isn’t going to remember that or connect with that because they don’t like it. |
Scott: | I’ve sat in a lot of pitch meetings that were like that. |
Mary: | Right? |
Scott: | Oh my God, yeah. |
Mary: | And that happens a lot in business, so we do … We have some fun exercises that help get people out of their head. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And be more present so they can kind of roll with the punches a little bit. |
Scott: | That’s cool. Yeah, the linear pitch was always like, it drove you crazy because you’d want to have a couple of questions. So do you … You said there’s two of the four. What are the other two? |
Mary: | Yeah. So the third is play the scene you’re in. So be present and pay attention to what’s going on. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | Be with who you’re with. Be where you are. Be doing what you’re doing because, in an improv scene, that’s the scene you’re in. If we’re in a bakery, we’re in a bakery. And if you’re in a company meeting, be at that meeting. If you’re on Instagram in a company meeting, you probably shouldn’t be there because you miss in an improv scene, you’ll miss these gifs. You’ll miss somebody language or a facial expression or a word if you’re thinking and being somewhere else. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And the same thing will happen in a business meeting. |
Scott: | Yeah. How do you coach body language? Because that, you’re right, when you say the work gif, which I think I really like. I someone’s maybe, I’m visualizing someone’s welcoming you into the scene or trying to get you to say something. Or how do you coach that? It must be one of the hardest things for people to learn. |
Mary: | Yeah, it can be, especially for people that aren’t in touch with their own body and emotions. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | We do this exercise called the emotion walk. And this was one that got me when I was in the second city in one of my classes there, they were like, let’s do an emotion walk. Walk around the room as you would … Okay, now walk around the room as you would when you’re really happy. And when you’re really sad, and when you’re really scared and all these different emotions and I was like, wow, I don’t really know how I walk when I’m happy or sad. So that for me was this moment of being like, wow I need to really connect with that. Understand how I carry myself. And so we start with that exercise to help people get in their body and pay attention to other people and how they show up when they’re happy or sad or fearful. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And it can be really transformative because people if they’re not thinking about that, how would they know? |
Scott: | Do you have them look in the mirror? How do you do this? How do you train them? |
Mary: | So for that, they’re around the room and they’re seeing other people. |
Scott: | Oh. |
Mary: | And then they’re feeling it for themselves. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And then we do a couple of exercises with a partner where they’re being mirrored by the other person. |
Scott: | Oh my gosh, that’s awesome. |
Mary: | So they kind of get to see themselves in reflection. |
Scott: | Yeah. That’s really smart. Also for job interviewing, the poor body language or whatever it is, yeah sometimes it hurts people without them even kind of realizing it. |
Mary: | Yeah. And some people, we on our team we’ve got a lot of actors and improvisers as well. And you go to acting school, this is what you do, this is what you learn. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | This is their craft. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And so coming from business school and now getting into more of the acting improv and learning this, it’s interesting how much they help each other. |
Scott: | Yeah, for sure. I can totally see that. Yeah, it all goes back to effective salespeople usually are good at this kind of stuff. |
Mary: | Yeah. |
Scott: | Whether they learned it or they were trained this way. Okay, what’s number four on the list? |
Mary: | Number four is, if it feels weird, do it. |
Scott: | That’s awesome. |
Mary: | And that’s also … Because it’s fun, but the deeper element of it is we have patterns. And habits that we do. And sometimes the best decision isn’t the most obvious one. Sometimes the best decision is one that’s going to make us feel a little bit uncomfortable. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes total sense. Now are you doing classes in New York only? Because you moved to New York. |
Mary: | Yes. |
Scott: | Are you in San Francisco? How are you doing this? |
Mary: | We do them, so we have San Francisco, we do New York. My kind of business partner is out in San Francisco now, she teaches improv at Stanford actually. So she does a lot of our facilitations out here. |
Scott: | Wow. |
Mary: | I’m kind of now launching the New York portion of it. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And then the plan is in 2020 to bring on other cities and have like a lead facilitator in each city. And then I do a lot of traveling for like these one-off workshops every once in a while for companies. |
Scott: | Yeah. How do people sign up? Is there a website or what do they do? |
Mary: | Yeah. They can go to improv4.com and sign up for our email list. And let us know where you’re at. And then we’ll let you know when there’s trainings in the area. And then companies that want to bring this to their teams can contact us through that and we’d be happy to set something up. |
Scott: | Cool. And is it usually an offsite? Or how do people … What’s the entry point for most companies? Is it a crisis, or is it just a fun offsite thing that ends up being super meaningful? |
Mary: | Usually so far it’s been mostly fun off sites. I’d say in the past year we’ve gotten more of the crisis stuff because companies are realizing they need this work. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Mary: | And then the off sites are like oh my gosh, we need to do more of this. And then we will kind of come into the office and do like an after work two hour session, like a happy hour type of thing. |
Scott: | Yeah. And now you have the six week course or the 12 month course. |
Mary: | Right. And the difference between … Because anyone can go to an improv class. You could take an improv class in your local improv theater. And I encourage people to do so. The difference in our trainings is that it’s applied improv. So we speak business language. We’re not training you to be great performers. We’re training you to be great people in life and business. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Mary: | So we use language like pivoting, we know what it’s like to be in a sales meeting. We know what it’s like to deal with difficult employees because we all come from that world of both improv and business. |
Scott: | What’s the difference that you see between a startup group and a corporate maybe bigger company group? Is there a hierarchy? Is it cluelessness? What is it? |
Mary: | It’s I would say that in a startup group, they’re better at making decisions quickly already and being more flexible of mind. Because that’s the world they live in. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | When we go work with … Like we did a training for a bank. They were a little bit more rigid and less in their body and more nervous about it. But we do have a method to our madness where we have a way of getting people to loosen up. |
Scott: | Break them down a little bit. |
Mary: | Yeah. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | Because that’s the number one thing companies are like, I don’t know, we’ve got a lot of shy people on our team. We’ve got a bunch of introverts. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | They’re not going to like it. I’m like, trust me, they will be having the most fun. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Mary: | And it’s true. |
Scott: | Because it’s a freeing for them probably. |
Mary: | Exactly. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | Because we all wear masks on at work. We all show up the way we think other people expect us to be. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | But we’re full people and dynamic people. |
Scott: | Yeah. That’s really awesome. It’s such a good idea. I can totally … At our previous company we used to do a lot off sites too. And it was … Like we would do team building, we’d do just anything under the moon. This would have actually been incredibly helpful. |
Mary: | Well maybe they’ll find us at some point in their next off-site. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are there other things to know before you sign up? Like is there a price point, or how does it work? Or if they want someone else to fly you to LA, or how does that work? |
Mary: | Yeah. So when we do anything outside of San Francisco or New York we can do that. They pay for the travel and then there’s each workshop and each training has a different price point. So we’ve got something that’s lighter for people that want to do just like a two hour session and try it out. And then we’ve got the multi-week trainings, right? That are going to be a little higher price point. And so we really want to make it accessible depending on what someone’s budget is. We work with a lot of nonprofits. We donate trainings every quarter. We do a free training for a nonprofit and if you are a nonprofit you can apply through our website. We did one for a group that does criminal justice reform. And we did a bunch of former prisoners. |
Scott: | That’s awesome. |
Mary: | Part of their training. So we do really want to make it accessible. And we’ll work within different budgets for that. |
Scott: | Are you just having the best time? You have a huge smile on your face. |
Mary: | Oh my God. I love it. It’s so … We’ve known each other for a while and we probably met … We did meet through a time that I was certainly enjoying life, but I wasn’t doing something I loved. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And it’s really amazing to do something I love that helps people that I can make money doing. I just feel super grateful to be getting to do this work. |
Scott: | That’s awesome. Good for you. Do you have any really funny stories or anything you can share? |
Mary: | Oh my God. |
Scott: | I know it’s a safe space. So you don’t want to share too much. But we’ve got a few minutes here. So if you’ve got like anything crazy or I like what you said about the person, people who are most shy or most kind of wound up having the best time. Have you had any of those persons? |
Mary: | Yeah. Yes, oh I’m glad, that’s a great … Inspired a great story. So I did an eight week class in San Francisco. And it was just a general one for leadership and anyone that wanted to hone these skills. This was as we were working through what this multi-week curriculum would look like. |
Scott: | You were trying to figure out the curriculum, yeah. |
Mary: | And testing it out. And this engineer who I’ve known for years. We met at a conference many years ago, he was taking the class. And very stereotypical engineer. Like if you were to do all the clichés of very high on the Asperger’s spectrum. Like maybe he hadn’t showered in a while, probably spent most of his upbringing making computers. All of the extreme stereotypes of engineers, that was this guy. |
Scott: | Yeah, okay. |
Mary: | After eight weeks of doing improv … Let me also say, he could barely hold a conversation in life at the beginning of this class. |
Scott: | Making eye contact and that kind of thing, yeah. |
Mary: | Yeah. He was looking at his shoes, was really nervous to have a conversation. Visually sweating and nervous. At the end of eight weeks he was going to dance clubs and picking up women. |
Scott: | No way, that’s awesome. |
Mary: | Yeah. And he dressed, his energy was different. He was more confident. And it’s one of my favorite stories ever. And it just goes to show … |
Scott: | What was like the lever for him or was there one thing that … Or it was just immersing himself in the process? |
Mary: | It was getting to practice it in a fun … There were no stakes. There was no risk. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | Because for him to practice it in real life was kind of scary because no one … He didn’t know how people were going to receive him. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Mary: | But in this class everyone was like a family, right? And we’re all there. And actually a lot of the awkwardness early on was such a gif to the scene. And he got to see that whoever he was and however he showed up, was going to be amazing and it was going to be okay. |
Scott: | It didn’t matter, yeah. I love those kind of stories. That’s really cool. |
Mary: | Yeah. |
Scott: | Is there anything we should do, we have our office party Wednesday night. Is there a little funny thing we can do, that won’t take the whole office party, but is there a 10 minute exercise we can do? Or anything like that you can think of? |
Mary: | Yeah. I think a fun one, especially if you’ve got people that don’t collaborate on a daily basis with each other. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | One of my favorite partner exercises is called first word last word. So find a partner, maybe someone you don’t work with as often. And first make that awkward eye contact for like a minute. And then use the last word that that person says as your first word. So if we were to have a conversation and you said … |
Scott: | I’m going to the office party on Wednesday. |
Mary: | Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. |
Scott: | And then I have to say, week, I don’t know. I’m not thinking on my feet right about … But I get it. |
Mary: | Yeah, yeah. |
Scott: | So then start the sentence off with week or whatever. |
Mary: | Yeah. |
Scott: | Yeah. |
Mary: | And what we do, what we realize in this is how rarely we actually listen to everything someone’s saying before we start to think about what we’re going to say next. |
Scott: | Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s actually a good one because I do find myself sometimes like can’t wait to bring up my point. And I’m like patiently waiting for the other person to stop talking. But I’m not listening to them at all. |
Mary: | Yeah. And that’s where there’s gift in that, right? In an improv scene we need that. And in life, it doesn’t inspire this deeper listening and presence and you might have to carry a notepad around just to remember those thoughts. |
Scott: | Okay, this is awesome. Congratulations, you’ve totally found your calling in life. Tell everyone where they can find the service, how to sign up. Maybe your email address or something like that. |
Mary: | Yeah. Well check us out at improv4.com. And my email is just mary@improv4.com. And you can contact us through the website as well. Check us out on Instagram and all of the things. And just say yes and start improvising. |
Scott: | Say yes, I love it. So Mary works with a startup. She works with the big companies. I love the [inaudible], that just makes so much sense because building that habit will really get … And I’m sure people’s lives are changed by a one time event. But getting them in the curriculum and repeating every week kind of thing makes so much sense. So Mary, congratulations. So Improv4 and Mary Lemmer. And thanks for coming by. Appreciate it. |
Mary: | Thanks Scott. |
Scott: | Thanks for listening to that podcast with Mary Lemmer of Improv4. It’s such a good idea. I can’t believe no one’s thought of improv for startups before. And congrats to Mary for doing it. And before we end up, let’s talk about Brex one more time. It is a fantastic credit card solution for your startup. You can use it for interdepartmental stuff. So if you don’t want marketing to spend too much money, you can just cap them. Also no personal guarantee, which is a big one. It integrates in QuickBooks, very easy to use, easy to provision new cards. So check out Brex. And I believe you go through that sign up and you put Cruise Consulting in or maybe it’s just Cruise, you get a new, or you get a discount. So do that and see if it works. Thanks, bye |
Kruze Consulting is regularly reviewed as one of the preeminent providers of finance, accounting, tax and HR services to high-growth companies. For our offices in San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Monica, New York and now Austin, TX, our experienced team serves venture and seed backed companies in diverse industries from SaaS to biotech to hardware to eCommerce.